My journey in search of a natural and holistic healing method

Hello my sweet friends. Today is going to be a little bit of a different video because I have a few announcements to make. First of all as you've probably noticed if you've been on my like home page, I did a little bit of rebranding. So just to touch on that a little bit, I for a while have been thinking about it and have been kind of talking about it how I wanted to either do more on my Simply Faith channel or maybe combine the two channels. Like I just wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my YouTube stuff. I absolutely love and adore reading, but over the last year and a half I have just noticed that it puts so much pressure on myself to read so many books in a month or in a year or whatever that I kind of started to lose that enjoyment for reading. And this year I'm also just really discovering new passions and hobbies and my priorities are just shifting as a whole. So I really wanted to start doing more lifestyle things but it was really stressing me out having to manage two different channels while also like working full-time and volunteering at my church and I just had a lot going on. So I made the decision to just combine my two channels. So now we are Simply Faith Things instead of Faiths Reading Things and Simply Faith. We just combined the two. So moving forward I will still have like quite a bit of book videos but I am going to slowly start to incorporate more lifestyle things in my channel which comes to today's video. This is a topic that I've been wanting to talk about for a long time and I feel like it's one that I get a lot of questions about and one that I feel like a lot of people can relate to whenever I do post about it. And that is my holistic healing journey or I guess journey to holistic healing. This video might be a little bit of a long one. It's going to be a sit down chit chat. So I have my drink right here and I should have brought like a snack board or something. But I'm just going to be spewing out my health journey and story and just the last extremely crazy few years that I've had health-wise and kind of how I came to the point where I am now. How like herbal healing, holistic healing kind of got introduced to me. What I'm doing with all of that. So that's kind of just what this video is going to be about. To start off I am in no way shape or form a medical professional. So everything that I say take with a grain of salt. So with all that said I'm just going to jump right into it because it's like I said kind of a long story. So starting at the beginning. Growing up I never really had health issues. I was always a relatively healthy child. I didn't get sick super often. Didn't have like tummy issues really. I kind of had some anxiety but I mean nothing too crazy. And then I think it was after high school. Maybe like my junior senior year and then right after high school I kind of started getting some stomach issues. I just noticed that I was kind of starting to not be able to eat everything that I wanted. You know as like teenagers usually do. But it was nothing too crazy. I mean I still didn't really have to like super watch what I ate. I never really had issues with pain or gas and bloating or like irregular bowel movements. Like it was there was just nothing crazy off about my body yet. And then when I was about 18 or 19 I kind of started feeling it more. I started getting a little bit nauseous. Sometimes it was mostly just when I was really anxious. And then I was starting to notice that my stomach was kind of being weird when I ate certain foods or I don't know it was kind of random. But that's just when it started. And then I did go through a really abusive relationship when I was about 19 years old. And after that is when I really started to feel the physical effects. Now we'll talk about this a little bit more later. But I do 100% believe that trauma and high stress and holding that all in your body and just things that you go through in general can really have a huge physical toll on your body. So after I got out of that abusive relationship I was still relatively okay. I was still eating mostly what I wanted to and wasn't struggling very much with pain. But it was definitely starting to I was like starting to notice issues. And then it was probably about three years ago I really had to start cutting things out. I was starting to get nauseous more. I was having some like stomach and abdominal pain. I was having a lot of gas and bloating. My irregular bowel movements. It kind of just started to get worse and worse and worse within like a year or two. I went to a few different doctors but they didn't really do much. They just kind of told me to maybe go on a few elimination diets. Maybe cut out gluten. Cut out dairy. You know they told me to like do different things and experiment with food. So I did. But I was just noticing that it didn't really matter what I ate. Because say like I would eat something one day and then I would eat that thing again the next week and it would make me sick. So it was like just super random. I was getting kind of irritated because I couldn't understand like what was going on or like what was triggering it. It was just so confusing for me. So fast forward to when it started getting like really bad. I started going to different doctors. I had a like primary care physician. I had a GI doctor. I had a nutritionist. I had a nutritional therapist. So I was seeing a lot of different people kind of intermittently I guess. And it was just a lot of I don't know. Maybe go see this person. Let's get these tests done. I got a crap ton of blood work done. They wanted to do a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. But I haven't done those yet. I know I should. But I was kind of just avoiding the whole thing at this point. I was like I don't want to deal with this. So it was just getting really