The VH Podcast, Episode 14: Mindset and Healing

Welcome back to another episode of The Vibrant Health Podcast! This week, we talk about all things mindset and healing.

Whew. Mindset is a HUGE issue that is not being addressed much in my community. That is why I wanted to break the ice and talk about this topic today.

Mindset can make or break your healing journey (ask me how I know). I have struggled for a long time with getting my head in the right place while healing. I am just now (after 3+ years) FINALLY getting to the place where I am understanding the role my mind has played on my wellness journey.

In today’s episode, we talk about:

• How mindset can hold you back or propel you forward.
• Why healing is not “reward-based”.
• Why the idea of perfection is a killer.
• 3 tips to help you be successful on your own healing journey.

Now, let’s get this party started! 🙂

Missed previous episodes? You can find them all here.

Links From This Week’s Episode:

• My Personal Health Journey
• Grace While Healing
• How to Track Your Progress on Your Health Journey
• Health Assessment with Lydia
• Hair Analysis with Lydia
• Information about HTMA and Minerals

Listen to The Vibrant Health Podcast :: Episode 14

Read The Vibrant Health Podcast Transcript :: Episode 14

Jessica: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 14 of the Vibrant Health Podcast. I am Jessica from DeliciousObsessions.com and I’m here with my co-host, Lydia of DivineHealthfromtheInsideOut.com.

Today, we’re going to be talking about preparing for your health journey.

I think this is something that people don’t really give much thought to, but it’s definitely worth looking at.

As Lydia has always told me (she’s told me this many, many times), health is not a destination, it’s a journey. And getting your head in the right place before you embark on a new protocol or a health plan or whatever it may be can really make a lot of difference in how you handle the journey, how you manage your stress, and how you deal with potential setbacks.

It’s something that I have personally struggled with. I’m finding for myself personally that things like eating correctly and taking my supplements and managing my stress better and doing all of these things that I need to be doing every day, that is all relatively easy. But my mindset is one thing that trips me up over and over again.

So I am finding that mindset is really a huge key to making sure you’re successful on your healing journey and allowing yourself to be patient, give yourself grace. Things are not always going to go perfectly. It may not always be easy. But we just have to be kind to ourselves when we embark on something like this and have patience and be committed to doing it, but also understanding that we have to be gentle with ourselves, too.

So Lydia, you want to hop on here and say hello?

Lydia: Hello, hello. Yes, we have a heavy topic to get into today. But it’s worth going there because so many people are not feeling well. They are not healthy today. They’re struggling to some degree and making strived efforts for, at least a lot of the people that we, Jessica and I both are hearing from our readers, my clients.

It’s a challenge to feel empowered to continue. There are times when I hear people say, “I just don’t want to live my life. I don’t want to keep doing this. Why do I have to worry about everything I eat?”

The frustration of being where we’re at, unfortunately, as a human race, let’s just be frank here…

Jessica: I know. It’s a sad state.

Lydia: We have to step back for a second and realize, as a human race, especially if you live in the United States of America (we’ll just focus on that because we’re both from here), the food quality has been poor for a very long time.

If you go back to 1936 or so, there was a Senate document where they discussed the depletion of the minerals in the soil. That’s almost a hundred years ago. And they haven’t done anything to remedy that. It’s only gotten worse and worse and worse.

In the 80s, we had the wonderful advent of high fructose corn syrup. And then we’ve got things coming out at us left and right. I’m not even going to go there.

But if you delved into warning about health, I’m sure you know there are many things that are combating our health these days.

So once you figure all that part out, then you get going on your mission to start to get healthy, you may find yourself struggling to keep going.

Jessica: Now that we’ve taken a look at where we are as a society and as a culture and the difference between your alternative world and your allopathic world, there are three takeaway points that we want to talk about with you guys.

For those of you that are planning on embarking on a healing journey – and people make look at you funny when you say, “Oh, I’m on a healing journey,” but that’s truly what it is. We really, as a world, are quite sick as a whole. And so we really do need to spend some time working towards healing our bodies.

So if you’re ready to embark on a healing journey, the first thing we want to communicate to you is to realize that there are no quick fixes. Despite what we see in the media, we see commercials on the TV and magazines about “pop this pill and whatever your ailment is, it’s going to be fixed.”

