The Healthy Thing is a curated guide to embodying total wellness with a strong focus on mind/body healing and living a clean and healthy lifestyle.
Navigating complex health challenges firsthand, I’m passionate about sharing what I’ve learned to help others gain awareness, feel more empowered, and find new possibilities for healing. Deeply committed to holistic wellness, I have spent years exploring the interconnectedness of the mind-body-soul and the many approaches that support healing, both through my own personal healing journey and my dedication to understanding the full scope of holistic wellness. My journey has led me to and given me a deeper passion for practices like somatic work, neuroplasticity, advanced meditation through the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza, self-reiki, energy healing, ancestral healing, energy medicine, and more while committed to living a clean and nontoxic, mindful, and healthy lifestyle. I’m especially fascinated by the role of quantum physics and somatic release of emotions in healing, and how shifting mindset and nervous system patterns, along with treatment focused on matter, can create transformation.
Before my official healing journey began, I worked in the fashion industry, was a frequent traveler and food enthusiast, and found solace in my weekly ballet and barre classes. My life took a drastic turn however, when I began a healing journey from complex dis-ease* which created several dozen symptoms that have dominated my life day in and day out since 2015.
Seeking answers and desperate to find relief from well over 45 symptoms (at once), I’ve visited over 30 doctors in six cities (domestic and international), underwent/undergo diverse healing modalities from spiritual to medical, done an uncountable number of extensive tests spanning from conventional to alternative to energetic, and work(ed) with incredible healers and practitioners to nurture my mind, body, and spirit.
As I continue on this journey, some of the biggest things I’ve learned thus far are the importance of advocating for myself, trusting my intuition, shifting my beliefs and mindset, and deeply tuning in to my body. Most importantly, I’ve learned the importance of healing the whole self, emotionally and physically, treating the two as equal and connected rather than separate and isolated.
I experienced my first major dissociative/depersonalized panic attack when I was a very young teenager. This progressed into constant and debilitating anxiety, depersonalization disorder, and panic disorder with symptoms that were quite extreme daily. After years of suffering, I was finally able to manage these challenges as I entered college. Around that time, I also began experiencing abnormally painful periods, and later, persistent gut issues - though I considered myself as fairly healthy otherwise.
By my early-mid twenties there was a major shift in my body. I began having chronic migraines, irritability, worsened anxiety, functioning depression, weight gain, extreme abdominal bloating, hair loss, fatigue, insomnia, and random pain that seemed to be unexplainable. I was drained and completely burnt-out from life as a 20-something year old.
Over the years I jumped from specialist to specialist, often the best in their field, searching for answers. Despite extensive testing, I was repeatedly given vague diagnoses such as “IBS”, “generalized anxiety disorder”, and “migraines” and sent home with new prescriptions.
Being someone who has been highly intuitive from a young age, I knew something else was amiss. I continued searching for answers, eventually making my way to a holistic doctor where extensive testing revealed that both my dysbiotic gut and anxiety seemed to be the causes for everything, including new food allergies I had developed by this time. I also tested positive for a gene mutation called MTHFR, which the doctor said was unfavorable as it made it incredibly difficult for my body to detox on its own.
I revamped my entire diet, cutting out gluten, dairy, and other "trigger foods," brought in other healing tools, and began diving into books on the brain, anxiety, and mindfulness in the hopes that something would help me feel better.
Despite everything, my symptoms didn’t improve. Over the years, more and more body pains emerged- pains I initially blamed on “injuries.” Some became so severe that they affected my ability to walk, leaving me limping everywhere.
By fall of 2015, my life came to a halt; my body was hit hard with a host of new symptoms, including the most debilitating widespread body pain in my muscles, bones, nerves (neuralgia and neuropothy), fascia, and joints. I had severe chest pain, drenching night sweats, swelling in my joints and hands, breathing issues, vision problems, skin rashes and reactions, daily migraines that continued for months, and many more symptoms, some truly bizarre. Within a weeks time and without intention, I lost over 10lbs without explanation. At the time I didn’t think it could get any worse…boy was I wrong.
I was shuffled from ERs to top specialist doctor to top specialist doctor. I had numerous (over 2-dozen) and repeated colonoscopies, endoscopies, X-rays, MRIs, MRAs, CTs, ultrasounds, echocardiograms, EKGs and other specialized diagnostic testing, all which rarely showed much to “worry about” (a few things did come up but still were not explainable). Doctors were perplexed, calling me a “mystery patient”.
Eventually I was given further vague diagnoses like fibromyalgia, neuralgia, “undiagnosable autoimmune disease”, MS mimics, and of course, anxiety. I was injected with and prescribed every medication imaginable from Prednisone to antibiotics to pain medication to antidepressants to more to help manage the symptoms, none of which helped, some making things even worse, making me more confused about what was actually going on.
