The Next Right Move

Photo - Alicia Green.

After ten years of helping build and lead the Autoimmune Protocol movement, seven years in business partnership at Autoimmune Wellness and AIP Certified Coach, and two years of consulting, I have decided to step away from my work in the AIP space. This letter is about why and what I’d like to do next for those interested. Thanks for being here and reading.

Why I’m Stepping Away From The Wellness Space

Adam Grant, an author and organizational psychologist says that in terms of big career decisions, you can’t truly make a master plan; you can only gauge whether you’re on a meaningful path. He says, “The right next move is the one that brings you closer to living your core values.” I think he’s correct.

Inside and outside my businesses, my number one value is authenticity. After a decade and lots of work I am so proud of, I’m stepping away from it because this path is not the most authentic one for me anymore.

If you’re here reading this right now, it’s probably because you’re an Autoimmune Wellness reader, an AIP Certified Coach alum, a health and wellness colleague, or one of my former clients or group members. Maybe you’re one of my Instagram followers or an IRL friend? A handful of you might be family members that still read my stuff.

Whoever you are, I realize my stepping away might be a bit shocking based on how much passion I brought to this work. Although I am a grown-ass woman who knows she doesn’t owe anyone an explanation, I have appreciated all the amazing support in building my career, so I want to explain.

There’s also a lot that I’d like to voice ‘cause I know I’m not the only one. Vulnerably asking, “Do you feel it too?” is the whole point, right? We’re all just trying to connect. 

Burnout

I joke with close friends and colleagues about being “crispy” burnt out all the time, but the truth is I’m more like ash. I care. A lot. As a passionate person, I know I’m at risk for burnout. I’ve dealt with it before, and usually, if I just waited it out, the flame would reignite. Four years later (I wrestled with this decision for a long time), it didn’t.

Timeout . . . no, that does not mean I’m anti-diet now (although I was always “anti-the toxic culture of dieting,” nuance is so tough these days). Yes, I still believe the Autoimmune Protocol is a powerful tool to help manage autoimmune disease. The specific ways I am working within the AIP community aren’t right for me at this point (more on that later), but my belief in the movement and its personal relevance are unchanged. I literally helped perform the medical research, I’ve been a part of thousands of health journeys, and I am also an autoimmune patient who is well-served by the AIP template. I don’t want there to be any speculation on this point.

Back to burnout . . . I’ve worked for myself for about a decade now, so if I’m burnt out, it’s my fault, right? (But if you work for someone else and you’re burnt out, it’s also apparently your own fault.) I should have practiced better boundaries. I should have said “no” more. I should have taken more breaks, managed my time more efficiently, learned more productivity hacks, asked for help, meditated more, prioritized, limited myself to only three important tasks per day, done the most important task first . . . practiced better SeLf-CarE.  

Here’s the thing: Burnout isn’t just occupational. It can be about factors in our personal lives, past traumas, OR, and this is purely hypothetical, maybe even the pressures of navigating a very unstable social moment. And, when it is occupational, being successful and loving our work are not necessarily “burnout repellant.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m fucking sick of being told that both the causes and cures for burnout are about individual actions. Harvard Business Review, looking at you and your wildly condescending articles about motivation.

Why have we built a society where both caring and passion are treated as potential weaknesses to be exploited? Why aren’t there more voices acknowledging that enforcing a boundary might mean the death of an opportunity? Or that “saying no more often” might lead to the death of a relationship? Lost opportunity or ending a relationship could be worth it but think carefully because it could be a heavy price to pay. A price not all of us can equally afford. (Appreciate wokedoctors for shining a light on this recently.)

Why do we only acknowledge through jokes and memes that there’s also a price to taking a break? Namely, you will have to work double time before and after the break, thereby erasing any restoration from the break. That your ruthlessly efficient time management and tech-heavy productivity hacks could result in being too robotic for healthy human interaction. That asking for help doesn’t automatically guarantee receiving it. That meditation requires a time slot. That there may be (there very likely will be) more than three equally important daily tasks and prioritizing them also requires a time slot. In four years of looking for answers, why did I find so few people admitting (unsurprisingly, the ones being honest were women, especially Black women) that self-care will not cure burnout?