irritating for me because I felt like I was starting to get sick a lot. And it didn't matter like I said what foods I cut out or ate or didn't eat or did eat. It was just always so random. I was getting really bad acid reflux. My bowel movement for like very irregular. Sometimes I would have like really bad gas pains. So it was just a lot a lot of GI struggles. I started taking like antacids and I remember I took this thing called like a ton. So just obviously I took things that were not good for my body especially to have like long term. But none of my doctors were really helping me like figure out what was going on. I just kept trying to throw like medications at me and I just I never was getting to the root issue of things. And then back in January early February of last year so 2023 I started getting really sick. So this is when I started getting super nauseous like every single day. I was having the same like GI issues that I was having before. But at this point I knew that something was wrong and I needed to do something about what was going on. So I kid you not I had an appointment every single week with different doctors for I think about a month and a half. So I think I had about nine doctor's appointments within that like month and a half range. And it was kind of just the same issue like nobody was really taking me seriously. And they were just trying to give me a I mean yeah helped but like it still wasn't getting to the root issue like I still was struggling with these things. It got to the point where not only was it extremely hard physically but mentally I was just getting so exhausted of being so sick all the time. My nausea was so bad every single day that I was starting to not eat nearly as much. So I started losing weight like weight that I already didn't really have to lose. I started losing more weight. I wasn't getting nearly enough calories and I was probably malnourished for a while. I was probably honestly only eating about 300 calories per day because I was just feeling so nauseous that I didn't want to eat because I didn't want to keep feeling sick. So that's when it really got to the point that I was like I cannot live like this. Like I cannot continue to treat my body like this. Like I need someone to take me seriously and I need something to be done about this. So I think it was after my maybe my fifth appointment with someone that they were like okay maybe it might be like your gallbladder and maybe you just need to have it like taken out. So I was like um okay that's scary because a I've never had surgery before so I was terrified. And b I was like you're removing an entire organ like do we really need to go that far? And she's like oh it's not a big deal like people get it removed all the time. Like you don't need it. Which we will touch on that later because that was probably the most irritating thing someone could have ever told me. Which I know in hindsight yes like you don't need your gallbladder to live but it's still an organ that your body needs to like function like normal. So anyway um after that I went to go get an ultrasound of like my upper abdomen and they found like a really really small gallstone. So after that I had an appointment to get what's called a HIDA scan done if I'm remembering correctly. Um so that was to test like how my gallbladder was functioning. So they give you like this dye stuff that goes into your like liver and gallbladder I think I don't know exactly how it works but it was testing to see like how my gallbladder was emptying. I had to look this up really quick. So the gallbladder stores and concentrates bile from the liver. Bile is then released into the first section of the small intestine where it helps your body to break down and absorb fats from food. So my gallbladder just was not doing that. It wasn't emptying and it wasn't like contracting and just like moving as it should. So we found out that that was wrong. That it wasn't it wasn't working the way it should. So then I think it was the day after that. Either the day after or two days after I had that scan. I remember this day so vividly. I hadn't barely eaten anything for like three days and I just remember trying to eat my food that day at work and I felt so sick to my stomach that I had to go into the bathroom like sit on the floor and just like breathe and like I just felt like I was gonna throw up like all the time. Um and I just remember I was so defeated and I was so upset and I was like I don't know what to do. Like I'm so sick. I need to eat. I cannot keep treating my body like this. Like I need something to be done. So I remember that day I told my co-workers I was like I'm gonna go drive myself to the ER because I'm not eating. I'm so exhausted. I feel so sick and nobody's doing anything about it and it was taking weeks like literal weeks if not months for me to get into these doctors that would actually do something if that makes sense. So I drove myself to the ER that day and I just remember I was sobbing to this doctor. I feel so bad for her but I was sobbing to this doctor and I was like I'm not eating. I feel so sick all the time. I'm exhausted from trying to eat and not be sick and function like a normal human being and trying to go to work and it was just all it was all so much and so she she very much felt for me and she she did everything that she could but um they told me that they wouldn't do like gallbladder surgery there because they didn't feel like it was emergency enough. So I also found out that I was extremely like backed up because I was taking a nausea or an anti-nausea medication that makes you like super constipated. So I was taking that like nearly every single day because of how sick I was and so at the hospital they told me that oh you might just feel sick because you're really really backed up. So they sent me home with a bunch of laxatives and a different anti-nausea medication which let