We all have a story to tell. Our stories are the greatest gift we can give to others because they carry the lessons from our pain.
So here is a part of my story, and why I do what I do:
I’ll never forget the day I collapsed.
The day that I wasn’t invincible anymore… the day that my beautiful body just physically couldn’t keep it all together for one more minute.
It was somewhere in 2012. I couldn’t tell you the date because everything was so hazy back then and my memory was so clouded. Both of my baby boys had just completed surgery number 15 (if I even recall it correctly), and this one was significant…
They had undergone major gastric surgery and would be on a liquid diet for 6 weeks and in recovery for 6 months.
They were both under the age of two.
And it had already been two years of the most traumatic journey of our lives.
I’d been running on adrenaline for 14 years. A highly academic student, elite athlete, all-nighter 20-something who had competed at international level and played the corporate rat race, moved countries, and partied nonstop. Life was good and quick. I was an achiever, and I liked it.
When I was 30, the pace was no different.
I’d moved countries (again), struggled through a fertility journey, and finally given birth to two critically ill boys who took years to diagnose. There were weeks of no sleep, repeated trauma exposures, countless hospital nights, hours and hours of heartbreak, and no time for self-care, food or rest.
It wasn’t a big shopping-mall-style collapse that day. I was at home, it was midday, and I had just sat down in front of the TV after cleaning up yet another heartbreaking projectile vomit and rocking my 1-year-old to sleep for 45 minutes, shaky on my own two feet.
“I don’t feel right,” I said, to my husband at the time. I couldn’t hear anything because my ears were ringing so loudly. My head felt like it was about to explode, and my jaw was clenched. My skin was crawling and I was scratching furiously all over my body. My limbs were numb, and everything was fuzzy and white hot. “What exactly do you mean?” he asked.
And then I passed out.
In the emergency room, they couldn’t find anything wrong. They examined my ovaries (heaven knows why), poked and prodded me, and performed a few ultrasounds. I was so exhausted that I couldn’t even open my eyes. I stayed in the hospital and slept.
A few weeks later, I received blood results that confirmed I had an autoimmune thyroid condition.
Of course, we now know that autoimmune conditions are usually triggered by something – often trauma related, that they have their root in the gut, and that the link between lifestyle stress, nutrient depletion, and adrenal fatigue is extremely strong. But it wasn’t just my thyroid that was failing; the entire plane was going down.
I’d basically run out of road.
I’m proud to say that I spent the next few years not only healing the boys but healing myself. I learnt my limits. I prioritized rest. I stopped eating the crusts off the plate and started prioritizing my own nutrition. I took control of my health (not just the boys’), and started to make lifelong dietary changes to heal my body. I completely overhauled the way I looked at my own wellbeing. And I truly believe that otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to carry my boys through it.
I had to face my traumas and heal them as well. I had to learn gratitude, forgiveness, and the power of positive thinking. I had to start TRUSTING my intuition and being brave enough to stand by myself. I had to learn that spiritual healing and physical healing are inextricably linked.
Because of my struggle, I am the vibrantly healthy person I am today. I fight for my health because it is a non-negotiable for me. It is difficult to be proud of our scars, but it is so important.
I get to live life more profoundly than before and I get to share our story to inspire others.
Healing is painful. It’s difficult at times, requires sacrifice, and represents a complete paradigm shift in everything you thought you knew.
But on the other side is your body and mind, which have been waiting for you to return, and once you’ve fought and won, you’ll never take it for granted again.
If you are healing, collapsing or falling apart, I hope my story inspires you.
We are all broken at times. There are no perfect people and no perfect bodies and we will all fall at some point in our lives. But if you can love yourself enough to pick yourself back up and keep on moving, be kind to yourself, and honour your body and your health, you will get through it.
You are worth fighting for, and every single sacrifice you have to make is worth it in the end, I promise you.
About Jess
She is an Expert. She is a Believer. She is Passionate about Health.
Jess Wilson is a Functional Nutritionist and a trained Microbiome/Gut Health and Hormone Practitioner, on a mission to help people worldwide restore their health. She specializes in helping busy professionals, mums, and individuals get their joy and energy back and loves using her holistic methods as a health and wellness coach.
That is why Jess and her like-minded team have created programs that now help hundreds of people who want to end the cycle of unhealthy living, tension, and limitations.
She established her own Nutrition coaching brand that helps her to provide these much needed services in the mainstream – Jess calls it: “sharing her lessons”.
By combining her expertise as a trained Microbiome/Gut Health and Hormone Practitioner as well as her own personal and very powerful story, Jess is on a mission to heal the world, one healthy bite at a time.
Jess also works 1:1 helping those with underlying dysfunctions like sugar addiction, adrenal problems, autoimmune conditions, hormones, athletic performance, and many more.
She believes that our human body is capable of incredible things— that we can all heal from stress, challenges, and negativity through restoring a healthy relationship with food. She believes that she is put on this planet to teach people to have fulfilling lives. To inspire them to live long and, at the same time, live well.
Her desire to create a space goes back to when her children were born. She went through the hardest challenges of a four-year-long fight of seeing her children get sick. She never gave up until she had found a solution by using the healing power of food.
Coming from her experiences, she developed the passion in guiding people to live their happiest, strongest, and most contented selves.
