Health as a Relationship: Why Fighting Your Body Keeps You Stuck
Health as a Relationship: Why Fighting Your Body Keeps You Stuck
Written by Elle Sproll
So many women I work with describe their health journey as a battle.
Battling fatigue.
Battling weight.
Battling stress.
Battling emotions.
Battling a body that feels like it’s letting them down.
And for a long time, I understood health this way too.
As something to overcome or control.
But over time, I’ve seen a different pattern emerge.
The women who feel better long-term aren’t the ones who become stricter.
They’re the ones who become more connected.
The cost of constant control
Control can work in the short term.
You can override tiredness.
Ignore hunger.
Suppress emotion.
Push through stress.
But over time, this creates a quiet split inside.
The physical body works harder to cope.
The emotional body looks for release.
The mental body becomes hypervigilant.
The spiritual body loses its sense of direction.
Eventually, something asks to be heard.
This is often the moment women say:
“I don’t feel like myself anymore.”
“I don’t know what I need.”
“I don’t trust my body.”
Not because the body has failed,
but because the relationship has been strained.
What partnership looks like instead
Partnership doesn’t mean indulgence or passivity.
It means responsiveness.
It looks like:
– resting when the body is depleted
– feeding the body regularly instead of erratically
– noticing emotional signals instead of numbing them
– creating boundaries when the system feels overloaded
– listening for what feels meaningful instead of just productive
These aren’t dramatic acts.
They are relational ones.
They say: I’m paying attention.
I’m willing to listen.
I don’t need to fight myself to feel better.
The surprising shifts that follow
When women stop fighting their bodies, a few things often change:
Energy becomes steadier instead of spiky.
Decisions become clearer.
Emotions feel less overwhelming.
Life feels less like something to survive.
Not because everything becomes easy,
but because there’s less internal resistance.
The body softens when it feels respected.
The mind quiets when it feels supported.
The emotional system settles when it’s allowed.
Meaning becomes easier to access when life isn’t just about coping.
This is what I mean when I say health is a relationship.
You don’t need to become someone new
One of the biggest myths about health is that you need to become a different person to feel better.
Stronger.
More disciplined.
More motivated.
More controlled.
But often, the work is the opposite.
It’s coming back into relationship with who you already are.
With your physical body as an intelligent ecosystem.
With your mental body as a place that needs rest as well as focus.
With your emotional body as something to feel, not manage away.
With your spiritual body as a source of meaning and inner guidance.
When those parts are in relationship, health stops feeling like something you chase.
And starts feeling like something you live inside.