me tell you all of these have really not fun side effects. So that was just a whole mess in itself. I went home I tried to down this laxative drink and nothing really happened until like three days later and I finally got an appointment with a like two weeks after that ER visit. So at that visit with that surgeon he looked at my skin like looked at everything that we had done all my tests everything and he was like oh yeah let's just take your gallbladder out like let's just do it. Why not? At that point I was so desperate for whatever was happening to be fixed but I was like if that's what you think is best just like take it out like I I cannot live like this anymore. Not only was I super nauseous all the time but I was having abdominal pain and my bowel movements like I said were like just all over the place. I was just ill constantly. So I was desperate. I was literally desperate at that point. So he was like well I might have some time tomorrow morning so do you want to just take it out and I was like um okay. Literally terrified. I called my fiance who was who was my boyfriend at the time and I just literally was so scared and I was like they want to do surgery tomorrow I'm freaking out I've never had surgery before like I don't know what to do. So he was really sweet about everything and like just calmed me down and helped me through mentally what was going on. So the next day I have the surgery. I was terrified going into it not gonna lie but I was there for maybe like two ish hours and then they came in and they shot me up with some stuff and I was out cold. I didn't even know they were coming in to like take me to surgery they just came in. They said something and then they gave me the stuff and I was out and then I woke up in a room the lights dimmed and I had no idea what was going on. Like I knew that I was out of surgery and I kind of like I knew what was going on but it just happened in my head it happened so quick that I was like did that just happen? Like I remember lifting up my shirt and I was like huh they did it? Like what? So after that I felt immediate relief. Like I wasn't nauseous all the time anymore. I could actually eat something again. So that was amazing and I it was just such a relief to feel like I somewhat had my life back you know but that wasn't the end of it. So after my gallbladder surgery the constant persistent nausea did go away for the most part but I started having so much more extreme GI issues after my surgery. So going back to what the gallbladder does. So the gallbladder breaks down fat. It's a huge aid in digestion. So pretty much I was not able to digest my food like normal anymore which some people say like you just have to kind of change up your diet don't eat as many fats like don't eat processed food blah blah blah. I was not eating any of those things. I was only eating healthy fats. I wasn't eating anything super processed anything that would like or should bother me but I was having a lot of issues like I was having loose stools, a lot of gas and bloating, a lot of gas pains, a lot of just stomach weird stuff. My acid reflux got really really bad and I don't know if that was due to my gallbladder stuff or it was maybe just getting worse from before but pretty much all of my issues except for my nausea were getting worse. So it was a couple weeks maybe a couple months after I got my gallbladder out and I called my surgeon and I was like hey um this stuff is going on I know there's this there's a thing called like post cholecystectomy syndrome or something so I was like is that what's going on like I don't know really what's happening or why these things are still a thing and he was like okay maybe you should go see GI. So I got an appointment with a GI doctor and went to that appointment and they just tried to put me on some more medication so I was like all right whatever so I took those medications um they don't have good side effects they are not made with ingredients that are good for your body so after a couple weeks of taking those medications and having some weird side effects and the issue itself was not getting resolved like I they were just treating symptoms and so I was getting really irritated that no one was able to figure out like what was really going on so this is when I started looking into alternative medicine and healing things and this is what really sparked my research into herbal and holistic healing and like naturopathic medicine and stuff so at this point I was making a few different changes instead of taking like normal antacids I switched to better brands like I have I don't know if I have it with me but there's this brand that's called Genexa and it's just formulated with like cleaner ingredients and ingredients that aren't as I don't know toxic and like harsh on your body so I started making little changes to where I was still like taking some symptom relief things but it wasn't as harsh as the medications and things that the like western medicine people were like trying to give me and those things were were helping but I mean the issues were still there and so that's when I finally found my naturopathic doctor who I see now still so I get an appointment with her and at this point I literally have an entire folder of like all the testing that I've done the surgery that I had all of my symptoms just literally I had a folder of every single thing that I was struggling with when it came to like mental health stuff pain my menstrual cycles like it was I listed literally everything that was like abnormal or that I was struggling with or you know whatever and I took that folder and I said here you go please tell me what's wrong with me so she looked at everything that I had given her and she kind of started like piecing little things together and this is why I love holistic medicine so much and this is why I recommend holistic medicine and naturopathic medicine over western