My Body Figured This Out Before I Did

When listening to your body is put into action.

In January, I wrote about the moment my doctor told me this was my new normal (you can read it here). That not feeling well was just how it was going to be. I said I refused to believe that, and I was going to widen the lens. This is what that has actually looked like.

I arrived here because my body stopped cooperating and I ran out of arguments. Seven autoimmune conditions will do that. So will a third brain tumor. At some point you stop trying to push through and start paying attention to what is actually being asked of you.

Here is something most people do not know: roughly 70% of autoimmune disease is environmental in origin, and 30% is genetic. What that means in real life is that something in the world around you triggered something your genes were already holding.

My neuroendocrinologist told me that what I had been putting on my body every day could have played a role in what happened. I could not unknow that. So I started formulating. That was 2009. In 2024, after two more brain surgeries and a Crohn’s diagnosis, the same questions came back. Not smaller. Louder. I am still in it. Third brain tumor, still managing 7 autoimmune conditions. I wanted to say that before I told you what has helped.

That question changed how I approach everything.

Including rest. Including slowness. Including what I actually do with a hard day.

For me that list is embarrassingly ordinary. Real sleep. Time outside. My hands in the garden. A hard look at what I eat and what I am no longer willing to put in and on my body. Walking next door to say hi to the goats, the sheep, and of course, Daisy the pig.

The food piece deserves its own post. It is coming.

The science behind all of this holds up. Twenty minutes in a natural outdoor setting drops cortisol by up to 21%. Brief contact with animals produces a measurable reduction on its own. And gardening fully restored mood in research subjects while the reading group actually got worse.

The nervous system and the skin are directly linked. Chronically elevated cortisol degrades the proteins and lipids that hold your skin barrier together. Supporting your skin starts with supporting your nervous system. Everything else works better from there.

None of this requires a farm (but if you have one, I’m quite the lamb whisperer, just saying). It does require deciding that what your body is asking for counts as something worth doing. That has been the harder practice, honestly. Still working on it.

Some weeks that looks like the garden. Some weeks it is just watching Daisy do absolutely nothing productive.

Both count.

I am rebuilding this chapter in real time, and I want to know what you want to hear more of. The food piece. Sleep. Skin. What starting over actually looks like in your 50s. Tell me in the comments. I am building this with you.

Xx, Indie