Healing Journey for Chronic Illness
You reap what you sow and so we must learn to find our flow state to heal.
3/5/20267 min read
A chronically ill person lives in a chronic state of instability. They are called to live in the present through pain, discomfort, uncertainty, a state where you live between the realms of the living and dead, a kind of limbo. For me, the key is to give space for grieving the loss of different versions of myself, my younger healthy self, and actively trying to let go (re-frame) the traumatized self, to make way for the possibility of finding the phoenix rising within (i.e. space for transmutation of spirit, mind, and body). While I don't consider myself chronically ill anymore, my experiences make me hyper aware of my body's capacity to be hypersensitive to toxicity; I know of the meticulous work required for me to maintain my health. Self-regulation and self-awareness is key as well as cultivating a discipline and activating neuroplasticity.
Homeostasis, Flow State, & Neuroplasticity
Healing is a complex process of the body, mind, and spirit learning how to get to homeostasis, stability and safety; healing is an alchemizing process that affects the brain/spirit and can transform the body's physical capacity (through movement of energy/eliminating stagnation within your body). Healing is trying to find harmony/symbiosis/flow state within your body, where energy can move and flow freely, between body, mind, spirit. Your innate character will not change easily, so you must rely on your efforts to change your habits (self-regulation with time and intention, patience and discipline) so that you can practice with consistency to develop a discipline (for health) and refine your transformation. Let's be honest, creating a discipline can be masochistic, until you break through into the other side, does it actually start easy, a flow state. Conversely, this can go in the opposite direction where a once healthy body/mind succumbs to prolonged stress and unhealthy habits, or receiving toxic energy from an individual/outsiders, which transmutes and manifests as an autoimmune disorder or other chronic health problems (like mine back in 2011). You must be able to know yourself so that you keep yourself in check, find your flow state, and stay in balance. My past experiences with psychoactive medicines help to open up neuroplasticity in the brain, which for me, rewires, recalibrates my perspectives, refines spiritual attunement, and makes me more open to new possibilities and being able to let go of anything holding me back.
The Health Train
I like to use the "health train" as an analogy, something I made up years ago and like to tell people when they ask me how I got so healthy after being so sick. A train requires a lot of energy and fuel and consistency in work in order to move and to create the momentum to gain speed in one direction. Let's say the direction we are heading is the healthier way of living. In the beginning, the train moves very, very slowly. If you provide the right fuel, energy, and consistency to the slow moving train, eventually it will gain speed, more power, more kinetic energy, it will then move with very little effort but with some consistent work. Now that the train is heading in the direction with speed and force, it is very difficult to derail this train. You would have to throw a lot of unhealthy habits and inconsistency to slow it down. Eventually, you can stop a train if you stop all efforts to keep it going. Even worse, you can go so far as to derail the train by unfortunate circumstantial fated karmic debt.
Not everyone has the opportunity, capacity, or luck ( or character, more on that later) to do the things that make the healing process more attainable. Our society makes it near impossible for a seamless recovery process with expensive health care, lack of (real) community, the wage slave system, and no concept of work life balance. I've always had the innate character to be able to cultivate a practice and create a discipline if I had the will power/drive for it (an ADHD and ASD super power). With the help of my mom's support and my skills in art, I was able to start tattooing again after a 4 year hiatus due to my two acute kidney failures caused by an autoimmune disorder (caused by my toxic marriage). After two hospitalizations, a grim prognosis, and 9 years of high dose (and tapering off) big pharma, I can proudly say I've been in remission and off all pharma meds since 2019 through hard work and some luck on my side. It took baby steps (and so much patience) for rehabilitating my body with physical activity, but for my diet, I was extremely disciplined with immediacy because I truly believe food is medicine and in life or death situations, results in healing the physical body can be achieved through diet sooner than later.
Our body requires different needs at different times and intensities of illness or stagnation. Just like the stages of grieving in death, healing from near death into chronic illness also has stages. I've experienced many stages within a near death health recovery journey: deterioration, rock bottom, suicide ideation, boundless doubt, baby steps, the light appears at the end of the tunnel appears (flickering a lot), small wins, trial and error, partial remission, relapses, full remission, phoenix rising, and flow state maintenance. At every stage of our life, we might need something different, but one must keep moving (with our mind and/or body) with intention.
