no map for body weeks like this
plus 18 things I remind myself - and my clients - when my body feels like a stranger.
I’ve been moving through one of the hardest weeks I’ve had with chronic illness in years. It’s been foggy, painful, exhausting.
Even writing that feels complicated. Not because I want to hide it—but because I know how quickly vulnerability can be misunderstood. The internet has a way of turning pain into a spectacle, or mistaking honesty for crisis. And sometimes, I just don’t have the energy to reassure everyone that I’m okay, or to manage what happens when people worry.
But I also can’t not say it.
Our social media feeds are already filled to the brim with highlight reels—people’s best moments, best photos, best days. For me, if I can’t show up authentically, I struggle to show up at all. So I try to always share from a place of truth. Not curated resilience, not toughness dressed in silver linings—just truth.
The truth is: I am okay, thanks to the privileges of medical care and access to food (alongside loving support and all the healing I’ve done the last fifteen years). And, also, this has been a really hard week.
When I talk about body grief, about pacing and pain and the unpredictable reality of living inside a body—this is what I mean. Not in theory, in real time.
I’ve lived with chronic illness long enough to know that this isn’t a detour from my work—it’s part of it. These experiences shape how I show up with clients. They deepen the way I hold space. They remind me (again and again) that healing isn’t linear, and that strength doesn’t always look like pushing through.
Gentle note: I’m keeping the bulk of this behind the paywall today, mainly because I need a quieter, safer space — a space for the parts that feel too raw or too easily misread for the public feed; a space for nuance, and for what doesn’t need to be cleaned up before being shared.
Inside this post, I’m writing about:
how there is clarity in body grief
why uncertainty in my body once led me toward disordered eating
18 things I remind my clients—and myself—when having a body feels really fucking hard
being a practitioner in the mental health field while also being open about my own history
what it means to stay instead of leave when we’re struggling with chronic illness, pain, or…anything else
and a poem I wrote about what it might mean to not have a body at all
By the way, if finances are a barrier to becoming a paid subscriber, please send me an email so I can help get you access.