What Living with Autoimmune Taught Me
Holistic intelligence, resilience, discipline, self-compassion, and intentional living
It’s working with what I have and what my body is capable of, rather than forcing it.
That’s my insurance against uncertainties.
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It’s like a hindsight 20/20 that when I started this newsletter I had the healing journey in mind. That was probably because my soul already knew that I had to embark on this journey soon. My body kept showing bouts of symptoms, on and off, of mysterious illnesses since 2020, and I finally got diagnosed with autoimmunity not long ago.
This post is not about my health protocol, so I’m not going to be pedantic about what I eat or what my routine looks like. Rather, just like the rest of the publication, I’m going to share with you my learning points, which are applicable in life.
But before we start, I’d like to highlight that autoimmunity is not our body attacking itself. The elevated antibodies are caused by other things, always other things. The body doesn’t immediately attack good cells out of the blue.
That’s why the approach, at least in the functional medicine I’ve been following, is to eliminate the triggers. My immunologist, an internist specialising in allergies and immunity, suggested that I reduce my exposure to hormone disruptors while improving my proper immune system.
The key is to reduce the inflammation so my body can function properly.
I’m still on my healing journey. Therefore, I don’t speak from a place of remission. However, I believe the lessons in the journey are more important than the destination. Without further ado, let’s dive into them.
1/ Holistic intelligence
Long before my lab result came out and the physical symptoms worsened over time (before getting better), of which my immunologist established the diagnosis, my soul had always been attracted to the more natural state of things.
My last long hike was to Loch Lomond half a year ago.
Even when I got the bruises that made me difficult to walk, I still pushed myself to have a daily walk as simple as to buy some groceries and to get fresh air.
I sought more organic products, washed my vegetables and fruits with baking soda or apple cider vinegar, and avoided seed oils and their products (plant milks, for example). When I changed my mind that unrefined starch was good to my body, what I ate was more fruits and root veggies. When I got a mild fever, I intuitively knew I just needed to rest and hydrate more and didn’t reach for paracetamols as I did in the past. Gut discomfort? Rest and cook something softer.
I didn’t feel it was a huge problem to cut down sugar and flour. It was as if my body knew that something was brewing within.
My soul was guided that it might be an autoimmune expression when I started connecting the symptoms.
I was led to do inner child healing, to take up therapy, and to speak with a priest about an issue (might be unrelated but it’s like leaving the backburner on, sooner or later I need to address it).
My body knew all along and I tried honouring the whispers.
When I eventually visited an immunologist, it was just like a confirmation from an expert of what my brain tried piecing together from my internal signals.
This kind of intelligence is impossible to emulate in the AI scope, partly because we don’t know how to codify it.
Learning machine learning, the mathematical logic behind the pattern recognition starts with something that we know. But this so-called intuition, or holistic intelligence, how can we translate it into maths?
(Note: it’s probably possible and has been tested, just I’m not aware of. Please guide me to the literature if any)
Like a rainbow after the rain, resilient people pick themselves up over and over again.
2/ Resilience
I used to ask what was happening to me, but I’ve changed my question recently.
I asked my therapist and immunologist one burning question: how can I be more resilient?
Physical threats like viruses and psychological stressors are part and parcel of life. I can’t possibly remove everything that weakens my immune system. It’s a two-sided project:
Removing the exposure as much as I can, while strengthening my body.
The latter part is about resilience. Not quite sure why, I’ve always been attracted to this specific trait, as if my soul has known all along that in this stage of life, resilience is a character I need to develop.
The overarching theme of the previous posts, the videos I watched, the books I read . . . all pointed to the grit spirit. And I knew, deep down, it’s not just about the pursuit of wealth or a career. Truthfully, I have no career ambition. Gasp, two years ago you wouldn’t have caught me say such thing.
But the resilience here is about the quiet bravery of waking up every morning to embrace uncertainties of not knowing how the day would be through, whether my fingers or toes would be swollen or extra painful.
Whether I’d have spells of dry cough that kept me awake at night.
Whether I’d find more bruises on my feet.
Whether the skin on my fingers would be broken and keep bleeding.
Whether I’d get a mysterious fever all so suddenly warrants a visit to the hospital.
The resilience here is about walking by faith, not by sight, that someday I’d gain more strength.
That I could climb mountains or run 5K again.
The resilience here is to pick up my spirit to do whatever I need to do, be it in my job or everyday well-being, to stay healthy and productive.
But today, I take what my body can do. Whether it’s a dance practice or a walk to the loch, movement is the best medicine.
The resilience I learn is on the day I can give only 10%, I give 10%. On the day I can give 110%, I give 110%. It’s working with what I have and what my body is capable of, rather than forcing it.
