Introducing the Total Wellness Pyramid

One thing that I think it’s important to understand, and that I try to talk about throughout all of my posts here on Instinctual Wellbeing, is that wellness isn’t just one thing. It’s not just following the AIP diet, or just taking your supplements, getting an acupuncture session, or attending 100 yoga classes. It isn’t even only emotional healing or learning to love yourself. Total wellness — that is, the wellness you experience when you’ve been able to successfully heal all dimensions of your self — is a sum of its parts, comprised of physical healing and lifestyle changes, emotional healing, self-care, and spiritual attention.

That’s why I developed what I refer to as the “Total Wellness Pyramid.” This pyramid represents the steps that I have taken myself over the years to heal from multiple autoimmune conditions and also to reach a greater level of internal peace and emotional wellbeing.

By creating it in pyramid form, my intention is to show hierarchy in terms of which steps I believe to be most valuable to establish at first (i.e. at the bottom of the pyramid). This is based on my experience as a Health Coach and also my personal experience with healing chronic illness. In a way, this is a play on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which holds that you must first have your physical and lifestyle circumstances figured out before you can move into areas of higher realization and eventually self-actualization (or in our case, “total wellness”). That said, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we can’t work on things simultaneously, I just have found that folks generally do best when they take things step-by-step, moving from the physical to emotional to spiritual.

Today we are just going to talk about the first two steps – Physical and Lifestyle considerations for healing autoimmunity and other chronic conditions. My hope is that this exploration will help prepare you for deeper healing that’s going to come in the next couple of posts.

Physical Healing

When I refer to “physical” healing, I am referring to the tangible aspects of this journey that you can manipulate in order to feel better. These are things like diet, supplements, diagnostic testing, healing protocols or other physical procedures (like chiropractic care, acupuncture, and even surgery if that is required).

When I began my healing journey in 2013, my doctor told me that this stage was basically about “putting out the fires” so that the rest of the body can heal. It’s the same as if your house were on fire – you wouldn’t be trying to get on Wayfair and buy a new rug while in the middle of a fire, you’d (hopefully) be trying to put it out.

It’s the same thing with our bodies. If we are feeling terrible every day and super sick and inflamed, or have an active disease process occurring, we must address that first. Otherwise, it’s going to be much more difficult to implement helpful lifestyle, emotional, and spiritual practices (who wants to meditate for 30 minutes when you can’t even sit up straight because your joints hurt so bad, or work on your inner dialogue when your brain fog is so bad you can’t even form a sentence?).

That’s why Physical is one of the primary building blocks of successful healing. Putting out the fires with things like helpful supplements, a healing anti-inflammatory diet, and getting a trustworthy medical care team in place will help build a solid foundation for healing.

If you’re just getting started with this, I’d recommend checking out the AIP Diet and grabbing some AIP Cookbooks to help you as you go. I’d also recommend finding a functional medicine doctor who can assist you with ordering the correct diagnostic testing for you (I find that 99% of those of us with autoimmunity benefit from at least getting an adrenal test, thyroid test with antibodies, and a food sensitivity test, although there are many more test out there which may apply to you – consult with your practitioner to identify).

These changes to your diet, adding supplements in where necessary, and putting together a medical power team to support you, will go a long way to build up a solid foundation for healing and achieving total wellness.

Lifestyle Changes For Healing

Another foundational aspect of healing is getting your lifestyle to a place where it can be supportive of your healing rather than adding fuel to the fire, so to speak. Some of the main lifestyle changes I recommend making include:

• Adopt a healthy sleep routine. Going to bed on time (before 10pm) and getting up at a reasonable hour (between 7-8am unless you are experiencing severe adrenal fatigue then sleeping until around 9am can be helpful) can be helpful in establishing a natural circadian rhythm. This can do wonders to support your healing because you will be sleeping and waking according to your body’s natural healing cycles.
• Make positive changes in your career so that you can feel fulfilled and like you are making a positive contribution. This may not be immediately possible for everyone and I don’t suggest just up and quitting your job tomorrow, but I do recommend removing yourself from toxic work environments if at all possible. This includes environments where there is bullying, excess stress, prolonged overwork (as in, not the occasional late night, but constantly working 50-60+ hours per week), or being a part of teams and organizations that do not respect or properly challenge you. If you are in a position to do so, choose a job that plays to your strengths and aligns with your values, not something that drains you and makes you question your life choices. If you aren’t even sure what type of job would fulfill you, I highly recommend the book “The Pathfinder” by Nicholas Lore. This book has re-oriented me on my career path more times than I can count.
• Maintain healthy, wholesome friendships and relationships. This is a big one. Time to ditch those friends who keep you up until 3am drinking or call you complaining about their problems for hours on end. I’d also recommend limiting communication with toxic family members, if at all possible. Instead, cultivate positive relationships that nurture and support you. This will reduce stress and drama in your life, encourage helpful behaviors and habits, and help you feel supported and socially nourished.
• Try to stick to a daily routine. Sometimes the body thrives on standardization and predictability. If you are constantly changing your schedule, jumping around, and eating and sleeping at wildly different times, your body is going to be constantly guessing and trying to keep up. Sticking to a daily routine can be helpful for your body as it creates consistency and allows you to form new, positive habits that are supportive of healing. If you’re having trouble creating a routine, as yourself why that may be. For the longest time I had trouble with this, and over time I came to realize that I felt as if staying on a steady path meant that my life was “boring.” That’s totally untrue though. Just because your life doesn’t go from zero to 60 and left to ride every other second doesn’t mean that you’re boring, it means that you’re maturing and becoming more comfortable with who you are and what life has dealt you.
• Get your finances in order. Yes, finances are totally part of organizing and managing the “lifestyle” component of the pyramid! I’m sure we can all agree that when we are stressed about money, fighting with our spouses over money, or worried whether we’ll be able to pay our bills next, we do not feel our best. I’ve always felt as if when my finances are in order, my life is in order; my checking account and my ability to manage and keep track of my money is directly correlated with my mental state, and this typically relates to my physical state as well (do you see a theme yet? Everything is energy, including money, so everything is related!) If you’re having trouble financially, if highly recommend reading Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover. This is a quick read and it completely changed my wife and I’s view of money and frankly, our lives (we are completely debt-free!).
• Keep it simple. As much as we like to think we can do it all, we actually cannot. It is not productive to try and tire ourselves out by doing 100 different activities every single day and trying to meet 25 different goals at one time. Try to take a deep breath and figure out what’s actually necessary and required in your life, and what is elective. Minimize the elective things and ask for help with the rest. Simplifying your life can go a long way to help keep your body calm and in healing mode.

I know that for many of you, these ideas may seem very simple — and they’re supposed to be! Rearranging your life to be supportive of healing isn’t supposed to be incredibly overwhelming, difficult, and stressful. With simple changes, I believe that anyone can create a solid foundation for healing from chronic illness and ultimately achieving total wellness.

In our next post, we will discuss healing emotional trauma and learning to love yourself. I’m going to give tools on how to do this and also share the books that changed my life when it comes to these areas. After that, we will cover spiritual healing because that’s an in-depth topic that I believe takes time and care to address.

Stay tuned and check back for the next post in our “Total Wellness Pyramid” series!