Belief, Choice, and Self-Love: My Guide to Finding Balance While Living with Psoriasis

These three pillars have been critical for my healing journey with psoriasis.

Patchy skin, an itchy scalp, and flakes all over my clothing.

This is my life with psoriasis — and I used to live day by day obsessing over finding a cure.

I used to feel unworthy, unattractive, and unlovable. I spent countless hours researching, testing out new diets, drinking herbal remedies, and giving up, time and time again.

It has taken me a long time to learn how to live with psoriasis and to let go of any limitations I thought it presented. Getting here has taken dedication and a whole lot of patience.

Taking time to dig deep, getting to know myself, and becoming my own best friend have been pivotal to learning how to live my life with joy and recognizing that I am beautiful with — or without — my psoriasis.

Throughout this journey, belief, choice, and self-love have been three core pillars that have guided me to find balance and peace.

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Belief

Our body has the power to heal itself. When we get a cut, our body knows what to do to mend itself. So, if our body can heal a wound, a broken bone, or a broken heart, can’t our body figure out how to heal psoriasis?

This isn’t me simply wanting to be cured or rid of psoriasis, but a belief that my body has powers and plans that I don’t always recognize or know. Reminding myself that my body can heal a cut allows me to place belief in its abilities, powers, and maybe even, its superpowers.

This belief has allowed me to live with psoriasis, while also remaining hopeful that my body could one day learn to heal psoriasis.

When I started to listen to my body and the stories it was telling me, I started to believe that I had all the same superpowers as healing a cut and realized that I had a choice in this journey.

I have seen this truth with my own healing journey as I have been able to recognize how my body responds to my choices. It strengthens my belief that we can find our own cures and live healthy balanced optimal lives every day.

Choice

We are faced with choices every day. What time we wake in the morning, what we eat or don’t eat for each meal, and what thoughts we choose to cultivate.

We also have a choice when faced with adversity.

Choosing to start my day with the power of meditation, journaling, low impact movement, and a nurturing alkalizing drink are all choices that I make to support my belief that my body will continue to heal over and over again.

I also choose the people I hold near and dear, the people that I set boundaries with, and the people that simply no longer hold space in my life. This has proven to be important for my healing process.

When we make these choices, we become the true guides for our future.

This in itself has proven to be a major healing tool, but it has also been a long journey as these choices are not always easy to set in place and maintain.

Self-love

Becoming my own cheerleader, best friend, and life coach has been pivotal to keeping my psoriasis at bay.

When I fall off-kilter and lean toward past behaviors and thoughts, my body will show me within days.

Recognizing these thoughts and behaviors is no easy task, but they can be kept in check by creating daily rituals that keep self-love a top priority. I can work through whatever comes my way if I show up for myself on a consistent basis.

My favorite self-love practice is movement. This may be a dance party for one with my favorite tunes turned up loud, a yoga or Pilates session in my home, or it may simply be a walk outside in nature.

Our bodies are meant to move. Not only can movement help to cleanse toxic waste out of our body, but it can also alter our mood in an instant.

Meditation and journaling have also been integral to moving forward and practicing self-love. They have allowed me to create a new dialogue with myself using loving words as soon as I wake.

I sometimes also try to visualize what life would be like with clear skin, with less pain and less energy devoted to psoriasis. I find that this creates and continues a beautiful story that I love to reflect on: knowing that I have made it so far from such a dark place with my psoriasis. It helps me to put my belief, that I can heal myself, into some kind of action.

Eating nutrient-dense, whole foods is another ritual of ultimate self-love that I practice. Choosing to educate myself about how to nurture my body with delicious and healing foods is a beautiful relationship that I have fallen in love with and has proven to be a potent medicine for my skin.

The takeaway

Belief, choice, and self-love: I know firsthand how powerful these three pillars have been for my life with psoriasis.

I have belief that my body can heal itself. I have made choices that support this belief. And these choices prioritize creating rituals of self-love for my life with, or without, psoriasis.

Together these pillars have allowed me to find peace with my diagnosis and create balance in my life that has resulted in great improvements in my mindset and physical symptoms.

I hope that these pillars will help to guide you, too.