Well with Arielle Lorre - 368: Health Anxiety, Parasites and the Worst Things We've Done for Wellness with Elizabeth Endres

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

Elizabeth Endres is the founder of Sweats and the City and Orro App, and the host of The Wellness Process podcast. She joins the show to talk about the delicate balance between being your own health advocate and becoming health obsessed, having health anxiety, why there is always an emotional root to physical symptoms, how journal speak changed her life, and wellness practices she cannot get behind. We also talk about our shared, weird diagnosis of Toxo (parasites) and why she believes in annual cleanses that are normal in other cultures.This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.Visit nutrafol.com and use code BLONDE to get $10 off your first month’s subscription & free shipping.Visit soaak.com/blonde and use code BLONDE at checkout to get your first month free. That’s S-O-A-A-K dot com slash BLONDE, and use code BLONDE for the free first month. Visit qualialife.com/BLONDE for 50% off of Qualia Senolytic and code BLONDE at checkout for an additional 15% off.Go to prolonlife.com/BLONDE for 15% off a 5-day nutrition program. Visit purelyelizabeth.com and use BLONDE for 20% off your first purchase. Go to Quince.com/blonde for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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So, would auto-hueers without your re-sadviseur or sunnycars. The following podcast is a dear media production. In a world of ever-changing,

wellness trends and information, what does it mean to truly be well? I'm Ariel Lorry and I'm going to explore this with you. I am bringing you candid conversations that will equip you with everything you need to live your best life and look good doing it. Think of well as your go-to resource for all of the latest in wellness and me as your internet bestie. Well, let's get into it. Hi, everybody, welcome to the show. I know so many of you already know and love my guest today, Elizabeth Endress. And if you don't yet, you will definitely love her after this episode. So she had been on my radar for a long time. She co-founded sweats in the city and their videos would always come up on my Instagram. They did reviews of workout classes. And I remember always being

struck by how beautiful she was. And when we finally sat down after years of following each other, I was really struck by just how self-aware and how introspective she is and how despite having this really kind of deep innate determination to understand her body and understand her mind, I think, as well. She still really strives for balance in all of it. And I think that something that so many of us probably unfortunately can relate to is feeling chronically unwell. And not finding any answers and trying all the things and being our own advocate, but the tricky thing about being our own health advocate is that it's really difficult not to get health obsessed and cross over into the health anxiety area. And I know that this is something that I've been

struggling with myself when you're experiencing these very real things and very real symptoms and not necessarily getting anywhere with doctors, but you know something is wrong. And so you're advocating for yourself, but how do you also set that aside and not become obsessive? I don't know. It's a tricky thing. So anyway, we talk about that. We talk about things like parasites. We were both diagnosed with the same parasite, which was kind of strange. We talk about wellness practices that she does not support navigating the world as a highly sensitive person, journal speak, which I've been doing now. And much, much more, she also has an amazing podcast, the wellness process, which is now on Dear Media, she is just a breath of fresh air in the wellness space. So please enjoy Elizabeth Endress.

Welcome. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here. Yeah, really looking forward to talking to you. I was just telling you before we started recording that I feel like we have so many parallels in our stories. Circumstances are different, but we've been through a lot of similar things and have both been in the wellness space for a minute. And I feel like that's informed a lot of our experience. and our choices. So I'm sure that, you know, you need no introduction to my audience, but just give a brief background who you are and what you do. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for having me. I relate to so much of your story so much. And I've been listening to your podcast for a long time. So it's very cool to be here. My name is Elizabeth Endress. I've been in the wellness space for almost 10 years. I've been living in New York. And I started off a blog at the time called Sweats in the City and I was reviewing workouts in New York City with my roommate at the time, Dale. We still do it to this day, but my journey has really expanded into the healing space and wellness just based on

my own personal kind of health and healing journey that I was basically had no choice but to really dive into. So I've since started a podcast called the wellness process about six months ago and I just talked to people like you. I talk to people who are healers, doctors, everything in between to talk about their stories and their healing modalities and all of that. Talk about how you were forced into this place that you're in now. Because I feel like that's how a lot of us end up here. You had a lot of experiences leading up to where you are now. And I've heard you talk about as far back as being like a young kid and being hyper-sensitive and hyper self-aware.

