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The Healing Chronicles Podcast
→ Two women. One mission: Healing with heart. We are Katie & Amanda and we have both reversed our Inflammatory Bowel Disease after years of pain, struggle and frustration.
Our mission is to empower people on their journey to improved health by breaking down complex topics like gut health, trauma recovery, and mindset into actionable steps. We believe in healing both the mind and body through education, empathy, and sustainable change.
Our goal is to create a space where people feel supported, informed, and inspired to take control of their health.
Whether you’re healing your gut, managing chronic illness or simply seeking a healthier, more balanced life, you’re in the right place.
The Healing Chronicles Podcast
EP 3 | Healing Isn’t Linear - Why Setbacks Are Part of the Process
SERIES: Everything We Wish We Knew at The Start
(Part 1)
This week, we’re diving into one of the biggest truths about healing—it’s messy, unpredictable and full of lessons you didn’t know you needed. We will be sharing our personal experience with setbacks (hello, flare-ups!) and why they aren’t the enemy—they’re the teachers.
We’ll talk about reframing failure, finding resilience when you feel stuck and how to bounce back stronger after setbacks. Plus, you’ll get practical tips for staying grounded when progress feels out of reach.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re moving backwards, this one’s for you. Let’s embrace the highs, the lows and everything in between.
Takeaways:
→ Why setbacks don’t mean failure
→ How to reset your mindset when you feel defeated
→ Practical tools to refocus on progress
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You are stronger than you think, healing is possible, and we'll be here every step of the way. Until next time—take care and keep going.
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So yeah, this is episode one of a five-part series which is all about everything we wish we knew at the very start, which is a lot.
Amanda:There's a lot we wish, we knew.
Katie:We will try and condense this, but this particular episode is all geared around why healing isn't linear and why setbacks are all part of the process. So failure is feedback more than failure is failure.
Amanda:Yeah, that is profound. Failure is feedback. More than failure is failure. That took me so long to learn. I grew up as a kid who just kind of was naturally good at things, and I feared failure so hard.
Katie:Oh God, yes, You're telling me Good Lord.
Amanda:I think there's something here Like if we think about those perfectionist vibes and people who end up with autoimmune disorders. Someone should do a study on that, I believe.
Katie:I agree.
Amanda:I think there's a connection.
Amanda:Yeah, maybe we can get some funding to start a study, but I think that part of the biggest thing that my healing journey has taught me was to be okay with failure, to learn how to use failure as feedback and keep moving forward.
Amanda:I think that is huge and I think that there's so much of this on our healing journey.
Amanda:When we want to correct a problem, when there's a dysfunction in our body or we've been diagnosed with an illness or we just maybe we don't have a diagnosis, we just have symptoms, there's this understanding that there's this dysfunction in our body and we want to fix it somehow in the easiest, fastest way humanly possible.
Amanda:It can be so easy to create that expectation. Easy to create that expectation we were talking about this a little bit before the episode here about not only this expectation that we are going to progress in this very clear, linear way, steadily get a little bit better every day, but we can also put that expectation of a time frame on our healing, as if if, if we do everything right will, we should be healed by this date, and it's just not true no, and that adds a considerable amount of pressure as well onto someone who doesn't need any extra pressure if they're in a dysfunctional state, because, at the end of the day, even going through your own healing journey, whatever that might mean to you, is messy and unpredictable and full of lessons that you might not necessarily have known that you needed yeah, I was just having a thought, as you were saying, that when we are young and our bodies are functioning in a predictable fashion and we're maybe not dealing with symptoms or health issues, we really don't know a lot about our bodies, do we?
Katie:No.
Amanda:We just take it for granted that everything is working, that our body is this miraculous machine full of complex systems, and we just take that for granted, that all of those systems are just working in harmony at any given point and we feel good and we have nothing to worry about. And then it's when things start to break down or dysfunction starts to happen that we are forced to really learn about our bodies and the way they work, and so the healing journey really is a learning journey, a learning how to understand our bodies and how to support our bodies yeah, and it's kind of exactly the same, even if you get a cold and you get really congested and you're like, oh god, you know I'm just thinking about it when I didn't have the cold and I could actually breathe through my nose and how much.
