Why Listening to My Body Has Been the Hardest Part of Healing

For a long time, I thought healing meant doing more.

More effort. More discipline. More pushing through.

Listening to my body felt vague, indulgent, or impractical, especially when life still needed me to show up. I didn’t realize how much I had learned to override myself until my body started asking for attention in quieter, more persistent ways.

When You’ve Learned to Push, Not Pause

Many of us grow up learning how to push through discomfort.

We learn to keep going even when we’re tired.

To silence signals that slow us down.

To prioritize responsibility over rest.

So when people say, “Just listen to your body,” it can feel confusing.

What if you don’t trust those signals?

What if listening feels like falling behind?

For me, healing wasn’t about learning how to listen.

It was about learning that I was allowed to.

The Body Doesn’t Always Speak Loudly

Not every signal comes as pain or illness.

Sometimes the body speaks in subtler ways.

Persistent fatigue.

Shallow breathing.

Tight shoulders or a clenched jaw.

Brain fog.

Irritability.

Trouble resting, even when tired.

Because these symptoms don’t always stop daily life, they’re easy to dismiss. I told myself I was fine because I was functioning. But functioning isn’t the same as feeling regulated or supported.

Listening Is a Relationship, Not a Skill

Listening to your body isn’t something you master once and move on from.

It’s a relationship that changes with seasons, stress, hormones, and life circumstances.

Some days the body speaks clearly.

Other days it’s quiet or confusing.

Both are okay.

What matters is staying curious instead of critical.

Responding with compassion instead of judgment. Letting the body lead sometimes, even when the pace feels slower than expected.

If You’re Struggling With This Too

If listening to your body feels hard, frustrating, or unclear, there’s nothing wrong with you.

Many of us were never taught how to listen without shame.

Healing doesn’t start with perfect awareness.

It starts with noticing and allowing yourself to respond differently.

Your body isn’t asking for perfection.

It’s asking for care.

Sincerely,

Roshaydia- Grassroots Health

Reflecting on 2025: What This Year Taught Us About Health, Community & Care

As we approach the end of the year, many of us feel a natural shift — a slowing down, a softening, a desire to look back at where we’ve been before stepping into where we’re going. 2025 has been a year of learning, unlearning, healing, and reconnecting. It has shown us what it means to care for ourselves and each other in ways that are real, sustainable, and rooted in community.

At Grassroots Health, this year has reinforced something we’ve always believed: health is not just physical. It’s emotional, cultural, relational, and collective. And the way we move through life is shaped not only by our habits, but by our environments, our histories, and the supports around us.

1. Slowing Down Isn’t a Setback — It’s a Strategy

Many of us entered 2025 carrying exhaustion, grief, or the pressure to “bounce back.”But what this year revealed is that rest is medicine. Slowing down doesn’t mean we’re falling behind — it means we’re finally listening to our bodies.

Whether through morning rituals, shorter workweeks, or intentional downtime, we saw people choosing pace over pressure, and their health responding with more energy, clarity, and balance.

2. Community Care Is Real Health Care

When access, equity, and wellbeing feel uneven, the community steps in.

In 2025, we saw:

• Neighbours supporting neighbours

• People sharing resources

• Families navigating health challenges together

• Communities holding space for grief, joy, and growth

What we witnessed over and over is that healing happens in relationship — not isolation. And that care is not limited to professionals; it comes from community, culture, and connection.

3. Food, Movement, and Wellness Are Cultural

This year reminded us that wellness doesn’t look the same for everyone — and it shouldn’t.

Traditional foods, healing herbs, land-based practices, movement rooted in joy, ceremony, storytelling, and spiritual grounding all played a role in strengthening health across our communities.

4. Mental Health Needs Space, Not Shame

More people than ever spoke openly about burnout, anxiety, depression, grief, and emotional overwhelm.And instead of dismissing these feelings, we learned to honour them.

In 2025 we collectively moved toward:

• Naming what we’re feeling

• Creating rituals for grounding

• Prioritizing nervous system support

• Asking for help sooner

• Choosing compassion over judgement

Mental health is not separate from physical health — it shapes the whole body.

5. Small Changes Add Up More Than Big Resolutions

This year taught us that transformation doesn’t need to be dramatic.It can come from everyday practices that feel simple and doable:

• a walk around the block• a warm meal• staying hydrated• a slow morning stretch• seeking culturally safe health care• setting one boundary• taking one deep breath before reacting

Small steps are the backbone of sustainable wellness.

6. We Are Stronger When We Honour Our Stories

Whether navigating diabetes, chronic stress, hormonal changes, grief, or transitions, 2025 reminded us that our stories matter. When we understand the context of our lives, we understand our health differently.

We show ourselves more compassion. We move at a pace that supports healing. We return to practices that resonate with who we are.

This year affirmed that health is not about perfection — it’s about alignment.

