#42 The 5 Uncomfortable Truths About Healing (That No One Talks About)

There are things about healing that people don’t tell you.

The parts that don’t feel good.
The parts that don’t look like progress.
The parts that make you question whether anything is actually working.

And when you’re not expecting those things, it’s easy to assume something’s wrong.

In this episode, I’m breaking down five uncomfortable truths about healing chronic symptoms—the ones that most people run into, but aren’t prepared for.

Tune in so you know what to expect—and don’t misread what’s happening when you’re in it.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Rebellious Healer, where we ditch the fear, decode the symptoms, and heal at the root. I'm Jenny Peterson, former holistic practitioner, turned mind-body rebel. For 20 years, I've helped people get to the root of chronic symptoms by changing the subconscious patterns behind them. If you're done chasing protocols, done outsourcing your power, and ready to get to the root of what's actually driving your symptoms, you're in the right place. There are things about healing that no one really prepares you for. You don't get a pamphlet when you have chronic symptoms that says, here's what to expect, or here's what you're going to have to be willing to move through. So when things stall or it feels like nothing is working, your mind starts going to all the wrong places. You start thinking something's off, that you're missing something, that your body isn't responding the way that it should. And the reason for this is because no one told you what the healing process actually involves. And if you don't understand that, it's really easy to misread what's happening. So in this episode, I want to walk you through five uncomfortable truths about healing. The things that if you knew to expect them would change how you interpret the entire healing process. So let's get into it. The first uncomfortable truth is that slow and steady wins. And most people underestimate what that actually means. One of the biggest disconnects I see in healing is the expectation around time. People come into this work thinking that a few weeks or even a few months of doing mind-body work should create significant lasting change, especially when they're being consistent. And when that doesn't happen, they start questioning whether it's working at all. And that expectation doesn't match what's actually required for change. If you have chronic symptoms, you're not dealing with something that developed overnight. You're dealing with patterns your body has been operating from for years, sometimes decades. Those patterns have been reinforced over and over again. And shifting that response is not something that happens quickly just because you've decided to start doing the work. Rewiring requires repetition, consistency, and enough time for your body to start recognizing a new way of responding as safe. And this is where most people interpret what the process should look like. Because we've been conditioned, especially through allopathic medicine, to believe that change comes from something big, a strong intervention, a fast result, a clear before and after. You just take this pill and everything will be better. And the idea is that if something works, it should work quickly and noticeably. But this kind of healing doesn't work like that. It's not built on these heroic efforts or big dramatic shifts that people make. It's built on small, repeated changes that compound over time. And the kind of changes that don't always feel significant in the moment, but they create a completely different outcome when they're done consistently. And because those steps feel small, people discount them. They think this isn't enough or this should be happening faster, or I hear from people that it just can't be that simple. I just need to do this. And so they start looking for something bigger, something stronger, something that feels like it will move the needle more quickly. But when they do that, they miss the fact that these small steps done consistently are the thing that actually rewires the response. So for most people with chronic symptoms, a realistic expectation for meaningful lasting change is not a few weeks or even a couple of months. It's closer to a minimum of eight months of consistent, targeted work. And let me emphasize targeted, not just a generalized protocol, targeted work to you. That's the framework where I consistently see real shifts happen, where the subconscious has had enough repetition to start responding differently and where those changes actually stick. Inside my program, this is exactly what we focus on daily targeted actions that are specific to the patterns your body has been operating from. And when that level of consistency is there, this is where I see the biggest changes happen. The same was true for me. When I stopped trying to piece all these different things together and just committed to doing the work consistently day after day, that's when things began to shift. Within that same kind of time frame, around that eight months, my symptoms were gone. Now that's not a guarantee, and it's not about chasing that specific timeline, but it is a reflection of what's possible when the work is done in a consistent, targeted way and actually given enough time to work. And at the same time, slow and steady doesn't mean dragging it out or being inconsistent, because I also see the opposite. People who spend years bouncing from one protocol to the next, starting and stopping, trying something for a few weeks, then switching when it doesn't give them immediate results. And in doing that, they extend the process far longer than it needs to be. And if that same time had been spent doing consistent, targeted work, staying with it, getting the right support, and actually following through, they would have been in a completely different place already. So this isn't about going slow for the sake of going slow. It's about being steady without forcing and staying in it long enough for your body to actually respond. Because healing isn't going to happen when you rush it. It doesn't happen when you keep restarting it. And it doesn't happen when you try to force it into a timeline. But it does happen through small steps, repeated consistently, long enough for your body to create change. Truth number two, you can't hate your body into healing. Now, most people aren't going to actually say that they hate their body, but if you listen to the way that they think about their symptoms or talk about their symptoms, there's often frustration, resentment, and distrust underneath that. The thoughts like, why is this happening to me? Or my body is broken, or I can't trust what my body is doing feel normal, but they shape how you relate to your