Flora, 24

I had a bunch of symptoms that, individually, didn't seem like a huge deal, but I always had this feeling that they were connected. My cycle was off, I had chronic fatigue, my skin was breaking out, my digestion was bad, and I just didn't feel like I understood what was going on with my body. I'd also been interested in holistic health for years — in high school, I shadowed a naturopathic doctor and learned about the food system and food as medicine, which completely changed the way I thought about health.

I went pretty deep into trying to figure things out for myself — supplements, changing my diet, different practitioners, acupuncture, meditation, and a lot of reading and Googling. The more I learned, the more I realized there wasn't one person or one answer that could explain everything. I wanted to understand the why, not just manage whatever symptom was bothering me that week.

The biggest shift was finding practitioners who actually looked at me as a whole person. Instead of treating one symptom at a time, they started asking questions about things that seemed unrelated — my cycle, digestion, skin, food, stress, sleep, lifestyle. It made me realize how much I'd been missing by treating each thing separately, and how much my mind and connection to self played a role beyond the physical things like diet and supplements.