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Ten years ago, my life as I knew it fell apart setting the stage for what has now become my healing journey. What started as an extreme second case of mono spiraled into gaining 30 pounds in less than two months, a stage one kidney failure diagnosis, and days where getting out of bed felt impossible. But this triggered some lessons that I have learned in my health journey.
This came after years of following all the “right” health rules—eating well (although never enough) and moving my body multiple times a day. I followed the script, yet I ended up sicker than I could have imagined.
Looking back, I often forget how sick I was. If you had told me eight years ago that I’d one day forget the weight of that struggle, I wouldn’t have believed you. There were countless moments when I thought I’d never get better. Sometimes, I even forgot what it felt like to be well.
Honestly, I question if I ever truly knew what wellness felt like. Before I got sick, I spent years pushing my body to extremes, chasing “skinny” instead of healthy. I assumed that being skinny automatically meant being healthy. I now know that isn’t true.
As I took time to look back and reflect, I realized this decade has been a journey of rebirth, more than just transformation. Reflecting on the ten years since my life changed, I’ve uncovered lessons I never expected to learn—lessons born from both struggle and health.
I share the ten most profound lessons I’ve learned from this healing journey on my podcast. Make sure you listen to get all ten. Keep reading to get a glimpse into the most transformative realization I had in those ten years.
The Starting Point of Healing
The hardest and most transformative lesson I’ve learned is this: healing doesn’t always happen on your timeline, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
Often, what holds us back from healing is a set of ingrained beliefs that keep us stuck, repeating the same cycles that made us sick. These beliefs aren’t your fault—they’re rooted in culture and even etched into our DNA over generations.
One of the most misleading beliefs is tied to our definition of health.
We’ve been taught that health is a destination, a state to achieve—a noun. This mindset keeps us chasing, striving, and measuring our worth against an unattainable ideal, all while missing the true essence of health.
What is more true is that health isn’t a destination; it’s an action. It’s a verb. It’s a way of life, a choice, an action. Understanding this changed everything in me — it made health feel possible for the first time.
The definition changes your direction.
Let me explain this with a metaphor I recently learned. Did you know that magnetic north and true north aren’t the same? Depending on your location, magnetic north can be up to 20 degrees off from true north. At first, this difference might seem minor. But if you set off toward magnetic north, expecting to reach true north, you’ll find yourself farther off course the longer you travel.
This is exactly what happens when we approach health as a destination. It’s like chasing magnetic north—well-intentioned but fundamentally flawed. You set off in a direction you thought was health, but it wasn’t true health, which, in time, led to the frustration and realization that feels like you’re further than when you started.
That’s what happens when we understand health as a destination. We set off on the journey expecting to reach the end but realized somewhere along the way, that things weren’t adding up. That’s because we’ve believed the north is north is north, and it’s not. Instead, the path to health – to true north – is understanding health as a verb (an action).
When you shift your understanding to health as a verb, every small action you take gains meaning. Even if you don’t see immediate results, you’re still moving in the right direction, and health is still being generated.
Building Capacity for Healing
Healing, like building anything of value, takes time. Just because the outcome isn’t visible doesn’t mean progress isn’t happening. As John Heywood said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
The same is true for your health. It’s a journey through a constantly evolving landscape. Fighting the changes only creates resistance, whereas embracing them allows you to grow.
By redefining health as a verb, every step you take becomes part of the process. Each choice you make—whether it’s drinking water, going to bed earlier, or simply pausing to breathe—brings you closer to your true north. It brings you closer because it creates the capacity and supplies the necessary resources to keep moving forward.
The First Step
The first step in healing is redefining health. Once you embrace this shift, the other lessons fall into place.
Remember: Healing isn’t about arriving; it’s about creating. It’s a verb, not a noun. And every step you take matters.
Stop worrying about the destination and put your focus on what you can do today to move forward.
