Learning to stay grounded when answers are still unclear
There is a strange tension in healing. Sometimes we need to pay close attention. We need to notice patterns, listen to symptoms, and make wise changes. But sometimes paying too much attention sends us down a rabbit hole of self-focus, overanalysis, and research mode. I am trying to learn the difference between listening to my body and obsessing over it.
Food is one of the places where this gets complicated.
When symptoms are mysterious, even familiar meals can start to feel complicated. I am not questioning food itself. Food is still nourishment. What I start questioning are the ingredients: the dairy, the whey, the cream, the fiber, the fat source, the things I have added back because they helped me survive one season but may not be helping me heal in this one.
And that is the part I am trying not to let take over. I do not want to ignore my body. But I also do not want every meal to become another piece of the puzzle.
Anyone who has lived with lingering, confusing symptoms may understand this. Digestive distress. Stool changes. Inexplicable fatigue. Pain that moves around. A nervous system that seems to overreact to ordinary things. At some point, even a familiar meal can start to get picked apart. Not because food is the enemy, but because you are trying to understand whether something in it might be contributing to the bigger picture. It is exhausting. Trying to figure that out can become a full-time job all by itself.
Is there dairy in that? What about gluten? Was it too much fat? Too little fat? Too much fiber? Not enough fiber? Is this histamine? Is it the timing? Is it the food at all?
Healing can become myopic. It is not wrong to ask questions. Sometimes questions help us find patterns we genuinely need to see. But when every meal becomes difficult, and every symptom leads to more questions, it can create a vicious cycle. You start wondering what you missed, what you should change, what you should remove, or what you should try next. Before long, eating becomes tangled up with the exhausting work of trying to figure it all out.
I do not want to solve a puzzle by creating more puzzle pieces.
There comes a point when you are not sick enough to be in crisis, but not well enough to stop wondering. You feel like you are doing all the right things: Eating, sleeping, showing up, trying to live normally, and then your body does something confusing and life-stealing again. And suddenly, a normal meal becomes something you start trying to decode.
There was a long stretch….and I mean a long stretch…when I would have gone searching for the next answer. A new doctor. A new test. A new supplement protocol. A new theory. I have done all of that. I have spent the money, taken the labs, followed the plans, bought the bottles, tracked the symptoms, and hoped the next answer would finally explain everything.
I wish it were that simple.
I wish someone could say, “It was the dairy. Stop that, and you’ll feel better.” Or, “It was the cream. Remove that, and the itching will disappear.” Sometimes there are pieces of truth in those discoveries. Sometimes a change really does help. But for me, it has rarely been one clean answer with one clean solution.
And at some point, the search for the culprit became a job of its own.
That is the part I am trying to step away from.
Of course, I will still make wise adjustments. I may try a short elimination. I may remove something that seems worth testing. I may add something gentle if it makes sense. But I am no longer willing to live as if the next magic bullet is always one new doctor, lab result, supplement, or protocol away.
There is a kind of hope that comes with anything new. A new plan can feel like a fresh start, and a new doctor can feel like the person who will finally see what everyone else missed. A new protocol can feel like a way out, and sometimes new help really does help.
But the newness of something is not the same as healing. This year, I want to heal in the quieter way God keeps bringing me back to: the basics of eating, sleeping, resting, moving gently, praying, and participating in life.
And yet, I still have to listen, and that is the real tension. I am learning that I can be curious and peaceful at the same time.
Maybe this is not really about food or the mysterious symptoms after all. Maybe it is about the way we live with anything unresolved.
Most of us have places in our lives where we are tempted to keep searching, keep fixing, keep analyzing, keep trying to find the one missing piece that will finally make everything make sense. Especially now, with so much information coming at us all the time. Health can become that place. So can parenting. Marriage. Work. Faith. Grief. Identity. The future.
Yes, many times, we do need to pay attention and make changes. We do need to listen closely enough to notice what is no longer working. But we also need to be careful not to let the search become our new home.
For anyone else living with something unresolved, maybe the goal is not to stop asking questions. Maybe the goal is to ask them from a more grounded place. To stay curious without becoming consumed. To make wise changes without making your whole life about fixing yourself. To keep showing up to your actual life even while you are still waiting for answers. That means having faith in the process and letting God take the wheel of results.
I still want healing. Of course I want a breakthrough. Some days, it’s all I can do to hold on to God for that hope. But I will not lose who I am while I’m looking for more answers.
So for now, I am practicing this: listen without spiraling. Make the wise change slowly and deliberately, not out of panic. I’m not perfect at this. It’s a work in progress. God has a way of gently grounding me when I get off on an extreme path.
My body is not my enemy. And this puzzle, however frustrating, does not get to become the place where my soul abides.