But when you’re healing your body from the inside out, there are not going to be any quick fixes. You may respond really well; you may see some improvement pretty quickly. Some people do, some people don’t. But just realize that there are not going to be any quick fixes.

And I’m sure Lydia, you dealing with clients, I’m sure that you have to deal with this kind of thought process a lot with your clients.

Lydia: Yes. There are definitely no quick fixes. I think we do get it in our head (thanks in part to the media, thanks in part to the current allopathic models we just discussed), even if you’re looking at a health magazine, for example, you’ll see a lot of products in the magazine and they’re making all these claims.

A lot of people are taking the latest thing, whatever it is. They’re, “Oh, I’m taking turmeric,” and, “Oh, I’m eating goji berries,” and this and that.

That’s all well and good, but is that really going to deepen your health?

I feel there’s a lot of striving in light of that. People are just grabbing whatever they can because they hear it fixes this or helps this or helps that.

Yeah, in some regard, it may. I’m not against taking turmeric. I’m not trying to say this is bad. I’ll have clients come to me and they’ll be showing me this list of supplements they’re taking and they’ll tell me why they’re taking it.

They’re taking all this random stuff because, “I heard it’s good for this. I heard it’s good for that. Well, I assume, I think I maybe have pylori. I need to take a lot of zinc” or whatever it is.

And we still have this mindset. We have this mindset of placating symptoms as well as these quick fixes like the latest diet fad or whatever is going to get you healthy because “so and so, they created this diet and that’s what healed them. So I’m going to go do it and I’m going to heal myself too.” People aren’t getting better and they’re frustrated and they’re wondering why.

So I feel we have to step back for one second and say, “Am I going into healing myself with a mindset that’s going to only frustrate me?” Does that make sense?

Jessica: Very well said. Yes, absolutely.

Lydia: So I’d rather say, “Well, your health is going to come to you in layers if you’re someone who’s decided, ‘You know what? I just want to keep doing everything I can to stay and get healthier.’”

And if that’s where you’re at, just know that it’s going to take time because you’re going to see things improve, but then you’re going to see other things maybe shift and come up. You’re going to wonder, “What the heck? Why, all of a sudden, is my hair is turning white? Why am I gaining weight here? Why do I get headaches now” or whatever.

When you start to really go deep and heal the body, it can shift. It’s not this linear process. There’s no diet that the whole world can go do for 30 days and all of a sudden, “Yehey! I’m healed.”

And I know intellectually that people really do know that. It’s just psychologically, we wish it weren’t true. And so we listen to these mindsets that we hear all the time.

And they’re pervasive. Everywhere you turn, someone’s promising you some great thing by eating a goji berry or taking this pill or the newest supplement on the market or whatever.

So it really is something we have to constantly remind ourselves of until we get it so deeply at the core that we’re not tripped up by it all the time. Does that make sense?

Jessica: Absolutely! And that actually is the perfect segue way into our second point for us to be able to be patient with ourselves and recognize that healing does come in layers like you mentioned.

We may see an improvement in an area, but some other new stuff may pop up. That could be really frustrating.

I’ve had that kind of stuff happen to me, too. One thing will get regulated, so to speak, and then something else may creep up that I hadn’t even been thinking about.

So, that can be really frustrating for people.

I think you said this in our podcast before that the path to healing is not linear. It’s going to be all over the place. You may be jogging left and then right and then up and then down. So you have to be able to be patient with yourself.

And that is an area that I personally really struggle with. I am hard on myself by nature. I’m a type A personality, perfectionist, things need to be done the right way the first time.

So the patience aspect is something that I have really struggled with. And I know a lot of you guys are struggling with it, too. So just be patient and recognize that the healing is a process and as you peel back a layer, you may be surprised with something that comes up underneath that.

Lydia: To add to that (this is another layer of these mentalities), you put forth effort, you should get x result.

Maybe you’ve gotten through, “Well, I understand allopathic model isn’t the greatest. I understand there are no quick fixes. I get it. I have to just keep taking care of myself, self-care. I have to get rest, blah-blah-blah. I get it. I’m doing this. I’m willing to commit.”

