No More Tips
You’re finally done with everyone’s well-meant advice. You’re the specialist in your own life, and in a body that has been trying for a long time.
This article is for everyone who has been living with chronic issues for a long time, who has tried everything possible, who keeps trying, keeps struggling, and nothing truly helps. Every new expert you visit gives you one more instruction about what you should start doing or stop doing in everyday life.
A Sociological Lens
It’s interesting how widely we still assume that people are doing everything wrong. Where does this belief come from? Children “can’t know” what’s best for them. Sick people “can’t know” what’s best for them. Pregnant women and mothers “can’t know” what’s best for them and their children.
There is a deep distrust of the individual’s judgment planted into society, and many people internalize it and let authorities decide for them. Maybe this is a topic worth paying more attention to, because if people were supported in helping themselves intuitively, in the way humans truly are capable of through development, it would take pressure off so many systems.
And on top of the pain, there is another feeling that creeps in: that we keep failing because we still haven’t found the right advice, or because we cannot follow the advice we believe in well enough.
Maybe the problem isn’t that we don’t do enough. Maybe the problem is that we stop trusting our own body.
The Default Assumptions
I think many professionals who help people with musculoskeletal issues often assume the same story: that a person has a sedentary job, moves too little or in the wrong way, does not follow professional recommendations long-term, and in more advanced cases they even look at diet, assuming people eat poorly.
And yet I didn’t fit any of those assumptions, and I kept trying to do everything the “right” way. What I couldn’t understand was why no one really addressed the fact that my pain is chronic, daily, and persistent. I exercise, I follow all the recommendations, and still nothing truly helps long-term. Do you know that feeling, when you’re doing everything you can, and it still isn’t enough and nothing changes? It’s frustrating. Even more so when pain is involved.
Advice Whiplash
I’ve experienced it myself: even when I’ve practiced professional advice consistently for a long time, someone new comes along and tells me that part of it is wrong and I should do something else. One person says, “Stretch your neck.” Another says, “You must not stretch your neck.” Stand up regularly during work and take a walk, but sit on a special ergonomic chair. Strengthen your core. Change your breathing. Do yoga. Run. You have to exercise every day, regularly. And right after you wake up, you should complete so many tasks that by the time you finish, it’s already afternoon.
And of course there are products, where everyone tries to convince you that their solution is the best and that you should replace your old, “wrong” one that you bought in good faith, like a mattress. I could write a similar list in the topic of motherhood, where the advice is endless and often contradictory, but I’ll save that for another article.
Everyone is always advising everyone else on what they should do, and mainly what they should improve. As if we weren’t enough as we are, as if we were incapable of handling anything. I’m not saying people shouldn’t look for information. If someone actively wants to learn on their own about nutrition, movement, motherhood, or a healthier lifestyle, of course they should. But over time the contradictions appear everywhere, and a person may end up not knowing what to do or what to choose.
That’s why critical thinking matters so much, along with applying all this advice to my specific, concrete, very individual case. At the same time, it’s important to return to an authentic relationship with your body and your intuition, not to impulses that come from unhealed trauma. I write about this in more depth in my Sensitive Enough Movement.
Highly sensitive people have a real chance of success here, because they often can sense very accurately what they truly need and they feel their body and inner world deeply. That’s why it matters to leave them, to leave us, without external pressure and without trying to force a different opinion or direction.
What I Trust Now
After decades of my own experience and finding what actually works for me, I’ve developed a real aversion to advice that’s completely disconnected from the context of my life. It doesn’t matter whether it comes from a well-meaning relative or an expert in the field. Many people don’t know, or don’t want to accept, that I’ve learned far more about myself than they assume, and that what I follow in my life has deep roots. It makes sense to me. It clearly works. It helps me live better.
Over time, a few approaches have become part of how I make decisions:
Keeping movement flexible instead of committing myself to one method or exercise style.
Parenting consciously, with attention to our actual needs rather than treating general advice as something I must automatically follow.
Emotional work influenced by IFS.
Searching for psychosomatic connections when I approach health issues.
Paying closer attention to how food affects my body, including what I have explored through the Root Cause Protocol, rather than assuming that generally accepted choices must automatically be right for me.
When someone gives me advice, I ask myself:
Is this for my specific case, or is this person trying to convince me of their truth?
Do I feel that familiar frustration, like I missed something important again and now I’m supposed to add another rule to my life?
Or do I feel genuine curiosity, like this is something I want to explore and give a chance?
Does it fit into the concept I already have? Do I even want to apply it?
Some advice is good. Some advice comes from a complex foundation. But not all of it is mine.
Inside Sensitive Enough Movement, I write for highly sensitive women who are looking for better understanding of their body and mind patterns, more fitting healing approaches, and a space where sensitivity is taken seriously instead of dismissed.
Among the pieces that resonated most with readers are: my story of healing an “incurable” skin condition through lifestyle change, working with deeply attuned holistic specialists to avoid surgery, the importance of psychosomatics, and a very personal sneak peek into what happens in the psychotherapy room.
All written through a highly sensitive lens.