On Being A Fraud

Most of my life I’ve felt like a fraud…

If you’ve landed here reading these words, you might think that a Wellness Weaver is living a life of well healthy being. In truth, my wellness work is 25% in service to others and 75% in service to trying to heal my own body .

And I tricked myself to believe that it was because of my health problems, that I would be a great healer- not in spite of them.. But yesterday I ran into an old friend who also decided to walk the path of healer- and all I’ve ever known her to be is strong, well and able bodied... She seems to be taking leaps in what took me years to accomplish taking one step in.

Again, I find that my body disables me.

My wellness always seeming to hang on by a thin thread.

Never trusting my body.

Always waiting for the next shoe to drop, the next problem to rear its ugly head.

You see, I claim Wellness Weaver because I’ve spent a life time researching, studying, learning, and applying health rituals and ways. I’ve also spent a lifetime with unexplainable sources of auto immune disorders and inflammatory chronic conditions that doctors told me I’d be dealing with until the end of my days.

When I was in school for my Masters in Public Health- I would take epidemiology classes on smoking cessation, and immediately after find myself lighting up a joint or a cigarette hoping no one in my class would ever see the real me.

I would take classes on nutrition and intuitive eating, and pick up $20 worth of taco bell on my way home from school.

I got my health coaching certification, but hadn’t one single healthy behavior I was practicing consistently on my own terms.

I taught Vinyasa yoga a few times a week, but barely ever wanted to take a vinyasa style class if I was a student.

In fact there was a great deal of time that I was teaching yoga, and didn’t even like practicing it myself. Just felt like I had started on that path so I “had” to keep going because that was the only type of alternative health type job that seemed “acceptable.”

I used to call people to schedule a pap smear, mammogram or colonoscopy, while secretly believing that the entire program I was working for was an insurance company scam.

I played good girl, while being a slut behind closed doors.

I left the house in one outfit, and changed into another that showed my whole body.

I played an innocent, while always feeling like I was actually some how really bad.

And now I write this blog post as I sit in the middle of an afternoon at 2:22 in June of 2022, with my leg propped up, my knee swollen, a sadistic limp to walk to the bathroom, and without any sort of explanation as to why my body decided to react so loudly to a weekend of fun and play with friends.

I feel like a fraud because I started this business of supporting others through their healing journeys, but the truth is- this offering was just another step on my own personal path of trying to heal.

I’m here because I don’t know another way.

I spend so much time in bed, in pain, nurturing and caring for a body that seems to be fighting me every step of the way.

I claim wellness weaver. I have a masters in health sciences. I have more wellness certifications and trainings under my belt than anyone I know. Yet, all I feel like is a fraud.

Because no matter how much research I’ve done. No matter how many trainings. No matter how many practitioners I’ve seen, and plant medicine journeys I’ve gone on- I still can’t seem to find a place in my own body that feels 100% well.

I feel sick. Disabled. Unwell, in fact; many days of the year.

And I feel like sharing this truth makes me so un-credible as a health coach or healer or whatever it is that I think I’m trying to be.

When really in actuality- all I really want is to feel well.

All I really want is to have a body that works for me instead of against me.

All I really want is to feel like I have everything I need to be a healer, of my own body, bloodline, and community.

Instead, many days I feel like a fraud. A failure. A child who needs to be taken care of because most days she doesn’t feel well enough to take care of herself.

And phew… is there a relief in putting these feelings somewhere. In sharing my hidden beliefs in a public place where someone may read them someday.

Or maybe not.. I have this beautiful website I’ve spent so much time on, and I often don’t have the capacity to even hold space for others.

It gets so confusing in a world that says I need to “do.” It gets confusing in a world where my family says, “Thank goodness you don’t have a real job that you have to get up and go to everyday.” It gets confusing when people ask me what I am doing with my life, and all I can really tell them is that I’ve been sitting around and nurturing a swollen knee because that’s all I have the energy for.

So yeah. That’s what I’m dealing with over here. If I’m being honest. If I’m being truthful. If you want to know the real world of a wellness weaver.

I put a label on something I am trying to be. Like an unconscious spell or psychic manifestation, I imprinted these words “Wellness Weaver” in hopes that one day I finally would- feel well. In hopes that one day I finally would have enough tools to weave together that I eventually can confidently say to the world that I actually found the antidote to a sick body. In hopes that one day I can find a natural cure. In hopes that one day I feel so authentic in who I be, that I can confidently show up as me, without feeling like such a fucking fraud.

Is there anyone else on the healing path; doing it because you, yourself, need healing?

I’d love to hear from you. To know I’m not alone.

I’m writing this for my own healing practice today, and if it has helped you in anyway; the one or two readers who may have actually found themselves to the end of this blog post- then I trust there is a purpose to it all.

If you feel like a fraud, share your story. Maybe someone else will feel less alone in their journey.

Much love and peace always,

Eliana