I’m sitting at my kitchen counter, coffee in hand, working on this post, when I remember that I’m supposed to start every day engaging with other accounts on Substack.

So, I open a new tab, but before Substack loads, I notice another tab already open. It’s a list of hotels in Colorado, where I’ll be next week.

Yikes! I forgot to book yesterday. How did I let that slip?

I’m about to reexamine the pricing differences between hotels when I remember I still need to arrange for a dog sitter.

So, I open my contacts to find my sitter’s number, but another tab catches my eye—lyrics to the songs I’m performing this afternoon.

What time should I warm up my voice? I look at my schedule for the day and see that my cousin is stopping by for lunch.

Do I have enough food?

I start toward the fridge but—

Wait. What am I doing? Wasn’t I writing a Substack post?

Welcome to my mind—a noisy, crowded place where every thought jostles up against five others, every task spawns a dozen more, and every idea seems equally urgent, fascinating, and deserving of my attention.

This isn’t new. In fact, my brain has worked like this for most of my life.

And it hasn’t been easy.

For much of the time, I’ve felt defective.

LEARNING MYSELF WRONG

Even as a kid, I was aware that I had a flaw. Though I landed good grades, I was also called “a daydreamer.” The margins of my notebooks were filled with doodles. Sometimes, when I was called on for an answer, I hadn’t registered the question.

In college, though I never struggled to come up with an idea for the papers I had to write, I struggled to settle on just one topic. Every essay began as ten different arguments competing for my attention. Many papers were turned in late, not because I procrastinated, but because it was so hard to choose—and remain focused— on one single idea.

I also had a hard time staying on task if there was anything else to look at where I was working: dirty dishes, a messy desk, unfolded laundry. As a result, my spice rack was meticulously organized while far more important projects sat unfinished.

I learned to work at the library, and, once I graduated, in coffee shops and hotel lobbies. When projects lingered, I yelled at myself for being lazy or stupid which, in turn, caused low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety.

I also began to notice—and berate myself—for another pattern of behavior. Sometimes, instead of becoming distracted, I would hyperfocus, spending way too long on a project, even if it didn’t warrant my undivided attention, like taking ten hours to make a scrapbook for a friend’s birthday who might not even look at it closely. There were times when I got so fixated, I would skip meals and forget to leave the house.

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THE BOOK THAT COULD HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE SOONER (IF ONLY I’D TRUSTED MY INSTINCTS)

In my mid-twenties, I came upon a book called Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood.

Within minutes of reading the intro I thought, That’s me!

Everything in it resonated, not only the part about being easily distracted, but also the section that mentioned hyperfocus as another symptom. Turns out, it is not the opposite of ADD but simply another expression of a brain that struggles to prioritize successfully.

Convinced I’d finally found an explanation for my undermining behavior, I brought it up with my therapist.

“My nephew has ADHD and he’s a fucking nut,” my normally mild-mannered shrink ranted. “The kid can’t sit still! He can barely finish a sentence. You don’t have ADHD. You’re just an impatient woman with a quick wit. I mean, look at you. You graduated summa cum laude from Yale! You have an MFA in fiction and literature! You wrote a published novel! People with ADHD do not accomplish any of those things,” he assured me.

Though I was not reassured, I carried on as best as I could, without benefiting from best practices used to treat the very real condition that was hijacking my life on multiple fronts.

FLIGHT OF THE HUMMINGBIRD

The consequences of living with untreated ADHD unfolded over the decades of adulthood. While friends climbed corporate ladders, collected promotions, or became famous, my résumé read like the flight pattern of a hummingbird.

I misplaced my energy, often over-controlling things I could, like the decor in my apartment, and sometimes attempting to control things I shouldn’t have, like other peoples’ behavior, while things I should have been in better control of spiraled into tornados that left behind a trail of destruction and debris.

I wasn’t failing to realize my dreams because I lacked them. If anything, I had too many.