Amanda:I took that for granted yes, that's huge. Yeah, you think about laying in bed and you're like I just wish my sinuses were clear and I could breathe right now, so that I could sleep.
Katie:So yeah, it's so true, but it's obviously on a much greater scale when it comes to chronic illness, but it's the same kind of situation.
Amanda:Yeah, where, suddenly. What is that saying? You don't really appreciate your health until you lose it? Yeah.
Katie:Yeah, exactly, that's's a huge one and it's like that for everything you know, even when it comes to relationships and people, and sometimes we take things for granted and it's not until that person, or health or whatever it might be is gone do you actually begin to change or miss that person so, if so, if we back it up a little bit, and we're talking about this series of everything we wish we knew when we began our healing journey, why don't we start by defining what healing means to each of us?
Katie:Well, ultimately it's a lifetime endeavor. So healing isn't just temporary. It's, you know, looking after yourself and disease prevention should be something that is our north star that we work towards. So I feel like healing is not just a chapter in life. For me, healing means you know that we're putting ourselves first and we're on this journey of being just like one percent better every single day, no matter how small that is, and transforming our body, our mind, always growing, not just when we're sick or when we're poorly or when we're not feeling great.
Amanda:We should be working on this every single day yeah, and recognizing that this healing journey isn't just a means to an end. It's not, like we said, just returning to factory settings. So there is no reset button. If you've been diagnosed with a chronic illness and you think, well, I well, I want to reverse this, I want to heal, I want to cure myself, I want to undo this condition, that is very rarely the case and I don't say that to sound cynical.
Amanda:It's not a message of healing isn't possible. Message of healing isn't possible. It's healing might look different than what you think or expect it to look like and it's not something that okay, you just, if I just eat perfectly and I take all the supplements and I manage my stress and I sleep enough and I do all the right things for this period of time, then I'll be able to heal myself and then I'll be able to go on living life normally, the way I did before. I think that when we come through these journeys, we come out different on the other side. We come out profoundly changed, because this experience not only teaches us about ourselves, about our bodies, about our failures, it kind of transforms us at the same time. So we're not the same person who went in at the beginning when we come out the other side.
Katie:Well, yeah, and the feeling as well, the feeling that they experience after that's over, compared to how they felt before they started. Why would you want to revert back to that situation? Like you can progress in life in many different ways, whether that be like at work, in a promotion or self-growth, or in terms of exercise whatever goal that person might have, they're actually setting themselves up for success. So, reverting back to the, the old ways that wasn't serving them and was creating all this like disease, disease within the body they don't want to revert back to that, so it's just an upward journey to live life to the fullest, which is what everyone deserves yeah, exactly, and that that truly is my definition of healing.
Amanda:It's being able to live in a way where your symptoms or your illness don't consume you and aren't always top of mind and don't run your life, and just being in a place where you have the ability to experience life through joy and really just enjoy and be present with where you're at. That's, that's my, I'd say, that's my definition of healing.
Katie:I remember when I was um getting ready for my first bodybuilding competition and I was having a emotional breakdown because, of the lack of carbs yeah, yes and uh.
Katie:I was speaking to my coach, john, and I remember I always remember this moment. I was sitting at the entrance to the gym crying and he was saying Katie, your Crohn's disease doesn't define you. Why are you letting it define you? Because I was going through a pretty rough time with my Crohn's at this point too, and that statement just hit me because I was allowing it to control me and consume me and all of that energy that I was pumping into these thoughts in my head and all the cognitive energy that it was using up. I was actually not putting that energy into my body and, yeah, it was just such a profound moment for me and it was like more or less the turning point for drawing myself out of a little bit of victim mentality and really like taking control of my health and where I wanted it to go yeah, and recognizing that you have some control, uh, that you aren't just a victim or powerless because we really do, at least I know in my experience.
Amanda:I received my diagnosis and I kind of put it on like a cape or a a cloak, you know, it became like what I wore became a part of my identity for a while, and there's just layers and layers to unpack with that. You know, if I was having, if I'm being 100% honest with myself, I look back and I think of those hard days where I was struggling with pain, inflammation, digestive symptoms, and it was almost like at times I used that diagnosis as an excuse to not achieve or not fully participate in life.