And I'm like, oh yeah, I had that too. But my solution was drugs and alcohol. So I'm always interested to hear how people now. navigate that where they don't fall into that kind of lifestyle. Yeah, I mean, I don't even know where to begin. It really goes back pretty far. And I've come a long way with learning that growing up is a very sensitive, delicate, difficult child. And I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that labeling and kind of how it shaped me. And I felt really deeply always. And I now view it as such a superpower. And I think it's really informed the work that I do and the way that I'm able to connect with people.

but for a long time it was a detriment. And because I felt so deeply always, I didn't always know what to do with it. And I think that over time that sort of built up and I really believe we have this reservoir of what we're able to handle, whether it's traumas, big T or little T, it doesn't have to be anything major or, you know, just different experiences that we've gone through different sicknesses, different chronic things. It all adds up. And I think that at a certain point, well, actually probably earlier than I even realized, mine was sort of overflowing. And I started having chronic symptoms. I mean, as early as childhood, I had a lot of stomach issues. I've had skin issues. I had a heart issue in college that ended up, I had to get a pacemaker. So I've had a lot of like weird stuff. It turned into diverticulitis. It turned into pelvic pain. And at a certain point, it really pushed me to go outside of the typical routes that people might go to solve these kind of things. You know, of course I believe in medicine and doctors are amazing and they've saved my life at certain points. But I discovered the emotional root cause of a lot of my symptoms. And it's completely changed my life and really made me

adapt kind of my career path as well. What do you attribute that accumulation of things to? I mean, now that you've been doing the emotional piece of the work, like, did you feel like you had some traumas? Do you feel like it was just this hyper sensitivity? Because I feel like I've also like gone through life feeling like a lemon. Because it's always something, always to the point where people are like, maybe there's nothing wrong with you and it's just in your head, like that kind of thing. And psychosomatic symptoms are real. I'm sure that you've had all of these things said to you as well. And I'm like, no, no, they're like very real things. Yeah. And I look back on my own experience. I don't have any traumas. I don't have any of the adverse childhood events. Like maybe, you know, some antibiotic use when I was

younger, like these kind of things. But I think when we're in the wellness. world. We try so hard to find like a causation, like find something concrete and then make correlations within that. So have you been able to find anything where you're like, oh yeah, this is what it was? Or was it just like life being lifey? You know, as with the chronic symptoms, I was always hoping to be able to pinpoint like, oh, it's this infection or it's this big thing. And similarly with my childhood and the way that I grew up, I think that I did not, I was very lucky to not have any big T traumas. It was just a sensitive person trying to navigate in a small town and I really felt like I belonged somewhere more challenging, more exciting, more invigorating. And there was nothing

major. I did do the Hoffman process this spring and stuff came up and there were definitely things that I missed and there were things that maybe didn't go perfectly, but I certainly can't complain about my childhood. And I really think it's, for me, a big part is like my innate personality and, you know, the way that I feel things and I definitely feel things in a way more intense way than other people. So something very small could have happened and it just impacted me differently. I relate so much to what you're saying about there always being something because there is for me. And it's impacted my relationships, friendships. My family definitely views me as like they're a little on eggshells because they don't know if it's going to be a parasite or an infection or lime or, you know, people kind of start to take you less seriously.

But I've really enjoyed connecting with people that get it. Like I always say, people who get it, like they really get it. And you tend to be one of those people, I feel like. And it doesn't necessarily have to be something big. Now, if there has been something big, that can really inform, I believe, the way that your body holds on to these chronic conditions. And it's become really apparent to me that your body would rather feel physical pain or a chronic condition of some sort.

It literally can create them. and it would rather experience that sensation than the underlying emotions because they can be really painful even if there was nothing major that went on. Interesting. I want to dive into that a little bit more. So what you're saying is rather than feel sadness, for example, your body would rather have some sort of, I know that you had like chronic pelvic pain, right? Is that an example of that? Yes, perfect example and pelvic pain for anyone listening that has it. And it's extremely common. Just no one's talking about it because it's uncomfortable and has some level of shame attached to it and all of that. But it's a great example of the body manifesting a symptom,

which it can literally do. I've literally received test results for like a UTI test. And that day had a major pelvic flare just because of seeing the result. It's so crazy and it's so opened my mind up to what the mind is actually capable of. But essentially, the body would rather create these symptoms because it thinks it's protecting you. It thinks that the emotional pain that you might be feeling underneath is actually way worse than a symptom. And by the way, it also keeps you really busy.

And I was really busy for 10 years. I was running from doctor to doctor. I was on Reddit. I was in Facebook support groups. I mean, it was hell. But like, you also kind of have to go to those places when you're so desperately seeking an answer. and I wouldn't have changed anything about my process other than like, I wish I knew all along that there actually was a solve because there were moments where I thought that there wasn't.

But it keeps you really busy. And I think so many, especially women, stay really busy with this whackamol game. Wackamol. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. It's like you take care of one thing, another thing pops up. Yes. And I definitely have the experience of being on Reddit, which is not a good place to be.