Some key things that helped me heal from a near death autoimmune disease:
reduce stress: practice yoga, breathing exercises, tai chi, etc
in my case, get a divorce aka dump their ass, dump the toxic energy
love yourself more
give space for mourning the loss of your old self, learn to let go
create a ritual of eating practices
cut the noise (outside drama, gossip, TV)
reduce/release pressure, meaning reduce any kind societal pressure you might be feeling, this helps to recalibrate self worth because where you are now in your healing journey is where you need/are meant to be.
have consistent sleeping times, even if you can't sleep, bed rest
very strict about cooking and only eating whole, organic foods at home but reframed as delayed gratification
no bags or boxes of junk food, processed sugar, chips, anything from frozen food aisle
no extremely salty foods like pickles or bacon (kimchi is fermented, which is great)
no dairy
no alcohol, no sodas
drawing for fun (not for work), create for fun
no extremely fatty foods, no burgers, no cheese
small amounts of fruit
sleeping and resting a lot
walking daily or daily rehab exercises
lots of genuine deep laughter and joy (I remember the first time I laughed in 1.5 years while in a depressed state and it was like a surge of energy pouring through my body, laughter is form of energy that can be "medicinal" for the spirit)
practicing gratitude (similar to Edward Norton's character and Marla in Fight Club, it helped me to read about the morbid curiosities of the world)
bone broth
high protein high fiber intake
herbal teas
neuroplasticity training: psilocybin
dancing at festicals
Other additional helpful things that were introduced to my lifestyle with momentum on the healthy train:
functional mushrooms
dark fruits (if I eat raw fruit)
work life balance (boundaries with work)
no cannabis smoking
re-frame past trauma, give it space (but don't give it influence) and respect it as something that makes you stronger.
herbal tinctures (please message me if you'd like to know what tinctures might help you)
acupuncture (I've seen various acupuncturists and when I am need of acute stabilization the mind and body and it requires several months of consistent sessions to see results. I currently am not seeing an acupuncturist, but did two sessions a week from 2021-2023)
acupressure massage (when I was hustling tattoos a lot, I was getting two acupressure massages a week to keep my body in great shape from unhealthy tattoo postures, now that I work less I maintain with stretches throughout the day)
Chinese herb formulas (see your herbalist for recommendations when you feel like you need rebalancing)
eat foods that your ancestors would enjoy (unless your ancestor died from indulging in such foods)
traveling to beautiful places if you like traveling (to reap the benefits of working your ass off hustling)
reframe your past trauma/regret as a journey (it's okay to feel regret, but you must embrace moving forward with the now instead of the past)
organ pills
livfresh or NHA toothpaste
limited, moderate, guilt free junk food pleasures (burgers, bacon, candy, ice cream, cake)
exercise routine: kettle bell work outs, L sit head hangs, dead hanging for grip strength
exercising throughout the day, resting day after big exercise days
unilateral exercises and balance exercises (pilates)
infrared sauna blanket and meditation
trail running/hiking aka forest bathing
cardio rebounder/roping 15 mins every other day
everything in moderation including moderation
even more freestyle dancing at festivals
neuroplasticity training: psilocybin, DMT, LSD
make efforts to do the things you've always wanted to do, for me, learning to play a new musical instrument
Being able to look back in the beginning and actually not recognize the person that was once sick, is such a privilege. And to recognize the efforts honors the work you put in for yourself, it is so incredibly rewarding and one of my greatest accomplishments—to prioritize my health. I remember not being able to walk up a hill section on my street without getting winded in 2012, and now I can sprint it after a 2 mile jog.
My healthiest year according to my lab work was during COVID, I did my labs September 2020. Nothing was flagged, and on paper I was a completely normal person. I was cooking at home every meal everyday, trail running 3 times a week with Juju, and spending a lot of time just sleeping however long I wanted and napping whenever I wanted, no alarms made. As an artist, and hermit/introvert and as someone that spends time never bored, it was the most opportune time to cultivate a disciplinary practice of self-care and find that flow state.
Some tips on finding the right acupuncturist, if you are lucky and feel something (energetic movement within the body) the very first session, that a great sign. Keep at it and be consistent, if you don't feel anything within 3 sessions, it's time to look for another practitioner.
Some tips for navigating conversation with someone dealing with chronic illness, don't say: "hope you figure it out soon!", "don't worry, you'll get better soon", "just have a positive mindset and you'll get better, you'll see". While they are well-intended, it's not helpful at all for the chronically ill because they are really just trying to make it through the day. If they ask for advice (I have asked for help specifically from someone who went through traumatic illness), "practicing stress relieving activities might help", a simple, effective, and forward way to ground someone, followed by "I know it seems impossible right now". If they just want to talk about it, you can say "let me know if I can do anything to help relieve any stress", "sending you healing energy". Transmutation of the spirit, mind and body can be a process with no end in sight, so be mindful on where they are at on their healing journey.
Feel free to send me a message if you need more insight on details of what might help your healing situation at the moment.
Healed and off all pharma meds since 2019 photo taken on February 21st 2026 at the studio.