Katie:It was like, well, I can't, I can't do those things because I have an illness, and I think that that's probably a normal stage that we all go through yeah, for sure, and the words that we tell ourselves are, so they have such power and, from a psychological perspective, how we speak to ourselves, it really impacts how we feel and how we behave.
Katie:So it's always like thought, belief in action and learning how to speak to ourselves in a compassionate way and a positive way, and not not being controlled by these negative thoughts, anxious thoughts, what could happen because we're believing this narrative that we've conjured up because of how we feel is so important when turning things around and, yeah, starting to like come out the other side. Yeah, because why setbacks feel so personal too, and this kind of reverts back to what you were saying at the beginning of not being able to cope with failure emotionally and knowing that any healing journey is an emotional roller coaster and normalizing that so the setbacks don't feel like failure because they actually aren't. It's just lessons learned and that feeding into expectation versus reality and why we think progress should be, should be linear when it's actually it's not, and that's okay, you know yeah, every setback is a opportunity to learn something and make a different choice.
Amanda:And if I think back to earlier on in my journey and how I would respond when I would start to go into a flare so anybody who's on a chronic illness journey knows what a flare up feels like, where you're kind of just cruising along in your life and all of a sudden the symptoms start to hit you. And I remember how I used to react to that, with so much fear and anxiety and worry and I would start to experience the slightest symptom and my brain would just go on this. It would just run out of control and start thinking thoughts like oh my god, like how am I going to handle this? I have so much going on in my life right now. I'm so busy I don't have time for this um, everything from those type of thoughts to those perfectionistic type thoughts where, like, what have have I done? What did I eat? Um, did I not sleep enough? Was I not managing my stress?
Amanda:I knew I shouldn't have went on that trip. I knew I shouldn't have taken on that responsibility. I knew I shouldn't have said yes when I wanted to say no and and almost beating yourself up about not being perfect and, um, at some point I don't know when it was, but at some point on my journey I started to recognize that that my body would just get 100% worse as soon as my mind would start reacting in that way and that stress that was being pulled out of me through my thoughts was just manifesting in my body tenfold. And I finally made that connection and started to do things differently and practice a bit of a pause when I would experience symptoms and like okay, and you know that, like you said the self talk okay, this isn't the end of the world, you're going to get through this. That makes such a huge difference.
Katie:Yeah, and we can put that back into this funnel of like thoughts, beliefs, actions, because your thoughts in that situation were creating these beliefs in your head that something was going to go tragically wrong and then you would perhaps not go out for dinner or not go on the excursion, or say no to date night or wherever it might be, but actually you didn't necessarily need to do that because that might have not been the end situation. So it's so like our thoughts are so powerful. Yeah, I have a question for you.
Amanda:What's been one of the hardest setbacks for you on your healing journey, both speaking about transitioning from being on medication, on several different medications, to making that decision to take ourselves off our medications and really trust our body and our ability to heal. I think that that was one of the biggest. I would call it a setback. The biggest I would call it a setback mainly because of the fear around that thought process of making that decision to shift um and really switching my thought process to um. I'm going to learn how to support my body because I believe it can heal if I support it properly was probably one of the biggest hurdles that I've had to overcome.
Katie:When I took myself off my medication I so I knew I had the tools through, like education and 11 years of study and trial and error and everything, and I knew I was going to go through a period of maybe things getting slightly worse before they got better, and I had to mentally prepare myself for that on a psychological front. Did you go through the same thing?
Amanda:Yes, I feel like I went through those thoughts of preparing for, almost preparing for the worst and being okay with that, being accepting of that. And the timing of it for me was interesting also because I took myself off my medications, started changing my diet, started some few key supplements and then I got pregnant with my son. So there was this really interesting thing that happened during this time because when you are pregnant, your hormones shift greatly in your body all throughout your pregnancy, like your hormones ramp up and then after you give birth, your hormone levels just come crashing down like they do a complete 180. So I I went from feeling amazing throughout my whole pregnancy. Basically when I got pregnant, my symptoms turned off and I was like oh, people say this, so many people say this yeah.
