Your Body Is Not the Problem
On chronic illness, the failure narrative, and the words no doctor has said to you yet.
Greetings! If you’re new to the Writing Your Resilience Substack, welcome! I’m Lisa Cooper Ellison, a trauma-informed writing coach, author of this Substack, and your resident story alchemist. If you’ve been here for a while, welcome back. It’s wonderful to be with friends. If you’re looking for some craft tips or want to learn more about the writing business, be sure to check out this month’s reading round up.
“You’re an A-plus student.” These are the words I loved to hear—except when that grade came from testing positive for ninety-two out of one hundred allergens.
All my life, I’ve been “allergic to everything.” Last year, a hornet sting landed me in the ER with two-inch blisters. That response led to this round of skin-prick testing, where some allergic reactions produced silver-dollar-sized welts.
Soon after that test, I began immunotherapy allergy shots. Three weeks into the standard three-to-five-year protocol, a red, hot, prickly rash crept up my bicep. I lay on my recliner at three a.m., ice packs tied to my arms like water wings, hoping to find some relief.
Sitting in the dark, I prayed the urge to rake my skin off would go away. I wanted to return to “normal life”—the one where I don’t think about my symptoms or endure them just to live life alongside my sidekick chronic illness.
Reporting that reaction and being moved to the slower track for sensitive patients magnified those feelings and flooded me with the story I’d been told my whole life: your body is weak; therefore, you are weak. Better learn to compensate for it.
Illness, like all our experiences, is a combination of what’s happening and the story we build around it. For many years, mine was laced with failure. My body failed to do what it was supposed to do. I failed to rest enough, wasn’t disciplined enough, and couldn’t rewire my nervous system fast enough to prevent this or correct that. Writing this makes my heart ache, and I let it ache because that’s how I allow this grief to move through me.
I grieve for the experience of stable, good health that has eluded me. I also yearn for these doctors to say what I’ve longed to hear and know to be true. Since that’s unlikely to happen, I’ll say it for them. And if you’re living with chronic illness, healing from trauma, or simply dealing with challenges that don’t seem to go away, this is for you too. Feel free to say it out loud so you can claim it as your own.
My body is strong. It has weathered tremendous stress and keeps going. I promise to take care of it.
My spirit is tenacious. It endures and continues to seek meaning even when things are difficult, disappointing, or don’t make sense. I honor it’s capacity to drink in life, no matter the circumstances.
My heart is exactly as tender as it’s meant to be. It’s hard to grieve the loss of capacity or to never know the ease others have had the privilege of experiencing. I’m allowed to feel this way. Attending to what hurts makes room for peace and joy.
My sensitivity is a gift. My body’s reactions and my emotions are how I respond to and engage with the world. This finely tuned instrument can do so much good, especially when I keep my heart open.
I’m allowed to not be okay with this. I can imagine a good outcome and feel whatever I need to feel. It’s okay to shake my fists at whoever said, “You’ll learn from your janky DNA in this life.” I can also admit when I’m tired, brain foggy, or too itchy to concentrate. This is how I persevere.
Please know that I’m taking good care of myself, which means resting, tending to what needs attention, and slowing down. May you also give yourself that grace. Because grace is how we find the words for the experiences others have but cannot yet express, which is one of the biggest reasons I write on.
With love and blessings to you,
Lisa
Your Turn: Which of these statements resonates most? What would you add to the list? Leave your answer in the comments. You never know who you might help or inspire.
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Discover Your Story
If you’ve been told your memoir is too raw, incomplete, or includes a series of disjointed events, or you’re simply in the messy middle and need some tools to ground your revision process, this is the webinar for you. In it, I won’t just show you what a narrative arc is, I’ll teach you how to use three tools that will help you find yours. Best of all, you’ll see these tools in action during a live workshop of real projects by aspiring authors.
The Latest Episode of Writing Your Resilience:
Most of us have spent years trying to change the patterns that hold us back, and wondering why, even with all the awareness in the world, some things will not budge. In this episode of Writing Your Resilience, trauma therapist and neurofeedback specialist Jessica Eure joins me to talk about why Human Design has created more real, tangible transformation for both of us than almost anything else we have tried. If you are ready to stop fighting who you are and start flowing with it, this episode—and your free Human Design chart—are the perfect place to begin.
