Latest / Why You Got Sick: How Emotion Drives Chronic Illness & Healing in Women / Why Your Relationships May Be Making Your Chronic Illness and Autoimmune Disease Worse — And What Happens When You Finally Stop Abandoning Yourself

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Why Your Relationships May Be Making Your Chronic Illness and Autoimmune Disease Worse — And What Happens When You Finally Stop Abandoning Yourself · Why You Got Sick: How Emotion Drives Chronic Illness & Healing in Women

• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Hill Yourself with the Law of Attraction.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Tecla, and I'm ready to guide you in a transformative journey of holistic health and self-discovery using the power of the law of attraction.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've all heard tales of manifesting fortunes and jet-set adventures.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this, this is a different journey.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here we focus on achieving abundant health, mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: With the law of attraction, I've healed chronic pain, overcome a diagnosed mental illness, and reverse PCOS.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're all about realigning our energies to manifest our full potential.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: As we focus inward, raising your vibration, you'll be astounded by the ease at which the universe responds.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once you focus on yourself, the rest just falls into place.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: My goal for each weekly episode is to provide you with practical, easy to apply steps that you can weave directly into your daily routine.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Together, we'll navigate the path to achieving your own health and wellness goals.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's dive right in.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hello my wellness witches.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Tecla.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is heal yourself with the law of attraction.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And today is an express episode we're diving right in.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of heated and wound up about this topic, so this is, you know, no filters.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be super blunt with you, so strap the fuck in, okay?
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk about romantic relationships, because those relationships don't just affect your healing.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: The more experience I have and the closer I get to women now that I'm in my 30s, the more I realize how many of them are sacrificing so much of themselves in relationships.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I see these amazing, fabulous, high-achieving, smart women dating or married to men who just don't add any value to their lives.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, they drain the life from them and they end up a show of themselves.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Being again, in my 30s is also an on-age because now I'm seeing the first round of divorces start to happen, and honestly, I'm not shocked by most of them.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: What shocks me more is how long some of these women held on.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: How much they tolerated, how much they dimmed, soften, silence, adjusted, just to make this fucking relationship work.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what I've learned is this, when your relationship isn't right, your body knows it before you do, or before you're willing to admit.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It shows up in symptoms, you just can't explain.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It shows up in chronic stress, sleep issues, hormonal chaos, digestive interrupts.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your body doesn't lie.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you spend years trying to make it work with someone who drains your energy, eventually your body breaks down.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've worked with too many women who are chronically sick, only to realize the thing keeping them sick was the relationship they were in.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not because their partner was bad or evil or abusive, but because their needs weren't mad, because they were overfunctioning, over-explaining, overgiving, and deep down they didn't feel safe.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't feel supported, and they definitely didn't feel seen.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here's the truth.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Most people just don't want to say out loud.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Love isn't supposed to make you sick.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today I'm going to be talking about male female relationships specifically because that's where I've seen things fall apart mostly because of this.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your body keeps the score, especially in relationships.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: People talk about trauma, stress, burnout, like they only come from work or major life events.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But your relationship can be the biggest, most consistent source of stress in your life.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: If your relationship feels emotionally unsafe, unsupportive, unpredictable, your body doesn't just feel that, it registers it as a threat.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: your nervous system is constantly scanning for danger.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when your partner is the danger, or when the relationship dynamic itself feels unsafe, your body gets stuck in that high alert state.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: It might not be obvious right away, especially if the relationship kinda looks fine on the outside.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you're always walking on egg shells, always second guessing what you say, always overthinking your tone,
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: your facial expression, your mood, your nervous system never gets to relax, and that constant activation, it wears you down.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over time it shows up as inflammation, hormonal imbalances, gut issues, fatigue, brain fog, all the things that start to feel like chronic illness.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: but really it's chronic stress from your body trying to protect you.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You start to associate connection with pain.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: You crave closeness but flinch emotionally when you get it because you don't trust it or you stay hyper independent because it feels safer than relying on someone who might disappoint you.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes your body's only way of saying this relationship isn't working
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: It whispers before it screams, so if your symptoms started or worsened inside a relationship, that's not something to just brush off.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It might be your body's way of saying, this is a love, this is survival.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now let's talk about the flip side of this, okay?
