Latest / Why You Got Sick: How Emotion Drives Chronic Illness & Healing in Women / #25. The Secret Emotional Pattern Sabotaging Your Chronic Illness Healing Right Now — And You Think It's Helping
Transcript
- 0:00[SPEAKER_00]: The women I find hardest to help are not the ones who have given up.
- 0:03[SPEAKER_00]: They are the ones who have turned healing into their whole life, who have done so much work on themselves that they cannot see the work itself has become what is keeping them stuck.
- 0:14[SPEAKER_00]: This is why you got sick.
- 0:16[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Teclody Francesco, certified mind-body practitioner, and certified holistic life coach.
- 0:21[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is for women living with chronic illness, autoimmune disease, IBS, chronic fatigue, PCOS, andometriosis, migraines, fibromyalgia, or persistent symptoms that no one can fully explain.
- 0:36[SPEAKER_00]: Twice a week we look at how emotion drives chronic illness in women.
- 0:40[SPEAKER_00]: One episode goes deeper into the pattern beneath the symptoms.
- 0:44[SPEAKER_00]: The other gives you a quick way to interrupt the cycle.
- 0:47[SPEAKER_00]: If you're done organizing your life around symptoms and flare-ups, this is where that changes.
- 0:52[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast shows mind-body education.
- 0:55[SPEAKER_00]: It is not medical advice and is designed to complement, not replace your medical care.
- 1:01[SPEAKER_00]: Let's begin.
- 1:04[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, you'll discover why the women doing the most work on themselves are often the ones whose bodies are responding the least.
- 1:11[SPEAKER_00]: You'll learn how obsessive focusing on getting better actually keeps your body in a state that makes progress virtually impossible.
- 1:18[SPEAKER_00]: And one shift that separates women who are performing healing from women who are actually healing.
- 1:24[SPEAKER_00]: There is a very specific type of woman who shows up to chronic illness the same way she has shown up to everything else in her life.
- 1:32[SPEAKER_00]: She has been rewarded since childhood for a very particular set of skills.
- 1:37[SPEAKER_00]: Working harder than everyone around her, being more prepared, more disciplined, more thorough.
- 1:43[SPEAKER_00]: Tracking the details other people miss and turning chaos into something organized and manageable.
- 1:49[SPEAKER_00]: That approach got her the career, the results, the reputation as someone who handles things.
- 1:56[SPEAKER_00]: So when chronic illness arrived, she did what she had always done that had worked.
- 2:01[SPEAKER_00]: She applied that same operating system directly to her health.
- 2:05[SPEAKER_00]: And it made complete sense at the time.
- 2:07[SPEAKER_00]: If effort, discipline and optimization have delivered results in every other area of your life, why would healing be any different?
- 2:16[SPEAKER_00]: You learn everything you can, you build a protocol, you follow up with precision, you track what is working and you adjust what is not.
- 2:26[SPEAKER_00]: It feels productive and that is the trap.
- 2:29[SPEAKER_00]: Because doing the research feels like progress and taking off the morning checklist feels like momentum.
- 2:36[SPEAKER_00]: Following the protocol with perfect compliance feels like you're getting closer.
- 2:41[SPEAKER_00]: And in a situation where so much feels out of control, that sense of productivity is genuinely comforting.
- 2:48[SPEAKER_00]: But healing does not respond to effort the way a career does.
- 2:53[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot outwork chronic illness.
- 2:55[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot optimize your way out of it.
- 2:58[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot push your body into healing by following the rules harder.
- 3:02[SPEAKER_00]: Discipline and compliance alone have never healed a single woman I have worked with.
- 3:08[SPEAKER_00]: The body does not heal because you did everything on the list.
- 3:12[SPEAKER_00]: It heals when the internal environment, it is operating from allows it to.
- 3:16[SPEAKER_00]: And a body that is being managed, monitored, tracked, measured, and optimized around the clock, is a body that is under pressure, not a body that is safe.
- 3:28[SPEAKER_00]: So the very approach that feels like it should be working, is the thing that generates the internal state that makes healing harder to access.
- 3:36[SPEAKER_00]: you are doing more and getting less, and because doing more has always been the answer before, your instinct is to do even more, be even stricter, harder, more controlled.
- 3:48[SPEAKER_00]: That is the loop, and it will keep running until you see that healing requires something you probably have never done in your entire life.
- 3:57[SPEAKER_00]: Stop performing, and start actually feeling what is there.
- 4:01[SPEAKER_00]: I know this pattern personally because I lived it for years before I could see it for what it was.
- 4:06[SPEAKER_00]: It started with rowing as an elite athlete.
- 4:10[SPEAKER_00]: The formula was simple and it worked every time.
- 4:13[SPEAKER_00]: The harder you train, the more you push, the more hours you were willing to put in when everyone else has gone home, the more results.