medicine for some things because I know that western medicine is amazing for a lot of things but for what I was struggling with and for what I was going through they western medicine was letting me down they were not helping me at all and they weren't ever trying to actually find the root issue of what was going on my naturopathic doctor she took all these little pieces and she started recommending things for each thing I was struggling with migraines hot flashes some what I think might be hormonal things all of my gi stuff that I was going through before was still happening so she gave me a little like tea blend and then some aloe juice castor oil pack some digestive enzymes some bitters there was like a bunch of things that she had recommended and I kind of just like pick and chose like what I could afford at the time um so I was kind of slowly weaning off of whatever medications I had left and all that stuff I was slowly starting to come off of those and trying to take more of what my naturopathic doctor was recommending and I started seeing change for the first time in a long time with natural remedies because I was like the medications that the western medicine doctors were prescribing me like obviously they were helping with my symptoms but the moment that I got off of those medications my issues would like immediately start up again so I was trying to find more long-term remedies and things that actually fixed whatever was really going on so I started taking all the things that she had recommended um I started to feel a little bit better so with that I was like wow if this is really starting to work in my body like I want to know why and I want to know what these things are why they help other natural ways to treat my body that don't require all these harsh medications that have a lot of side effects and you know like I was just I was going through a lot mentally physically emotionally and I just I found that the naturopathic naturopathic medicine aligned so much more with my own beliefs my own morals like just things that I really care about I do believe that the earth itself provides so many healing things that we don't even think about because we do just have the convenience and the blessing of western medicine so I started doing my own research and reading more into herbal healing holistic healing like mind body whatever like all that stuff and I was shocked and amazed at how much things are connected if that makes sense and I didn't like I knew this but I didn't physically feel it and see it until I went to my like craniosacral therapy which was actually only about a week and a half ago my naturopathic doctor recommended that I go see this girl and she does like occupational therapy she does craniosacral therapy with some I always mess this up somato emotional release I think is what it's called I went in mostly for my migraines but also in overall like pain in my body and stuff I go there she kind of just like feels around my body and stuff and then she starts going around my stomach and she has just her hands like on my stomach and we're just going through like hey what are you feeling what's bringing up these feelings well a lot we're just like working through that and I could pinpoint feel and identify the trauma that my body was holding on to and where it was holding like onto that and how that was manifesting physically in my body it was the craziest experience I've ever had because when I started working through those emotions and those like feelings and like those physical feelings and just talking like like just going through it all working through that trauma and identifying that trauma and working through it because like I genuinely don't even know how to explain it I started feeling physical relief from letting go and like working through that pent up like stress and trauma and all those emotions and feelings I was holding in my body so that was nuts but that just showed me how much emotions are stress anxiety trauma how much that can manifest physically so that got me thinking a lot about like some traumatic experiences and stuff that I had a few years ago and how that is taking a toll on my body now but that's something that my doctors didn't even take into consideration which was really bothersome to me anyway so that is how I got like super into holistic medicine and herbal healing and that is kind of where everything stemmed from and how everything started now kind of just fast forwarding to like now I obviously still struggle with things and I think so much of it is just a lot of trial and error especially when you are trying to heal your body and heal like the root issue it's not easy and it's not fun it's a ton of hard work it's a ton of days where you are just so exhausted and you just want to reach for those quick fixes but see I was tired of reaching for those quick fixes so much for my brain's sake and for my body's sake I just knew that I needed to go through a really really really hard time to actually heal myself not just taking medications to slap band-aids on things I'm talking like fully heal myself like heal mentally heal physically I was done slapping band-aids on things and I was done putting so much faith into a system that is taught to just slap band-aids on things now again this is not me completely just dragging western medicine in the mud because I do think that they are amazing for so many things like my little sister she's epileptic and she's got a lot of other health issues that require western medicine and like medications to function like normally on a daily basis so I'm so grateful for western medicine in some cases but again just in my own story and in my own journey and in less life-threatening circumstances I just I don't think that they are a good system at all so anyway I cut off my little tangent there but going back to my gallbladder so I'm just I'm really irritated because as much