Bad place all around. Yeah. Bad place all around. Reddit, we don't like you. But I mean, sometimes when you're not getting answers from anybody else, like there is this fine line of being your own advocate and I hate this term, but like doing your own research. Yeah, of course. When you're not getting answers from anybody and you know something is wrong. And then also like the other end of that spectrum where it's like, I know you've talked about this. If you're looking for something, you're going to find something. The holiday season is here,

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special offer. Again, that's prolonlife.com slash blonde. When it comes to my food, I am really having a lot of things that are kind of warm and fall inspired. I just had my breakfast bowl. It was so delicious. I made oats, and then I added my purely Elizabeth original ancient grain granola on top with some berries. Sometimes I like to do blueberries, like sauteed, so it's almost like a compote. And then I add some cinnamon. It is chef's kiss. So why I love the Purely Elizabeth original ancient grain granola, there are a few reasons. So the recipe is made with organic oats and nutritious ancient grains and superfood seeds like

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I bring a bag of it when I travel and I just snack on it on the flight. And I also love having it with my nut milk just as cereal. There's so many ways to enjoy it. Another thing that I actually did recently was I made this muffin recipe that I've been testing and I crumbled some of the ancient grain granola on top, almost like a crunchy sort of strusel situation. So good. So many ways to enjoy it. So head to purelyelisabeth.com and use the code blonde at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. Again, that's purelyelisabeth.com and the code is blonde for 20% off your first purchase. So how do you navigate that and keep that balance where it's like, no, I know something is off and I want to get to the bottom of it. And I'm also not trying to like uncover all of these

things that don't necessarily lend themselves to like this whole puzzle. That's a, that's an intense question. And I think it's something that so many people deal with without even realizing it. I think that you're right. If you go looking, you will find something. Now, for me, when I had pelvic pain, I just to give an example, was convinced that I had this thing called an embedded UTI, where like an infection lives within your bladder, and that's why you have these like chronic spells of pain. And so I went looking and I did all of the urinalysis. I did like MRI tests on my bladder, like all these complicated, very expensive tests. And every time there would be something because, of course, like, there's going to be some level of bacteria in your urine. It's just what's there.

Another example of it is that, you know, I went down the naturopathic healing side of things, and I discovered that I had Lyme disease. I discovered that I had high levels of mold. I had, you know, high levels of heavy metals. Toxoplasmosis. I had that too. Yes, girl, I saw. Interesting one. Still not really sure about the toxo, but it was there. like I treated it. I don't know. I haven't retested because again, I'm kind of like now in the space of like avoiding the testing. And I don't mean to say like no one should test for anything. That's certainly not the message. But it's a delicate balance between having to be your own

advocate, doing a ton of research because it's literally all you can do when doctors aren't necessarily solving it for you. And then also not allowing those findings because they will be there to entirely shape you in your experience and being able to take it as data and take it with a grain of salt, which has taken me a very long time to get to. And, you know, I'll still get blood results back. I had blood test done last week just like as an annual and I had really high levels of B12. And the obsessive part of my brain wants to like go down the like is something terribly wrong with my liver path of like, you know, it's alarming to see when things are off. But we also have to know that like the body isn't perfect and things will come up and findings will occur.

Yeah. I think it's hard because we live in this time of optimization and like data driven health and we have all of these new tools at our hands, whether it's like blood work frequently, people doing it four times a year, even more, wearable trackers and devices that are like telling us how we feel. I had to stop wearing my aura ring. Mine's not on right now either. But sometimes I would wake up and be like, all right, it's going to be a great day. And then I look at my score and it's like bad. And I'm like, oh, maybe I do feel like shit. And like to your point about how powerful thoughts can be. But yeah, like we do get these incidental findings and I had blood work recently and I had like really high, not really high, high like IGM, just like antibodies.

And my rheumatologist was like, yeah, like everything's normal. And I'm like, okay. And I'm just, I'm going to go with that. Like I'm not going to go down that road because, you know, like you listen to my podcast. I've been having these issues since the whole Botox poisoning incident a year ago. But sometimes, like, it is better to leave things alone. But it's hard to know when to do that. Yes. And it's also hard, you know, we are people that are our own health advocates. We're probably pretty aware and intelligent people when this is happening.

And if you see something that's off, you know, our brains have been taught that that's a problem. That should be flagged. And I think that back pain is a really good example of this. And I should also give credit. This work that I'm talking about is this woman, Nicole Sachs. and she started a program called The Cure for Chronic Pain. And her story started with back pain. And she had literal physical findings in scans that showed that her back had issues.

