Thanksgiving gratitude: your diagnosis doesn't define you

Thanksgiving has always been a season of reflection for me—not the shiny, picture-perfect kind, but the grounded, honest kind that comes from living through the messy middle of life.

And if you’re someone who has been living with chronic mystery symptoms, normal labs, and doctors telling you you’re “fine,” this holiday might feel a little complicated.

Maybe you’re sitting at the table wanting to feel grateful but silently fighting symptoms nobody else can see.
Maybe you’re trying to enjoy the day while thinking, “Why can’t anyone figure out what’s wrong with me?”
Maybe you’ve been told it’s “just stress,” or “age,” or “in your head,” while your body is clearly telling you otherwise.

So today, I want to offer something deeper than the typical gratitude message.

I want to offer you truth, compassion, and a reminder that you are not broken.
You are fixable, and your symptoms are real—even if your labs are normal, even if nobody has given you a name for what you’re experiencing.

I know because I lived it.

For nearly a decade, my life was a revolving door of pain, fatigue, insomnia, brain fog, digestive issues, and even the skin painfully peeling off my face with doctors shrugging because my labs looked “normal.” I couldn’t stand up long enough to take a shower, I couldn’t sleep through the night, and everything I tried made me sicker. I felt invisible and dismissed—until I found what was really going on beneath the surface 

You are not crazy.
You are not imagining this.
And your body is not broken—it’s overwhelmed.

Why Gratitude Hits Differently When You’re Still Waiting for Answers

Gratitude isn’t about pretending everything feels good.
It’s about acknowledging your strength in the middle of the unknown.

And when you’ve been bouncing between doctors, supplements, meds, protocols, and well-meaning advice, it’s easy to forget that you are the one holding everything together.

So let me remind you:

A diagnosis or lack thereof does not define you.

The medical model only sees dysfunction once it’s extreme enough to show up in labs. But the body doesn’t suddenly fall apart—it moves through layers long before anything ever appears on paper:

So when a doctor says nothing is wrong, it’s simply because they’re not trained to see what’s happening beneath the surface.

That doesn’t mean nothing is happening.
It means they can’t find it and they can't measure it.

And that’s exactly why gratitude matters:
because you are learning that your body has a reason for everything it does—and you’re finally being shown how to understand those signals instead of being dismissed by them.

Why Labs Don’t Tell the Full Story (And Why That’s Actually Hopeful)

Normal labs do not mean your symptoms are “in your head.”
They simply mean you’re stuck in the layers of dysfunction that conventional testing doesn’t measure.

Most of the issues that cause chronic symptoms—candida, parasites, digestive breakdown, food reactions, heavy metals, nervous system “blocking” or “switching”—don’t show up in standard labs at all .

And even when something does show up, here’s the part nobody explains:

Labs only flag what falls outside an antiquated range of what the medical model still considers “normal.”

Those ranges haven’t kept up with the health of today’s population or the stressors your body is carrying. So even when labs finally find something “off,” what happens?

**All that can be done is a drug to squash the number—without asking why it’s happening.

No one explains the source of the dysfunction.
No one looks at what led your body there.
And the underlying issue stays unaddressed.**

You end up with more symptoms, more confusion, and more frustration… not more answers.

Because the medical model focuses on the what, not the why. But your body doesn’t create symptoms for no reason.

We find the WHY—because isn’t that more important than the WHAT?
Isn’t it better to address the real reason your body is struggling instead of forcing it to be quiet?

When you address the why, the body can finally repair itself instead of being bullied into silence by medication.

That’s where real healing actually starts.

What I’m Most Grateful For—and What I Want You to Feel This Thanksgiving

I am grateful every day that my body didn’t give up on me, even when I felt like giving up on it.

I am grateful that healing isn’t linear, perfect, or instant… but absolutely possible.
I am grateful that symptoms are signals, not life sentences.
And I am grateful that the body always is seeking to balance, repair and protect itself once you remove what's in the way. 

You’re not fighting your body.
Your body is fighting for you—and asking for your help.

That alone is worth being grateful for today.

A Thanksgiving Mindset Shift for Anyone Still in the Healing Process

If you take away one thing today, let it be this:

You are allowed to be grateful for your body even before it’s fully healed.

You’re allowed to trust your body before you have a diagnosis.
And you’re allowed to believe you’re fixable even if nothing has worked yet.

Maybe gratitude today looks like:
• “I’m proud of myself for not giving up.”
• “My body is communicating with me—not attacking me.”

If all you can do is breathe and say, “I’m still here, and I’m still trying,” that is enough.

More than enough.

My Thanksgiving Wish for You

You’re a human with a body doing the best it can under overwhelm…
and you absolutely can get your health back when you treat the source, not the symptom.

Healing isn’t about hope.
It’s about understanding how your body works—
and giving it the support and direction it’s been missing.

I’m grateful you’re here, and you deserve to feel like YOU again.

If you are local to the Phoenix, AZ area, go to this link to find out more about holistic solutions to address the underlying cause of your symptoms and how to remove what's "in the way" of your body working the way it's supposed to. Labs might explain some of your symptoms—but they don’t explain or fix WHY this is happening. Isn’t it time to finally resolve it instead of managing it? 

If you are not local to the Phoenix, AZ area, then click here to check out all of your options! You’ll get the exact steps you need to take, plus support from me to guide you every step of the way! 

xo Monica 🦋 Treat the Source: where we reveal all of the hidden causes of your mystery symptoms!