- 4:22[SPEAKER_00]: effort equals outcome, and I was exceptionally good at hard work.
- 4:26[SPEAKER_00]: It did not scare me at all because I knew I could do it.
- 4:30[SPEAKER_00]: That same formula followed me straight into my corporate career.
- 4:33[SPEAKER_00]: I fought for every promotion I ever got.
- 4:36[SPEAKER_00]: I had the stats, the deliverables, the results that made the case impossible to argue with.
- 4:41[SPEAKER_00]: Hard work in, success out, the formula worked again.
- 4:45[SPEAKER_00]: So when Connequil in the showed up, I did the only thing I knew how to do.
- 4:49[SPEAKER_00]: I applied the same formula.
- 4:52[SPEAKER_00]: I researched obsessively.
- 4:53[SPEAKER_00]: I built protocols and followed them with the same discipline, I brought two training and to my career.
- 4:59[SPEAKER_00]: I treated my body like a problem I could solve if I just worked hard enough at it.
- 5:04[SPEAKER_00]: And it felt like the right thing to do,
- 5:10[SPEAKER_00]: In sport, it delivered results in my career, it delivered results, so why would this be any different?
- 5:18[SPEAKER_00]: Because that formula does not work on the body, and it took me a long time to understand that.
- 5:24[SPEAKER_00]: I see this playing out right now with a woman I'm working with.
- 5:28[SPEAKER_00]: She is type A, like so many of us.
- 5:31[SPEAKER_00]: Sharp, detail oriented, and wired the same way I was.
- 5:35[SPEAKER_00]: The kind of woman who has succeeded at everything she has ever committed to because she brings an intensity to it that most people just cannot match, and she has brought that exact intensity to her healing.
- 5:47[SPEAKER_00]: She has approached her health the same way she has approached every challenge in her life, with full force, total commitment, and the expectation that effort will produce results.
- 5:57[SPEAKER_00]: But the results are not coming, and the harder she pushes, the more resistant her body becomes.
- 6:03[SPEAKER_00]: Compliance feels outrageously hard because of that.
- 6:07[SPEAKER_00]: The whole process is started to feel like something she's fighting against, rather than something she's moving through.
- 6:13[SPEAKER_00]: And she's frustrated, deeply fucking frustrated because this is the formula.
- 6:19[SPEAKER_00]: This is what has always worked and for the first time in her life, it's failing her.
- 6:25[SPEAKER_00]: That frustration is the signal, because when healing starts to feel like a battle you're losing, despite doing everything right, the problem is never the protocol.
- 6:34[SPEAKER_00]: That's in my experience.
- 6:36[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is that you're treating your body like a project with a deadline.
- 6:41[SPEAKER_00]: And the body does not heal on a deadline.
- 6:43[SPEAKER_00]: Please hear this next part.
- 6:46[SPEAKER_00]: Your body already knows how to heal.
- 6:48[SPEAKER_00]: That has never been the issue and I know that you think it is.
- 6:52[SPEAKER_00]: Consider what your body is doing right now without any involvement from you whatsoever.
- 6:57[SPEAKER_00]: Your liver is performing over 500 different functions simultaneously.
- 7:02[SPEAKER_00]: It's filtering your blood, producing bile, storing vitamins, regulating cholesterol, metabolizing hormones, and neutralizing toxins, all at the same time, without a checklist.
- 7:14[SPEAKER_00]: Your bone marrow is producing roughly 200 billion new red blood cells every single day, not when you ask it to, not when the conditions are perfect, every single day behind the scenes.
- 7:26[SPEAKER_00]: Right now, your immune system is identifying and destroying cells that have mutated incorrectly, cells that could become cancerous.
- 7:34[SPEAKER_00]: and it is doing this thousands of times a day without you ever knowing it happened.
- 7:39[SPEAKER_00]: Your body replaces the entire lining of your stomach every three to four days because the acid inside it would dissolve the stomach itself if it didn't.
- 7:48[SPEAKER_00]: Your body solved that problem on its own, continuously without being managed.
- 7:52[SPEAKER_00]: This is the level of intelligence that is operating inside you right now.
- 7:57[SPEAKER_00]: And yet somewhere along the way, you decided that the same body, the one running hundreds of thousands of processes simultaneously without a single conscious instruction from you, needs your help to heal.
- 8:10[SPEAKER_00]: That it needs to be tracked, monitored, measured, checked on.
- 8:14[SPEAKER_00]: This is the why, this is why we care about this.
- 8:16[SPEAKER_00]: Your body does not need you to manage its healing.
- 8:19[SPEAKER_00]: It needs you to stop interfering with it.
- 8:22[SPEAKER_00]: You would never stand over a wound on your skin and try to direct the healing, right?
