What Three Years of Confusion Taught Me About Asking for Support

When I look back at everything I did during those three years, I almost can’t believe it.

I left my full-time corporate job, which also meant leaving behind a lot of financial security. I bought a one-way ticket to Bali, but because of the second wave of COVID, I stopped in the Canary Islands, Spain.

I was supposed to stay for one week.

I stayed much longer.

From there, I created my yoga business. I started by teaching yoga on the beach and in the park. The classes became busier and busier, and eventually, I began organising retreats, first locally and then internationally.

I was busy. Very busy.

But I was also so high on life.

On top of running the business, I was maintaining my own yoga practice and sometimes teaching up to four classes a day, with very little time off. I bought an apartment and put nearly all my savings into it, once again leaving myself with very little financial security.

I also went through a couple of disastrous relationships and some difficult family situations. Thankfully, I had a lot of support from my friends, which I cherished then and still cherish today.

I guess, as with many things in life, it is often during moments of pain that we grow the most.

During those three years, I also travelled to India, where I studied yoga and Ayurveda and met incredibly knowledgeable teachers, practitioners and doctors. I felt increasingly drawn to India and wanted to stay longer each time I visited.

I was travelling so much and doing so much that I didn’t really pay attention to what my body needed.

I just wanted to do, do, do more.

For the first time, I had the freedom to decide what I wanted my life to look like. I had escaped the corporate routine and created something that felt completely mine.

But looking back, I can see that I also burned myself out during those three years because I didn’t listen to what my body was asking for.

Freedom had somehow turned into another form of pressure.

I thought slowing down meant losing everything

When you have built something yourself, slowing down can feel terrifying.

I was afraid that if I stopped teaching so many classes, people would forget about me. If I organised fewer retreats, the business might disappear. If I didn’t answer quickly enough, someone else would get the opportunity.

Everything felt urgent.

Even when nothing was actually happening, my mind was preparing for what could happen next.

I had left a life where someone else gave me structure, a salary and a certain level of security. Suddenly, everything depended on me.

Or at least, that was what I believed.

So I kept moving.

The more uncertain I felt, the more I tried to control. And the more I tried to control, the more exhausted I became.

Eventually, I had to learn something that sounds very simple but was extremely difficult for me:

Slow down.

Not tomorrow. Not after the next project, class, retreat or trip.

Slow down now.

When every part of you says, Hurry up. Do more. Fix this. Find the answer immediately. No, no, no, no.

Slow down.

Slowing down the nervous system

For a long time, I thought resting meant that I was physically sitting or lying down.

But you can be lying on the sofa while your mind is running a marathon.

You can take a day off and spend the entire day thinking about everything you should be doing. You can go on holiday and continue checking your emails every ten minutes.

That is not really rest.

Slowing down the nervous system means creating moments when the body no longer feels that it must remain prepared for the next problem.

For me, this did not happen through one magical practice.

It came through many small things: fewer commitments, slower mornings, regular meals, Yoga Nidra, breathing practices, walking without rushing and allowing myself to sit somewhere without immediately reaching for my phone.

It also meant making space between something happening and my reaction to it.

Not every message needs an immediate answer. Not every uncomfortable feeling needs to be solved within ten minutes. Not every decision has to be made today.

I am still learning this.

Sometimes I catch myself creating urgency where there is none. My mind says, You need to work this out right now.

And I have to answer, Do I really?

Very often, the answer is no.

Eating more doesn’t automatically mean that you are eating “too much”

Another thing I had to learn was that eating more did not automatically mean that I would suddenly put on a huge amount of weight.

If you are doing a lot, working, travelling, exercising, teaching classes and managing stress, your body needs energy to support all of that.

Eating more than you ate before does not necessarily mean that you are overeating. Sometimes, it simply means that you are finally getting closer to meeting your body’s needs.

I had been eating what I considered healthy food. But as I explained in another article, healthy food is not automatically enough food.

I was using very little oil, preparing small portions and moving constantly. I didn’t understand how far I was from giving my body the energy it needed until I temporarily tracked my food.

I was shocked.

At the same time, I want to be honest: recovery from hypothalamic amenorrhea may sometimes involve gaining weight. Clinical guidance recognises that restoring energy balance can require eating more, reducing exercise, improving nutrition and, for some women, gaining weight.

That possibility can be frightening.

But weight gain is not proof that you have failed or lost control. It may be part of giving your body enough safety and energy to function properly again.

Your exact needs are individual, which is why support from a doctor and a dietitian familiar with hypothalamic amenorrhea or low energy availability can be so helpful.

The fear that people might love me less

This is probably one of the most vulnerable parts for me to admit.

Sometimes, the fear of gaining weight was not only about whether I would like my body.

Somewhere inside me, there was also a fear that other people might love me less.

My friends. My family. The people around me.

When I had hypothalamic amenorrhea, I had lost a couple of kilos. People noticed. Some made comments.

Even when comments are meant as compliments, they can create pressure.

“You look so thin.”

“You look amazing.”

“Have you lost weight?”

The person saying it may forget the conversation five minutes later. But the person receiving it may remember it for years.

The attention can make you feel that your smaller body has become part of your value. Then, when you consider gaining the weight back, it can feel as though you are giving away something people admired about you.

But I had to ask myself a difficult question:

If someone’s affection changes because my body becomes healthier, is that really the kind of love I want to protect?

The people who genuinely love me do not love a particular number on a scale. They love my presence, my humour, my ideas, my energy and the way we feel when we are together.

And if someone does comment on my body, I am allowed to protect myself.

I can simply say:

“I’m focusing on my health at the moment, so I would prefer not to discuss my weight.”

I don’t need to explain more than that.