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the most overlooked causes of chronic illness in women is over-functioning.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not just talking about working hard or being busy, I'm talking about being the one who does it all while your partner coasts through life like they're still a college kid.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: These are the women who are getting the kids ready, managing household, cooking dinner, holding down a job, booking the doctor's appointments, remembering birthdays, managing everyone's emotions, while their partner can't even get their children dressed in the morning without asking where are the socks?
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's weaponized in competence.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the burden of it falls squarely on her nervous system, because while she's doing everything,
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: the anger, the exhaustion, the sadness, the grief over in a life that she thought she would have, but she keeps going because slowing down would mean everything would fall apart.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't feel like she has the option to stop, so her body says stop for her.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's how illness happens.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your body isn't betraying you.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's begging you to stop betraying yourself.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: and so many of these women didn't get sick out of nowhere.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: They got sick because they tolerated too much, gave too much and asked for too little.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because they were afraid of being seen as too needy, too emotional, too sensitive.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: They ignored their own needs for so long that their body had no choice but to speak louder.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And somewhere along the way, people pleasing became a trauma response.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Overgiving became a survival strategy, and now it's making them sick.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've been taught to look for obvious right flags, okay?
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yelling, cheating, hitting.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if none of that is happening, we assume we're in a healthy relationship.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: But emotional neglect doesn't always show up like that.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's just silence.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's your partner not asking how you're doing, not noticing your energy is off, not holding space for your feelings.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's being met with eye roles or jokes when you try to express something vulnerable, and over time that quiet lack of emotional presence chips away your sense of safety.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because safety isn't just about what someone does to you, it's about how someone responds when you show them who you are.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel like you're a needs are inconvenient?
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you brace yourself before sharing how you feel?
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you leave conversations feeling more alone than when you've started them?
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: When that's the dynamic, you slowly stop expressing your truth.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you stop expressing, your body starts holding, all that tension, all that resentment, all that grief.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't disappear.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It lives in your tissues.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what walking on egg shells really does.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It teaches your nervous system that it thought safe to be real.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So your immune system adapts your digestion shifts, your hormones respond.
• 8:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because your body's doing exactly what it's designed to do in an unsafe territory.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Protect you.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the longer you live like that, the more your body has to compensate, and eventually it stops compensating and starts breaking down.
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's not random.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the cost of emotional unsafety that went un-ignalaged for way too long.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Getting sick doesn't just slow you down.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It exposes everything.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you can't do what you used to do, when you're no longer the one holding it all
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: and a lot of women do not like what they find.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because suddenly their partner is in helpful, isn't patient, isn't willing to learn or step up or support.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, they're frustrated, annoyed, distant, emotionally unavailable, and that hits fucking hard.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because it confirms something you didn't wanna believe before you got sick.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: It confirms the imbalance you were already feeling but you just didn't have the proof of.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: because before you are functioning well enough to cover it, you were overcompensating, but illness takes away your ability to do that.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you stop doing everything, you find out real fast, who was actually contributing and who was just benefiting from your energy.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not even about them being malicious.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's about them being on a quit.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the part most women struggle to accept.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hear this so often.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's a good guy, but I don't feel supported.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: He cares, or he says he cares, but I'm doing this all alone.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: An illness brings it all into focus.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: The dynamic you tried to push through, the discomfort you tried to numb, the pain you tried to reframe is just a phase.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It brings you face to face with that truth.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: You were never fully held, but you were managed to get all, and now your body is showing you the cost.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's brutal, but it's also clarifying, because once you see it, you can't unsee it.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you start to realize, maybe this wasn't real love.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I was just filling our role.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Getting sick takes away your ability to keep performing, because you literally cannot carry it all anymore, and suddenly the entire relationship starts to wobble.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because when you stop doing the things no one ever noticed you were doing, everything falls apart.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the resentment that was buried under the I'm finds start to rise to the surface.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You realize you were the one holding it all together, emotionally, logistically, energetically, and now that you physically count, the imbalance becomes undeniable.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just about who's cooking dinner or managing the schedules.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's about who's allowed to fall apart.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who's expected to be the stable one, who always has to be the peacekeeper, the cheerleader, the adult in the room.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you start seeing where love wasn't unconditional.
