If the whole world understood this, I genuinely believe that chronic gut issues would drop by 90% overnight. I say that not just from what I’ve seen in the research, but from what I’ve lived—and what I’ve witnessed in coaching thousands of people through it.
Here’s why gut issues become so chronic, so frustrating, and so difficult to overcome: it usually starts with symptoms—bloating, indigestion, gas, inflammation, food sensitivities. We feel off. We know something isn’t right. And so we do what we’ve been told to do—we turn to functional medicine for answers. We start testing, supplementing, restricting, and following all the gut healing protocols we’re told will fix the issue.
Maybe we run a GI Map or a SIBO test. Or maybe we run twelve (like I did). And sure enough, the results come back loaded with problems: parasites, candida, bacterial overgrowth, yeast, food sensitivities, leaky gut. At first, it feels validating. Now we have answers. Now we know what’s “wrong.” And most importantly, we believe we know what to do to fix it.
So we go all in. We take the supplements. Follow the protocols. Do the diets. And for a while, it feels like it might be working. But then? The symptoms come back. Or they shift. Or new ones appear—headaches, anxiety, insomnia, brain fog, fatigue. And we start to spiral.
At this point, most people believe one of two things: either their condition is so severe that nothing can help, or they just haven’t found the right practitioner or protocol yet. So they try again. And again. More protocols. More supplements. More restrictive diets. More money. More energy. More stress.
And still, the symptoms persist.
Here’s what I need you to hear: almost every single person has some level of parasites, candida, bacterial overgrowth, and food sensitivities. The difference between those who have symptoms and those who don’t isn’t just in their gut. It’s in their nervous system.
I’ve worked with more than a dozen practitioners—three of them considered the top gut experts in the country. And despite following everything to the letter, my gut issues didn’t get better. In fact, they got worse the more I focused on them. And once I understood what was really driving my symptoms, it became painfully clear why that happened.
Chronic gut issues are almost always mind-body related. And the single greatest fuel source for that cycle is hyper-focus.
The more you zero in on the symptom… the more you try to “fix” your gut… the more you obsess over every bite of food, every supplement, and every fluctuation in how you feel… the more you activate your stress response. And nothing dysregulates the nervous system faster than living in a constant state of hypervigilance about your health.
You cannot heal your gut from a place of fear. You cannot repair the microbiome while your body is still in survival. The nervous system must be in a state of safety—of rest and repair—for healing to happen. No supplement or protocol can override that.
The truth is, the gut is downstream from the brain. Which means the real shift doesn’t happen through another antimicrobial or a stricter elimination diet. It happens when you teach your body it’s safe again.
For me, that meant releasing the obsession. Dropping the need to monitor every symptom. Pulling my attention away from gut testing and symptom tracking. And most importantly, learning to regulate my nervous system so that my body could actually do what it’s designed to do—heal.
That’s when things changed. That’s when my gut issues finally resolved. Not from another lab result. Not from another restrictive protocol. But from a deep, nervous-system-first approach that prioritized safety, regulation, and trust.
And this doesn’t just go for gut issues—most chronic health struggles are rooted in the same thing. Anxiety, insomnia, chronic joint pain, headaches, hormone imbalances, fatigue… they all share one common denominator: a nervous system that doesn’t yet feel safe.
Your gut isn’t broken. Your body isn’t failing you. But it is responding to the state it’s in. So before you spend more time, energy, or money chasing one more fix, I invite you to pause and ask:
“Has your nervous system actually had a chance to feel safe?”
Because without that, nothing else works.