Is burnout on individuals?

I’m a huge proponent of taking personal responsibility when it’s warranted, but here’s why I started getting really intense about this burnout issue not being solely about us as individuals . . . As a health coach with a high-volume group program, I had a unique opportunity to observe what thousands of people were doing and saying while attempting to restore their health. Overwhelmingly, they were doing their very best. Overwhelmingly, they arrived saying, “I’m so overwhelmed.” Even before the pandemic (which, what the actual fuck?), I started recognizing I wasn’t the only one who, for some reason, couldn’t get my shit together enough to sustainably not be ash-level burnt out anymore. I noticed that for the vast majority of folks, something was going to give (autoimmune disease, anyone?), and we all really, really needed a community to be there when it did.

I started adjusting how I thought about myself and burnout (“I am enough. There’s a systemic problem.”) and how I coached. I wanted my clients to know that I knew; it’s all too much. I encouraged and celebrated smaller steps, slower transitions, and simplification of everything. For them and me. I taught other coaches to use gentle, phased approaches. I wrote articles advocating for “slow lane” healing. I created a long-term community centered on the idea that, at some point, living well didn’t have to be living for wellness.

I also started hammering the community care message ‘cause if all of us are experiencing this, then fixing it will require us. So much of what we are facing is not solely the result of individual choices and cannot be resolved through individual action alone. Ultimately, focusing on community care IS self-care. I knew I was on the right track, one that was getting closer to my core values, when I heard Aubrey Gordon say on Maintenance Phase, the podcast she co-hosts, “If you’re positing that something is a societal epidemic in whole chunks of nations, that points to macro-level solutions, not individual.” Like, god damn, yes. Yes!!!

The Medicine: Community

Community is medicine. Not in a cute Instagram quote way. In a very real and tangible way (thank you, bell hooks). We aren’t strong enough to pull the meaningful levers in terms of long-term health and wellness individually, but as communities, it can be done easily. The power of this form of medicine is overlooked and someday (soon) we'll have to acknowledge it the way we’ve now come to acknowledge "food as medicine.” Maybe this panini is the push we needed (pandemic euphemisms give me life!) . . . despite the disheartening hyper-individualistic message so many in the health and wellness space continue to preach, as though slowing viral spread isn’t a fucking group project.

What’s On the Horizon For Me 

I don’t have every detail in place for what is next for me, but I do know that if we wanna’ get well as individuals, neighborhoods, cities, nations, and a planet, we MUST fully embrace this community care concept and start moving the conversation and our actions in that direction.

A few months ago, an Instagram follower commented on one of my posts,

“I stopped following you for your AIP content, but came back for the community care a couple of years ago. What you’ve been saying matters, and it is absolutely the bigger piece of the chronic illness puzzle that the wellness cult doesn’t want to reconcile with.”

I appreciated that comment because it reminded me you don’t have to do something forever for it to be a success. My personal goal in the autoimmune space was always to multiply the voices calling for a revolutionary shift in the standard of autoimmune healthcare. That happened. I am confident in the solid foundation I helped lay for other people who are energized and equipped to take the AIP movement further.

Instead, I keep thinking about how Desmond Tutu said that at some point, we must “go upstream” and figure out why people “fall in the river.” I’m stepping back so I can read more, think more, and write more about the actual root causes of and truly holistic thinking about our collective illness and burnout. To my Instagram follower’s point, I’d like to help wellness be less culty. More real. More sustainable. Stepping away from the wellness space provides a better perspective for that work. 

The most valuable thing I can contribute at this point isn’t leading the AIP movement. It’s helping shift the larger conversation further “upstream.” The next most authentic thing I can do right now is focus my time on that.

The other things I’m going to do are learn my husband and daughter more deeply. Cook more and share the recipes and meals, ‘cause as I just spent ten years proving and still believe, food is also medicine. I’m going to focus even more on those pushed to the margins and partner with them. (They already know things about community that we need to learn. Thank you, Reservation Dogs). I’m going to write postcards to my best friend. I’m going to imagine new things with my pastor and see if I can support her. I’m going to meet my neighbor to walk our dogs. I’m going to have phone calls with my sister and drop off my friend’s boys at baseball practice. I’m going to notice the birds and what they have to say about our world.