But three months down the road, all of a sudden, you’re like, “Argh! Why am I not feeling awesome all the time?”

And then I get the people who are like, “Well, I eat so healthy. How come I still have this problem and that problem?”

It’s so hard because I think some people do look at it in terms of their actions and they think they’re doing so great (which I’m not saying that they aren’t), it’s just I wish that that was all it was.

“You performed well enough. Here you go! You get an A with your health. It’s all good.”

It doesn’t work like that, unfortunately, because the body has to uproot so much more than you will ever realize. You can’t understand and I don’t even understand everything about our health. It’s so ridiculously complicated.

So one thing I think people need to give themselves grace on is there is no perfect diet. There is never going to be a perfect day where you do everything that you think you’re supposed to do for your health perfectly. And so it’s really all about taking steps forward and moving towards health and always just keep refining the process.

Sometimes you’ll take a couple of steps back because life gets busy. It just does. Stress comes in many forms. We live in a toxic environment.

So we have to know that our efforts are worth it because it’s much better to be struggling forward to some degree than to just say, “Screw it! I’m just going to eat McDonald’s. I’m going to party all night. I’m going to do whatever I want because I’m going to die eventually.”

That mindset is ridiculous. Come on, let’s admit it. That’s ridiculous. It’s just ignoring your own personal responsibility to care for your body.

You can certainly make that choice (and people do all the time), but don’t come complaining to the people that are trying when you feel like total garbage when you’re only 50 years and you’re falling apart.

So, not to be judgmental there, but it is a common mentality that I wish it wasn’t. But the truth is people don’t want to work hard to stay healthy. They think that they should just have it automatically. We’re just not in a world that that’s going to be possible.

You don’t have to be perfect. You won’t have a perfect path of healing. It’s going to be messy. And that’s okay. You can look back every six months or so and say, “You know what? I forgot! I don’t have that rash on my hand anymore. Wait a minute! I used to freak out and get really anxious when I had to take a test” or whatever it is.

You many not remember because you’re so enveloped in the doing and trying to progress that you forget the progress you’ve already had. And I see that happen all the time with people. I just want to remind you to never forget how far you have gotten even if it doesn’t seem fast enough for you.

Jessica: Absolutely! And I actually have a couple of videos on my YouTube channel that discuss this. I have one on just grace while healing, essentially. I think I shot it at a time when I was feeling down about myself.

I have another one about tracking your progress. I am a very rewards-driven person. If I put in this amount of effort, I expect some kind of return on that investment essentially, always looking at the ROI.

So for me, I figured out a way that I could track my progress and give me that reward system without completely overwhelming myself and making myself feel like I wasn’t good enough or I wasn’t doing things good enough.

I’ll definitely leave some links to that. And that’s actually another perfect tie-in to our third point and the last thing that we want you to think about with your healing journey, to realize that it’s a commitment.

You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to do everything perfectly. Like Lydia said, there’s no perfect diet. Nothing that you’re going to do is going to be perfect and you should not strive to be perfect because that’s just going to create more stress than you need.

It is a commitment. When you do something like this, if you embark on some sort of new protocol or health plan or whatever it may be, you are making a commitment, but you are so worth it.

You have the option of addressing your issues now when you can, when you’re “healthy” enough to address them or waiting until a lot later in life when things may be more catastrophic. You may end up with something life-threatening, you may be to a point where you don’t have the ability to heal as quickly or as easily potentially.

What is that saying? Prevention is the best medicine essentially. So that’s what we should focus on now.

It’s hard, I think, for people. Like you said, a lot of people don’t want to put in the work or they may feel like help should come easy or if they do x, y and z, then everything is going to be fine.

Just realize that you do have to commit to it, but you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to do everything perfectly. That’s just going to be a journey, but it’s totally worth it.

Lydia: It definitely is. Like you said, every individual is worth self-care. Unfortunately, the modern day American – let’s go with Americans. I mean, it could be pervasive across the world, too. But currently, we don’t value ourselves.

I’m saying that looking at the broad population. We think that by going out partying and, “Oh, I’m going to drink beer. I’m going to find myself a giant TV. I’m going to go on an awesome vacation.”

