In this episode of the VulnerABILITY Podcast, Marisa Donnelly welcomes Ellie Fabra, holistic nutrition and health coach, to share about her journey into purposeful, whole-body healing. Both Marisa and Ellie share about their personal health struggles, their ups and downs, and why modern society fails to truly recognize the connection between the choices we make and the way we feel. Ellie shares important notes about listening to yourself and leaves listeners with a positive reminder: the body fixes itself.
Highlights From The Episode:
[1:35] "Imagine that your body is a symphony, if the first violin is out of tune, the whole symphony is going to sound fun and out of wack. It's the same with the body. I see the body as an integrative thing. I don't see people as separate systems."
[2:50] "A lot of the illnesses that people experience have a root in bad gut health or nutritional deficiencies."
[5:35] "It's a really overwhelming feeling when your body gives up on you."
[6:10] "What was going on with me had to do with my bad habits, bad stress-management, and my nutrition."
[8:50] "I wanted to put together a foolproof plant to troubleshoot myself. And I've replicated that same system with other people... and it works."
[9:10] "I think one of the biggest things you can gift someone is to not live in chronic pain, either physical or emotional."
[11:10] "Making the connection between nutrition and the quality of your life will change your life forever."
[11:25] "Imagine that you're a car—you can be a Mercedes, you can be a Beemer, you can be a super fancy car—but you decide not to take care of your transmission, you don't change your battery, you don't give the fluid that it needs. It will run for a while, but it will stop running."
[12:10] "We have come to believe, in modern society, that we can eat whatever we want and it'll be okay. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way."
[14:20] "It's like a snowball. Imagine it starts really little, and then as you progress through life, the snowball becomes bigger and bigger... and that's where a lot of chronic illnesses start to happen."
[15:35] "The hardest thing is that sometimes we don't have the answers. We're going from doctor to doctor saying, 'I want an answer.'"
[17:15] "I need to pay attention to what my body is saying. And I think so many of us, either don't make the connections or we don't listen. And we think, 'Oh we're fine. I'll just deal with this work stress. I'm fine, I'm fine.' But realistically we're not."
[17:30] "People have to come to a place where they're really uncomfortable to actually make the changes. If it's not painful enough, if it's not annoying enough, in my experience, people won't make the sacrifices that will actually bring the change about. People have to really, really want it."
[18:10] "We live in our heads a lot. We are distracted constantly, we are being bombarded with information. And people have very short attention spans. People want to run on coffee, and unfortunately, that doesn't work."
[19:35] "There is hope. The body fixes itself. It's not a lost cause. There is always something you can do to improve your quality of life."
[20:10] "You have the power to change your life. It's actually something tangible that I absolutely believe in. No one should have to live in pain or be uncomfortable."
[20:45] "I think one of the main things that I've learned from this experience is not giving up—persevering."
[21:45] "I think the first thing is to recognize that you can't go on like this. And then decide that this is the time that you're going to address the issues, find your answers."
[23:25] "There is absolutely hope. The body fixes itself. Everything is temporary,