And I think that a lot of people see that with back pain. It's a very common place that we hold chronic emotional baggage and especially in men. I feel like all men have back pain. And a lot of it is emotional. And a lot of them will go get a scan and they'll see that like there's a bulging disc and then they'll attach themselves to that. there are so many people walking around with bulging discs that have no idea because they don't have chronic pain. So it's not always an indicator of the source of your pain. Yeah, my ex used to get back pain a lot. And he had this book called Healing Back Pain. I can't remember who was... Dr. John Sarno,

life-changing. And he wanted to give it to all his friends because he's like, they all have back pain and they go down like the surgery route. I mean, they're a little bit older. But he's like, for him, it was like, it's emotional pain. And when you work through the emotional pain, like the back pain is eradicated. It's very interesting. Yeah. So Dr. John Sarno actually trained Nicole Sacks. So very related and amazing that your ex did that because it's hard to, for some reason, push men into reading that kind of literature and then, you know, doing the work. I want to talk about the toxoplasmosis. Not to scare people and not to like go too deep into this, but I've never met anybody else who had this. This is niche. Yeah, very niche.

So, I mean, I was in the hospital last April because I had swollen lymph nodes all over my body for a couple months and debilitating fatigue. And I think I had headaches. I had night sweats. So in my head, I was like, it's lymphoma. Of course. It is lymphoma. Yeah, yeah, take me to the hospital. Yeah. And even my friends who are doctors were like, oh, you need to get like a FNA, like a fine needle aspiration.

Like you have lymphadenopathy all over your body for like a long time. And I had blood work done with my GP. Everything was normal. And she was like, to her credit, she's like, I don't know. I think it's like a virus little pass. And I was like, you're like, sis. Yeah. I'm like, I get if it's like one lymph node.

I mean, it's everywhere. And finally, like the fatigue and everything got so debilitating. I went to the ER because like nobody else would see me. And they randomly did like this whole battery. tests. They did CT and everything. And then they did blood tests. And it came back as like acute toxoplasmosis. And I was like, what? I don't have a cat. I don't eat pork. These are the normal places. I mean, pregnant women are advised to stay away from cats because it can be found in the litter and litter and, you know, raw pork and things like that. But for me, I'm not exposed to either

of those things. And I was like, this is so weird. Wow. It was so weird. And then of course, if people don't know about toxoplasmosis, it can be devastating for people who are severely immunocompromised because they can't fight it. It can go into your brain. It can cause cysts. It can cause cysts, I think, in your muscles and your hearts. Like it can be very devastating, like I said. But for people with normal healthy immune systems, at least this is what the infectious

disease doctor said to me, you'll be fine. Like, no treatment necessary. Oh, like your body is going to fight it. Yeah. And I was like, really? You're like put him in the ER. Yeah. Yeah.

I didn't treat it. I didn't treat it. Okay. So, so interesting. I have so many questions. I'm shocked that the ER checked you for it. I only found that I had it and mine wasn't acute. It was like underlying dormant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure I was having symptoms from it. Apparently it can make you like really crazy for lack of better words. Like it can make you very off and like act different. And I did a study not to interject, but they did a study on, I think in San Francisco. at the medical school there on, I want to say it was maybe like motorcycle accidents or something? Yes. You know what I'm talking about. People were more likely to ride the person that told me it called them crotch rockets. Yeah. Because you're driven towards danger when you have toxo. I don't know. I'm probably totally saying that wrong, but I was blown away. Yeah. You have like an affinity.

Like you have less of like an inhibitory response in your body. Yeah. Crazy. So I found it because I was doing Lyme testing and it's technically a co-infection of Lyme or it's something that they test with those different bacterial infections. So my doctor saw it. He was like this definitely needs treatment. I did antibiotics and like I said, I never tested again. So I don't really know. Part of me is sort of like avoiding that. I grew up with cats.

So I'm sure it probably had to do with that. But it's one of those things that's also like not really being talked about. A lot of people are probably walking around with it and don't know. but I think it's really interesting that yours was acute. So you, like, had been hit with it. Yeah. Yeah, it didn't make sense. And then I also came back positive for bruselosis, which is like from farm animals.

And I'm like, what? I'm sorry. This mix is not adding up. Like talking about these incidental findings, looking for something, you'll find something. I was like, no. And they actually sent that out to a different lab to like, I think they sent it to Johns Hopkins or like Mayo Clinic or something to like. They like double, triple. Yeah.

And then I think that came back as like a false positive. I was like, thank you. I have not been around any farm animals. Did the lymph nodes get better? Yes. Yeah. So that was it. I did get better.

I got better within a few weeks. But then when I had the Botox poisoning and that whole thing started, at first I was like, you know, I texted my injector the next day. And I was like, have you ever had someone have a bad reaction? No. And I like go to my GP. No. Then I go to, you know.

neurologist, no. And then I called the ID infectious disease guy. And I was like, I feel really not right. Equilibrium, debilitating panic, like overnight. And I was like, the toxin went to my brain. Like you just, of course. You have these things in your head. And especially, you know, being immersed in the wellness world, it's almost like we're armed with just enough information to jump to the worst conclusion. I have somebody in my life who was like, you need to like get off Google. Like, because you know enough to make the worst conclusion, but not enough. So like be really informed in that conclusion. Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, she was like, you're not an expert. And I'm like, agreed. But again, back to what we were saying about, like, being your own advocate. Because unfortunately, like, we have to be. And I know a lot of women and a lot of women listening, I'm sure, have the experience of going to a doctor. And I'm pro-Western medicine too. But this is a common experience.

