Latest / Why You Got Sick: How Emotion Drives Chronic Illness & Healing in Women / #61. 95% Of Chronic Illness Is Caused Or Worsened By Emotional Stress & You Keep Focusing On The Body
Transcript
- 0:00[SPEAKER_00]: In my training to become a certified mind-body practitioner, I was taught a number the chronic illness world would rather you never hear.
- 0:08[SPEAKER_00]: When I first read it, I did not believe it.
- 0:11[SPEAKER_00]: This is why you got sick.
- 0:13[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Teclody Francesco, certified mind-body practitioner, and certified holistic life coach.
- 0:18[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is for women living with chronic illness, autoimmune disease, IBS, chronic fatigue, PCOS,
- 0:29[SPEAKER_00]: or persistent symptoms that no one can fully explain.
- 0:33[SPEAKER_00]: Twice a week we look at how emotion drives chronic illness in women.
- 0:37[SPEAKER_00]: One episode goes deeper into the pattern beneath the symptoms.
- 0:41[SPEAKER_00]: The other gives you a quick way to interrupt the cycle.
- 0:44[SPEAKER_00]: If you're done organizing your life around symptoms and flare-ups, this is where that changes.
- 0:50[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast shows mind-body education.
- 0:53[SPEAKER_00]: It is not medical advice and is designed to complement not replace your medical care.
- 1:00[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, you'll discover how much of your illness is actually fueled and worsened by emotion.
- 1:07[SPEAKER_00]: You'll learn what happens in your body when a feeling becomes a symptom and how to actually start addressing the part of your illness that protocols can't heal.
- 1:17[SPEAKER_00]: 95%.
- 1:19[SPEAKER_00]: 95%.
- 1:21[SPEAKER_00]: That is how much of illness is caused or worsened by emotional stress.
- 1:26[SPEAKER_00]: Not half, almost all of it.
- 1:30[SPEAKER_00]: When I was first exposed to that number in my training, I had to read it twice because it sounded too big to be real.
- 1:37[SPEAKER_00]: It isn't too big, though.
- 1:39[SPEAKER_00]: It's just bigger than anyone in a medical office is going to say to your face.
- 1:43[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what that number is actually telling you, though.
- 1:46[SPEAKER_00]: Your symptoms are not one thing happening to you and your emotions are another thing happening beside it.
- 1:52[SPEAKER_00]: They are the same system.
- 1:54[SPEAKER_00]: When you feel and what your body does are wired together so closely that your body often cannot tell the difference between a threat in the room and a feeling you never let yourself have.
- 2:06[SPEAKER_00]: Think about what an emotion physically is.
- 2:09[SPEAKER_00]: It isn't a mood floating somewhere in your head.
- 2:12[SPEAKER_00]: It's a chemical event.
- 2:14[SPEAKER_00]: A feeling releases hormones, changes your heart rate, shifts your breathing, tightens muscles, and altars how your immune cells behave.
- 2:22[SPEAKER_00]: Every single emotion you have ever had has shown up in your body as chemistry.
- 2:28[SPEAKER_00]: So when a feeling has nowhere to go, it does not disappear.
- 2:32[SPEAKER_00]: It stays in the body as that chemistry.
- 2:34[SPEAKER_00]: Day after day and your body starts treating that as its normal setting.
- 2:39[SPEAKER_00]: Think about that over months.
- 2:42[SPEAKER_00]: Years.
- 2:43[SPEAKER_00]: A feeling you've been managing since you were a little girl.
- 2:46[SPEAKER_00]: Your body has been marinating in the chemistry of that emotion the entire time, and it has subtly reorganized itself around it.
- 2:55[SPEAKER_00]: Inflammation stays switched on, digestion slows down, repair gets deprioritized.
- 3:01[SPEAKER_00]: That's not your body failing.
- 3:03[SPEAKER_00]: That is your body doing exactly what the emotional environment is asking it to do.
- 3:09[SPEAKER_00]: This is the reason why you can eat perfectly, sleep well, take every supplement, and still flare up.
- 3:16[SPEAKER_00]: You've only been treating the physical side of illness.
- 3:19[SPEAKER_00]: The part you can measure, manage, and control.
- 3:22[SPEAKER_00]: And the 95%, the emotional environment your body has been struggling to contain has been left completely untouched.
- 3:30[SPEAKER_00]: Because no one ever told you it was such an important part of the story.
- 3:35[SPEAKER_00]: I need you to know I am not teaching you this from the outside.
- 3:38[SPEAKER_00]: Before I was any kind of practitioner, I was a woman with two chronic illness diagnoses before I turned 30, living a life that looked enviable from the outside.
- 3:48[SPEAKER_00]: I had a great career, I had a long relationship.
- 3:52[SPEAKER_00]: The list of things you were supposed to want.
- 3:55[SPEAKER_00]: But underneath it, I felt hollow in a job that meant nothing to me.