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was dependent on you being useful, agreeable, or emotionally easy to deal with.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You start seeing how much of your value in the relationship was tied to how well you could function.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now that you can't show up in that same way, the love feels distant.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It feels different, colder in patient.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's heartbreaking, okay?
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's also incredibly revealing because illness trips away the mosques.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It shows you who's there for you, not just what you do, and that kind of clarity hurts, but it's the first step to something better, something real, something where you don't have to earn your place.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Look, which is, it's easy to call something toxic when it's loud, but what about when it's quiet?
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: When your partner isn't mean, but they're not actually present either.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: When they say they care, but don't ask how you actually are.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you're in pain, physical, emotional, or both, and they change the subject that can't hold that conversation.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what happens in so many good or seemingly good relationships when illness enters the picture.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of loneliness is hard to name because nothing looks wrong from the outside.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: You start to think maybe it's you.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're asking too much.
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's your job to figure this all out in your own,
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But deep down, you know your grieving, not just the life you used to have, but the version of your relationship you thought you had to.
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because when you get sick and your partner pulls back instead of leaning in, it changes everything.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's really hard to go back.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: The worst part is you can't even fully explain it to most people because they'll say things like, while at least it's not treating on you, as if the absence of harm is the same as the presence of love.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's not.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Love is showing up.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Love is being there for your partner, even when it's fucking hard.
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Love is learning how to support you, even when it's uncomfortable.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're not getting that, you're not broken for wanting more.
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not dramatic, you're not selfish, you're not difficult.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're just finally starting to listen to the part of you that knows you deserve better.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what do you actually do with all of this, okay?
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: you stop trying to fix the relationship and you start choosing you.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't always mean walking away, but it does mean you stop waiting for them to change or for things to magically feel better.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It means getting brutally honest about the dynamic you're actually in, not the one you wish you had.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, attention to how your body feels around them.
• 14:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: What you hold back, the things you keep quiet just to keep the peace.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's your starting point.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And from there, just trying to do one thing differently, set one boundary, speak one truth.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let one mole be uncomfortable instead of shrinking yourself again.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: because healing isn't always loud.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's the quiet moment where you finally say, this just isn't working for me anymore and mean it.
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're sitting with a lot right now, if this episode was really fucking triggering for you, that's okay.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to make any big life decisions today.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: The point of this episode is not to blow up your lives.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's about finally telling the truth to yourself, gently, quietly, honestly, and letting that truth guide what comes next.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because of real healing starts when you stop abandoning yourself, just even a little.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you do, your body feels it, it knows it, and that's where things begin to shift.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the law of correspondence at play.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's happening in your body often reflects what's been happening in your relationship.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: What you've been caring emotionally shows up physically.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: The imbalance inside gets mirrored back to you by the people closest to you.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you start shifting things internally, when you stop ignoring your stuff, stop minimizing, stop over a functioning, your outer world has no choice but to shift with you.
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Start there, start with you.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, which is PS to this episode.
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am hosting a four-week online healing retreat, specifically designed for women with chronic illness.
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a chance where you get to prioritize you.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's all about self-care, self-loving, and self-healing.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you want to find out more and sign up for the wait list, head to the link in the show notes.
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: All the details are there for you.
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's all for today.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: See you in two weeks.
• 16:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Peace, love, and mung beans.
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bye!