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ANOTHER MEDICAL AUTHORITY MISFIRE

After both of my children were diagnosed with ADHD early in their schooling, I wondered, again, if that was my diagnosis, too. When both experienced positive benefits from Ritalin, I brought it up with their therapist.

“There’s a very strong genetic component,” she said, handing me a prescription.

In short order, I was experimenting with Ritalin, which made me talk way too much and far too quickly. Next came Concerta, then Focalin and Vyvanse. One made me jittery; the others caused heightened anxiety. After Wellbutrin caused heart palpitations, I quit the idea of meds.

“At least you have your answer now,” their doctor concluded. “You clearly don’t have ADHD. Otherwise, the meds would have helped. It’s good to know.”

“It is,” I agreed, though I wasn’t convinced.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

It wasn’t until recently—deep into my fifties—that I went to see a non-traditional therapist for EMDR therapy who finally set me straight about ADHD.

“You dart from topic to topic like someone with a raging case,” she said after our first session. “You definitely fit the criteria for diagnosis”

“But I don’t have any hyperactivity,” I countered.

“You don’t have to,” she said with a smile.

This is when I learned about the somewhat complicated history of the condition that we currently call ADHD.

A VERY BRIEF HISTORY (GOOD FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN’T CONCENTRATE)

Back in 1968, the DSM-II listed a diagnosis called Hyperkinetic Reaction of Childhood. The emphasis was on hyperactivity, impulsivity, and distractibility and was considered a disorder of childhood behavior rather than attention. It was also regarded as something you outgrew during adolescence.

In 1980, the DSM-III changed the listing to Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) but it wasn’t until 1994, with the publication of the book that caught my eye— Driven to Distraction—that the world began to realize that ADHD (as it was now suddenly called) could persist into adulthood.

Symptoms look a little different in grown-ups than they do in kids. Instead of running around the classroom, adults with ADHD might struggle with organization, prioritization, procrastination, distractibility, time management, and other executive function challenges. In short, they present like me.

“But none of the ADHD meds I tried helped,” I told my EMDR therapist forlornly.

“They don’t help everyone,” she said. “Whether or not they work isn’t how we diagnose it. ADHD is a symptom-based diagnosis and you have enough to qualify.”

WHAT SCIENCE?

Since I couldn’t take meds to help me manage, I became curious about the root cause of ADHD. If I understood the science for myself, maybe I could come up with a way to reverse engineer it.

Here’s what I discovered: not much.

For years I’d heard that ADHD is one of the most heritable conditions in psychiatry. Yet there is no single “ADHD gene.”

Scientists also know that the brain systems involved in attention, motivation, and executive function work differently in people with ADHD. But just why those systems develop differently in the first place is anyone’s best guess.

MY ADHD TOOLBOX

With, or without the diagnosis in hand, I’ve spent years developing a toolbox of strategies to help me steer my brain back when it careens off course.

This includes:

• daily meditation

• listening to the NUCALM app religiously while I’m working

• developing, and sticking to, routines

• getting regular exercise

• setting timers

• partnering with friends, or people I hire, like a personal assistant or a life coach, to keep me on task.

• celebrating small gains

I’ve recently added self-compassion to that list. Instead of berating myself every time my brain starts creating the etch-a-sketch drawing of a 5-year-old in my head, I remind myself that it’s hard to manage this mind of mine. And actually, when I take everything into consideration, I’m doing a pretty good job, and will continue to do better now that I have a clearer sense of what’s going on in there!

LESSONS?

ADHD is considered a disability under U.S. law when it substantially interferes with daily life. By that definition, I’ve spent more than half my life struggling with an unnamed handicap—one that has quietly touched virtually every part of my life. It interfered profoundly with my work, my confidence, my sense of competence, and the story I told myself about who I was.

Getting a diagnosis at 58 can’t erase those decades. But it has helped me understand that I was not simply lazy, undisciplined, incompetent, or somehow not trying hard enough.