as I was so desperate at that point to just get it out and just to feel better I also wish that I did have a little bit more education on why your gallbladder is important to keep but also be I wish that I had an advocate that knew more than I did especially in that western medicine world that would say hey um here's like other alternatives that we can maybe try before we have to take your organ out like literally nobody even told me that there was anything else that I could do besides just getting my gallbladder out nobody told me that there were other methods to improving gallbladder function nobody cared like nobody nobody cared and that sucked they cared that I was feeling sick but just like everyone else in that world it's just a quick fix it's just okay you're feeling sick let's just do this and not tell you about all the things you're probably gonna struggle with later or you know we're just gonna do this but we're not gonna tell you all the other ways that we could maybe avoid taking it out so that was just it was all really irritating and now now looking back now that I am just more educated on my own body and on different more natural ways of healing your body I just I wish that I could have helped my past self so with that said in the healthcare world I think and even not in the healthcare world in general I think educating yourself on your body and on different methods and ways of healing is probably the best thing that you can do for yourself I'm a very earthy gal I'm a very crunchy girl so to say and lately over the last year or so as I'm just educating myself more and as I'm digging deeper into in myself and who I am and doing more self-reflection I just I care so much about what goes into my body and I want to do things as naturally as I possibly can and so I think this form of medicine is just it just aligns so well with how I choose to live my life not only that though like I said I do see better results with my conditions with this herbal and holistic healing and I just feel so much better about it all so again okay circling back around to the holistic side of things um like I said before I don't think it is taught or talked about enough how much things are connected in our bodies how much certain lifestyle things and nutrition and just what we consume in general how like how much that has an impact on our lives and our health so it is after doing so much research and finding myself more and experimenting with with foods and herbs and all this stuff more I now feel like I'm on the right path I mean I'm not healed by any means but I definitely feel so much better than I did last year when I was putting all of my faith in western medicine I feel like I have gained my hope back I've gained my motivation back I actually do physically feel a lot better than I did last year like I have flare-ups and I have times where like I feel sick pretty often actually but now I'm able to treat those symptoms with extremely natural like literal plants so on the topic of holistic healing not only did I start taking things um that would help with my actual symptoms going on like my gas pains my irregular bowel movements my nausea um I started looking into also naturally treating some of my mental things like my anxiety um PTSD sleep because as I started listening to my body more and stopped listening to what everybody else was telling me I started realizing that sometimes I do get nauseous around certain times in the month sometimes I do get nauseous because I am stressed or anxious or sometimes like there's some kind of feelings in my body that is creating nausea sometimes it's because of my acid reflux so I started just being so ridiculously in tune with my body and I started to be able to pinpoint what was causing what and when and this isn't always accurate because sometimes like things happen and I'm just like what is going on but for the most part after doing my own research after connecting with myself and using things that the earth provides healing wise all these things were just making me so much more aware of what was going on how to help myself etc so now when I do start to feel those icky symptoms or something's going on instead of having to call my primary care physician who would normally just a tell me that I would have to make an appointment which costs a lot of money and b I would be there for 15 minutes just for her to tell me to go see someone else so instead of having to do that now when I'm feeling a certain way when I'm able to check in with myself do some reflection and look at it from a holistic view it's so much easier to see where these things are coming from and let me tell you probably 60 percent of my stomach issues can be emotion related and I when I say that I mean anxiety stress depression when those things happen I notice that my symptoms get so much worse so when things like that happen I won't go just take my medication to feel better I'll check in with myself and I'll do things that will help me mentally I'll make some lifestyle changes for that week to help whatever is going on and then I'll add in some herbal medicine stuff I'll drink certain teas I'll take certain tinctures and instead of just trying to slap band-aids on things now I nurture my body and I take care of her the way that she's screaming at me to do because I feel like for the last couple years my body has just been screaming at me and it makes me so sad because I've just been trying to shut her up and I didn't even realize that that's what I was doing my body was trying to tell me hey you're holding on to a lot of trauma and this is creating a lot of physical issues or hey you're not really paying attention to all the chemicals and the food that you're putting in your body I need whole foods real foods nurturing foods I think these days that like us as I'm in the USA so just as Americans I feel like we just we care more about convenience than we