You go to the doctor with real symptoms. and you're rushed off. So you do have to kind of gather information and try to put the puzzle pieces together, but then there's also a point where like then it's kind of to your detriment. Like it's such a tricky place to be. It's a very delicate balance to find.

And to be honest, I still haven't fully struck it because to your point, you have to dig, you have to look. I mean, I wouldn't have found Nicole Sack's work if I hadn't been in the Reddit and Facebook rabbit holes. But they also contributed to months, if not years of additional pain because I was in support groups of people that were equally as triggered and didn't know it was

emotional and we're all talking about it. And, you know, like literally just talking about bladder pain could probably make both of us feel like we have a UTI. So it can be super triggering. But again, like if you were to Google toxoplasmosis, like nothing of use would probably even really come up. You'd have to really dig and dive. And actually one of the parasite cleanses that I did, I don't know if you're familiar with Kim Rogers. She's like the worm queen on TikTok. She talks Rogershood. Yes. Yeah. She talks about toxo and it's something that she believes her herbal parasite cleanse, which I'm going to do in a couple of weeks again, helps to rid from your body. So I don't know. I want to hear about this parasite cleanse because I see them on my TikTok feed.

Is it really how people make it look without getting TMI? Yeah. 100%. Her face is telling me, yeah. You will pass parasites. You will see them. You will feel violated by them. You will feel violated by them. because they have been living off of your body. And I think it's something that we should do at least once a year. I think a lot of cultures have that baked in. I think parasites, toxo, I think falling some level into that category can really affect our mental health. Mental health is something that I've struggled with on and off throughout my life.

And doing a parasite cleanse for the first time last spring is something that, like, I was blown away by how amazing I felt mentally afterwards. Really? Okay. You're going to have to give me the name of that. cleanse offline. That's amazing because again, I think it's hard to discern. You know, we're so flooded with all of this information and who's legit and what is legit and what's going to help me. And it's hard to know. And obviously it's different for everybody, but that's a pretty powerful

testimonial. Yeah. And I try now, and I wasn't always this way, but I try to really approach things like a parasite cleanse or, you know, whatever it is that I'm doing at the time with less. of this desperation that I needed to fix me. And it took me a long time to get there. I used to do these things. I would fly to another state to see a doctor and I would have so much anxiety that like, what if this doesn't fix it? And I was putting so much weight on the success of it.

And now I'm like, great, this is a great add-in. And I know I'm very lucky to be in a place where it's just an add-on. And I'm not in that place of desperation. But the point in me sharing that is that it is possible to get there. And I think leaning into these cleanses or, detoxes or whatever it may be as an added tool for support is really the right way to look at it versus this thing that I have to do or I won't be complete or healed. Post-holiday season can always be kind of rough. I don't know about you, but I tend to get the blues just about the holiday being behind

us and being like in the dead of winter for a few months. It is definitely my very least favorite time of year. And I'm in L.A. so I can't really complain about the weather too much. But It is just glum, which is very much not the vibe. So when it is kind of gross out, even those of us that embrace the chilly weather need something to break up those long winter nights. And something I love to do is treat myself to a little something. But I don't want to spend a fortune on my winter blues. So that is where Quince comes in. With Quince, you can treat yourself to everyday luxury at an affordable price. Something that everyone needs in their closet, in my opinion, is Quince's iconic Mongol. coshmere sweaters, which start at just $50. It's pretty crazy. But if you really want to up the Lux Factor, check out their Italian leather handbags, their washable silk skirts,

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For your convenience, Qualia Cyanlytic is also available at select GNC locations near you. That's QA-L-I-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-E-L-A-L-E-L-A-L-F-S-B-B-E-Sach for an extra 15% off your purchase. Thanks to Qualia for sponsoring today's episode. So I want to talk a little bit about some of the wellness things that maybe you tried that didn't work and the things that did work. Sounds like the parasite cleanse was successful. Yes. And this emotional, kind of somatic. kind of work that I do want to get into as well. That was successful. Are there any things that

you see promoted a lot in the wellness world that you tried that you were like, not for me? Intermittent fasting. I never really fully leaned into it. But for me, not eating for a large window of time definitely spikes my cortisol levels and makes me feel bad. I think that that's one of those things that can work really well for some people, especially men. but hormonally it can be bad for some and it's it's this tough thing where we're told fast for this amount of time avoid dairy avoid gluten and people want to feel directed they want to feel like if I do this set thing that other people are having success with it will work for me and I will either lose weight or I will glow or I will be happier it's literally one of the three things