And there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that kind of thing in general, but when you look at healing, a lot of people, they just don’t value themselves enough to take the effort.

For example, let me just say this. One of the things that I tell people all the time is they really need to get to bed earlier, get better sleep. You don’t have to be perfect with this, but you need to try to remember bedtime. It’s important.

And a lot of Americans stay up. They’ve burnt the midnight oil. They go out late. I did this for three years when I was young. I didn’t even care. “I’m going to do whatever.” That then, it didn’t affect me as much as it would now. I took it for granted.

So we can all relate to that as adults because we probably all, to some degree, did that. We did our share of partying or whatever. And here we are and we’re like, “I can’t do that anymore.”

Well guess what? If you look at it in that way, you’re not going to be able to afford to eat the junk food all the time or drink five beers at a party or skip meals, simple things like that.

One day, it’s going to turn around and bite you in the butt so much that you’re like, “Whoa! I don’t understand. What’s going on here? That has never happened to me before.”

And that’s what I hear a lot, people wondering, “Wait a second! Why is it all of a sudden I have all of these health problems?” It’s like, “Okay. Well, maybe some life changes could have really helped. And maybe you need to look at that.” And it’s not just, “I have to eat some perfect diet and not feel deprived.” Well, no. You’re not depriving yourself. You’re giving to yourself. You’re providing for yourself. You’re taking care of yourself. You’re loving yourself.

I don’t understand why people think eating healthy is deprivation. I eat some pretty darn good food, better than McDonald’s. It’s delicious. And I feel awesome. How is that deprivation? Please explain that to me.

But we have this mindset. It’s literally a kneejerk reaction that people automatically assume, “Well, being healthy sucks. It’s too hard. It’s not fun. I have to eat tofu and love vegetables” and whatever people believe it is, you know what I’m saying?

Or they think, for some reason, it’s super legalistic. You have to eat by this certain list of rules or something.

Something I noticed and the reason I was just telling you about this earlier was it was my birthday recently. People know what I do for a living. They know I’m a nutritional therapist. I’m an advocate of health. It’s funny to me because a number of people are like, “I hope you’re going to let yourself eat a piece of cake or have fun. Eat something bad for me.”

What is that about? Why do we have to equate fun with something that’s bad for us and assume that because something we do that’s good for us isn’t as fun or delicious or awesome?

Do you know what I’m saying? It’s a message, one little tiny thought process that I just thought about it like, “That’s so interesting that people want me to eat junk food and they think that I’ll have fun if I do.”

So we have this weird hangup. We just do culturally. We have these weird hangups and we assume that being healthy sucks and we can’t have fun.

That said, it really can be fun. Some people are a little sicker than others and they do have to have a little bit more restriction for a while. But it doesn’t have to be that way forever. You can let your hair down a little bit.

You can make a healthier version of cake or you could have a glass of organic wine. Maybe that’s not such a big deal for some people. But maybe we also can realize some people don’t want to feel like crap the next day because it’s just what everyone else is doing.

I feel that it does take a commitment to yourself to, number one, make the right choices that you know you can make, but also not be hard on yourself within that. Make the best choices you can as you can and keep doing the best you can. But if you want to have a cookie, have the cookie and just move on. It’s a choice.

And guess what’s going to happen? You’re probably going to feel like crap and you’ll be like, “Oh, yeah. I’m eating cookies. I don’t feel so great. Maybe I won’t do that the next time.” And really, it’s about learning to live in this world.

But I just wish that people would value themselves so much that when they’re out in public, they don’t feel they have to just be like everyone else. And then I wish more people would not put pressure on the people who are trying to be different and stand up for themselves and value themselves and say, “No, really. I’m actually going out tonight without the alcohol. Quite frankly, I’m capable of that.”

I think that’s part of it. We think we can’t have fun unless we’re drunk or high on sugar.

Jessica: That’s a topic for a totally different podcast.

Lydia: I know.

Jessica: I think that’s a side pressure that a lot of people have whether it be from a spouse or family member or friends or co-workers or whatever. That can really be hard on you if you’re really committed to trying to heal. It’s hard to deal with that kind of stuff.

That’s definitely something we can talk about in the future. That’s another level of mindset that you have to get to be able to handle that.