Looking Ahead to 2026

As we enter a new year, we’re holding onto these lessons and moving with intention.

In 2026, Grassroots Health is looking forward to:

• Expanding our community wellness offerings

• Introducing new holistic workshops and seasonal learning

• Continuing trauma-informed, culturally grounded care

• Deepening our connection with you — the community

• Creating tools that support sustainable, everyday wellness

We are grateful for every conversation, every appointment, every message, every shared moment of healing and care.

Thank You for Being Part of 2025

Your presence shapes our work. Your wellness matters to us. Your story is part of this community.

As we close this year and open the door to the next, we move gently, with gratitude and intention — together.

With care,

Grassroots Health- R.M

This Isn’t Just About Blood Sugar: Diabetes in Black and Indigenous Women

When we talk about diabetes, it’s usually framed as “eat better,” “exercise,” or “just have more discipline.”But if you are Black or Indigenous, you know there is more to the story.

Our communities didn’t end up with high diabetes rates by accident. This is connected to history, land, stress, survival, and the systems we’ve lived under.

So this conversation is not about blame. And it’s definitely not about shame. This is about context, care, and truth.

Why We’re Impacted More Heavily

1. Access to Real Food Has Been Disrupted

Before colonization and forced migration, our ancestors ate foods grown from land they tended themselves – fish, berries, corn, squash, wild rice, yams, roots, teas, herbs. Food was medicine. Food was ceremony. Food was community.

When land is taken, when food systems are interrupted, when grocery stores replace gardens–  the body feels that. That’s not “choice.” That’s disconnection.

2. Stress Lives in the Body

Black and Indigenous women carry a lot: Family. Community. Work. Grief. Survival. We know how to hold everything together, but we are rarely held.

Constant survival stress changes hormones, raises cortisol, and directly affects blood sugar. This is not personal weakness. This is the cost of being strong in systems not built for us.

3. Healthcare Doesn’t Always See Us

Many of us have felt the following:

•dismissed,• misdiagnosed,• told “you’re fine,”• or made to feel like we’re exaggerating.

This is why diabetes often gets caught late, when complications are harder to reverse.

And this is also why so many Black and Indigenous people experience preventable amputations. Not because our bodies are failing us–  but because systems are failing us.

4. Disconnection From our Healing Traditions

Plant medicine, ceremony, gardening, drumming, movement, auntie-wisdom, storytelling, kitchen-table care…Healing used to be collective.

So part of our wellness journey is returning–  not starting from scratch.

What the Research Confirms 

• Diabetes Canada points to colonization and disrupted food systems, not “bad habits.”

• Studies show trauma and stress play a direct role in diabetes risk.

• Indigenous and Black communities face higher complications because of delayed care, not biology.

• Clinical guidelines say diabetes care must be culturally safe, community-led, and relational.

• Indigenous peoples are three times more likely to develop diabetes due to structural inequities, not genetics.

So yes it’s systemic. But that doesn’t mean we are powerless.

Our Communities Are Already Healing

And we don’t always name it as healing.

When we:

• Share food with each other

• Grow herbs on a balcony

• Make soup for someone especially in times of stress

• Walk with a friend after sunset

• Choose rest

• Tell old stories

• Return to land and water

• Make room for joy

• Hold ceremony

• Teach our children their names and songs

That is healing.That is resistance.That is wellness.

We have never stopped caring for each other.Even when systems wanted us to forget how.

Where We Go From Here

We deserve:

• Healthcare that listens.

• Spaces where we’re not rushed.

• Food that comes from culture.

• Rest without guilt.

• Support that understands the context, not just the symptoms.

At Grassroots Health, we approach wellness from the whole picture — body, mind, spirit, culture, and lived experience.If you’re navigating diabetes or at risk, you do not need to do that alone.You deserve care that honours your story.

Closing

This is not just about managing blood sugar.It’s about returning to relationships — with food, land, community, rest, and self.

We are not starting from zero.

We are returning to what we’ve always known.

Citations:

Diabetes Canada. “Indigenous Communities and Diabetes.” Diabetes Canada Resources.https://www.diabetes.ca/resources/tools---resources/indigenous-communities-and-diabetes

Oster, R. T., & Toth, E. L. “Diabetes Among Aboriginal People in Canada.” Canadian Journal of Diabetes.https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3830901/

Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). “Equity in Diabetes Care: A Focus on Lower-Limb Amputation.”https://www.cihi.ca/en/equity-in-diabetes-care-a-focus-on-lower-limb-amputation

Diabetes Canada Clinical Practice Guidelines. Chapter 38: “Diabetes in Indigenous Peoples.”https://guidelines.diabetes.ca/cpg/chapter38

Young, T. K., Reading, J., Elias, B., & O’Neil, J. “Diabetes in Native Canadians: A Review.” Clinical Investigative Medicine.https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2096702/