Hi Reader,

Monica sent me a message a few weeks ago. No new labs. No breakthrough symptom or anything dramatic. Just: "Day 1,142. Still here. Still trying. Not sure if any of this is working, but I'm not stopping either."

She's been on this healing journey for over three years. New protocols, false starts, a few real wins, more plateaus than she can count, and a body that still doesn't feel fully like hers. "I don't know if I have another fresh start in me," she told me recently. "I'm just... tired of fighting."

If you read that and felt something, I want to say this to you directly, not to a hypothetical reader, but to you. I see you.

Three years in, or ten years in, still showing up to another appointment, another elimination diet, another prayer you're not sure is "working", that exhaustion is real and legitimate. You are not weak for feeling it. You are not failing because you're tired of fighting.

The Science

A 2024 meta-analysis in the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing pooled twenty randomized controlled trials that included nearly 1,400 people living with chronic conditions, looking at what happens when people build resilience skills alongside their medical treatment. The results weren't small. People who built resilience saw meaningful drops in stress and anxiety, real reductions in depression, and measurably better quality of life, on top of stronger resilience itself.

In my experience, this matches what I see in those who are years into their healing and starting to wonder if the fight itself means something is wrong. It doesn't. The research suggests resilience isn't a personality trait some people are just born with and others aren't. It's a skill. It's trainable. And building it changes real, measurable health outcomes, not just your mood about the process.

Which means the fact that you're still here, still trying, day 1,142 or day 14, isn't evidence the plan isn't working. It may be the very thing that's working.

The Scripture

Paul wrote one of the most quoted verses in the Bible from a prison cell, not a finish line:

That verse gets slapped on gym walls and sports jerseys until it barely means anything anymore but read where Paul actually wrote it. He wasn't celebrating a win. He was describing how to keep going through hunger, need, and uncertainty he couldn't see the end of, through Christ's strength, not his own reserves, which he'd clearly already spent.

That's not a verse about winning. It's a verse about enduring what you can't yet see the other side of, with strength that isn't fully your own to begin with. Before any researcher measured resilience in a clinical trial, Paul was living proof that showing up again tomorrow, in strength you didn't manufacture yourself, is its own kind of victory.

You're not broken because you're still in the middle of this. Healing is possible, even on day 1,142, even if today all you can offer is "still here."

The Steps

So here's what I want to say: you were not made to carry this fight alone, and you don't have to keep white-knuckling it by yourself to prove you're strong enough.

If you're still fighting and you're tired of doing it in isolation, let's talk.

[Book a free Balance Blueprint call here], and let's build the kind of support around you that the research and Scripture says actually works. This is not one more protocol to run solo, but a plan, a person, and a place to be honest about how tired you really are. You've done enough of this on your own.

With you in the fight,
Andrea DuMez, RN, CHN, NBC-HWC
​Registered Nurse | Holistic Nutritionist | Integrative Health Coach | Certified Metabolic Balance Coach

P.S. I told Monica that day 1,142 wasn't a sign she was failing. It was proof she hadn't quit, which is its own kind of strength.