So the three main takeaways for today’s episode are really to, one, realize that there are no quick fixes despite what you may see in the media. And it doesn’t even have to be like the typical, pharmaceutical drug commercial.

Like what Lydia was saying, it was making me think of when I read through my yoga journal magazine. That’s mostly natural-based and everything, but there’s always advertisements in there for this new kind of protein powder that’s going to “change your life” or this specific supplement or “you should be taking this in order to feel better” and that kind of stuff.

It’s really everywhere. It’s in the alternative health world. It’s in the mainstream world, everywhere. So there are no quick fixes.

I’m not saying that you won’t see results and that you won’t see results fast. Some people see results really fast. Just know that you’re not going to pop a pill and instantly be healed. I think making that realization before you start out is really important.

Number two, be able to be patient with yourself and recognize that healing comes in layers. Like we mentioned, something may resolve, but another issue may creep up. So you have to be able to be patient and recognize that.

And then lastly, realize that it’s a commitment and that you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to do everything perfectly. There’s not going to be a perfect diet. There’s not going to be a perfect routine. You have to make that commitment to yourself, but also be able to give yourself a little bit of flexibility and be grateful with yourself.

And that ties in to number two with being patient, too.

Lydia: Can I say something really quick? I think maybe I missed something. When it comes to that health come in layers, for me personally (and I see this happen for a lot of people, so I feel like it’s maybe relevant), I spend a lot of times studying and researching and gaining knowledge about, “Okay, well I know that this is healthy and that’s not healthy.” But I literally couldn’t physically do the thing quite yet.

For example, I know about healing my gut. “Heal your gut, heal your gut. It’s the seat of your immune system, blah-blah-blah.” I knew I needed to get gluten out and all of these things. It took me months before, sometimes, I actually did the thing that I intellectually knew and made it my own habit. Does that make sense?

I think a lot of people will hear all the stuff that’s healthy, “Okay. I know I shouldn’t be doing this and I shouldn’t be doing that. I probably should go gluten-free.”

And they’re just not there. Know that the more you come into all truth when it comes to health for yourself. It becomes not only your intellectual knowledge, but it becomes so ingrained within you that you’re like, “I’m ready to do this.”

And I think some people see where they think they should be and they don’t start somewhere and they hold themselves back because for some reason they think, “Well, I got to do all this to get healthy,” rather than just say, “Okay, you know what? Instead of trying to get over there, I’m going to stop eating hydrogenated oil. I’m going to try to buy better meat. I’m going to try to cut back on sugar a little bit for my family. I’m just going to make three changes, simple changes. It might take a while, but I’m just going to start there.”

And then, maybe, in six months, you’ll be ready to tackle something else.

I think that that’s a big hang-up for people. They hold themselves back because they look at this end goal again. Do you know what I’m saying?

So I want to bring that up because I hear that all the time, especially with my clients. And they feel this shame and this guilt that they’re not doing what they intellectually know that they think they should.

Just be real gentle with yourself and don’t put a heavy burden on yourself that you’re just not ready to bare.

Some people literally just need to take one simple step and do it and commit to it and make it their thing. It’s just their habit. And everyone’s going to tackle their health at different speeds.

So don’t compare yourself to other people.

Jessica: Amen!

Well, I think that’s actually a good place to wrap up for the day. But if you guys, the listeners, have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to let us know. You can go to either one of our sites and send us an e-mail through there.

Also, if this information in this podcast resonated with you and you know others that might benefit from the information we shared, please go ahead and share it.

We would also love if you could leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher if you’re over there listening to it.

And if you’re on our sites or YouTube listening to this podcast, we’ll have links down below where you could just click over and leave us a review.

Whenever you share our podcast or leave us a review, it really helps us reach more people with our message of health and wellness. So we really appreciate it because we want to be able to help as many people as possible.

Lastly, if you’re looking for more information on natural living or health and wellness or you want some new recipes, make sure you check out our sites because we’ve got you covered there. There are thousands of articles probably at this point.

You can reach me at my site, DeliciousObsessions.com. And then Lydia is over at DivineHealthfromtheInsideOut.com.

And so we are going to go ahead and wrap up. Hope you guys have a great day.

Lydia: Thanks for listening. Take care.