Latest / Why You Got Sick: How Emotion Drives Chronic Illness & Healing in Women / Why Your Brain Keeps Telling You "You're Dying" — And How to Break the Fear Pattern Keeping Your Body Stuck

Transcript

Why Your Brain Keeps Telling You "You're Dying" — And How to Break the Fear Pattern Keeping Your Body Stuck · Why You Got Sick: How Emotion Drives Chronic Illness & Healing in Women

0:02
[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.
1:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, I wellness, which is I'm your host Tecla.
1:07
[SPEAKER_00]: This is heal yourself with the law of attraction.
1:09
[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, it's just going to be a little bit different to our regularly scheduled programming, because I wanted to come on and share some health challenges I've been having recently.
1:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think it's important for you all to know that even after your reverse chronic illness or improve your health dramatically, things happen.
1:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Physical health isn't some task on a checklist that once you achieve you tick off and you never have to deal with it again.
1:38
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not how it works.
1:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So today I'm just gonna be super honest with you and open about what I've been experiencing.
1:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know it's just a normal part of life.
1:50
[SPEAKER_00]: There will be highs and lows in life, and health is no exception from that.
1:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you may remember that after I came back from Europe in June, I got COVID really badly.
2:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I may also have had something else in addition, but obviously they didn't want me going into the doctor's office spreading that around, so I never got tested for anything else.
2:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It's now suspected that I also may have had influenza
2:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I remember telling you that all my lymph nodes were swollen all over my body.
2:26
[SPEAKER_00]: In my throat, neck, under my arms, everywhere, which I have never experienced before.
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: When you start feeling lumps in those places, it's kind of shocking to be honest and really scary.
2:40
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want to be feeling lumps anywhere, especially as a woman in your armpits and chest area.
2:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I was told that it's normal, and it's a reaction to viral infections, and it would pause in time.
2:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing really unusual going on.
2:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was true.
2:57
[SPEAKER_00]: The lungs did go away, but they started coming back and popping up randomly for only 24 to 48 hours at most.
3:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And that scared me again because I'm thinking it's been weeks and weeks, why is this still happening?
3:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So I get back into the doctor's office and said, look, this is still going on.
3:18
[SPEAKER_00]: What's wrong with my body, basically?
3:20
[SPEAKER_00]: That doctor didn't even look at me, didn't check anything on my body, didn't do one test.
3:27
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, this is what you need to look out for with lumps like that.
3:31
[SPEAKER_00]: If it presents in those ways, come back in.
3:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, I've had my moments with doctors before, but this felt fucked up.
3:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm spending $8,200 to see you.
3:41
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't even look at me or any area on my body.
3:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't send for any blood work or testing.
3:47
[SPEAKER_00]: What she told me, of course, I had already googled that, right?
3:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I got it.
3:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm in this office because I want a professional opinion.
3:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a strike out to that doctor.
3:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I go and I find another GP.
4:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Finding a good GP is tough.
4:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe in home for two or so years now and I've been struggling to find a good practitioner.
4:09
[SPEAKER_00]: As you know, I like someone with an open mind, who has a more holistic approach to health.
4:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone who doesn't just write a prescription and send you out the door.
4:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Ideally, I want someone with a mix of Eastern and Western approaches, and that's tough.
4:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, some of you may know, when you go see a functional, integrative doctor, it's supposed to be purpose-driven.
4:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not someone you go to see for routine checkups.
4:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I find another GP that's recommended by a friend, and it takes me five weeks to get in.
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Fine, I've heard from the current doctor, nothing really alarming is going on.
4:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I wait my five weeks, I go and see the new doctor.
4:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And immediately, I just felt like she was taking me seriously.
4:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Listening and addressing every single one of my concerns one of the time.
4:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt this wave of relief literally wash over me.
5:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I explained the history when all this started, what I was concerned about, she immediately said, okay, get up.
5:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do an exam.
5:08
[SPEAKER_00]: She did a breast, chest, and underarm exam.
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: At that time, there wasn't a lymph node flare up, so it was all clear.
5:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Her conclusion was the same as the first doctor, but she did the fucking exam and she sent for bloods.
5:22
[SPEAKER_00]: She explained what we were looking for, and I wanted to know the why, like why are we looking at this what's going on in the body.
5:29
[SPEAKER_00]: She explained that this intermittent lymph node swelling can happen up to six months and sometimes even longer after a really bad viral infection.
5:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And she taught me that it's a sign that my lymphatic system is actually working.
5:42
[SPEAKER_00]: It may be overwhelmed at times or getting triggered more easily, but it is working.
5:49
[SPEAKER_00]: She also recommended some natural remedies to help with inflammation and supporting my system while all of this is going on.
5:56
[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't immediately jump for a prescription.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: We did the blood work all clear.
6:01
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my job done, right?
6:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done everything I can with my control to make sure that this is okay.
6:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going back in three months to have a follow-up just to make sure we're trending in the right direction.
6:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But while we're on this topic for anyone who may have experienced something similar, lumps are more concerning when they're present and lost for more than two weeks, when they grow in size, or when they're accompanied by things like night sweats or fevers.
6:28
[SPEAKER_00]: If that's you, please head to the doctor just to get everything checked out.
6:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, this doesn't mean there is something wrong, but it does need to be evaluated.
6:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I know there is so much anxiety, especially for people who are chronically ill when going to the doctor.
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I get that, 1,000%.
6:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I have been there myself.
6:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to experience debilitating health anxiety, and it will consume me for days leading up to any sort of appointment I had.
6:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It also became problematic in my family because anytime anything happens with any family member, I would stress and spiral and kind of lose it.
7:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about that and let me help you through it because even though I'm so much better at handling those moments and those emotions now, this latest episode was very testing for me.
7:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to know health anxiety doesn't always
7:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the time it looks like these quiet little subconscious patterns you've trained yourself into without even realizing.
7:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It's waking up and scanning your body before you've even opened your eyes.
7:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It's noticing one sensation and immediately jumping 10 steps ahead in your mind, catastrophizing and imagining the worst case scenario.
7:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Googling symptoms at 2am because you just can't check the feeling that you're missing something.
7:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It's checking your pulse, re-reading blood tests, replaying doctor's comments and trying to make sense of every single little change in your body.
8:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And the hardest part of all of this is its automatic.
8:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course you don't choose to worry.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Your mind goes there before you even realize what's happening.
8:14
[SPEAKER_00]: For some, health anxiety becomes this fear of appointments themselves.
8:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You know you should book the doctor, but the second you go to do it, you feel sick.
8:22
[SPEAKER_00]: You book it, maybe you cancel, maybe you reschedule.
8:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You're terrified of what they might say, but also you're terrified not to go.
8:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It becomes this constant tug of war between wanting clarity and wanting to avoid anything that could confirm your fears.
8:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It's this all-consuming hyper-awareness, hyper-responsibility and hyper-figilance.
8:45
[SPEAKER_00]: feeling like you need to catch something early or you'll regret it later.
8:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You're trying to stay three steps ahead all the time of your own body, because it has a felt safe and predictable in a really long time.
8:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I wanted to talk about this today, not just the thoughts, but the emotional patterns underneath them, and why your brain keeps pulling you into these loops, even when you know they're draining you.
9:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember the days when I was mid chronic illness and one moment in particular where I had to have an MRI with contrast to look at my pancreas.
9:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I had been diagnosed with the chronic pancreatic deficiency and one of the possible root causes can be a blockage or tumor in the pancreas.
9:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going in with that in my mind, right, which is freaking fuel to the fire of health anxiety.
9:36
[SPEAKER_00]: What if something's there?
9:37
[SPEAKER_00]: You're spiraling already.
9:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I got there early and I sat in my car in the parking lot outside of this medical looking downtown random suburban Denver.
9:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sweating, shaking, trying to stay calm, but one step away from this full blown panic attack.
9:55
[SPEAKER_00]: The anxiety is level 15 out of 10.
9:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It took everything in me to get out of that car and walk into the reception area.
10:04
[SPEAKER_00]: They take you back, you have to strip, put a gallon on, they inject this awful die into your bloodstream, and you can taste it in your mouth.
10:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You're lying in that tube feeling like there's no air and it's so loud and you're there for 30 minutes or more.
10:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Then it's over and you know the person taking the skins cannot tell you anything.
10:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm trying to read his language and behavior and overanalyze every single little thing
10:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you're sitting there for days waiting for the report and the doctor to call you and the entire process is fucking horrible.
10:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about how to get back to a place where you're feeling calmer and in control and in power in these situations, because you don't have to live like that.
10:46
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing to understand is that health anxiety isn't really about the symptom you're focused on.
10:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about the fear underneath it.
10:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Your mind isn't spiraling because you enjoy worrying.
10:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It's spiraling because a part of you still doesn't feel safe.
11:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Safe in your body, safe with uncertainty, safe with the fact that you may have had tough news in the past and you're terrified of that happening again.
11:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe you observed someone you know getting some tough news and you don't want that to be you.
11:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of trying to calm down or stop worrying, the real starting point is interrupting the automatic thought loop.
11:26
[SPEAKER_00]: When you notice yourself slipping into the familiar pattern, the checking, the Googling, the overthinking, your job isn't to shut it down.
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That usually makes it worse.
11:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Your job is simply to pause long enough to ask yourself one thing.
11:43
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I actually afraid of right now?
11:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the symptom, the emotion.
11:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it fear of losing control?
11:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it fear of missing something important?
11:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it fear of your body turning on you again?
11:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it fear of going backwards after everything you fought to rebuild?
12:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you name what's underneath, the intensity drops.
12:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You're no longer in the middle of the spiral.
12:10
[SPEAKER_00]: You're observing what started it.
12:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the exact moment where you step back into the driver's seat.
12:17
[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing I want you to focus on is how you relate to your body in the moments when nothing is actually happening.
12:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Health anxiety trains you to treat every sensation like a threat.
12:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So part of getting control back is already how to notice what you're feeling without immediately attaching a meaning or story to it.
12:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Some sensations are just that, sensations.
12:42
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't require all of this interpretation.
12:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Say you're sitting on the couch, and you suddenly notice a little flutter in your chest.
12:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Before you even think your mind jumps straight into the old pattern.
12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that happening?
12:56
[SPEAKER_00]: What if it's something serious?
12:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Should I check my pulse and my having a hard attack?
13:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Should I Google it?
13:02
[SPEAKER_00]: What if this is the start of something?
13:04
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the automatic thought loop.
13:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But getting control back looks like this instead.
13:10
[SPEAKER_00]: You feel the flutter.
13:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You catch the urge to spiral and you pause.
13:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Not for a long time.
13:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Just long enough to notice what's happening before the story takes over.
13:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You take one breath and think, okay, I felt something.
13:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That is all that's happened so far.
13:29
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not pretending everything's fine.
13:31
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not forcing yourself to become.
13:34
[SPEAKER_00]: You're simply separating the sensation from the interpretation.
13:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of going straight into the meaning making, this is dangerous, this is a sign, this is gonna get worse.
13:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You stick to the facts.
13:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You've focused on what's actually real right now, which is, I felt a flutter, my body has random sensations all the time, let me just see if it settles.
14:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Nine times out of ten, it does, and by doing this you've interrupted the pattern your brain usually runs.
14:09
[SPEAKER_00]: That one small pause teaches your system.
14:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I can feel something without treating it like an emergency.
14:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you repeat that over time, your brain slowly stops jumping to worst-case scenarios because it has evidence that not every sensation requires meaning analysis or is life-threatening.
14:32
[SPEAKER_00]: that's what it looks like in practice.
14:35
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not dramatic.
14:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a five-step method.
14:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It's this quiet shift from automatic fear to noticing what's actually happening in the present moment.
14:45
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how you slowly start rebuilding trust, not blind trust or forced positivity, real trust.