Amanda:I was like, oh, this is, this is beautiful. I feel amazing, I could eat almost anything I wanted and I just felt wonderful. And then, after my son was born, I had tried to mentally prepare myself for that switch, that stress on my body of childbirth and that change in my hormones. But then you pair that with not getting enough sleep in the first few weeks of postpartum and you know the stress of having another child and all of that, and that sent me into a flare up. And that was another one, another hard one to overcome, because now I not only was having to support myself through this flare up, but I had this brand new baby who didn't understand. Yeah, who needed my support, no matter what, no matter how I was feeling. Yeah, who needed my support, no matter what, no matter how I was feeling. So it really added pressure for me to.
Amanda:Once again, my brain went back to that, those expectations of healing and that timeline of healing. Like I need to have the depth of knowledge that I have now on supporting my body, especially nutritionally, and I was breastfeeding, so my nutritional demands went up, but I was also in a flare up and was not absorbing my nutrients, which left me feeling depleted, and anyone who I think anyone who's ever had a baby, knows what that feeling of depletion in the first few weeks postpartum feels like, because literally the majority of your nutrients that you're taking in are going to grow this baby right. So we can feel very depleted, um, just in general. But then you pair that with the inflammation of a flare-up and and then what that does to your mental health and your energy levels, and so that was a that was a tricky one that took me several months to really pull myself out of.
Katie:So in that moment, how, in that moment, when you were pulling yourself out of this situation, how did it feel exactly, if you was to describe it, and what kind of thoughts were running through your head?
Amanda:I think I had less, less calm and less control over my emotions at the time. So those a lot of fear thoughts, a lot of that, like I said, that panic kind of sets in and how am I going to navigate this? How am I going to navigate this flare up with this new baby, because I can't just rest when I have this baby who needs to be looked after and you know he needs to come first and so a lot of fear thoughts, a lot of how am I going to do this, maybe kind of sinking back into the feeling of victim mentality and like this, this is just another thing that I have on my plate that I have to deal with. And you know, I was running my business at the time, which doesn't stop, and also had my daughter and who is in school, and so it was a lot to navigate and it just felt like, oh, this is just another thing being thrown on my plate that I don't need right now.
Amanda:Yeah, it's interesting to think back to those thoughts because they are so far from my reality now and I know and have so much trust in my body. I know how to navigate these flare-ups, I know what to do if I start to feel off. I know how to take action right away if, if my system starts to feel off and really just deeply care for myself. But at that time I didn't have as much understanding of how to do that. So then the fear thoughts naturally just kind of take over.
Katie:And what lesson did you learn from that experience that you didn't realize during those moments of difficulty?
Amanda:I think the biggest lesson that I learned in that moment was how important nourishment really is. I recognize now that I was not meeting my daily requirements for calories and nutrients because I was busy, I was looking after a newborn and spread too thin trying to do all the things and not properly looking after myself. And I think about it now and I remember having to buy all new clothes because my clothes were just hanging off of me. I lost so much weight in the first six weeks after having my son and I think about all the women that are like oh, I got back into my pre-pregnancy jeans and they're all excited and like my pre-pregnancy genes. And they're all excited and like my pre-pregnancy genes were hanging off my butt, you know, like falling off my body and I and I didn't even clue in at first that like that is not okay and had I, had I understood what I know now, I would have taken that as a very clear sign that I was undernourished and that I believe that one of the key nutrients that we can be lacking, like our B vitamins and our minerals, and and how important that is, because that really sets the stage for the function of our cells or the dysfunction of our cells, and so that should have been a dead giveaway for me that I was undernourished because I was losing weight so rapidly.
Amanda:We try to eliminate all these triggers, but we're not putting a lot of or enough emphasis on, are we getting the nutrition we need, and especially when we have inflammation of our digestive system which is affecting our ability to absorb nutrients, it's not necessarily what we're putting into the tank, it's what our body is able to absorb and utilize, and clearly at that point my body wasn't absorbing or utilizing much of anything. So, yeah, I think I would have come out of that episode a lot quicker if I had recognized that and started focusing on nourishment from the get-go.
Katie:When we're talking about in this episode anyway, when we're talking about setbacks and normalizing setbacks and essentially reframing setbacks and how setbacks are actually progress. Would you say that going through that experience shaped you into the person that you are today?