I couldn’t control my way into feeling safe

I have always had a part of me that believes that if I control everything carefully enough, things will work out.

If I organise everything, anticipate every problem, ask every possible question and stay alert, perhaps nothing bad will happen.

Control can create a temporary feeling of safety.

But it can also become exhausting.

The difficult truth is that we cannot control everything.

We can make thoughtful decisions, prepare and take responsibility for ourselves. But we cannot guarantee that a business will succeed, that a relationship will last, that our body will respond according to our preferred timeline or that life will follow the plan we created in our heads.

This was particularly difficult during recovery.

I wanted to know exactly what to eat, how much to rest and when my period would return. I wanted someone to give me a perfect formula.

Do this for three weeks, eat this amount, practise this breathing exercise and everything will be fixed.

But bodies do not always work according to deadlines.

The more desperately I tried to control the outcome, the harder it became to listen to what I actually needed.

Listening to my body was a skill I had to learn

People often say, “Listen to your body,” as if the body sends us a clear email with a list of instructions.

Mine did not.

Sometimes I couldn’t tell whether I was hungry, tired, anxious or simply used to ignoring all three.

Learning to listen started with very basic questions:

Am I hungry?

Am I tired?

Do I genuinely want to exercise today?

Would movement make me feel better, or am I exercising because I feel guilty about resting?

Do I need advice, or do I simply need someone to sit beside me while I feel confused?

At first, I didn’t always trust my answers.

But the more I responded to those signals, the clearer they became. Hunger became something to respect rather than negotiate with. Tiredness became information rather than laziness.

And rest stopped being a reward that I had to earn.

Loving myself above everything and everyone

This may sound selfish, but I don’t mean it in a way that excludes the people I love.

I mean that I had to stop abandoning myself to keep everyone else comfortable.

Loving myself above everything and everyone means taking responsibility for my wellbeing because no one else can live inside my body for me.

Other people can support me, love me and offer advice. But they cannot eat for me, rest for me, set my boundaries or notice every moment when I am reaching my limit.

If I don’t take care of myself, I cannot expect someone else to arrive and do it perfectly on my behalf.

I began asking myself how I would treat my best friend if she were exhausted, frightened or struggling with food and her body.

Would I tell her to work harder?

Would I tell her that she had not earned dinner?

Would I make her feel guilty for needing rest?

Of course not.

So why was that the voice I sometimes used with myself?

Treating myself like my best friend meant changing that voice. It meant becoming protective of my health rather than constantly demanding more from myself.

Asking for support does not make me weak

For a long time, I believed that asking for help meant admitting that I could not manage my own life.

I had left my corporate job, moved abroad, created a business and organised international retreats. I was the person who handled things.

So when I began struggling, I kept trying to solve everything alone.

But independence does not mean doing everything without support.

There is strength in saying:

“I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m scared.”

“I need help.”

“Can you stay with me while I work this out?”

Support may come from a friend, partner, therapist, coach, doctor, dietitian, yoga teacher or Ayurvedic practitioner. Different people can support different parts of the journey.

One person does not need to hold everything.

Asking for help also does not mean handing over every decision. I can listen to advice, ask questions and remain involved in my care. Support should help me understand myself better, not make me feel powerless.

Allowing myself to be vulnerable

Vulnerability is uncomfortable because it means letting someone see that we don’t have everything under control.

But pretending to be fine can be far more exhausting.

When I finally began speaking honestly, I realised that I did not need to arrive with a perfectly organised explanation. I could say that I was confused. I could change my mind. I could ask the same question more than once.

I also learned that not everyone would understand.

Some people want to fix the problem immediately. Some minimise it. Others give advice that was never requested.

Finding support sometimes means finding the right people, not simply asking the nearest person.

The right support makes you feel heard, respected and safer. It does not shame you for your fears or make your body another project to perfect.

Recovery is not another performance

This may be the biggest lesson of all.

When you are used to achieving, it is easy to turn recovery into another task.

You want to recover correctly. Quickly. Efficiently.

You read everything, buy the right foods, follow the routine and wait for the result.

But recovery is not a competition.

There is no prize for being the woman who needed the least help or returned to “normal” the fastest.

Sometimes progress looks like eating when you are hungry. Sometimes it looks like cancelling a workout, asking someone for reassurance or allowing yourself to cry instead of trying to turn every painful experience into a lesson immediately.

Not everything has to become productive.

Some things need to be felt.

What those three years taught me

Those three years gave me freedom, friendships, a business, retreats, travel and experiences I will always cherish.

I do not regret them.

But they also showed me what happens when freedom becomes constant activity and passion becomes pressure.

I learned that slowing down does not mean that I am giving up.

Eating more does not mean that I have failed.

Gaining weight does not make me less worthy of love.

Rest is not laziness.

Vulnerability is not weakness.

And asking for support does not take away my independence.

Perhaps real independence is knowing when I can manage alone and when I no longer need to.

I am still ambitious. I still love creating, travelling and discovering what comes next.

But I no longer want to build a beautiful life by slowly exhausting the person who has to live it.

I want to listen earlier. Rest sooner. Eat enough. Ask for support before everything feels impossible.

And above all, I want to treat myself like the person I am responsible for protecting.

Because I am.

If you recognise yourself in this story, you can join my newsletter, where I share honest reflections about hypothalamic amenorrhea, nourishment, yoga, Ayurveda, slowing down and learning to feel at home in your body again.

A small note

This article shares my personal experience and is not a substitute for individual medical, nutritional or psychological care. Hypothalamic amenorrhea can be associated with low energy availability, intensive exercise and psychological stress. Appropriate support may include a doctor, registered dietitian and qualified mental health professional.