Desperate for answers, I made my way back to holistic/integrative doctors. From the multiple stool, saliva, urine , and blood tests (I averaged between 25 vials of blood at a time) we discovered how incredibly out of balance the organs and systems in my body were , that I had undiagnosed Hashimoto’s disease, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (at the time it was moderate**), and a non diagnosable infection in my body.
I took what felt like 500 supplements while I continued to edit my diet, cutting out even more foods. I tried every healing diet from being raw vegan (thanks to my phone call with the Medical Medium) to eating only cooked foods, and did cleanses and fasting all in hopes something would reset my gut and body and make everything better. But despite all of this, the conditions and symptoms in my body worsened and I became more unable to participate in every-day life.
It didn't make sense.
Finally, in late 2016, as well as shortly after, I was diagnosed with late-stage Lyme disease, five co-infections, very severe Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, stage-4 adrenal fatigue, a severe multi-parasitic infection, mold poisoning, candida, highly re-activated EBV, systemic Streptococcus, Mycoplasma Pneumonia, a hiatal hernia, mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), systemic heavy metal toxicity, a chronic staph infection (MaRcons and Klebsiella) in my sinuses, liver dysfunction, gut paralysis, and PTSD. Not to mention the Hashimoto’s and later diagnoses of stage 4-endometriosis*, adenomyosis, CSS and MDD, among other things I will not list.
I quickly began hardcore treatments via IV, injections, additional supplementation, and other therapies with some of the most sought after doctors and clinics in the world - and even still, treatments for late-stage Lyme and other chronic illnesses can be worse than the dis-eases and conditions themselves at times.(It is important to mention that I prefer integrative/holistic treatments over conventional ones, though I do and have done both. This does not mean alternative treatments are more gentle by any means.)
Despite being on many dozen supplements multiple times daily, and intensive IV and other therapies three+ times a week, going from clinic to clinic, doctor to doctor, and continuing my work with therapists, healers, energy and body workers, and more, symptoms drastically worsened, new symptoms emerged, I developed extreme central sensitization syndrome (CSS) and major depressive disorder and I was drowning in paralyzing fatigue and severely extreme complex widespread pain.
I became sicker and sicker and was dealing with over 45 symptoms. I was completely debilitated. I spent years homebound and bedridden unable to do even the most mundane and simple tasks. I was too weak and so incredibly sick.
Though I had many dark moments, more rock bottoms than I can count on my fingers, and times I wasn't sure I would make it out alive, I kept moving forward and fought for my life every single day , diving head first into both physical and emotional/spiritual therapies and work of all kinds both with guidance and on my own.
6.5-years in, I began feeling tiny shifts and eventually some symptoms, and even conditions, went into remission or became significantly less intense. That being said, while I have continued to make progress, healing is anything but linear. I’ve not reached a point or a day where I feel “normal” or “great” yet (despite how it may appear), I deal with a lot of invisible symptoms that would keep most people in bed, and I absolutely experience dark and deep debilitating ebbs that do keep me in bed. Complex dis-ease, even when you do ALL the things, is not easy, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all healing approach.
This journey, these dis-eases, these symptoms, forced me to unbecome in order to continue to become all while facing the hidden depths of every part of my soul. It taught me greater resilience, compassion, and profound empathy. It also helped me tune into my authentic self, soul’s journey, spirituality, psychic abilities through the clair senses, and innate powers I didn’t know were possible. It has changed my entire perspective on life.
Healing from and especially living with something like this takes courage, resilience, strength, and trust and facing it truly head on is not for the faint of heart. Yes I’m on this journey, but after years of deep work, experience, research, and learning, I also have the knowledge to help guide others through it. I say to you with certainty that no matter where you are in this process, you are not alone, you are not crazy, you are not too much, and you are not doomed. Our bodies have the innate ability to heal and there is an entire world of possibility waiting for you.
In love and light and a little bit of joy,
Talia
Certified integrative holistic health + life coach/ Certified in Reiki I and II/ “Honorary PhD” in healing**
Click here to find out ways you can work with me.
*Complex dis-ese: I refer to this frequently as there is no official name for when someone is dealing with a multitude of chronic conditions and illness. To state only one diagnosis would be dishonest to the reality of what someone is dealing with, and it is far too difficult to list out every diagnosis so I have labeled it appropriately. I hope one day this is adopted or a proper name is given.
**CFS/ME has stages as does endometriosis and other dis-eases. CFS/ME can be mild, moderate, severe, or very severe/complicated. Endo has stages 1-4.
** *An honorary PhD is not a real thing. I just like to call it that because after decades of experience, far beyond the 4-6 years it takes to earn one and far beyond the 10,000 hours it takes to become an expert in something, I think a PhD in all things related to healing, both mind and body, is well deserved! I research extensively, read medical journals and research constantly, have had in depth conversations with my doctors who have taught me so much, and I have also LIVED it, which exceeds any textbook.
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Some of my posts were written at times where I was extremely sick and writing or being on my computer was nearly impossible for me. Please excuse any typos or grammar mistakes.