do about the true health of ourselves and that is so heartbreaking for me to admit and especially to admit that I did that for so long I cared more about and I'm not just talking about with medicine I am talking about with like food and with my mental health and just with overall things in general I just I wanted a quick fix but the quick fix is never the real fix so this journey and all has just it's taught me so much about life and about myself and it's been a huge learning lesson and I'm continuing to to learn things all the time every day and I don't know I mean I have hope that I will be 100 healed at some point but I also think that our bodies are just changing so much all the time and as we age as we get older things change so it'll always be trial and error but at least now I feel like I'm in control and I'm not going to let people minimize and dismiss me anymore I'm going to educate myself I'm going to try and fail at things I'm going to do the really really really hard things that I don't want to do in order to see and feel true results I know this entire video for the most part has been me talking in circles but overall I don't know I hope that all makes sense this journey I mean like I said before is by no means an easy or fun one I mean it's fun because I'm like learning a lot and it's fun to like experiment and whatnot but it's not fun when I stop reaching for those quick fixes to let myself figure out what's actually going on man I don't know this whole holistic healing thing it's not only me trying to treat physical things it's also just me trying to overall improve my life from every angle everything is connected everything that I consume everything that I do it has an effect both physically and mentally and I think for so long I was just rolling with society and I was just living the way that everybody was telling me to live but what people what people don't understand is the majority of the population is one of convenience and avoidance because it's hard to not do that and I know that it's also not cheap I mean I had to spend thousands of dollars over the last year or so on my health probably more than that thousands and thousands of dollars which I'm so extremely fortunate to even be able to to go the route that I have it hasn't been easy nope but I'm so beyond blessed to be able to have a job and live in a place that is safe and even has these opportunities but it's yeah it's definitely not easy and it's not cheap so I understand why a lot of people don't do this but since my life has now become one that is very not convenient but I'm I'm happy with that honest I mean to an extent I want to feed my body with things that are truly nurturing I feel like the word for my life over the last year and for this year is nurture because I'm getting away from all the things that harm and dysregulate and I am putting so much more energy and time into finding the things that are nurturing and are nourishing and not only is that the food and the medicine that I take but it's also the products that I use the clothes that I wear even like the lotions and the body care products that we have nowadays can have a big impact on our health hormones it's just it's crazy all the things that we aren't even aware of it's just because we're just so oblivious and we are so unaware of all of the things that we're doing and consuming and the ways that it impacts our life so overall just this year I've been trying to yes just feed my body things that will truly nourish and benefit again I know that I've been talking in circles and probably a lot of this doesn't really make sense and honestly at a certain point I feel like I start just speaking gibberish and I'm just all over the place but I hope that everything that I have said in this video makes sense overall this last few years have just been a whirlwind and just the craziest time it's been the hardest year of my life but it's also been the most transformative year of my life I'm sure there's so much more that I could say about all of this but I will save that for other videos when the times come if you are interested in like holistic healing herbal healing naturopathic medicine all that kind of stuff I'm always open to having conversations with you guys either on my reading instagram or over on it's simply faith you can dm me if you want I will list a few of my favorite kind of herbal and holistic medicine people in my description and I will also link some of my favorite books on the matter down below now I am going to go edit this video thank you guys for being here and listening to my journey and I hope that what I have said gives you guys some hope especially if you are kind of struggling with some of the things that I have been struggling with um just know that in any situation in any health situation any mental situation you are not alone there are so many people who understand you and what you're going through you might just not know them yet but I think just the biggest takeaway from this video if there is a takeaway from this video to advocate for yourself and sometimes you are the only one who will stand up for you you know um and as hard as that is sometimes you have the power and for the most part have the resources to educate yourself and if you don't please reach out and if I can help in any way I would love to oh gosh but with all that said I mean I guess that's the end of this video I love you guys so much sorry for blabbing your ears off for probably over an hour around an hour I don't know how long this video is going to be but I love you guys so much I hope you're excited for this change in my channel because I am very much so I will touch a little bit more on all that soon but in the meantime go eat a healthy nourishing meal get some sunshine if there is sunshine where you live take care of yourself love yourselves a little bit extra today and I'll see you guys in the next video bye