As we continue the Journey Back to Health series, this episode focuses on Chapter Two — beliefs. This chapter has felt especially tender for me, because it has made it clear just how much work still exists around thoughts, attitudes, and worthiness when it comes to healing.
For a long time, I punished myself for not being able to eat normally. I wanted so badly to be someone who could wake up, eat breakfast, eat lunch, and move through the day without nausea or panic. Even now, that is still something I struggle with.
Recently, I added a green drink to my mornings, hoping the extra nutrients and electrolytes would help. Instead, it made me feel worse. I tried pairing it with food — something simple and familiar — a piece of peanut butter toast. I couldn’t even make it through the whole piece. I took tiny bites, fighting nausea the entire time, and by the halfway point, I was almost in tears.
That moment showed me something important: this journey can’t be rushed. Vulnerability doesn’t make healing faster. I have to be where I am and meet myself with grace.
Chapter Two of Journey Back to Health is about the beliefs we hold around healing. When I wrote this book, I was still in the middle of healing autoimmune disease. I had changed my diet, my sleep, my movement — everything — and I was still experiencing flare-ups. At the same time, I was trying to help others heal.
During that time, I listened to a podcast interview with mindset coach Tonya Rineer. Her work completely shifted how I understood healing. I realized I was constantly saying, “My body is trying to kill me.” I believed it. I woke up every day in pain, sometimes praying I wouldn’t wake up at all.
That belief shaped everything. After my celiac diagnosis, fear expanded beyond my body — restaurants felt dangerous, friends’ kitchens felt unsafe, paranoia took over. Tonya helped me see that those beliefs were not truth. They were patterns formed during pain.
In Chapter Two, I wrote that healing requires practicing these truths: we are worthy of being healthy, it is okay to release beliefs that no longer serve us, and no matter where we are in our journey, we are loved right now.
As I reread these words, I realized I need them again.
My disordered eating didn’t come from vanity or control. It came from poverty and unmet needs. As a child, my basic human needs were stripped away. We lived in a tent by a river. There was no refrigerator, no consistent food, no clean water. Hunger and thirst were treated as ingratitude. I learned early that having needs made me unworthy.
Through Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I can now see that my foundation was unstable. Those beliefs followed me into adulthood.
Now, I am relearning worthiness. I am proving to myself that I deserve time, care, attention, nourishment, and safety. Healing isn’t just about food — it’s about believing I am allowed to be cared for.
This chapter invites you to look at your own beliefs. What were you told you were worthy of? What stories are still living in your mind that don’t belong there anymore?