if you want to look better or feel better and for me it just didn't work and it might work for you it might work for someone listening, but I think that's what's really important is none of this is one size fits all. So with diet, you know, I've tried a lot of the things. I've tried, I never did keto because I just couldn't quite get down with the idea of that, but I've done, you know, low inflammation. I've done really restrictive things. I've tried the fasting. And for me, it's really just come back to like eating with what feels good and limiting things that I know probably aren't great for me. And of course, diet matters. And of course, I try to eat in a less inflammatory way. But like if I travel, if I go out to dinner, I'm eating pizza, I'm eating

pasta. I'm giving my body the things that it's genuinely craving because I think it will be a bow and arrow effect as soon as we start to restrict. I had that experience too where like I restricted myself into a corner and eating became such a stressful thing for me that then I just kind of like let go of the reins with all of that. And I have less of a reaction eating things that I thought that I would react to because it's just not stressful anymore. And that's not, again, we're all so different. And like some people really do have real sensitivities, intolerances, allergies, things like that. But I feel like a lot of people are kind of finding themselves at that place too because like the diet nutrition sensitivity gut health thing was like so

big yeah so noisy on social media and I feel like the pendulum always kind of swings a little bit and also like we find ourselves doing these things to no avail and we're kind of forced to adopt different habits yeah and it also goes back to what I was saying about like the bucket of stressors right Like once you start to maybe get rid of the toxo or heal some of the emotional baggage or whatever is like filling up your reservoir, all of a sudden you have more tolerance for things that maybe you thought your body couldn't tolerate. Like for me, gluten dairy, like I eat yogurt. I do the raw milk thing. I feel like my body can tolerate a lot now. And of course, not to downplay anyone's allergies or sensitivities.

That's very real. But for me, I was kind of like putting these, I need to fit into a certain box of the way that I eat. in order to be clean and be healed and all the things. And it just turns out that that was actually adding to the reservoir of stress rather than taking away from it. What are some other ways that you took away from the reservoir of stress? I would imagine cleansing really helped kind of the physical component of it. Obviously the work that you did around the emotional component. Yeah, I think cleansing did a lot.

I think that journal speak has been my greatest gift. What's that? That is something that I will do. every day until I feel like the reservoir has lowered another level down. It was created by Nicole Sacks, who I've mentioned earlier, and it is a 20-minute-a-day journal dump exercise. And it's not like morning pages. It's not like I'm just writing about what happened today. It is like the ugliest, worst thoughts that you could pull out of your body and put onto paper that you would never want anyone to see. You're swearing. You're saying you hate things. You might be saying you hate yourself.

you could go back and do it on old memories. You could do it in your present day. And it essentially just allows that stuff. And a lot of people don't want to look at it to come out of your body and live on paper and then you rip it up. So no one sees it. You're not worried about it getting into the wrong hands. And a lot of people say to me that they're afraid to do that because they don't want to like stir things up. They don't want to change their mood for the day.

But what's worse? having that hit the surface and feel it for a little bit and cry it out and process it and move on and have your body start to heal and not hold on to these chronic conditions or keeping it in there because it actually feels safer to just sit in it like you have been for maybe the first 30 years of your life. And I can say from experience when you are sitting in that, that's going to inform your decisions, your reactions, your actions. Like that's going to create your reality. It's going to inform your thoughts, all of that. Like, it's a little bit different, but when I got sober, I had to get down to causes and conditions and look at all of that stuff that I was burying.

And there's a very methodical process that I did of lots of inventories, lots of writing, lots of getting it out. Basically, they say like uncover, discover, and discard. And once all of that is cleared away, then it's like you're open to more. good, I think. And it wasn't creating the same cycles in my life of, like, me being reactive, me behaving in certain ways, my perceptions even. Like, it's very cleansing, but I want to do that. Like, I'm going to start today. But you can't do it on your notes up. You have to do it by hand. You can type it. There's something totally different by hand. I think by hand matters. And I started to see the biggest change in my physical symptoms when I started writing. And by the way, you'll start to enjoy it.

Because now I'm like, this is my medicine. Yeah, it sounds so cathartic. It's like that feeling when you're taking a supplement that you know is really working for you. It's the same thing. And I really believe that, like you're saying, it has other positive side effects other than just, you know, getting rid of the physical pain. It's like my intuition has been strengthened. I also can't avoid things now. If someone in my life is toxic or something's bothering me, like I'm now having that conversation because I know how sick it can make me to not.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And something about like putting pen to paper. I'm such an advocate for it, at least in the work that we do in recovery, because you can't really lie to yourself. And I think it's so easy to lie to ourselves in our head. We can rationalize anything. We can justify anything. We can twist the truth and stuff the truth, right? But when you are especially writing by hand, which is hard, I like barely remember how to do it. I'm like take all my like a four-year-old. But there's something about like your subconscious that's like directing that

where the truth really does come out. And it is very cathartic. Totally. But I've never done exactly in that way. So I'm definitely. Yeah. I want to hear your thoughts. I feel like it could really benefit. I mean, it could literally benefit everyone. But I feel like you would be a great candidate. And it's a little sticky at first. And I will also say that in Nicole's program, she talks about how. there's this thing called the symptom imperative. And when you start doing this work, sometimes, most times, I thought I would be immune to it because we all do. You heal one area of chronic pain. Mine was the pelvic pain.

