my healing journey
Where the most profound lesson I learned was that the body acts as a mirror. It offers us an insight into how our subconscious is responding to the world.
My entrée into the world of thinking about my body as more than a vehicle for my soul to move through the world began at age 8.
By 8 I had been examined, looked at, scrutinised, judged, objectified, complimented or teased about my body so many times I understood that what I look like is more important than what I feel like.
As a slight 8-year-old — all arms and legs — I remember looking in the mirror hating my body. I was told that I had monkey arms (they were long and thin) and a big butt (due to a curvature in my spine that makes my bottom protrude) but at least my hair was long and beautiful.
Every woman I know has a story about her body, not dissimilar to mine.
We had mothers with body hangups they generously passed on, and we grew up in a capitalist society that profits from telling women what is wrong with us, and what to buy to fix it.
I starved and cleansed and chased ‘health trends’ throughout my twenties in pursuit of approval so I could finally believe I was loveable. And then paid for my restriction and control and disordered eating and body dysmorphia disguised as a quest for perfect health and wellness in my thirties.
In my healing journey, the most profound lesson I learned was that the body acts as a mirror. It offers us an insight into how our subconscious is responding to the world.
Here is how it began.
One day six years ago I was boarding a bus in Myanmar with my partner. We were halfway through a 6-month journey around SE Asia. As we took our seats I slumped into mine and quietly said “I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I feel so tired all the time lately.” He nodded and replied. “I’m sure it’ll pass”.
It didn’t pass.
Later when we arrived in his hometown in Canada where we bought a house and planned to settle down I started waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks and bursting into tears during the day for no reason.
A naturopath and nutritionist diagnosed me with adrenal fatigue and hormonal imbalance. She prescribed a high-protein diet, rest and patience.
Nothing changed until I took my copper IUD out.
Things truly transformed when I left that relationship.
Because our bodies aren’t just about the food we eat and the exercise we do. It’s also our environment, our relationships, our thoughts, our words, our lifestyle and our alignment to our soul’s truth and desires.
Feeling good in our minds, our hearts and our wombs heals everything.
A few months after I left Canada and moved back to London my energy levels restabilised, I felt happy, full of spirit and creativity. My body was brimming with wholeness and vibrancy. I was well and thriving.
Something that did not change was how linked my self-worth was to the way I looked and my desire to achieve the social ideal of being as thin as possible.
The few times in my life that I achieved that desired thinness was during periods of high stress that suppressed my appetite so much I ate almost nothing. For most of my life, however, I always was just a little bit softer than I wanted to be. So I cajoled, starved and controlled my body under the illusion that it would give me what I wanted: love and acceptance.
Then two years ago I was met with another health crisis.
As I was packing up to move to Mallorca an excruciating pain developed that started in my hips and settled into my lower back. For a few days I was in so much pain I could not move. I had to crawl slowly on all fours to get from the sofa to the toilet and back again.
Once somewhat mobile I saw as many holistic practitioners as I could. They all pressed their particular expertise onto my situation but not one had an answer.
I drove to Mallorca over three days and I arrived a shell of myself.
Exhausted, in pain, depressed and under a constant haze of anxiety. I immediately started seeing an incredible craniosacral therapist who helped somewhat but not enough. I moved through the days doing what I had to do to survive: showing up for my work commitments and clients, finding a new apartment, building a new community.
A month or so in, once my life was stabilised I was ready to uncover the root cause of my new reality and hired a holistic nutritionist who prescribed a complete evaluation of sex and adrenal hormones, including metabolites called the DUTCH test.
As her face appeared on the screen for our call to discuss the results she looked at me very sternly and said “With mineral depletion like yours, you are effectively dying”. I measured under the 40 percentile in every mineral.
She put me on a very high animal protein diet under the protocols of the Metabolic Diet to reduce inflammation and increase mineral absorption.
Psychologically, it was hard.
I had been vegetarian most of my life, didn’t enjoy cooking meat, and needed to learn so many new skills to make the changes necessary. Many beliefs I had about food were turned upside down. So many of the trends I learned from wellness culture turned out to be marketing tools and lies.
But it wasn’t just about food.
I looked at the ways I was still harming myself psychologically. I blamed myself for my most recent breakup which had been sloppy as all hell and happened during the peak of the global pandemic. Both of which had added immense stress to my system.
I did tremendous amounts of inner child soothing and reparenting to meet the parts of me that wanted to be accepted and loved in the first place, which led to extreme body control patterns. I studied to give me more tools for self-healing and to support my clients and did the Gabor Maté Compassionate Inquiry course.
Time, care, dedication, sunshine and patience soothed my symptoms. But the back pain never fully went away.
There’s this thing about constant chronic pain. It is not only pain. It is a presence that constantly reminds you that you are not ok.
Until I left the island of Mallorca and returned to the UK. A few weeks later every symptom I had suffered for those eighteen months went away.
It had not only been my body, my trauma or my thoughts. It had also been the environment.
I am not cured.
Whenever life feels too much, whenever all the feelings arise and life spirals into territory that I’m not familiar with my first response is to want to control the only thing I can: my body.
But what I know now is that the only response that works is extreme kindness, compassion and humility. Nourishment instead of restriction. Softness instead of rigidity. Balance instead of extremity.
To look at the whole picture: every part of your life and how it is influencing what you feel.
Your mind and body are inextricably intertwined, always revealing the profound truth that our choices leave unforgettable marks not just on our psyches, but also in the sacred vessel of our physical form.
Our bodies offer a tender promise that even the deepest wounds can be transcended, through its infinite capacity to mend through the tender embrace of self-acceptance.
All this to say…
I am so excited to invite you to join me and qualified nutritionist and women’s health expert Sarah Hook on a 5-week journey called Her Body. This training is based on both our lifetimes of healing and learning to thrive in a woman’s body.
We begin next week.
Every woman deserves to feel good in her body.
Whether you crave more vibrant energy, better hormone balance, a newfound radiance or all of the above - the ‘Her Body’ experience will explore how to thrive in a woman’s body.
Her Body is a 5-week deep-dive into the mysteries of the woman’s body. With a focus on hormones, homeostasis, health-mind-body-energetics connections and more, Vienda; a psychology-informed women’s educator, and Sarah; a qualified nutritionist and women’s health expertare teaming up together to take you on this journey.
Jointly with over 20 years of inquisitiveness, education and study as well as self-administered investigation on physical well-being and thriving plus two entire lifetimes inside women’s bodies, we have a lot to say, disseminate and offer on the topic.
Across the five weeks, we will share our stories, practices, rituals and beliefs around ageing gracefully, wellness and beauty culture, personal practices, things we have learned from our own experiences with dis-ease, wellness, ageing and more.
Her Body is about thriving in a woman’s body. It is about stepping into your power as a radiant, vibrant woman who is deeply attuned to her body's sacred rhythms.
Imagine moving through the world feeling grounded yet fluid, nourished from the inside out, and in complete awe of your natural beauty at every age and phase. You'll learn to tune into your body's innate wisdom, balancing and healing through daily rituals tailored to your unique needs.
Loves. It’s like you described my entire journey with my own body, word for word. Thankyou for sharing xx