For many people I know, last year was not about progress but about endurance; learning how to stay with ourselves in the depths of collapse, and slowly understanding that this, too, is part of being human and part of healing. That there are seasons where simply remaining is the work. For others, the year carried growth, healing, change, contraction and expansion woven together. Neither path is better. Neither can be measured. We are walking on different paths in life, each of us, yet we are not walking alone.
There is a seed of wellbeing in each of us in times of illness and deep challenge, that may not have grown quite yet, but it is gathering energy and vitality during our season of Winter. It will sprout when it is time. It has not missed its moment. It knows Spring will come and asks of you that you learn to trust that and get curious about what makes our inner terrain gather vitality to support its eventual emergence. How can we fertilise our mind, our body, our life, with safety, trust, and care to allow it the soil it needs to eventually grow? Almost always in my work, the most fertile soil comes from self-connection, something many of us lost a long time ago due to familial and cultural experiences.
You do not need to follow the maps your culture has handed you to do this, particularly the ones that are endlessly marketed, templated, and detached from lived bodies. Many of those maps were never designed with your unique nervous system, your history, your gifts, your cultural context, or your sensitivities in mind. Here in Befriend, we encourage you and teach you to follow a different kind of intelligence: the quiet, internal one that speaks through sensation, curiosity, intuition, your innate gifts, and the smallest signals of safety and whispers of 'yes' from your heart and body.
This year, I invite you to prioritise moments; often very small ones in daily life; where you pause and listen in to your system. This is something we teach very early, and many people think it is too simple to make any difference. It is not. Your body and life force is always communicating. Together, we learn to discern what belongs to old, imprinted survival loops in mind and body that are ready to soften with support, and what is a deeper signal asking you to stay, to listen, and to gently pull the thread that brings us closer to knowing ourselves and feeling at peace.
Stay curious this year instead of needing to 'know the way'. Stay soft enough to ask the simple questions a day at a time; the ones we teach you to ask in our classes when we re-connect you to your body and symptoms in new ways. Not to analyse or fix yourself, but to get to know yourself. Healing does not come from force, correction, or being told who or how to be. It comes from honouring your unique timing, and your particular way through. Your inner genius matters and is much wiser than so called Gurus or people that elevate themselves to know 'the best way' to heal.
Many neuroplastic and chronic conditions are misunderstood because conventional medicine still largely operates from an outdated Newtonian model that assumes linear cause and effect. Once A - the diagnosis of an illness is identified, B - the treatment for the symptoms provided for it stays the same; regardless of the unique person living inside that diagnosis, leading to C - no symptoms . We look for 'the cure' instead of understanding the person. Of course with chronic illness we know this does not work, hence why you are reading this right now!
But human beings are not linear creatures. What we now understand through modern physics, systems theory, and neuroscience; is that human beings are complex, adaptive systems. What this means is that health (and disease) emerges from a web of dynamic interactions. For example A - an infection, environmental exposure, or injury may lead to B - chronic pain, illness, fatigue or sensitivity, but it may also lead to C - returning to health, depending on a constellation of variables liket: our genetic predispositions, nutritional status, movement, thoughts and beliefs, traumas, how we process emotions, our relationships, social context, meaning-making, and spiritual orientation. All of these shape outcomes so what is needed for D - treatment, to address unique variables so that a dynamic state of health can emerge again in that unique person.
This is why mind-body medicine is not optional as we move into unprecedented levels of chronic stress and lifestyle-driven illness; conditions for which pharmaceuticals alone have no answers. As Hippocrates observed long ago:
“It is far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.”
This is also why set programs so often fail; not because you did anything wrong, and not because your body is incapable of change. But because your path is asking you to notice the specific inner and outer variables that contribute to ongoing stress and threat in your system (physical and emotional are not separate to the brain) to gently address these, and also learn skills and ways of being that support regulation, resilience, and health.
At Befriend, we teach you to become an expert on you. Not to replace medical care, and not to do everything alone; but to cultivate deep self-attunement, understanding what your system needs so that the support you receive is guided by trust and relationship, rather than compliance or fear. This journey is very often slower than the culture of quick fixes and simple interventions has taught us to expect. And, it is deeply worth it. There is no such thing as 'slow healing'. Take that out of your vocabulary so that you can stay on your side a day at a time and be with your body, not drive it to some linear timeline when it simply does not heal that way. We heal in layers, in constellations, some leaps forward, some circling back for a deeper integration, and there is no getting it right. The more we learn to trust and accept that, the more we will stay open, curious and trusting.
I believe the only crucial ingredients in mind-body recovery is active engagement and deep honesty with ourselves. We cannot be passive and expect a different outcome. That does not mean lots and lots of doing. It means accepting that healing is about willingness to learn about yourself, try tiny new things in daily life as we learn to work with our mind and body in new ways that build safety and health. Many people want a free pass, healing without genuine engagement, which is a bypass of walking the path that is uniquely yours.
It takes time to grow home to ourselves. What a privilege to be able to do that if we have our basic needs met. I encourage you to be supported by people who do not rush toward an end goal, but who honour your emergence from an emergency, at the pace that is right for you, because they trust your inner wisdom and path entirely.
One day at a time, with hearts open to gratitude for even the smallest moments of ease, may be one of the truest ways to live this gift of life we have been given. Wishing you a compassionate, healing, and honest 2026.
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