Welcome to the Phoenix Helix podcast dedicated to autoimmune resilience.

Today, I have a mindset minisode for you, so let's dive right in.

Thank you. Hey, everybody. We're doing something new today. So I have been hosting this podcast for eight years now, specializing in long form interviews related to autoimmune health. And I don't want you to worry.

That is going to continue.

Every four weeks, I will be releasing a new interview. But between those episodes, I am going to be

releasing what I'm calling Mindset Minisodes, and they are techniques inspired by my book,

Healing Mindset, which is a guide to the mind-body connection for people with

autoimmune disease.

And the truth is stress is a huge autoimmune trigger.

I think all of us have experienced stress-induced autoimmune flares, and that's an example

of the mind-body connection working against us.

But there are things we can do to actually make the mind-body connection work for us,

and they're often quite simple. So my goal with this series is to share a very simple technique with

you that you can start using right away. I'm starting with gratitude. That's also how I started my

book. Now, if you are really suffering with your

autoimmune symptoms, gratitude can feel like an emotion that is not possible for you, and I

understand that feeling intimately. So when my symptoms were at their worst with rheumatoid arthritis,

I was living with a level of excruciating pain

so high. I think it deserved its own word. It disabled me. I wasn't able to work. I was limping,

crossing my living room. I didn't have the strength in my hands to wash dishes. The pain was so

intense that it had me gasping. I was crying every day, to say I was overwhelmed

as an understatement.

...