- 3:59[SPEAKER_00]: And I was in a relationship I knew was wrong and wouldn't say or admit out loud.
- 4:03[SPEAKER_00]: I was in friendships, I never felt safe enough to be honest in.
- 4:07[SPEAKER_00]: I did not feel worthy of love.
- 4:09[SPEAKER_00]: And I lost contact with my own body completely.
- 4:13[SPEAKER_00]: That was my 95%.
- 4:15[SPEAKER_00]: The two diagnoses were the 5% everyone could see.
- 4:19[SPEAKER_00]: When I finally turned toward the emotional life I had spent years ignoring, both diagnoses were able to be reversed.
- 4:27[SPEAKER_00]: Not managed, reversed.
- 4:29[SPEAKER_00]: I went the physical route first, mainstream functional holistic, and it all helped, but it wasn't the whole story so it wasn't the whole solution.
- 4:38[SPEAKER_00]: And this is not only my story.
- 4:40[SPEAKER_00]: It is what I see happening for the women I work with once they stop treating the only part they can see.
- 4:46[SPEAKER_00]: Karen in Australia had lived with multiple chronic illnesses for most of her adult life.
- 4:51[SPEAKER_00]: These are her words.
- 4:53[SPEAKER_00]: I now understand why all the supplements or the other regimes just weren't making a difference, as I hadn't understood or addressed the underlying issue.
- 5:02[SPEAKER_00]: During her time working with me, she had her first full week free of migraines in longer than she could remember, and she said it let hope back into her life.
- 5:11[SPEAKER_00]: Lily from the UK had already done two other comprehensive chronic illness programs before she found me, and she said after working with me, she saw more results in two days than in any of them.
- 5:24[SPEAKER_00]: This is what she shared with me.
- 5:26[SPEAKER_00]: You can do all the healing protocols, but without the inner work, your body will never feel safe enough to move into rest and digest mode and begin healing.
- 5:34[SPEAKER_00]: Once she started processing and regulating her emotional state, instead of side stepping it, she noticed it directly.
- 5:41[SPEAKER_00]: She said my emotions, if they're heightened, my symptoms are heightened.
- 5:45[SPEAKER_00]: Her sleep, which had been so broken and there were nights she didn't sleep at all became the best it had ever been.
- 5:51[SPEAKER_00]: Shell, also in Australia, had tried the supplements, the naturopath, the acupuncture, the meditation, all of it.
- 5:58[SPEAKER_00]: After she addressed the emotional layer, here is what changed.
- 6:02[SPEAKER_00]: She said, my pain has been a lot less.
- 6:04[SPEAKER_00]: The back aches, my grains, sore knees.
- 6:06[SPEAKER_00]: It's not as often and it doesn't last as long.
- 6:09[SPEAKER_00]: And Charmelah in the U.S. had spent years and a real money thousands on program after program.
- 6:16[SPEAKER_00]: And she explained the difference like this.
- 6:18[SPEAKER_00]: Working with you has been the only one where I feel like someone was truly, truly listening.
- 6:23[SPEAKER_00]: Then she said, the line I will not forget.
- 6:26[SPEAKER_00]: No other program or practitioner has made more of an impact.
- 6:30[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not telling you the physical doesn't matter.
- 6:32[SPEAKER_00]: It does.
- 6:33[SPEAKER_00]: The food, the sleep, the supplements, the medical care, all that has a place.
- 6:38[SPEAKER_00]: It had a place for me and for every woman whose words you just heard.
- 6:42[SPEAKER_00]: None of us threw the physical away, but the keyword is alone.
- 6:46[SPEAKER_00]: Protocols, treatments and diets on their own were never going to be the whole solution, because every one of
- 6:58[SPEAKER_00]: So, however, perfectly you follow them.
- 7:00[SPEAKER_00]: They can only take you part of the way.
- 7:03[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same reason cycling through doctor, doctor, and specialist, after specialist, waiting for the one who finally fixes you does not get you all the way there.
- 7:13[SPEAKER_00]: That care matters, but it is rarely the whole answer by itself.
- 7:18[SPEAKER_00]: I want to bust open a common belief now for good.
- 7:21[SPEAKER_00]: Chronic illness doesn't just happen because something in your body stopped working.
- 7:26[SPEAKER_00]: Stress and emotion physiologically change how your body works.
- 7:30[SPEAKER_00]: We just talked about that in the start of this episode.
- 7:33[SPEAKER_00]: The change builds over years.
- 7:36[SPEAKER_00]: The tough part is it doesn't show up on a test or a panel.
- 7:40[SPEAKER_00]: That's a hidden driver of your symptoms that goes completely unseen and it doesn't get raised in your 15-minute specialist appointment.
- 7:48[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of forking out more money for another round of testing that's not covered by insurance, this is the time where you can address what you haven't tried yet.
- 7:57[SPEAKER_00]: You can start identifying and resolving the hidden emotional drivers that can lower the emotional toll your body has been experiencing.
