Why Might Health Nuts Get Sick While Others Who Don't Even Try Healthy Behaviors Experience Radical Remissions?

In some of my interviews for Sacred Medicine, people are throwing back at me the questions I pose in the beginning of the book, like "How is it that some people do everything right and stay sick, while others seem to do nothing extraordinary yet fully recover?" People are asking me, "Did you find the one answer?"

So let me try to share my answer here. First, it's complicated and it took me a whole book to try to answer that, so it doesn't soundbyte well. Second, I don't think there is one single answer to resolve this mystery. Illness is usually multi-factorial, and so is disease remission, so it's nearly impossible to link all causes with all effects or to control for all the variables. And we should be wary of anyone who even tries to oversimplify such things, especially if they have a profit motive and an agenda to be "right."

With that disclaimer, I do have some insights I gleaned. Part of it has to do with how you define "doing everything right." Many people interpret "doing everything right" as being compliant with doctor's orders, eating healthy, getting enough sleep and exercise, taking your vitamins, avoiding toxins, maybe taking advantage of some alternative medicine options, and generally being a "good boy" or "good girl" health nut.

But as I described first in Mind Over Medicine and then in Sacred Medicine, people who engage in the kinds of healthy behaviors defined by conventional medicine and the wellness industry often fail to consider the most important behaviors that impact your health significantly, like getting treatment for any childhood trauma that might lead to a dysregulated nervous system, impaired immune system, overtaxed endocrine system, and chronic inflammation that can impact every organ system.

People might be raw vegan yogis but are stuck in a toxic marriage. They might be doing everything the doctor ordered, but they're socially isolated, lonely, and without adequate intimate connection, co-regulation, and social support. They might take 100 supplements ordered by their naturopath and they've been sober from all unhealthy foods or substances for decades, but they're being bullied at work, and it's retraumatizing parts that were bullied by abusive parents or kids at school.

No amount of good food, yoga, pharmaceuticals, surgery, or positive thinking is going to override the dysregulated nervous system caused by all those unhealthy conditions. The bottom line of my research, the holy grail, if you will, that I found, is that the people who had better than usual outcomes from chronic, "incurable," or "terminal" illnesses were not only engaging in generally healthy behaviors and often taking advantage of the best of what conventional medicine had to offer; they were also getting cutting edge trauma treatments, bolstering their life force with activities that uplifted them, getting away from traumatic situations in their current lives, connecting to a spiritual Source (usually within themselves), and changing their whole way of being in the world.

For example, someone who has always been a doormat who prioritized caregiving everyone else while neglecting themselves and tolerating ongoing abuse while spiritual bypassing might learn good boundaries and start focusing on self care, relying on others, tolerating more interdependency, learning to say no to abusive people and hold abusers accountable, and getting a bit feisty in protecting themselves from mistreatment.

Someone else who has been very narcissistically self-absorbed and ruthless in the way they've lived a self-interested life might begin engaging in service to others and doing shadow work, growing more humble, and making apologies and amends with people they've hurt with their ruthlessness.

Working on healthy boundaries or starting to care more about others might not looking like traditional healthy behaviors, but those were the kinds of stories I heard over and over from people who defied the odds and had better than expected outcomes.

In other words, as I said in my first TEDx talk, what you eat, how you exercise, whether you take your medicine as prescribed, and even whether or not you smoke, might have far less to do with whether you'll live a long, disease-free life than we think. That doesn't mean I recommend eating crap, smoking, being a couch potato, ditching your medication, indulging an addiction, or otherwise ignoring medical advice or the wellness industry's proddings!

But for those who are "doing everything right" in a traditional way, what's often overlooked is the untreated trauma burden in someone's nervous system and body, the unaddressed ongoing traumatic situations in their current lives, the impact of traumatized parts on their personalities, behaviors, relationships, jobs, and way of being, and often, the spiritual abuse that has disconnected them from the guidance, protection, compassion, and self care of their true Self, that Divine Self inside that I call your "Inner Pilot Light."

When those traumas are treated and those behaviors naturally change as a result of treatment, people tend to get miracle-prone. This isn't always true, but sometimes it is. So I hope this gives those who have "tried everything" in traditional ways some areas to focus on and offers grounded hope.