body every single day. And a big reason this feels so normal is because of how we've been taught to see the body. When it comes to something like a broken bone or a cut, we 100% trust it. We don't question whether the body knows what it's doing. We don't panic and try to control it. We understand that the body is going to heal and we give it the space to do that. But when it comes to chronic symptoms, for some reason, that trust disappears. Now it's what's wrong? Why isn't this going away? Why is my body doing this? And instead of seeing the body as something that's responding or adapting, we start seeing it as something that's failing or working against us. So we trust it in one situation and then completely lose that trust in another. And that shift in how you relate to your body matters more than most people realize because healing isn't just about what your body is doing. It's also about how you're relating to what it's doing. If every symptom is met with frustration or fear or resistance, you're constantly reinforcing the idea that something is wrong, that your body isn't doing what it's supposed to do, that it needs to be fixed. And over time, that becomes a very dominant experience, not just the symptom itself, but all this tension that you have with it. A helpful way to see this is to really separate the symptom from your reaction to it. The symptom is one part of the experience. The way you respond to it is another. And for most people, that response is where the struggle actually gets amplified. Two people can experience the same symptom and have completely different outcomes. And that's because one can react with fear and frustration and they stay stuck in it, and the other responds with more neutrality or trust, and the body moves through it more easily. And the difference here isn't the symptom, it's the relationship that they have with their body. So this doesn't mean you have to like what you're feeling. It doesn't mean you have to pretend everything is fine. But it does mean that if you're consistently relating to your body as something that's failed you, working against you, or doing something wrong, that becomes the environment your body is operating within. You can't hate your body into healing. Instead, it happens when your body is no longer being met with that constant resistance. All right, truth number three. Most people aren't going to fully understand what you're going through. This is a hard one. One of the most uncomfortable parts of healing is that people don't expect how alone it can feel at times. Not because you don't have people around you, but because the people around you don't fully understand what you're experiencing. They expect their partner to get it, their family to be supportive in the way that they need, their friends to understand why they're not making certain choices or why things are feeling hard for them. But the reality is most people haven't lived this experience. They haven't dealt with chronic symptoms. They haven't navigated the mental and emotional side of it. They haven't had to question their body the way that you have. So they respond from their own lens. And sometimes that looks like minimizing it. Sometimes it looks like trying to fix it. Sometimes it looks not really acknowledging it at all. And this is where a lot of people get stuck because they're not just dealing with their own experience, they're also reacting to how other people are or aren't showing up for them. They're waiting for that understanding, the validation, someone to say the right thing so they can feel supported in what they're going through. Unfortunately, healing doesn't move forward based on whether other people understand you. And when your progress becomes dependent on how supported or validated you feel by others, it does create another layer of resistance in the process. This doesn't mean you shouldn't have support. It doesn't mean you should isolate yourself or pretend it doesn't matter, but it does mean adjust your expectations. Because when you stop expecting people to fully understand something they haven't experienced, you remove a lot of unnecessary frustration. This was a big one for me when I was experiencing my panic attacks. I would be frustrated that my husband wasn't doing anything about it when I was having them. And then I would say, you have no empathy and you don't understand what's going on, and I'm scared and I feel like I'm dying. And he would downplay and think it wasn't a big deal, or he just simply didn't know what to say. But I actually shifted my perception around this situation because of this frustration and realized I'm expecting him to do something that he doesn't know how or that he's never experienced before. And he also has a different way of seeing things than I do. I'm wired differently than he is. So asking him to come from a different perspective that isn't familiar to him just to make me feel safe, that was challenging to him and then frustrating to me. So to remove that frustration, I removed my expectations of knowing when to go to him. And we had those conversations of what he could do in those moments where I needed him. And also me knowing where to set the boundaries around those expectations. And then if I expected more than that and didn't get, that was my result of too high of expectations. So communication around what you and your partner or whatever the relationship is really helpful to know am I going too far with my expectations and what I'm expecting others to help me with in this situation? And when you do this, you stop making your healing dependent on something outside of you. Truth number four, what's happening in your life has a bigger impact than the food you're eating or the toxins you're trying to avoid. This is one of the most confronting truths for people because it shifts the focus away from what feels controllable and onto what they've been avoiding. A lot of people put a huge amount of energy into what they're eating, what they're avoiding when it comes to toxins and what they're exposed to. They're reading labels, eliminating foods, worrying about ingredients, and trying to control every possible input that could be affecting their body. And on the surface, this feels responsible. It feels like they're doing what they need to do to heal. But at the same time, there are areas in their life that are creating far more stress that they're not addressing. And we see this all the time. We see women in marriages that are on the rocks, where there's constant tension, disconnection, or things that aren't being said. And their body is responding to that every single day. We see strained relationships with parents where there's pressure, expectations, or unresolved dynamics that keep them in a constant state of stress when they're around them, or