Amanda:Yeah, absolutely, and I think that I can look back at that situation and I can make so many connections now. So not only do I have this compassion for that version of me, and I think everything's connected. So that state of depletion that I was in and that lack of nourishment that I was receiving at the time, that led to the quality of my thoughts, that led to where my mental health was at at the time where my mental health was at at the time. And I think about this often when I think about women who suffer from postpartum depression and how the research shows that there's a very strong link between our DHEA levels in our body postpartum and whether we experience postpartum depression or not. And so much of it tells me that our mental health is dependent on our nutrient status. But we don't get taught that and we don't. It's not reiterated by our doctors, the importance is barely mentioned.
Amanda:So I think about that now and it helps me, yeah, just have more of a compassionate understanding for my own body and but also for others and what other people are going through and so knowing that these things go hand in hand and that if you are struggling with these physical symptoms and lack of nourishment and inflammation and poor absorption of nutrients, that your mental health is going to be affected and it just kind of creates this negative feedback loop that can be really difficult to get out of. That can be really difficult to get out of. So I definitely I value that experience because I can see those connections now, and not just from a research perspective but from a lived experience, and I think that's why I love working with the people that I work with in a coaching capacity, because they're in a similar place and I can relate to them so deeply.
Katie:Even people who suffer from chronic illness, and especially on a chronic fatigue level. Again going back to DHEA, there's so many links between that and chronic fatigue, links between that and chronic fatigue. So when it comes to absorbing on a cellular level, this creates such a large amount of chronic fatigue in patients and that then sets off this like you mentioned negative feedback loop in their mind because they're unable to like actually just genuinely live life, um, and they can't play with their kids and they can't go out to the shop and they can barely do day-to-day things that you know they would have been able to do x amount of years ago. So it's definitely a really profound problem that so many people are suffering from, not just postpartum, but just generally with with their health, when it comes to feeling like tired all the time and it's something that we're taught is just normal or we just we accept it.
Amanda:We don't make those connections until we get to a place where we're forced to look at that and, as I said before, I feel like that's a gift that my illness has given me. Is that awareness, that awareness of my body, that awareness of how these systems work and how we can really support ourselves so that we truly feel our best, not just physically but mentally, so that we don't end up in these endless loops?
Katie:Yes, absolutely. And in terms of that situation that you went through, knowing that setbacks isn't like a case of starting over, but an opportunity to learn and to recalibrate so probably when you was in the depths of it, you literally just had the complete opposite mindset. But transforming people's minds to take a different stance on this and look at it as a growth opportunity will completely change your entire vision on where you're at right now and where you could could be, depending on what protocol and intervention you did next.
Amanda:Yeah, and I think that that's why it's so important to choose to work with practitioners who not only are compassionate to your situation and get it, but also that kind of challenge you to look at things in a different way. Like you talk about your conversation with John in that moment and and him really shaking up the way that you were looking at yourself and the way that you were viewing your illness. Like we need those people in our lives who are going to do that, who are going to question our belief systems and say this is this really serving you right now in your life?
Katie:yeah, and have and have that and have those challenging conversations, because the science behind healing fluctuations stems from the fact that symptoms can return even when you're doing everything right, and that's where the mindset strength needs to really step in, um, yeah, and take charge in those moments is you know, even when you were going through that postpartum, that would have been a great example where mindset needed to.
Katie:You know, take control in that situation and think about your nutrition, etc. Etc. So having someone behind you that's keeping you accountable when it comes to working with a practitioner is is so valuable yeah, and the mindset piece really is the thing that gets you through these setbacks. 100 yeah, what's your stance on the difference between perceived failure and actual regression?
Amanda:honestly, I feel like my mindset has completely shifted and I don't I don't perceive setbacks as regression at all anymore. Um, and I think that you, if you choose to view it that way, that it can be a slippery slope, it can be easy to ride that wave, kind of like we said, that negative feedback loop that's created if you're allowing those thoughts, if you're, if you're experiencing a flare up, if you're in a setback, and you're allowing those thoughts to run away and say this is what's going to happen next, you're going to have to have the surgery and you're going to have to go back on these medications and you let those thoughts run wild. I honestly believe that that can end up being your reality, just based on that feedback loop that is created because it's just creating this internal stress and, like you said, taking so much of your mental capacity and is creating worse physical outcomes for you. So in my life I don't even entertain those thoughts anymore. They're not even a blip on my radar.
