A QUESTION TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Dr. Krista Coombs, DrAc, IFMCP
May 29, 2025
In this week’s INSIGHTS for Healing by Design I want to spark deeper thought around WHY you might still be having a difficult time achieving your health goals despite information at your fingertips and even when working with great practitioners in the industry.
Let’s get started with an old story you might be familiar with that I was reminded of recently…
“A man stumbled upon a cocoon of an emperor moth and took it home to witness its transformation.
One day, a small opening appeared. The man watched as the moth began to struggle to force its body through the tiny crack. A few hours went by as the moth wriggled, fought, and pushed—but it couldn’t seem to break through the tiny crack.
Feeling bad, the man carefully cracked the cocoon and peeled away the pieces to open up a path for the moth.
It quickly emerged, but something was wrong. Its body was swollen and its wings weren’t working. Days went by without progress. The moth never flew.
Only later did the man learn what had happened: The painful struggle to break free of the cocoon forces fluid from the moth’s body and wings. Without that struggle, the fluid was never drained and the moth was permanently incapacitated.”
Poor moth 🙁 Can you see how this happens to us in life too? This story is a sad but true reminder that growth requires meaningful struggle.
Let that sink in, my friend!
When you finally accept that your life will change when you embrace this TRUTH, you’ll get the “oxygen” you need to genuinely thrive in life.
Avoiding struggle, on the other hand, starves you of that “oxygen”, thus incapacitating you, keeping you stuck in defeat and fear of change.
*Maybe change just feels too hard right now.
*Maybe you feel you don’t have enough support to tackle something new.
*Perhaps the cost seems too great at the moment so why bother starting.
*Perhaps you don’t think you’re good enough or worth the effort to do the hard things.
*Maybe that difficult conversation with someone else or even yourself would invite too much chaos for a while and you feel overwhelmed just thinking about it…
I call bullshit!!
Yup, I have BS-Dar for these deeply conditioned excuses.
I have used them all and more at points in my life, and now I’m a recovering excuse maker! You can become that too!
We all come up with excuses to avoid discomfort. It’s our natural human negativity bias to avoid perceived pain - the key word here, by the way, is “perceived” which means all our excuses are built on old personal stories, not necessarily real truths that apply to everyone…
Sadly, your excuses do more harm than good for you and those around you who are affected by your avoidance of doing the work. And I know that’s not what you want your life to mean.
REAL TRUTH:
💯PERSONAL FREEDOM – the kind that lasts for a long long time – is earned through a willingness to embrace short term struggle.
So I ask you this powerful question:
💥WHAT HEALING ARE YOU STARVING BY AVOIDING THE CHALLENGES AND STRUGGLES?
Listen, if you’re in my orbit reading this right now, I KNOW you desire TRANSFORMATION in your life.
We all want transformation.
But to get it, you MUST have tension, like the moth in the story.
Growth comes from the struggle NOT from ease.
Ease will be the wonderful side effect AFTER the struggle though!
So, the next time you find yourself in that struggle –
🧚feeling like you want to quit a new exercise routine
🧚feeling overwhelmed by eating to support the body you want
🧚tempted to give up on your health dreams, feeling alone in the challenges of life…
remember the moth.
The resistance you are feeling in those moments of wanting to give up – which, my friend, are inevitabilities for us all – will be the very thing forming your wings so you can fly!!
And let me remind you that you are NEVER EVER alone on this healing journey! I’ve got your back. And I won’t stunt your growth. I’ll always ask you to do the hard things because I KNOW you can do them with support and guidance and some shifting of those conditioned beliefs that direct daily traffic for your mind.
Let me know how I can support you to Heal by Design. And might I suggest being part of a growing community of like-minded women in peri and post menopause in my private group, The EASY YOUniversity, where we discuss concepts like this all the time and lean into the hard to get the fantastic wins!
Let’s rise together,
Dr. Krista xx
Dr Ac, IFMCP
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