My Recent Publications and Interviews
ICYMI
Why Releasing Perfection Is the Breakthrough Your Memoir Needs
I Bleached My Sink to Avoid My Book. Then I Tried Numerology.
The Soul of the Writing Life: Connecting with the Source Behind Your Best Work
Recent Writing Your Resilience Episodes
Creative Intuition: The Skill That Makes Life and Work Easier
How I Escaped Iran & Wrote My Way to Freedom with Atash Yaghmaian
Craft Articles:
“Trust Your Audience to Process and Respond” by Anne Carley
“Writing the Neighborhood: How a Walk Becomes an Essay” by Andrea Firth
“All Lanes, All Gears: On Narration in Memoir” by Brooke Warner
The Writing Life
“Moated Castles: Why I Don’t Write About My Marriage” by Jeannine Ouellette
“Why Are We So Surprised By Failure?” by Kate McKean
“I want to believe Amy Griffin, but I don’t.” by Brooke Warner
“How to Write on Substack as a Fawner” by Ingrid Clayton
“Creative Uses for Generative AI” by Anne Carley
“Memoirs RX: A Cure for the Ailing Writer” by Caroline Wampole
The Biz
“BREAKING NEWS: The USA Today Bestseller List is a Joke” by Kathleen Schmidt
“Read This Newsletter on Why You Don’t Need a Newsletter” by Kate McKean
“The State of Social Media Engagement in 2026: 52M+ Posts Analyzed” by Tamilore Oladipo
“pity marketing” by Leigh Stein
“The Newsletter Market Is Crowded, But Most of Your Competition Is Easy to Beat.” by Jane Friedman
“AI and Publishing: FAQ for Writers” by Jane Friedman
Articles That Made Me Feel or Think
“71 and a First-Time Novelist: ‘I Was Tenacious and I Kept Coming Back” by Elisabeth Egan
“Editing My Life” by Heidi Fettig Parton
“Look, That’s My Son” by Casey Mulligan Walsh
Books on My Nightstand
The Heart Folds Early by Jill Christman: This exquisitely rendered memoir takes you through a choice no one wants to make and folds it into a national conversation we’re currently living. In addition to being a gripping read, this book is a master class in voice and how to insert the voice of the future into scenes from the past without interrupting the narrative.
I Belong to Me by Tia Levings: It’s always a joy and pleasure to return to a voice I’m fond of. In Tia’s latest book, I get to reconnect with her grounded voice and expert storytelling as she navigates the path of deconstruction after religious trauma. If you’re currently deconstructing your beliefs, preorder this book.
Red-Hot Writers
“The Language Of Murder” by Madelaine Zadik
Wendy Kennar’s essay “Birthday Buddies” was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Being Grandma
Milestone Makers
Wendy’s mother turns 81 on March 30th and her son turns 18—a very cool reversal of numbers, if I do say so myself.
If you’ve read this far, thank you. You can support this newsletter and yourself with quarterly Ask Me Anything sessions and occasional Writer’s Support sessions by becoming a paid subscriber. Here are the next two paid subscriber events:
Build an Author Platform that Aligns with Your Design and Nervous System at 1:00 PM ET on May 27, 2026.
Ask Me Anything at 1:00 PM ET on Wednesday, June 17, 2026
I hope to see. you there!
Everything about this piece resonated with me, and especially the paragraph beginning with, “My spirit is tenacious. ..”. I am 86, an exhibiting artist, a writer almost finished with a memoir, a mother to four adult children, AND I am in therapy. I continue to change and grow. Your Substack is part of my “routine.” Thank you!
First off all, thank you for linking to "Editing My Life."
Then, as to what you write here. Yes! I feel like perimenopause first, and now menopause, has changed me in ways that are hard to accept. My energy meter is much lower. I am forced to be selective and thoughtful EACH DAY about what tasks or creative projects I give my time, sweat, and blood to. Perhaps that is okay. Perhaps this my body telling capitalistism to F off.