- 8:05[SPEAKER_00]: I have watched women whose bodies respond to exactly that and start to settle, so it stops having to flare to get your attention.
- 8:13[SPEAKER_00]: This is why this is why we care about this, because you're not failing.
- 8:17[SPEAKER_00]: You are doing everything you were told, but you are only ever handed half the solution.
- 8:23[SPEAKER_00]: Resolving the emotional drivers of chronic illness is the most effective way to get your body and your life back, especially when the treatment's protocols and supplements haven't got you all the way there.
- 8:35[SPEAKER_00]: On the other side, there are days that look like this.
- 8:38[SPEAKER_00]: You make it to brunch with the girls and you show up with excitement.
- 8:42[SPEAKER_00]: You're not rehearsing 10 different exit strategies in case you have to bail at the last minute.
- 8:47[SPEAKER_00]: And you actually stay present the whole time.
- 8:50[SPEAKER_00]: You're laughing and joking and having fun instead of having half your attention on your body.
- 8:55[SPEAKER_00]: What else?
- 8:56[SPEAKER_00]: You're in the kitchen actually baking.
- 8:58[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not the anti-inflammatory no sugar, no fun version either.
- 9:02[SPEAKER_00]: It's the double chocolate fudge cookies you've had saved in your Instagram folder for months.
- 9:07[SPEAKER_00]: The whole kitchen smells amazing and you take your first bite straight off the tray.
- 9:11[SPEAKER_00]: Without the fear that this one moment of joy is going to send you into a flare.
- 9:16[SPEAKER_00]: And then picture running errands and address catches your eye in a boutique across the street.
- 9:21[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of thinking, where would I even wear that?
- 9:24[SPEAKER_00]: You want to try it on, because you've got that dinner next weekend and that wedding next month.
- 9:29[SPEAKER_00]: Your calendar is filling up again and you've got places to be.
- 9:33[SPEAKER_00]: That's what getting your life back looks like.
- 9:35[SPEAKER_00]: Fixing yourself doesn't have to be your full-time job anymore.
- 9:39[SPEAKER_00]: This future that you stopped letting yourself picture doesn't have to be on hold, and you don't have to wait for your body to be perfect before you start living again.
- 9:49[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly what I help you achieve inside my four-month healing experience now she heals.
- 9:55[SPEAKER_00]: It's where I help women with chronic illness stop being a full-time patient and become a full-time person again.
- 10:01[SPEAKER_00]: Together we find the emotional patterns, like people pleasing, perfectionism, the need for control, that are fueling your symptoms, so your body can finally shift out of survival mode and into a state where rest and repair is actually possible.
- 10:17[SPEAKER_00]: This is where you finally address the 95% we talked about today.
- 10:21[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what makes it different.
- 10:23[SPEAKER_00]: This includes three kinds of support, all in one experience, over four months.
- 10:29[SPEAKER_00]: The first part features self-paced guided video sessions on your own time in the style of an at-home healing retreat.
- 10:37[SPEAKER_00]: This is not a course that you watch.
- 10:40[SPEAKER_00]: It's an experience you step into from the safety and comfort of your home that feels like being led through an in-person retreat.
- 10:47[SPEAKER_00]: The second kind of support is weekly one-on-one sessions with me every week for four months.
- 10:53[SPEAKER_00]: This is where we go deep into whatever's coming up for you.
- 10:57[SPEAKER_00]: The flare, the block, the pattern you can see but can't break, and find the emotional route driving it and move you through it.
- 11:05[SPEAKER_00]: The retreat sessions teach you the method, the foundation.
- 11:08[SPEAKER_00]: But the 101s are where I help you apply it to exactly what's going on in your life in real time.
- 11:15[SPEAKER_00]: The third kind of support is a private online community that you're a part of for all four months.
- 11:20[SPEAKER_00]: Where support and connection continue between those 101 calls.
- 11:24[SPEAKER_00]: And you have the opportunity to connect and chat with women walking the same path.
- 11:28[SPEAKER_00]: The wait list for now she heals is open, doors open soon, the link is in the show notes, and I want to be straight with you about something.
- 11:37[SPEAKER_00]: I'm only taking 10 women this round, and it's possibly the last group I will take this year.
- 11:42[SPEAKER_00]: That's because as I just said this includes one-on-one time with me every week for four months, and I physically cannot give that to more than 10 women at once and support them completely.
- 11:52[SPEAKER_00]: So the number stays small on purpose.
- 11:55[SPEAKER_00]: The wait list gets in first at an early bird rate.
- 11:59[SPEAKER_00]: All the details are available by the link in the show notes.
- 12:02[SPEAKER_00]: If even a small part of you were stirred by today's episode, join the wait list, do not wait.
- 12:09[SPEAKER_00]: That's where you can read more about the experience, and if you have any questions at all, you can reach out to me via Instagram.
- 12:15[SPEAKER_00]: At manifesting mindset, CO, CO. That link will also be in the show notes for you.