What Covid Taught Me About Real Wellness

Since 2020, I have watched the wellness industry change, but more than that, I have watched myself change inside of it.

My wellness journey began in 2018, before Covid, before the world shifted, and before I fully understood what it means to live in relationship with my body. At the time, I was dealing with chronic inflammation and uncomfortable symptoms, and I decided to experiment with removing gluten, dairy, and sugar from my diet. Within only six days, I felt lighter, happier, clearer, and more hopeful.

That experience was powerful for me because it showed me, in a very real way, that my choices mattered. What I put into my body could affect how I felt in my body. I continued eating that way for more than three years, and it taught me so much. It taught me about food, but even more than that, it taught me about self trust. I learned that I could take loving action on my own behalf, and that caring for my health was not about punishment or perfection, but about learning how to listen.

Health had always interested me. Even as a schoolgirl, I loved learning biology and understanding how the body works. But I did not really connect food, inflammation, mood, digestion, energy, and overall health until I began learning more about the gut, the brain, and the body’s response to stress and overload.

That was the beginning of my path into natural health and nutrition.

At first, the empowerment I felt was incredible. I was no longer waiting for someone else to fix me. I was learning that I could shape my life, support my body, and show up for myself through small, consistent choices.

But like many healing journeys, mine was not perfectly balanced from the beginning.

Before Covid, I saw food, holistic health, and natural medicine as the main path to wellness. I had become wary of modern medicine because of painful personal experiences and because of what I had learned while researching the history of the medical model. I was deeply drawn into the world of natural medicine, but looking back, I can now see that some of that intensity came from fear and unresolved trauma.

I had been hurt, and I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to believe that if I ate the right foods, used the right natural remedies, avoided the wrong things, and stayed away from what felt threatening, I could protect myself completely.

Then Covid came.

Like so many people, I had strong feelings about health, immunity, prevention, and medical choice. I believed deeply in natural immunity and did not want to be pushed into anything that felt wrong for my body. At the same time, I can now look back with more compassion and honesty and see that some of my beliefs were shaped by my own history and by being part of communities of people who had been harmed or dismissed in medical settings.

There was real wisdom there, and there was also fear.

Then I got sick.

The symptoms hit hard: pounding headaches, flu-like feelings, loss of taste and smell, deep fatigue, back pain, gallstones, and eventually long Covid.

That season changed me. It humbled me. I had believed that health was mostly about what we put into the body, but my own experience taught me that health is also about what the body is carrying: stress, fear, resentment, emotional overwhelm, old beliefs, unprocessed pain, and a nervous system that has been trying to protect us for a very long time.

My healing did not happen quickly. It took years to find stability again. For a long time, I carried the gallstones in my body, and in many ways, they became a physical reminder of the bitterness, resentment, and heaviness I was still holding toward the medical system, toward my past, and toward parts of myself I had not yet fully met with compassion.

When I finally reached the point where surgery became necessary, I had to face another layer of healing. I had to let go of the idea that one system had all the answers. I had to release the belief that natural medicine was always safe and modern medicine was always harmful. I had to become more humble.

And in that humility, something beautiful opened.

I began to understand that Hashem placed many tools in the world. Food can be a tool. Breath can be a tool. Rest can be a tool. Supplements can be tools. Medical care can be a tool. Surgery can be a tool. Community can be a tool. Prayer can be a tool. Emotional honesty can be a tool.

The question is not only which tool we use, but how we use it. Are we using it from fear or from wisdom? From panic or from responsibility? From disconnection or from care? From pressure or from presence?

Today, I eat in a more balanced way. I practice health in a more balanced way. And I coach from a much more integrated place than I could have before.

I no longer believe that wellness is about choosing one world and rejecting the other. Real wellness includes nutrition, but it is not only nutrition. It includes medical care, but it is not only medical care. It includes natural remedies, but it does not worship natural remedies. It includes the nervous system, emotional resilience, breath, stress patterns, trauma awareness, faith, community, and our relationship with ourselves.

Covid changed the health industry because it forced people to ask deeper questions. People began looking beyond simple advice like “eat better” or “exercise more.” They began asking about immunity, stress, burnout, nervous system regulation, medical trust, emotional safety, and how to rebuild a relationship with the body after illness or fear.

The wellness conversation became more personal, more honest, and more human. For me, it also became more integrated.

I now understand that illness and symptoms often need to be approached with curiosity, compassion, and support. Sometimes the body needs medical attention. Sometimes it needs nourishment. Sometimes it needs rest. Sometimes it needs emotional release. Sometimes it needs a person to stop living in survival mode. Often, it needs more than one thing at the same time.

I also believe that healing is not meant to happen in isolation.

One of the most painful parts of modern healthcare is when a person is labeled, placed in a box, given instructions, and sent home to heal alone. But people are not boxes. People are whole beings with stories, families, fears, responsibilities, and souls.

Wellness is not only an individual state. It is also communal. We heal through support, honesty, transparency, connection, education, and safe spaces where people can be seen as more than their symptoms.

That is the kind of wellness I believe in now.

The kind of wellness I believe in teaches self trust without rejecting support. It honors the body without fearing it. It respects medical care while still listening deeply to lived experience. It makes room for food, breath, rest, emotion, faith, responsibility, and community.

Since 2020, the wellness industry has changed because people have changed. We are asking better questions now. We are seeing that health is not only about what we eat or what we avoid. It is about how we live, what we carry, who we trust, how we listen, and how we care for the whole person.

That is the shift I experienced in my own life, and that is the shift I now bring into my work. It is wellness that helps us return to ourselves, to our bodies, to each other, and to Hashem with more trust, compassion, and wholeness.