even just thinking about them. We see people in jobs that drain them, where they feel overwhelmed, undervalued, or stuck, but they're staying in it while trying to fix their symptoms on the side. And we see people who know they need to speak up, set boundaries, or make a change, but they're not doing it. So they keep saying yes when they really want to say no, they keep showing up in ways that they don't feel good, and their body is continuing to adapt to that. And all of that is happening every single day. So while the focus is going into the food and the toxins and all this external stuff, the bigger picture is being ignored because those areas require different kinds of decisions. Those areas in your life, they require change, discomfort, and they require you to show up differently in your life. And that's not as easy as changing simply what you're eating or what you're applying on your body. This is why so many people feel like they're doing everything right and still not seeing the changes that they expect. They're trying to control smaller inputs, but they're ignoring the bigger ones that their body is responding to consistently. Your body isn't just responding to what you eat, it's responding to the life you're living every single day, the environment you're in, the relationships you're in, the decisions you're making or avoiding. And if those things are consistently signaling stress, pressure, or misalignment, your body is going to continue adapting to that, regardless of how clean your diet in life is. Truth number five, healing isn't linear and avoiding the mess is going to keep you stuck. One thing that people don't expect while on their healing journey is how messy it can be. People think it should start getting better and just keep getting better. So when symptoms come back or they fluctuate or don't follow the path that they envisioned or expect, they immediately think something is wrong, that it's not working, and they've maybe done something to mess it up. But that expectation is what causes people to stop doing the work too early. And because healing isn't a clean linear process. It moves in cycles, it moves in layers. There are going to be periods where things feel better, and then there are periods where things feel unclear, they're uncomfortable, like nothing's happening at all. And none of that means you're back at the beginning. It means your body is still moving through what it needs to. And this is where a lot of people misread what's actually happening because we're looking for the symptoms to go away, but the symptoms don't go away until there's peace in the mind. So the work has to be done in the mind for the symptoms to go away. And if we're gauging progress by the symptoms going away, then we're really not gauging it accurately. We have to gauge it by what's going on in my mind. Symptoms are not a sign that something is wrong. In many cases, especially after doing deeper inner work, they're a sign that something is moving. The body got the permission to move forward through that healing process. And that is completing something that was previously stuck. And we see this all the time with our students. They'll be working on a project, addressing something that they've been avoiding, shifting a specific pattern or showing up differently in a situation. And then the following week, symptoms will flare. And instead of seeing that as a setback, we all celebrate together because it's an indication that their body is actually moving through the healing process, not stuck in it. But if you don't understand that, you'll interpret those moments completely different. You'll think something went wrong, that you that you triggered something, that you need to fix it or stop what you're doing. And that's where people continuously interrupt that process. But here's the part people subconsciously are in fear of. They avoid fully stepping into this work because they think it's going to be messier, more uncomfortable, harder than what they're currently experiencing. And the reality is it already is. What you're experiencing right now is already messy. It's already uncomfortable. It already feels uncertain, frustrating, and inconsistent. So avoiding the process because you think it's going to feel worse doesn't actually protect you from discomfort. It just keeps you in the version you're already in. The difference is that one leads somewhere and the other keeps you where you are. When you understand that healing isn't linear and that symptoms can be part of the process, you stop reacting to every fluctuation as if something has gone wrong. And you start allowing your body to move through what it's already trying to complete. Because the goal isn't to make the process feel perfect. It's to stay in it long enough, even when it feels messy, for real change to happen. Maybe as you're listening to this, you realize you've already run into some of these, or maybe you haven't yet. But either way, consider this your pamphlet. Not something that tells you exactly what to do, but something that prepares you for what this process of healing actually involves. So you don't misread it when it actually does happen. So let's quickly recap the five uncomfortable truths. It's knowing ahead of time that this is going to take longer than you think, and that slow, consistent work is what actually creates change. It's understanding that how you relate to your body matters, and that being in constant frustration or resistance with it is going to make this process harder. It's recognizing that not everyone around you is going to fully understand what you're going through and not making your progress dependent on that. It's seeing that your life, the relationships you're in, the decisions you're avoiding, the environments you stay in has a bigger impact than the things you're trying to control externally. And it's expecting that this is going to feel messy at times and not making that mean something is going wrong when it does. Yes, these may all be uncomfortable, but they will never be as uncomfortable as staying stuck in the patterns driving your symptoms. You get to choose which hard you want. If you're tired of living around your symptoms and just want your life back, the answer isn't another fix. It's changing the subconscious patterns behind them. That's exactly what we do inside my program Evolve, where we work step by step with the subconscious patterns, keeping your body stuck so it can finally get the green light to heal. You can find details about Evolve by clicking on the Start Here link in the show notes. Remember, your body isn't broken. Your symptoms are the language your body uses to show you what needs to change. When the pattern changes, the body follows. Stay rebellious, trust your body, and I'll see you in the next episode.