The diagnosis was a relief, but I have no intention of letting it become my new identity. I certainly don’t want to spend the rest of my life introducing myself through a label. Instead, as with all challenges I’ve encountered, I prefer to try to understand what this long journey has been trying to teach me.

Resilience? Sure.

How to calm myself? Absolutely.

It’s also taught me to look for things to celebrate that aren’t correlated to more traditional metrics of success that have eluded me in large part because of my dance with this very challenging partner.

LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

Though this brain was gaslit and misdiagnosed while it suffered the consequences of an untreated condition, it's also the brain that wrote books, performed before large audiences, recorded two albums, made a movie, sustained an eighteen-year marriage, and helped raise two terrific kids.

It’s a brain that has a great eye for color and composition. That excels at connecting the dots that led to my family’s Lyme diagnoses after countless physicians missed them.

It’s a brain that knows which people should sit together at a dinner party, and how to grow things from seed.

For years, I felt victimized by the chaos inside my head.

Would I trade away the frustration? In a heartbeat.

Would I trade away the brain? No.

It’s gotten me lost more times than I can count.

But it’s also helped me find my way here, Beyond the Rx, where I’ve learned that wandering isn’t always getting lost. Sometimes it’s how you discover your true self.

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ADHD TOOLBOX TAKE-AWAY:

• MEDITATION. I spend 20 to 40 minutes meditating every morning, and if my thoughts are ricocheting particularly badly, I’ll add in another session later in the day.

• NUCALM. If I want to experience insta-brain chill and focus, I’ll listen to NuCalm through headphones or pair with a speaker. Works in minutes. Every time. I especially like the offerings on Focus and Flow State. (I don’t get a kick back from NuCalm, but if you type in “Isabel” into the box at sign up, you do get a 15% discount!).

• ROUTINE. When I’m clear what has to happen when, I feel much better emotionally and my brain stops trying to fill in gaps with too many options.

• EXERCISE. Thirty minutes of cardio—or a walk around the neighborhood— often quiets the mental static enough for me to think clearly again. Even getting up and doing ten jumping jacks can help!

• TAKING A SHOWER OR BATH. Immersing myself in water can interrupt my spiraling mind. Doesn’t have to be cold, though it does help to snap your mind to attention!

• ACCOUNTABILITY BUDDIES. Sometimes, I rely on other people. I call them my “accountability buddies.” These can be hired assistants or simply good friends or even one of my kids. It definitely helps to have someone else say, “Let’s stay focused.”

• TIMERS. Breaking work into manageable intervals—and forcing myself to get up when the timer rings—helps prevent both procrastination and hyperfocus.

• SELF-COMPASSION. This is key. I’ve stopped treating my mind like an adversary. When I’m struggling, I now remind myself that it’s part of my health profile. Then I do something from the list above.

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was check my WHOOP analytics.

I was hopeful. I’d had a good night’s sleep. No night sweats. No middle-of-the-night pee.

My sleep score was decent: I got an 85%. A solid B+. I could live with it even though I was an A student back in the day. But my recovery rate was 44%. Not acceptable. I pressed on it for details and there it was: the incriminating evidence proving I’m not actually as well as I feel.

My HRV was down 13%.

Thirteen fucking percent!!!

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Never mind that I’m still not entirely sure what HRV is or why it’s important. (Okay—just looked it up on my WHOOP. HRV stands for Heart Rate Variability, which stands for the variance in time between heartbeats while you sleep, (which you can’t control, right?). And this matters because… because it’s on my WHOOP. So, of course it matters!).

I raced to the bathroom and looked more closely at my data. On June 22^nd, my HRV got up to 33. Last night I was down at 19. Not as low as I got on July 8^th, but my lowest in a week.

As I brushed my teeth, I racked my brain, trying to understand the reason for this downturn in wellness. After all, I’ve been telling everyone how terrific I feel. Am I lying?

