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The Wellness Trap: When Healing Feels Like a Full-Time Job You're Bad At | Episode 7 · The Brain Dump

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, y'all, and welcome to the Brain Dunk with Sandy Boone.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Today's topic is going to be about when self-care becomes another job.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever tried to do everything right for your health and somehow ended up more stressed than when you started?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like now you're tracking everything, right?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're reading labels, you've got the aura ring, you're exercising, you've got supplements lined up like it's a full-time pharmacy counter.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of feeling better, you just feel overwhelmed and maybe even a little defeated.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're doing all the things you're supposed to be doing and it's still not working.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's you, you're not alone.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And also, you're not the problem.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: We need to talk about what happens when self-care quietly turns into another job.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it can even turn into another full-time job.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I was talking with a friend of mine recently, and she's really been diving into functional medicine.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: She hired a coach, she's doing parasite cleanses, she's doing coffee enemas, like she is all in.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: She's learning about gut health and hormones and inflammation and really trying to understand her body and get to the root of what's going on.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And at first it felt empowering.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: She was like, oh wow, yeah, this makes sense.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I finally feel like I have some answers.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you could hear the hope in her voice.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: But then over time, something shifted.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because what started as curiosity turned into pressure.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: It became multiple protocols, a long list of supplements, food rules that kept changing, a list of don'ts, constant second guessing.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And she said something to me that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: She said, I just stopped.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't do it anymore.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And there was so much in that moment.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't failure and it wasn't laziness.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Although that's what she was telling herself.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was just overwhelming because somewhere along the way, her healing stopped feeling like support and it started feeling like a job she couldn't keep up with.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Her coach wasn't overly helpful in this either.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: There was lots of pressure to do everything right.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this friend actually had been paying for a meal service, and the food that she was paying for was really clean and it was really healthy.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the coach went as far as to say, you need to be cooking these foods yourself.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do this yourself so that you know what's in there.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, the person that she had preparing the foods was cooking just like if my friend would have done it herself.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was clean.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was, she was only using the spices and the recipes that were given to her.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: But the coach very much wanted my friend to be all in and do all of these things and was actually requiring more of her than what was reasonable.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere in that, she lost faith in her ability to say no.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: She lost faith in the space of believing in herself and knowing herself best.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we hire coaches because they have a skill set that we want to learn, but that doesn't mean they're the expert of us.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: It means they're the expert of their craft.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is happening to more people than we're talking about, especially in spaces like functional medicine, wellness, mental health, and even personal development.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're told there's a root cause, there's a better way, you can optimize this, you can optimize that.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And all of that is true.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: But what's not being talked about enough is this.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just because something is helpful doesn't mean it's doable in the season that you're in.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when the gap between those two gets too big, your system taps out.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let's zoom out for a second.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system is constantly scanning for one thing.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Am I safe?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Not am I doing it perfectly, not am I optimizing my health, just am I safe?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And safety does not come from complexity.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from simplicity.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't come from having 14 steps to follow and getting 11 of them right.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Safety comes from things feeling manageable, predictable, supportive.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So when your version of self-care looks like constant tracking, restriction, decision fatigue, feeling like you're getting it wrong, your body doesn't go, wow, we're thriving.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It goes, this is a lot, and I don't know if I can keep up.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that matters because healing does not happen in a state of pressure.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've accidentally turned wellness into performance.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it was done on purpose.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's become it's become something that you can be good at or you can be bad at.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the question shifted from what helps me feel better to what am I supposed to be doing?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And those are not the same questions.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: One is rooted in connection and the other is rooted in pressure.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And your body knows the difference.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've had moments like this too, lots of them.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Where on paper, I'm doing everything right.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm eating the right things, I'm taking the right supplements, I'm following the plan.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And inside it feels tight, it feels forced, it feels like I'm managing something, that I'm not supporting myself.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's usually the moment I have to pause and ask: is this actually helping me or am I just trying to get it right?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have a pretty extensive routine that I've added to over time and I've taken away over time.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And last week I was at a week-long training out of town in an area I wasn't familiar with.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was packing my bag to go, I thought about the things that I generally do on a daily basis that are easy to do when I'm at home.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then I thought about the logistics of like taking my face serum on the airplane, that the trip required that I fly.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, like I knew that amount was probably too big to go through TSA.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And now I've got a bottle of castor oil that, you know, it has a dropper on it.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's my face solution.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I thought, you know, if the airport, if the people at the work of the airport throw my suitcase into the bottom of the airplane and this bottle cracks, three hours later, when I get my suitcase back, I'm gonna have a mess.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And a washing machine is not gonna fix that.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I left it at home.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've shared with you before that I do nettle tea daily.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So am I taking my French press and my nettle and my electrolytes and all the things so that I can do my nettle tea to support my liver?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not taking it to New York, not on a plane.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's a terrible idea.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And also the way the week played out, I wouldn't have had time to do it anyway.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I set the expectation that that wasn't gonna happen because I knew trying to make that happen would stress me out more than it ever helped.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, yeah, this is me, I want to give you a few ways to shift this without throwing everything out.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: First, subtract before you add.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're so conditioned to think that the answer is more.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: More supplements, more protocols, more information, more parasite cleanses, more detox.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes the most regulated thing you can do is to put something down.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not forever, but just for now.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ask a better question.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of asking, what should I be doing?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Try asking, what actually feels supportive today?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not ideal, not optimal, supportive, because that's what your nervous system can actually use.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: A mentor of mine says in our weekly planning sessions, what is the one thing you need to get done this week?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just one.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else is the would-be nice twos.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not gonna beat ourselves up if we don't get to the would-be nice twos.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, watch for pressure signals.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: If it feels urgent, rigid, all or nothing, like you're behind, restrictive, that's not your intuition.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's pressure.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And pressure is not sustainable, it's not a sustainable foundation for healing.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, make it smaller than you think you need to.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: If your plan only works when you're at 100%, that's not a real plan.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is why diets don't work.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have to do lifestyle modification, and we do that one step at a time.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Real life includes low energy days, busy days, I don't have it in me days, the world is on fighter days, I just can't.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Your care has to fit inside of that.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're overwhelmed, you've likely failed before you even started.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And now you also have a high cortisol to go along with it.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the takeaway here is you are not failing at healing.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: You might just be trying to carry too much of it all at once.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And your system is doing exactly what it's designed to do.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's telling you this is too much and I need less.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Healing isn't supposed to feel like a job you're bad at.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to feel like support.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the most aligned, regulated, powerful thing you can do is step back, simplify, and let your body catch up.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm working with my clients, I encourage them to do one thing.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Get one thing started.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it might mean get one thing off your to-do list.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: If this resonated with you, this is the work I care deeply about, helping people understand their nervous system so they can actually feel better, not just do more.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're curious about tools like neurofeedback or how to create a plan that works with your system instead of against it, I'd love to support that.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd love to support you in that.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.