I know firsthand the benefit of “no zero day” policy in my life because who knows tomorrow I’d get fatigue spells. So, on the day I can do more, I do more. That’s my insurance against uncertainties.
3/ Discipline
I take vitamin D and two other medicines daily. I also take some herbal concoctions. But my doctor also suggested that I record my body's reactions to the foods I eat. He didn’t ask me to restrict foods, because even in AIP (Autoimmune Protocol), many beneficial foods are marked to remove, such as nightshades. To still benefit from the majority of plant-based, I eat everything in moderation.
I’ll write another post about mindful or intuitive eating. I used to dismiss the idea because I didn’t trust my body to stop overeating bread. I went keto to wean off the addiction.
But it’s a different story when there was something actually wrong in my body, that forced me to swim in open water without a compass. I was forced to learn to rely on my intuition, including the discipline of listening to my body first, not the ego.
Discipline is also about maintaining my daily journal, gratitude practice, and recording my symptoms in writing and photos. Every morning or afternoon, I sit down with my thoughts, pouring down the words of gratitude in my journal. If I have a flare-up, I take notes on what possibly caused it based on the previous data I input on the things I eat.
I take pictures of most of my food not only for aesthetics but also for documentation.
I move my body daily, multiple times a day in a cardio exercise that I like, so it doesn’t feel like a burden.
I don’t exercise for fun anymore, but to help my cells fight the chronic inflammation.
I remember my immunologist’s answer: strengthen your mitochondria by doing 45-60 minutes of zone 2 cardio every day. Therefore, every time I do my dance practice or daily walk, I imagine my mitochondria are happy.
Just like how one weightlifting session at the gym can’t shape your muscles, it’s the same with building a good immune system. Discipline in cutting down inflammatory triggers and doing my daily movement is the key. It’s building a habit.
Stoicism comes into play. It’s by wanting to exercise, to drink my green smoothies, to eat colourful veggies and high-quality animal proteins. It’s by wanting to sleep before 11 pm instead of seeing it as one less Youtube video to watch.
4/ Self-compassion
Listening to your body is no longer an empty phrase to me. It’s what maintains my condition.
Self-compassion goes together with resilience and discipline. It means recognising our body’s limitation, so the act of resilience to push beyond our comfort zone is gentle enough to not disrupt our homeostasis.
Homeostasis is our body equilibrium, which I write about here.
Self-compassion is the balancing act which I lacked in the past. I used to push, nudge, girlboss, and blame myself for not achieving some goals within a specific time frame.
Notice the part: within a specific time frame. I can get things I want, but it’s not now.
Stoicism says the power is to not want what I don’t have, while still working on the steps to achieve it. The Power of Now says that everything what we need is in the now, and life is a series of present moments. Even when we achieve the thing, it’s also the “now” in the future.
Self-compassion is the act of living in the present because it pulls my energy back from excessive worry and action for the future.
I disagree with the concept of demonising rest, that if we don’t hustle we’re losers.
I get where the idea comes from, though. It’s probably from witnessing people in extensive and deliberate laziness in the name of self-healing. But if you delve into this train of thought, shall we identify if laziness is the aftereffect of unbearable burnout?
5/ Living with intention
Since I respect my condition, I won’t want to waste time. I can use the time to fulfil my assignment on earth.
In conjunction with the “no zero policy” in point 1 above, I aim to use every hour of my day with intention. I know that my energy level and overall well-being are not like a machine, consistently performing day in and day out. But that’s my holistic intelligence that can’t be replicated in AI (yet): self-optimisation.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s about knowing that our time on earth is limited.
Quoting The Ancient One: death is what gives life meaning, to know your days are numbered, your time is short.
Even without chronic illnesses that “forced” me to accept the uncertainties, I had been disciplined with my schedule, and friends commented on it. I could chalk it up to my habit stemming from not wasting the gift of time, but it could also be my soul had known long enough to prepare me to accept the fluctuating days in the future (the now).
Live with intentions to live a life well-lived.
Conclusion
If you notice above, each of the examples portrays more than one lesson. In the exercise part, for instance, it’s about both self-compassion to know our limits while still practising discipline. Embracing uncertainties can be attributed to different lessons.
But if there’s one thing you can take away from this post is the journey is unique to an individual. It serves a purpose. And while we each put one foot in front of the other along the way, let’s not forget we journey together, parallelly. So it’s always a great honour to learn from everyone here as well.
I love to hear your thoughts.
I hope my piece helps, and if you want to connect and talk, hit my DM or reply to this email.
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Until next time,
Sekar this post is exactly why I appreciate your words so much. Heartfelt and so insightful. Thank you for sharing them with us.
It was my pleasure to recommend your publication! 💕🙏