I mean, I do feel terrific, but what do I know? I must be missing something that’s about to come up and blindside me.

But what? What is it? And why? I’m not drinking alcohol. I’ve curtailed the gluten. The oxalates. The FODMAPS. High histamine. I’ve replaced dairy with coconut milk. I’m running out of villains.

Teeth brushed, I moved on to my lymph-massage as I reviewed the last 24 hours.

Did my HRV rate plunge because I stayed up late watching the World Cup? Or was it the handful of fries I stole off my husband’s plate during dinner?

Not to excuse the indiscretion, but there was a reason for the momentary binge: my dinner partner told me her HRV rate is 35.

35! (Show-off!)

I felt like a loser right away even though the woman who checks people in at my yoga studio said that comparing HRV scores between people is almost meaningless.

Yes, according to this woman—whose name I don’t know but whose bright blue WHOOP band caught my eye— your HRV baseline is influenced by age, genetics, hormones, illness, medications, sleep, training load, travel, emotional stress, menopause, and about a hundred other variables you can’t control.

She said that a perfectly healthy person might have an HRV of 20 while someone else naturally sits at 80.

In other words, comparing HRV rates is less like comparing SAT scores than shoe sizes. Your number is completely individual. Which doesn’t stop me from wanting a bigger number. A better number. The best number, even.

Because isn’t that why I’m wearing a WHOOP in the first place? Because I want to be my best self? Not just my best self, but at the top of the curve for my age range?

A year ago, my oxidative stress score had me aging-in a few years above my chronological age. Which felt like an insult after all the botox I’ve gotten. What’s the point of looking 45 if your oxidative stress says your 102?

I don’t know where I’d be without all this data.

How quaint it seems now—those prehistoric mornings when I judged my health by how I actually felt.

Bahahahaha.

It’s comforting to know that after 300,000 years of human evolution, instinct has been replaced by analytics.

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We’re six months into the new year, which means it’s time for a mid-year review.

This year, I decided to amp up my mindset practices. Since adding them to my routine, I’ve noticed quite a few benefits.

• I’m calmer, meaning less reactive— both emotionally and physically—to stimulus, and less prone to things like anxiety attacks and crying spells.

• I’m sleeping better.

• My body is working more smoothly (translation: things that go in are coming out without too much intervention).

• I have less pain and arthritis in my joints, fewer muscle spasms, and less burning in my body.

• I’m finding more joy in life

Not bad, eh? Especially when we’re only half-way through the year.

Quite a few people have pointed out that I’m “glowing.” Some have even asked me for “secrets.”

Though I’ve traveled the word in pursuit of wellness, you’ll notice my stalwart protocols are cheap and easy.

ISABEL’S SECRETS

1. I wake up every morning and meditate for at least 30 minutes (and sometimes for up to an hour if there’s time, or if I’m doing one of Joe Dispenza’s walking meditations). Medition is supposed to do a lot of great things for you. While I can’t be sure all of the things that are meant to be beneficial, are, in fact, happening, I certainly do feel that synchonicites are a more frequent part of my life. I can also report that I feel a strong sense of peace during the practice and afterwards.

2. I listen to NuCalm every night, even when I travel, because it dials down the fight or flight part of the nervous system and lets the real healing work get done. Personally, I listen to Deepest Sleep and choose “Sleep Melodies 8hr,” but other tracks are just as good. I also listen to NuCalm during the day, usually choosing “Rescue 20 minutes” around 4pm, or FlowState or Focus while I’m working on my computer. (If you want to try NuCalm, you can type in IsabelRose when it offers a discount and you will get 15% off. I don’t get any kick backs, nor is NuCalm sponsoring me in any way, but I am a brand ambassador because I believe in this product so much).

