Anxiety has always been a part of my life, but it doesn’t define me.

Years ago, a Miami-Dade County Commissioner decided to visit my non-profit agency before agreeing to provide us with funding. I was happy about his visit, as it indicated levels of interest and fiscal responsibility that I admired. We had already met once, and the depth of our communication had really impressed me.

As I showed him materials about our programming, I described one of our more recent programs at the time, “Relax Miami.” After a half dozen years of operating, I realized that we were the only social service agency that provided self-care services for employees. I supported disaster response organizations, and so I knew that people needed those tools both for building resiliency before a hurricane and stress relief afterwards.

I also confessed to him that one of the reasons I was an “expert” in stress relief was that I myself was an anxious person. He laughed and said, “You’re like the president of the hair club. You are also a customer!”

Anxiety has been a part of my life since just after birth. I was born in an era when parents were told to let their babies hysterically scream themselves to sleep. Somehow, basic affection and security were considered “spoiling.” Thus anxiety, abandonment, resentment and a switched-on stress response were part of my earliest life.

I developed an autoimmune disease, Hashimoto’s. Autoimmune diseases are about a body attacking or rejecting itself. It is common to find a less-than-nurturing caretaker at the root of  these illnesses.

Anxiety is one of the major symptoms of this particular disorder.

Since it was always easy for me to get ramped up from my baseline of “somewhat anxious” to  really agitated, I constantly sought out ways to achieve a state of peace. Unfortunately for me, I initially rejected one of the best answers—yoga—because my mother discovered yoga in the 60s. I was already In state of oppositional defiant with her, and so I rejected yoga, since my mother loved it.

When I did finally incorporate yoga, the quality of my life improved significantly.

As I continued to “do my work” and find limited success, I had to acknowledge the role my genes played in my anxiety: both my parents were anxious people. For some reason, I felt that acknowledging any genetic cause of anxiety was admitting failure on my part. I am more than my body. I am more than the sum of my parts.

But once I finally admitted that my personal life experiences, my physical condition and my nutrition weren’t the only causes of my anxiety, I actually began to relax.

I wasn’t weak. I wasn’t a failure or a fake because of my anxiety.

I became more willing to take medication. I was relieved to find literature that informed me about my thyroid condition; just because my thyroid levels were in normal range did not mean that I felt normal. I knew I needed thyroid medication, but it took me another year to find a doctor who was informed about the current research and who would prescribe it to me despite the “normal” range of my thyroid hormones.

I will never forget the 30 minutes that followed taking that medication: the most debilitating aspect of my anxiety melted. It felt miraculous.

Shortly after this experience, I discovered Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) as an “upstream” fix for my immune system. Six months after starting LDN, my brain fog eased, my body warmed up, my sleep improved, and I was able to cut my thyroid medication dose to one-quarter of the recommended amount.

We are built to heal. I recommend to everyone that they follow the instinct within that still believes healing is possible.

My life took another major turn when I decided to retire and move to Costa Rica. I was done with the stress of running a non-profit agency. One more funding opportunity fell through, and rather than downsize, I decided to leave. I had visited Costa Rica in 2005 and had decided then that this country of unique values would be my retirement haven.

In six months, we shed 30 years of stuff that I had accumulated in our family home, made trips to determine where we would live—and, finally, we moved. It was crushing stress for a while. I have come 180 degrees, and I am now amazed at the feeling of living mostly stress-free. I had never experienced this before. What a unique experience! I am grateful for my “Pura Vida” and recommend shedding stress to anyone seeking to heal!