Coming Home to My Body: What Chronic Illness Has Taught Me About Healing & Self-Trust

Hey, Radiant Soul!

For a long time, my relationship with my body felt complicated, tender, confusing, and at times, painfully distant. Living with chronic illness reshaped the way I moved through the world. There were days I woke up unsure of what version of my body I would meet. Days when fatigue wrapped itself around me like fog. Days when pain showed up without warning and stayed longer than I expected.

And yet, the hardest part wasn’t the symptoms themselves. It was the disconnection. That quiet ache of feeling like my body and I weren’t on the same team.

When your body feels unpredictable, trust becomes a practice

For years, I pushed through. I ignored signals. I overrode exhaustion. I tried to perform “strength” the way so many women of color are taught: be resilient, be strong, don’t inconvenience anyone, don’t fall apart.

But the truth is: My body wasn’t failing me. She was communicating with me. I just didn’t know how to listen yet.

Chronic illness became the teacher I didn’t ask for but deeply needed. It nudged me into a slower rhythm. It invited me to learn a different kind of strength, one rooted in softness, boundaries, and relationships.

Healing began when I stopped treating my body as a problem to solve

There was a turning point I’ll never forget. A day when I was so exhausted that simple tasks felt impossible. I remember sitting on the floor, feeling frustrated and ashamed that I couldn’t keep up with what I thought life was supposed to look like. And in that moment, something inside me softened.

Instead of asking, “Why can’t you just push through?”I asked, “What do you need right now?”

That question changed my life.

It opened the doorway to self-trust. It led me into grounding practices, breathwork, somatic tools, nervous system regulation, and ancestral healing rituals that reminded me that my body is not the enemy; she is the archive of everything I’ve survived, inherited, and held.

For women of color, this disconnection runs deeper than individual experience

There’s a reason so many of us feel detached from our bodies. We live in systems that deny our pain, dismiss our symptoms, and expect us to be endlessly strong. Medical bias. Cultural pressure. Generational silence. Survival mode.

It makes sense that so many of us feel disconnected, or even unsafe, inside our own bodies. No one taught us how to return home to ourselves. No one taught us that healing could be slow, gentle, ancestral, and embodied.

This course — Connected with the Body — was born from that truth.

And while the course is centered on the lived experiences of women of color navigating chronic illness, the practices, reflections, and healing tools inside can support any woman living with chronic illness who is seeking a gentler, more grounded relationship with her body.

What I learned while rebuilding trust with my body

Healing isn’t linear. It isn’t neat. Some days feel expansive. Others feel heavy. But I’ve learned a few things along the way:

1. Your body is always on your side, even when it feels like she’s betraying you.

Symptoms are communication, not punishment.

2. Rest is not a weakness; it’s part of your survival and your reclamation.

Especially for women of color who were never allowed to slow down.

3. You don’t have to earn compassion.

You’re worthy of tenderness simply because you’re here.

4. Connection is built one moment at a time.

A grounding cue. A deeper breath.A hand on your chest. A slight nudge toward listening rather than overriding. These tiny moments become the foundation of self-trust, the same foundation we build inside Connected with the Body.

A gentle practice to try today

Take one slow breath in through your nose. Exhale out of your mouth like you’re releasing pressure.

Then ask yourself: What is one small way I can honor my body today?

Maybe it’s drinking water before the next task. Perhaps it’s canceling the thing you don’t have energy for. Maybe it’s deciding that today, you don’t have to pretend you’re okay.

Your body doesn’t need perfection. She needs presence.

Connected with the Body was created for women who are ready to reconnect, gently

This course is the offering I needed years ago, a healing space for women with chronic illness, especially women of color, navigating pain, exhaustion, shame, or feeling lost inside their own bodies.

It’s a return. A remembering. A soft rebuilding of trust, one practice at a time.

If you feel the nudge to start reconnecting with your body in a way that feels supportive, trauma-informed, and deeply compassionate, I would love to walk that journey with you.

Sign up here to get early access, updates, and soft-launch details for Connected with the Body.

https://www.connectedwiththebody.com/programwaitlist

You deserve a relationship with your body that feels like home. And you don’t have to find it alone.