- 8:27[SPEAKER_00]: You would never instruct the cells on how to close it.
- 8:30[SPEAKER_00]: You would clean it, protect it, and then leave it alone.
- 8:33[SPEAKER_00]: Your body is asking you to do the same thing on a much larger scale, and you keep refusing.
- 8:39[SPEAKER_00]: Healing requires something you have never been asked to do in your entire life.
- 8:44[SPEAKER_00]: Trust a process you cannot see.
- 8:46[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot measure and you cannot control.
- 8:49[SPEAKER_00]: And you have no reference point for that.
- 8:51[SPEAKER_00]: I know what's hard.
- 8:53[SPEAKER_00]: Every success you have ever had came from your ability to manage the variables and force the outcome.
- 8:59[SPEAKER_00]: So stepping back from healing, truly stepping back does not feel like wisdom, it feels like giving up.
- 9:05[SPEAKER_00]: But it is the opposite of giving up.
- 9:08[SPEAKER_00]: It is getting out of the way of something far more intelligent than any protocol you have ever followed.
- 9:14[SPEAKER_00]: so what interrupts this?
- 9:16[SPEAKER_00]: It starts with one honest question and I want you to write it down on a piece of paper, not keep it in your head.
- 9:22[SPEAKER_00]: What am I afraid will happen if I stop trying so hard to heal?
- 9:26[SPEAKER_00]: For most women running this pattern, the answer is some version of, I'm afraid I'm going to get worse.
- 9:33[SPEAKER_00]: I'm afraid that if I stop doing everything, my body will fall apart.
- 9:37[SPEAKER_00]: And that fear makes sense.
- 9:39[SPEAKER_00]: When effort and control have delivered every result you have ever achieved, the idea of stepping back feels reckless.
- 9:47[SPEAKER_00]: But here's what I need you to hear.
- 9:48[SPEAKER_00]: You are not in control right now.
- 9:51[SPEAKER_00]: You feel like you are.
- 9:53[SPEAKER_00]: The protocols and the tracking and the routines give you the sensation of control.
- 9:57[SPEAKER_00]: But if you were actually in control, you would be better by now.
- 10:01[SPEAKER_00]: The fact that you were doing everything and still stuck is the clearest evidence that control was never what your body needed from you.
- 10:09[SPEAKER_00]: So the practice is this.
- 10:10[SPEAKER_00]: Take a real hard look at everything you were currently doing to heal.
- 10:15[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, get it all down on a piece of paper.
- 10:17[SPEAKER_00]: Then I want you to review that list honestly and ask yourself, what on this list actually feels good to me?
- 10:25[SPEAKER_00]: What do I genuinely feel serves me and my body?
- 10:29[SPEAKER_00]: Because ladies, you better believe I do not care that the sauna detoxifies you and helps clear the toxic buildup.
- 10:36[SPEAKER_00]: If you hate the sauna, if every session feels like something you're forcing yourself through, I seriously want you to consider stopping.
- 10:44[SPEAKER_00]: The stress of doing something you resent outweighs the benefit it provides every time.
- 10:50[SPEAKER_00]: Your body registers that resistance.
- 10:53[SPEAKER_00]: It registers the dread before you walk in, and it registers the relief when it's over.
- 10:57[SPEAKER_00]: Not because you feel better because it's done.
- 11:00[SPEAKER_00]: That is not healing.
- 11:02[SPEAKER_00]: It is compliance and your body knows the difference.
- 11:05[SPEAKER_00]: Go through that list and be ruthless about it.
- 11:08[SPEAKER_00]: If it feels good, keep it.
- 11:11[SPEAKER_00]: If it feels like a punishment you are enduring because someone told you it would help, question it.
- 11:16[SPEAKER_00]: Now I want to be very clear.
- 11:18[SPEAKER_00]: Do not stop any medical protocol without speaking to your doctor or health care provider first.
- 11:24[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm encouraging you to do is have those conversations, though.
- 11:27[SPEAKER_00]: Advocate for yourself.
- 11:30[SPEAKER_00]: Tell those professionals what is working and what is making you miserable because your experience of the treatment matters and most women with chronic illness have never even considered that piece of the puzzle.
- 11:42[SPEAKER_00]: Performing wellness is one pattern that keeps women stuck, but underneath it there are usually deeper emotional patterns specific to you and your history that are driving your symptoms in ways no protocol has ever addressed.
- 11:55[SPEAKER_00]: That is exactly what I built the free chat GPT prompt in the show notes to help you uncover.
- 12:00[SPEAKER_00]: It connects your specific physical symptoms to the emotional patterns underneath them in 30 seconds.
- 12:06[SPEAKER_00]: Right now, it's completely free, but that will not always be the case, so head to the show notes, use the link, and I'll see you in the next episode.
- 12:14[SPEAKER_00]: Goodbye for now.