And then something else pops up. That's a great sign because it means it's moving. It's no longer just like stagnant in whatever your Achilles heel area is. But like I wasn't expecting my skin to start breaking out and like a rash on my face. And so then you have to look at it without fear and just say, okay, body, what are you trying to tell me? And so it's really this exercise of continuing to go back to trusting in the process and knowing that you're doing the right thing. This isn't going to harm you. Yeah.

And when you're going through that, when you do have like another symptom crop up, is it difficult to not then go down that road and want to find something external, like some other healing modality to deal with that and just let your body work through it? Yeah. It's tough. and especially because I work in the wellness space and like a big part of my job is trying out different modalities, reviewing them. And I genuinely enjoy that. So I'll give the example of perioral dermatitis. I don't know if you've ever dealt with that. It's a real bee. I know what it is. And for anyone listening that doesn't know, it's like a rash sort of around your nose and mouth. And I used to get it when I was in college. And, you know, maybe it was some of my first chronic symptoms arising during that stressful time. And as soon as my pelvic pain started to get better, that started to come back. And it had been like literally. really six years since I'd seen it. And I'm not going to lie to you. I called several doctors. I did a virtual consult. I was seeing my acupunctrists because like you just go into that like I need to start resourcing mode. As soon as I stepped back, started to relax into it, started to like look at it and be like, okay, great. We have a rash on our face today. Like what else is new? And kind of release that

fear, release the obsession. It started to go down. Now there have been waves where it's cropped back up and I can feel when my stress levels are high, but I really try to look at it and easier. said than dumb sometimes as the body communicating to me. Like, wow, a literal physical symptom that I can see that my body is like, here's a message, listen to me. It's actually a really beautiful thing. How long have you been doing this work and what other benefits have you seen? I mean, do you feel like you're healed? So, healed is a tough word. I think I'm healing. I think I'm on the other side of the pain. And I've been doing it about, I started it last New Year's. So a little under a year.

Every single day? I'd love to say that that was the case, but I've definitely had my periods of not. I've now been in a multi-month streak because it's really, really working. You get frustrated in the beginning because the pain's not going away or you're having a flare or whatever it may be. You know, we all want to be, quote, healed. I really think I'm on the other. I would say I'm pain free now. and, you know, the other benefits of it have really been being able to tune into my body better, feeling more connected to myself.

Like I said, my intuition strengthening, just really being able to sift through the BS in a better way. And like you also said, not being able to lie to myself because I think we're really good at convincing ourselves of things, whether it's that you're so sick or that somebody else is wrong or whatever it may be. Like pen to paper doesn't allow for that. You can't lie. I just had on the millennial therapist. Do you know right? Love. Yeah, yeah.

And we were talking about this. We were talking about how we like find ourselves in these lives and we don't even like know who we are and it doesn't even feel aligned with us anymore. And I feel like this can disrupt that process potentially because we're so distracted and we don't look at ourselves and we don't want to. And I get it. It's scary. But she had this experience and I had the experience last year of being like,

like, whoa, like my outer life does not reflect my inner life and my inner like wants and needs and desires and like, how did I get here, you know? And it's like I think this work, it sounds like, can help to peel back those layers and help you be like more authentically who you are. I think that sensation of my inner world isn't matching my outer. And I can't remember who I was just talking to somebody about exactly this. It seems to be a very common experience. That can feel like such a crippling low to have that level of self-awareness and also discomfort simultaneously. But I think that for anyone listening that feels like they're there, and you and I have obviously both been there, it is like the biggest signal that you are about to up level

and that there's about to be change in your life is literally the awareness alone. I love that. That's a good motivator. Yeah. Because it's so hard to feel that when you're in it. You know, it's so hard. Oh my God. It's nearly impossible to see the other side. Yeah. It's always always like we get this perspective in hindsight. 2020. Yeah. And then, but then like you go through these hard things and you accumulate that evidence and file it away.

And when you're going through something hard again, because you will, then you can be like, oh, yeah. Like this is, you know, I have all of these times that I've made it through and it was redirecting me in whichever way. And it can help to hold on to that a little bit. Right. Like why should this time be an exception, you know? What are some of your wellness non-negotiables now?

