Around 2010, I was sleeping 15 hours a day and still waking up exhausted. I had anxiety, food sensitivities, GI issues, skin rashes, and terrible PMS. Years of pushing myself to achieve more had finally caught up with me, creating the perfect storm.
Physically, my adrenal glands—responsible for managing stress through cortisol—were completely burned out. Emotionally, I was drained, constantly chased by the pressures of perfectionism and the need for approval. With two young kids depending on me, taking a break wasn’t an option. I held everything together because I had to. But I soon realized that everything I had learned in medical training wasn’t enough—not even close. These weren’t just symptoms to manage; they were my body’s way of telling me there had to be a better way.
Now, 15 years later, having just sent my oldest to college and navigating menopause, I see that our hardest moments often carry our greatest wisdom.
There comes a point—what I call the "burn the house down" moment—where you can’t keep going as you have been. When your body and soul refuse to keep up the act. That’s not a breakdown; it’s a breakthrough waiting to happen.
Here’s what I’ve realized about modern medicine: we’re asking the wrong questions. We obsess over step counts and diet logs while the true causes of disease hide in plain sight—our unprocessed traumas, our people-pleasing tendencies, the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we deserve.
What’s fascinating is that the very qualities many of us—especially women—have been taught to suppress are actually our greatest strengths. The deep empathy, the sensitivity that seems overwhelming, the intuition we’ve been conditioned to doubt—these aren’t weaknesses. They’re powerful tools for healing. And they’re exactly what our healthcare system is missing.
True healing isn’t just about identifying physical root causes. It’s about addressing the emotional wounds that keep us living inauthentically, compromising, and betraying ourselves every day.
We’re at a turning point in medicine. The old systems are cracking, but through those cracks, light is shining in. What we need isn’t just better treatments—it’s a complete reimagining of healing. One that honors both the science of medicine and the body’s innate wisdom.
As the founder of Soul of Medicine and someone who has spent the last 18 years bridging conventional and functional medicine, I’ve seen both the limitations of our current healthcare system and the extraordinary potential for change.
We have the power to rewrite the future of healthcare. A future that finally addresses the real roots of illness and embraces healing on every level—mind, body, and soul.
