“My belief is in the blood and flesh as being wiser than the intellect. The body unconscious is where life bubbles up in us. It is how we know that we are alive, alive to the depths of our souls and in-touch somewhere with the vivid reaches of the cosmos. ”
Artwork by Lisa Petheram
There is opportunity all around us to listen more deeply— to our bodies, our discomforts, our inner lives, each other and the more-than-human world we inhabit. Yet we live in a culture that often resists this kind of listening, especially when it comes to illness. Illness challenges the mythology of control, the linear path of diagnosis-to-cure, the belief that health equals virtue, productivity, and strength. We are trained to try do more to get well for ourselves, and when others are unwell we feel compelled to wish them “get well”.
As writer Sophie Strand observes, we are taught to recoil from rot, illness, and the messy processes of decomposition and transformation that are intrinsic to life.(1) A body in pain, a body out of sync, is often seen as suspect—faulty, even. When you live with a long-term health condition, it can feel as though you’ve failed—not only physically or medically, but socially and morally.
In a culture that equates worth with productivity, falling out of step with the relentless pace can leave you questioning your value. If we’re not busy, not visibly contributing, not using our privilege in the “right” way—are we letting ourselves and others down? And in a world already straining under climate collapse, social injustice, and collective trauma, how do we justify giving ourselves the attention and rest we might desperately need? How do we carve out space to tend to ourselves when so much outside seems unwell? These questions may be asked not only by those who are chronically ill, but also those who find themselves worn thin by the demands of a world that rarely pauses.
I hold deep reverence for the countless healthcare workers who dedicate themselves to supporting others, often under immense pressure. Yet the systems they work within are typically designed for acute or clearly defined conditions—not for the grey zones of health, where experiences are ambiguous, complex, or chronic.
Medical systems often struggle with complexity and uncertainty. They are rarely set up to hold space for deep listening or for the slow, unfolding nature of some illnesses. Structurally and culturally, they have been built around a narrow template—typically white, male, and normative. Those who do not fit this template can sometimes find navigating the system frustrating, and at times even harmful.(2) For example, one study found that women are seven times more likely than men to be misdiagnosed and discharged while in the midst of a heart attack. And despite the fact that around 70% of people living with chronic pain are women, roughly 80% of pain studies are still conducted on men—or on male mice.(3) Such bias can fuel misdiagnosis, dismissal, and even gaslighting.
For those whose symptoms are cyclical, invisible, or difficult to pin down, the medical journey can also be disempowering. There is little room within these systems for uncertainty—for mystery, process, or the patient’s own lived experience and instincts.
Standing as a supposed antidote to the limitations of mainstream medicine is the wellness industry—offering healing regimens, “cures,” and lifestyle solutions. I’ve personally found deep value in many modalities from the wellness industry, and I remain grateful for the care, insight, and relief they have sometimes brought. At the same time, I’ve sometimes encountered aspects of the wellness world that are problematic—especially within a commodified culture that tries to turn healing into output. Too often, messages can become a relentless call to do more: resolve your trauma, raise your vibration, optimize yourself. For many, this taps into an already tender belief of “not being enough.”
Even with personalised advertising switched off, I’m still bombarded on social media with messages urging self-optimization, “vitality,” and “thrivival” and pressure to urgently resolve my trauma. It often leaves me wondering: where is the space for messiness, grief, stillness, acceptance—or simply living with the very real, everyday experience of being human, especially being in a body that often feels uncomfortable or in pain?
With this messaging there’s a quiet pressure—sometimes overt, sometimes internalized—to always be doing something to improve or feel better: yoga, meditation, movement, supplements, EMDR, breathwork, acupuncture, massage, brain retraining, new health regimens, and countless other approaches. These practices can offer real nourishment, support, and some even powerful options for working with trauma. But when wellness becomes a goal to be achieved—rather than a relationship to tend—not feeling consistently well can sometimes feel like a personal failure. Shame and guilt can creep in. In trying so hard to be well, we risk losing the space to simply be—with all the tenderness, complexity, and contradiction that being human entails.
When I was 19, I had flown far from my family’s nest in rural Victoria and was soaring high—brimming with energy, excitement, and a sense of possibility. I was rock climbing, kayaking, multi-day hiking, partying, long distance bush running. I was studying ecology, starting a new relationship, cultivating new friendships, and dreaming of wild places where I would live and work as an ecologist. Then, without apparent warning, I became ill. It seemed at the time as if a switch got flicked. Suddenly I was flat on the ground. A double viral infection hit me hard, and unlike before, I couldn’t bounce back. I tried—again and again—but each attempt to take off would leave me back on the ground. Getting out of bed felt like scaling a mountain. My body suddenly functioned differently—fatigue and a constellation of symptoms made it difficult to get through each day.
I started to carry a growing sense of shame—as if I had done something wrong, or something was wrong with me. Having being brought up with strong narratives that your worth is reflected by your productivity; and that it is a selfish act to take up space and “complain”, I learned how to hide what was happening for me as much as I could. I gave myself little permission to speak much about this to my peers, supervisors and later workplaces and tried my best to keep pushing, finding strategies to make it seem like I was able to focus and keep up with everyone else, which took a further toll on my body.
In hindsight, the shift wasn’t as sudden as it seemed. There were quieter challenges at the time unfolding beneath the surface—ones many young people face but I didn’t yet have the perspective to fully grasp. I had a relentless inner critic and a strong tendency to push myself, a difficulty feeling safe in my body and trusting the world, and all within a very sensitive system still learning to find its worth. I was navigating the complexities of early adulthood, relationships, transgressions and unresolved material held in my body.