I also keep thinking about a David Lynch quote, “Just slow things down and it becomes more beautiful.”

All these things are the actions of creating and cementing community, which are simultaneously very urgent in our current moment and require the unhurried investment of time.

We need more opportunities to notice the beauty of community. As someone who has lived at the poverty level, I fully acknowledge the privilege to step away and tend to these tasks, even momentarily. I’m also terrified, the way a person is when they’ve experienced poverty in a capitalist system, but I’m trying to be brave enough to honor and build my life around the things I know are actually most valuable. (I’m also not independently wealthy and alas, there is no trust fund, so maybe I’ll get a job at TJ Maxx, which honestly seems delightful.)

However you got here; thanks for being here and reading. It has taken me years of reflecting, hundreds of saved notes and pieces of inspiration, and starting and scrapping drafts of this letter for about nine months to try and communicate why I’m stepping away. I’m attempting to be authentic in sharing it and accept that not all of it will be perfectly said or received, but it felt necessary to try.

For me, this is the right next move.

Before you go, I want to say thank you to some people because gratitude is fucking magic:

My husband and daughter, geez they’ve endured a lot in the last ten years. Your endless support was everything. Just everything. (And my constant co-worker, our human-identifying dog, who modeled daily the principles of slowing down and community devotion.)

Sarah Ballantyne, because your work changed my life, obvi. But also, that olive oil ice cream you made me in, like 2015. Wut!?

Robb Wolf, because I always give credit where credit is due.

Mickey Trescott, of course. Whew. We did so much work together! So. much. work. I’m proud of what we built and grateful for your partnership. Thank you for going further still. (Oh, also for taking me to Ground Breaker.)

My clients, group members, and students. I have had my ass humbled by what you showed me about the profound and private realities of illness and healing. I was radicalized (in the best possible ways) by what you proved to me in real-time about human connection as medicine. Thank you for trusting me at pivotal moments in your lives.

The team at Autoimmune Wellness. Grace Heerman and Jordan Taylor, I cannot believe how lucky we were to have your support. You are amazing women and were ridiculously patient with me!

The team at AIP Certified Coach. Samantha McClellan and Em Harding, literally could not have kept it on the rails without your help. Jaime Hartman and Tomesha Campbell, you brought so much more to the course teaching than Mickey and I could have delivered on our own.

My former coaching and admin team at SAD to AIP in SIX. Essentially, your jobs boiled down to “hope dealing.” Thank you for wells of empathy, for instilling hope into thousands of people, and for helping me make the program a success.

The doctors and researchers on the AIP medical studies, Dr. Gauree Konijeti, Dr. Rob Abbott, and Lucy Mailing, Ph.D., for believing there was something there and helping me prove it.

The Care Team at WellTheory. For taking it further.

Dr. Tee Williams and Dr. Nicole Charles, for helping me understand more deeply, connect the dots more fully, and articulate my solidarity unflinchingly.

Friends and colleagues in the space, who encouraged me by totally getting what I was putting down over the last 4-5 years, Orleatha Smith, Emelda De Coteau, Cristina Curp, Sarah Deavitt, Tim Frie, Simone Miller, Stephanie Papadakis, Michael Ryker, and others. Knowing you feel it too, made me speak up despite the fear.

My close friends who cheered me on through this career (btw the word “career” is a lot) and this decision process, Jeni, Calley, Kim, Jenny, Adrienne, Rory, and Mitch.

The AIP community. For bravely trying a new tool to help manage autoimmune disease and adding your voice to the revolutionary shift in how we treat it, and for literally supporting me. I hope I showed you through committed work that I am beyond blown away by the privilege I had to serve you.

And last but not least, the bullshit American healthcare system (I said “system,” thank a provider for working their ass off). The poor standard of care for those with autoimmune disease made me a relentless activist for the last decade and opened my eyes to everything feeding that system. I’m focused on that now, but I’ve also helped train nearly a thousand others who care like I do, and they’re coming directly for you.

Whew. That was a lot. If you stuck around, I appreciate it. And I’d love to know if you feel it too. I hope you’ll comment.