Well, outside of the journal. speak, which we now know, I would say moving my body like five or six times a week, it doesn't have to be strenuous. That's another thing that I've really learned over the last couple of years, literally doing whatever feels good for my body, whether it's a walk, whether it's a hot class, I really like to sweat. And then also carving out time for, this sounds so simple, but I'm definitely an introvert. I definitely recharge my batteries alone. And whether it's being single and dating or in a relationship and spending a lot of time with someone, I haven't always taken into account that I do need that alone time. So for me, that's literally like, I love spending my

Sundays alone. I love like not having to engage with anyone on a Sunday. So I'm cooking dinner. I'm going to Whole Foods. I'm moving my body. I do a hot yoga class that morning. I watch the Real Housewives. Like, I love mindless. That is self-care. And I think that we need to be more fluid with how we're labeling wellness or self-care because it could literally be Bravo. I love that. Sometimes it's rotting alone at your apartment. or your house or wherever. Totally. I'm a big proponent of just rotting, having a rotting day.

Totally. What are your beauty non-negotiables? Ooh. He said you had skin problems, but I'm not seeing anything. Thank you. It's been a journey. I love P50. Biala Jek.

Do you use it? Mm-mm. I know. I have many bottles of it, but I have not. I had to stop because of this rash on my face, and I saw such a difference in my skin texture. I keep it very simple, because of the rash that I've had. So, like, I can't really use a lot of stuff. I love Cora

organics. They have a retinal that's natural. I don't know if you've tried that. I literally just use L-to-M-D-A-M moisturizer. Like, I saw you doing your skincare routine this morning on a reel. And I was like, oh, my God, I feel like I need, like, eight more stuff. Mine is, like, three. And then I use bare minerals tinted moisturizer. Like, I keep it pretty simple. I like to guasha. I love lymphatic drainage. I love colonics. there's a lot of things. By the way, people don't need my eight or nine step skincare.

But also, I mean, your skin is glass, so it's working. Thoughts. Yeah, everyone's like, glass is just oily skin. And I'm like, okay, whatever. It's so funny. Like, when I post those, I just know that I'm opening up a forum for everyone to start fighting in the comments. And it's like, thank you for the engagement.

Exactly. I'm like, this will go viral. But, yeah, you don't need all of those products. And you're a testament to that sometimes. Less is more. What is one thing? This used to be my closing question. I haven't done it in a while, but I feel like you're a good person to ask. One thing we should stop doing and one thing we should start doing today. Ooh, I mean, we should stop mindlessly scrolling on Instagram. I got this app called, and maybe this is what we should start doing. I got this app called FocusLock.

I can't remember. I think I paid like $10 for it. And I shut off all of my fun app. So like TikTok, Instagram when I was dating. It was like Raya, all the things that were like not good for me in excess. And it shuts them down at certain hours of the day. So like from 6 to 8 a.m. I don't have access to any of that. Whoa. And it's a game changer. And you can, I also have a button I can hit when I'm just feeling extra anxious sitting on the couch, you know, trying to watch Bravo and like going in a doom spiral of comparison. And I just hit that button and it locks everything for two hours. And it's like really locked. So you have to be careful with it because I accidentally locked myself out of my Delta app and I was flying. So like with caution. And you can't unlock it? No. Like you can't even

delete the app and get out. It's like it's not like the cute little iPhone reminders that are like screen time is up. I blow through it. Yeah. This is like very impactful. So I think that's something that we should all start doing. Whoa. I have a solo episode coming out tomorrow. It'll be out by the time this comes out. But I was talking to my producer about this. And I was like, I am in this time where I work a lot from the hours of like six to eight a.m. And I'm like, nobody's answering me. Totally. We're talking about like boundaries. And I'm like, I aspire to that. I mean, she won't answer me until 9 a.m. on the dot. And I'm like, that's a great boundary. I wish I had it in me. Yeah. I want that. Maybe I need the focused app. It's hard. It is hard. But sometimes you have to like set a hard

boundary with yourself. Those are the hardest ones. I can set them with other people left and and right. The self boundary is where we really challenge ourselves. True. That's so true. Well, Thank you so much for coming on. Tell everyone where they can find you, listen to your podcast, all about it. Thank you so much for having me. My podcast is called The Wellness Process. We're on Instagram. Thank you at the Wellness Process Pod. I also co-run the account sweats in the city. We do all things, fitness, beauty, all the wellness stuff. I love reviewing studios in New York City. So those are the best two places. Thank you so much. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you liked the episode,

and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes such a long way in supporting the show. Follow the show over on Instagram at well.pod. You can also follow my personal Instagram at Ariel Lurie. I'm always sharing great clips from the episodes, and we also have full episodes on YouTube as well if you want to watch in entirety. Thanks for listening. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for

products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.