14:54
[SPEAKER_00]: The kind that comes from reminding yourself that your body today is not the
15:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You've healed, changed, grown, survived, and adapted far more than your mind gives you credit for.
15:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It just hasn't updated that story yet.
15:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Your mind doesn't know the difference between a real threat and a perceived one.
15:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It reacts the exact same way.
15:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So whether there's an actual tiger running after you or you're sitting in your bedroom feeling a headache come on and immediately thinking, it's a brain tumor, your body launches the same survival response.
15:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why the symptoms feel so intense and that's why your heart races and that's what you can't think straight.
15:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Your mind has learned to treat your thoughts as evidence, and your body responds as if the danger is right there in the room with you.
15:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And which is you can't keep living like that, living from that place of constant fear and thinking every sensation or symptom is life threatening is unsustainable.
15:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It keeps your nervous system in a fight or flight response almost 100% of the time.
16:04
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no chance you're going to heal anything when you're in that space.
16:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Your body needs to get to rest and digest mode to heal.
16:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That's your parasympathetic state, and it has to be switched on before your body can repair anything.
16:20
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're constantly in hyper vigilance and fear in scanning for danger, even subconsciously, your system never drops into that healing state, because it's too busy trying to protect you from the tiger chasing you.
16:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But as we know, there is no tiger.
16:38
[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly the kind of pattern we break inside my seven-day audio series, becoming the version of you who heals.
16:45
[SPEAKER_00]: It's designed to help you shift the emotional frequency you're operating from so your body can actually get into that healing state again.
16:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And leave behind the identity that's been keeping you stuck in illness.
16:58
[SPEAKER_00]: The link is in the show notes for you if you'd like to check that out.
17:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, let's talk about how this all relates to the universal laws.
17:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I reference the universal laws every episode because they're guiding principles for how I live my lives.
17:13
[SPEAKER_00]: They make things make sense.
17:15
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not mythical abstract concepts.
17:17
[SPEAKER_00]: They're simply about energy, how we interpret our experiences, and why we react the way we do.
17:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So first, let's talk about the law of relativity in the context of health anxiety.
17:30
[SPEAKER_00]: This law says nothing has meaning on its own.
17:34
[SPEAKER_00]: The meaning comes from what you compare it to.
17:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is exactly what health anxiety does.
17:40
[SPEAKER_00]: The sensation itself is neutral.
17:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the comparison your mind makes that turns it into danger.
17:47
[SPEAKER_00]: A headache by itself is just a headache.
17:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But the moment your mind compares it to the worst case scenario, the fear takes over.
17:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the empowering part that most people miss.
18:00
[SPEAKER_00]: If meaning comes from comparison, then you can choose a different comparison.
18:05
[SPEAKER_00]: You can choose to compare that headache to all the other times you've ever had one and it passed.
18:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You can choose to compare that flutter in your chest to the times it settled on its own.
18:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You can choose to compare today's symptom to how resilient your body has been, not the scariest possibility you can imagine.
18:25
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where you get your power of back.
18:29
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not forcing positivity.
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just choosing a comparison that reflects reality, not fear.
18:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Another law that applies here is the law of polarity.
18:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything has an opposite, comfort and discomfort, safety and fear.
18:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Health anxiety traps you on one side of the spectrum.
18:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You get stuck in the extreme.
18:52
[SPEAKER_00]: The fear, the hypervigilance, the worst case thinking.
18:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And you forget the opposite even exists.
18:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Your body has felt safe before.
19:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You forget your symptoms can settle just as easily as they can spike.
19:05
[SPEAKER_00]: You forget healing includes both the dips and the rises.
19:09
[SPEAKER_00]: When you remember the polarity that there's always another side, your symptoms stop feeling like these absolute irreversible truths.
19:18
[SPEAKER_00]: They just become part of the spectrum, not a threat.
19:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, which is, thank you so much for joining me and if you're feeling inspired, please leave your girl a five-star review.
19:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps so much and it means so much to me.
19:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you in two weeks.
19:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Peace, love, and mung beans.
19:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.