Katie:Do you think that came from practicing how to deal with emotions and logic, so splitting them, being able to split them, taking more of a logical stance, perhaps if you're beginning a flare up or if you're feeling a bit off?
Amanda:Yeah, I think that the biggest difference now for me is that I have tools in my toolbox for navigating setbacks and flares and as soon as I start to feel a little bit off, I have an entire list of things in my myself right now so that I can give my body what it needs so that it can heal.
Amanda:And I know that those things for me are focusing on rest, as much rest as possible, and maybe that's not the time to be trying to hit PRs in the gym, letting go of that for a couple of days or a couple of weeks, as long as it takes to just focus on rest and focus on recovery and focus on nourishing my body, eating things that are easy to digest or kind on my digestive system and promoting anti-inflammatory properties, and all of those things are kind of just my go-to strategies to start feeling better.
Amanda:And, um, when you take those fear thoughts and those emotional thoughts because I do feel that I'm way more emotionally regulated now, um, than I used to be a few years ago and I think that it's a, it's a direct correlation between things running more smoothly in my body and my physical body that then help the quality of my thoughts and and support my mental health, because it goes both ways absolutely yeah, and I think it's so important for people to be aware of the fact that it's not just one thing, it's you need to be taking a multifaceted approach to this when it comes to flare-ups and not feeling great in yourself, because just focusing on one thing is not gonna give the impact that your body needs to provide the space that it needs to heal.
Katie:And this is why I work on four pillars within my coaching program, which is nutrition and then supplements, layered on top of that, because we can't just rely on supplements, like so many people think. Oh, I'm taking X, y, z supplement, nothing's changing. These are just an extension of what you should be doing nutritionally. And well, like you said, movement, tuning into your body and realizing what it needs in that time and not causing excessive amounts of inflammation through training super important when we're trying to actually reduce inflammation levels. We don't want muscle hypertrophy at that time. And then it all comes down to mindset and behavior change, because this is what's running constantly, like turning the clogs. That's your number one and then everything else will feed in, but it's it needs to be viewed as a multi-faceted perspective, because you can't just rely on one thing and expect a profound change and unfortunately, you know, the human body is so complex, it just doesn't work like that yeah, and I also like to think of it.
Amanda:the approach that I take with dealing with setbacks or dealing with flare-ups is very similar to the approach that I take when I get a cold or when my kids get a cold. So if you are one of those people who is super busy and has a busy work schedule and you start to experience cold symptoms, you kind of have two options. You can dial things back in your schedule, focus on rest, focus on nourishing your body, giving it what it needs, taking the time to heal early on so that this doesn't turn into something bigger and more severe. Or you can be that person who says I don't have time for this right now, I've got this project due at work and just starts popping cold meds to dampen the symptoms yeah, to suppress the symptoms and just keep plowing forward, which quite often results in longer healing times because we're not actually honoring our body, listening to our body and giving it what it needs to heal early on.
Amanda:So I use that same approach with dealing with flare ups. I could kind of disassociate and say this isn't happening to me and just keep pushing through. Or I could listen early on to my body and give it what it needs so that healing happens faster and it doesn't turn into this big prolonged battle for months.
Katie:And I think there's like a beautiful, like spiritual element to that, because I know me and you are so aligned with spirituality coming into this. But I think tuning into our body and doing what's best for our higher self is well. Making ourselves a priority, basically, and not putting work first or gym first or whatever it might be, is another learning curve for people, because a lot of the time we're on this fast-paced life just on the hamster wheel and learning how to slow down is so difficult for so many people it's the most difficult, especially for women.
Amanda:I find this especially for women. Asking a woman, a busy woman, to slow down is probably the hardest thing sometimes and also going back to setbacks.
Katie:Um, a lot of people have this all or nothing mindset, where you know they have a setback and they just throw in the towel because they don't know how to cope with it, and they don't know how to work through it, because one bad day doesn't undo months of progress. So, yeah, I think that's also quite a large element all or nothing mindset around accepting what they deem to be failure or setbacks yeah, and I think that ties right into that perfectionist mentality if I can't do something perfect, then it's not worth doing.