Over the years, I navigated the medical system, often with frustration. It was difficult to find doctors who had the time—or willingness—to really explore what was going on, or who were comfortable with my desire to understand my own health or ask questions. I spent a significant amount of money and time along the way, and commonly left appointments feeling exasperated and unheard. I received broad diagnoses like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. But it wasn’t until more recently–more than 20 years later –that I finally received clearer medical answers that I had been querying professionals specifically about for years: deep infiltrating stage 4 endometriosis, adenomyosis, and an autoimmune condition.
Naming conditions I had flux and flowed with for so long brought me some relief—and also some direction in being able to better understand how to approach my situation. However, diagnoses and subsequent surgeries didn’t exactly give me resolution. Like many chronic conditions, these are complex, poorly understood and have no “cure”. Management remains expensive, time-consuming, and often contradictory. In my case, the most healing moments in the end haven’t come directly from clear diagnoses or prescriptions, but when people—health professionals, wellness practitioners, therapists, friends, family— witnessed and listened with understanding. Those who sat with me in the foggy in-between and didn’t rush to solve, but bore gentle witness to the complexity of experience. And also the permission I gave myself to acknowledge and feel more of what was happening for me and what was underneath that, and to find more kindness for myself in that place.
Valuable also was learning to practice listening inwardly to my own sensing and knowing, as well as trusting more in the world around me–and finding meaning in it. I’ve come to better know my body not as a machine to be fixed, but as a sensitive communicator with stories to be heard, and in constant relationship with the world around me. Finding allies—people I can speak with openly and process frustration, anger, shame and grief alongside, and build muscles of trust and safety—has also been powerful. And the quiet practice of trying to tune in, of responding with care and curiosity rather than control, has become a steady guide to remind myself to find my way back to during times of uncertainty or overwhelm.
It's taken me time to realise healing is not a solo and linear road, but a winding and relational journey–—one we travel on with both the human and more-than-human. We are never just our minds in a medical clinic or therapy room—or anywhere in our lives, really. We bring our bodies, our histories, our ancestry, our culture, our biology, our microbiome, our politics, the ecologies we inhabit, and more. Yet we often picture our minds as the control centre and skin as our edge—a sealed boundary between “us” and “the world.” Through this lens, humans remain at the centre of the story. In reality, we are porous, and we are interwoven into living systems—receiving, responding, and shaping—far more intimately than we tend to realise.
As Sophie Strand describes, the spider and its web offer a powerful metaphor for understanding our relationships to the world around us. Studies show that when a spider’s web is damaged—when its silk is cut—the spider’s behaviour changes dramatically, as if it had undergone a lobotomy. The web is not separate from the spider; it is part of its sensing, its knowing, its way of being in the world. What if we, too, like the spider, are constantly receiving information not only from within ourselves, but also from our environment? Subtle cues from the human and more-than-human world. What might change if we became more aware of these cues? If we trusted them? If we allowed ourselves to listen—not just to the voice in our heads, but to our bodies and the wider web we are part of? As the late Joanna Macy wrote, “The web of life both cradles us and calls us to weave it further.”
What if we were supported to tune in—intentionally—to the wisdom held all around us: in trees and birds, in fungi and microbes, in rivers and stars, and in the metaphors they offer? Nature does not demand that we be well. It does not recoil from mess or decay. It understands the value of compost, the necessity of fallowness, the rhythm of emergence and rest. For me, nature has become a kind of nervous system I can lean into when my own begins to fray. Each encounter—whether real, imagined or in memory—offers insight, perspective, and a gentle reminder to zoom out. It teaches me that healing isn’t always about fixing or striving. Sometimes it’s about attuning, softening, and returning to the larger web of life we are woven into—and finding meaning there.
What if our health professionals and therapists had greater awareness of the way we interconnect with our worlds around us, and what if these professionals were able to act more like mycelium—guiding, supporting, translating between our interwoven root systems? What if they helped us navigate together through the interconnected underworld of emotional and physical pain, holding space for what is unseen, underground, or still becoming?
And what if healing wasn’t about a return to some former state, but a becoming-with? A process that can allow space for grieving what might have been lost—and also of composting pain into something fertile. Of finding new ways to be in relationship with: ourselves, our bodies, each other, and our living world. Healing, then, becomes a communal act—not a solo story of an individual hero's journey, but one that is circuitous and rooted in collective listening and care. This is not a clear story. Chronic health and other life challenges rarely have a neat arc of resolution. But it can be meaningful. It can be connective.
We are webs of relation. And when we honour that, healing becomes not solely focused on erasing illness; sensitivity; or what our bodies are trying to tell us–instead about weaving something more honest, spacious, and perhaps more alive. With support and practice we can more easily access our internal guidance systems and work towards finding greater safety. We can ask ourselves what stories need my attention most? What do I need to see or hear now? Am I safe right now? What can my discomfort show me about myself and the world I live in? In what ways do I choose to connect with my natural world? At what pace do I need to move right now?
And maybe the questions we ask ourselves aren’t then focused specifically and only on: how do I get well? Maybe the questions then are: how can I be supported to find more safety and listen better—to myself, to others, to the living world—and allow that to guide the way forward? Can I find the meaning and connection in that process?
Strand, S. The body is a doorway. A Memoir: A Journey Beyond Healing, Hope, and the Human. Running Press, USA
Lamon, S and Knowles, O. 2021 Why are males still the default subjects in medical research? The Conversation October 4 2021
Harvard Medical School. 2017 Women and pain: Disparities in experience and treatment - Harvard Health Harvard Health Online October 9, 2017