Amanda:Or you see this a lot with people in their relationship to exercise. They'll start these new year's resolutions and I'm going to hit the gym five days a week and it's going to be amazing and I'm going to transform my body and it's going to be awesome. And then, as soon as they don't measure up to that expectation of perfection that they placed on themselves, it's oh, I knew I wasn't going to be able to do this. You know I'm a failure. Who was I kidding? And, like you said, they throw in the towel. And I think there's so much power in recognizing those patterns and choosing to do it a different way and playing the long game and really recognizing that your health and prioritizing yourself is the long game and we're doing this for the rest of our lives, so we may as well get comfortable here, stop trying to aim for perfection and just do our best and just keep going and just keep moving forward step by step and forget about those expectations of how long it's going to take or what it's going to look like.
Katie:And also learning how to detach your self-worth from the actual healing process, because your health journey doesn't define your value, and I think that's so important.
Amanda:Oh, yes, yeah.
Katie:So you might be thinking like okay, be thinking like okay, I hear you, but how do I actually put that in practice in real time? What practical ways can I reframe failure essentially? So what kind of things would you say in your head to reframe these negative words like I failed for, for example, whereas in that case it should be really, what did this setback teach me?
Amanda:Recognizing that setbacks or perceived failures are just part of the journey and that it doesn't define you. It doesn't define your worth. You are not failing because you have reached a setback. It's just more information and when you look back later on, those are your growth moments.
Katie:Those challenging setbacks are just an opportunity to learn and then grow, and that's ultimately what builds resilience in us making these small, tiny little changes and adjustments in how you speak to yourself and the words that you use is what's going to essentially create this larger movement where you're taking a different stance on things and not perceiving setbacks in a particular way, but it's all about how you speak to yourself. That is the first thing that you would address when it comes to awareness and then behavior change.
Amanda:Yeah, 100%. And I think, when I think back to all of the setbacks that I've experienced, it really was a mental game more than it was a physical. Yeah it's, it's the moving past those mental plateaus is where the work truly is.
Katie:Yeah, and staying grounded in those moments when progress feels just completely out of reach, and installing these rituals into your daily life so that they become habitual, because it's all well and good saying all this stuff, but it's like, well, how do I, how do I put that into practice? These are the kind of things that you can be doing at home to start changing the way that you think and the way that you feel and how you deal with situations when they come up.
Amanda:Yeah, and I think that community can be a really huge component to that as well, having supportive people around you that get it, and that can be tricky to find, because I know I don't know about you, but when I first started navigating my journey with colitis, I went looking for like online communities, online support groups to try to understand my illness a little bit more, and what I found in a lot of these Facebook groups is a lot of them are really toxic and a lot of them were people projecting their experience on to others, saying like oh, this happened to me, and as if this is going to be your fate.
Amanda:So I would say, be very careful with those types of communities and really just gravitate toward the people who are encouraging and supportive and compassionate and building you up and telling you like you're going to get through this, versus the the ones that are doom and gloom and fear-mongering oh, it's just no, it's just not going to help in any way if someone is going through a setback right now and they feel like giving up, what advice would you give them?
Amanda:I think that trying to look at things from too broad of a perspective can be really harmful. So just taking things day by day is probably the easiest way to make things more manageable. So don't focus on a year down the road or two years down the road. Focus on today and what you can do. What can I do in this moment, today. And then, if you have someone that you can reach out to for support, definitely reach out, because things get less heavy when you share them with somebody else. If you're the only one who is drowning in your thoughts and trying to navigate this yourself, life can just feel very lonely and isolating. But as soon as you ask someone to join you in that, it all of a sudden just feels a little bit lighter.
Katie:And they can also offer accountability, because when you're in a really hard time and you might be feeling super low and a little bit helpless, having someone there to to share this experience with um, they can actually, in a way, be your accountability system. So for us, it's obviously we're our client's accountability system. That's really how you start to track and see progress is when you have that accountability behind you, because they're not going to let you have this negative self-talk loop going on, because they'll be there, they'll be your cheerleader and they'll be able to pick out the small wins that you're going to be experiencing whilst you're healing that you will just normally bypass, because we don't ever acknowledge any kind of win unless it's like the lottery or something yeah, that damn negativity bias in our brain
Amanda:yeah just doesn't let us celebrate no, it just takes over.
Katie:so yeah, I completely agree, if you could reach out and get that support networking system in place, it's going to really really help you yeah absolutely.
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