   

3. I practice redirecting negative thoughts as quickly as I can. If I catch myself in a negative thought pattern, I either listen to NuCalm immediately, or I consciously pivot to a more productive affirmation like, “I’m in the exact place I’m meant to be in right now,” or “I’m learning what I need to right now.” Sometimes, I just look at a happy photo. Does the same thing.

4. I’m reading supportive, mindset-forward books from our wisest spiritual teachers, like Ekhart Tolles, A New Earth. On deck, When Things Fall Apart, by Pema Chödrön, and The Neuroscience of Self-Love by Alexis Fernandez-Preiksa.

   

5. I’m breathing more deeply. This is key and easy. When shit hits the proverbial fan, I take some deep breaths and 100% of the time, I feel better.

6. I get out in nature every chance I get. Even if I’m in a city. I find the places that are green, or sandy, and absorb all that goodness. Being in nature always seems to lower my stress levels. Looking at something bigger than me; something eternal (I hope); something beautiful made by the mysteries we could contemplate forever. Perfect health protocol and all you need is decent weather and the willingness to seek it out.

   

7. I do not watch, listen to, or read the news, or intake much social media, period. I find all politics triggering, and also succumb too easily to jealousy when scrolling past the great-looking lives of folks in my feed. (Surprise discovery: I have found that I still know what is happening in the world by virtue of listening to conversations or catching headlines on newspapers as I walk down the street or stand in a coffee shop. I do miss more birthdays, but I’m also not buying as much crap that I don’t really need simply because it shows up in my algorithm.)

8. I make time to connect with friends and loved ones on a regular basis. This sounds obvious but it isn’t. I consciously and conscientiously take time out to text, email, or call someone I love. It’s extra great when a hug is involved. The act of connecting is it’s own medicine because it pulls you out of yourself and forces you to focus on something outside, and that is it’s own form of healing.

9. Finally, I listen to a lot of happy music. Here’s a share from my Spotify “Positivity Playlist.”

I wanted to mainly share my mindset hacks with you but there are some more body-based protocols I’ve kept up with because of their impact on my mindset.

For instance:

• I do 30 minutes of cardio at least 3 days a week, practice yoga twice a week, and lift weights twice a week. In between, I walk whenever, and wherever I can. Movement always raises my spirits and improves my positivity, so it’s in the body-mind category.

• I think it’s also worth mentioning that I cut out estrogen even though my doctor told me that HRT was highly beneficial. After a lot of trial, my body let me know it simply doesn’t like estrogen—which made me insanely bloated and moody. (Didn’t matter if I ingested it, used a gel, cream or suppositories. Didn’t matter if I adjusted my dose. ) Finally, I just stopped it. And I feel so much better! (I’m not recommending any of you do this. But I am giving you the courage to challenge what your doctor recommends, and/or to challenge “standard practice.” My body said “no.” I listened and was rewarded.)

IMPORTANT TO NOTE:

I want to highlight that all this progress is happening even though I still have Lyme disease. Even though I still have more toxins in my body than I wish. Even though I have the brain fog and night sweats that are so common to women who are low in estrogen. Even though I still face the regular stresses of life we all face.

Not that things are perfect, either. I have a long way to go on the self-love front. This one is my Everest. I’m not even at base camp yet; more like, training in the foot hills. Still, my boots are on and laced and I’m taking steps forward.

Progress is afoot! And if I can do it, so can you. (Not that you all need inspiration, but if you do, grab it!)

Now, it’s your turn.

What are YOU doing to improve your wellness? How is your mid-year protocol going? Does it need some shoring up? Some changes?

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If you had told twenty-five-year-old me that I would someday spend hours screaming at a television while wearing a Knicks jersey and clutching a set of worry beads, I would have assumed you’d eaten some very questionable mushrooms.

Back then, I was a working actress, memorizing Sondheim lyrics when I wasn’t onstage. I was also in a low-residency MFA program, reading Flaubert, writing critical essays and short stories. I didn’t have time for something as distracting, and uninteresting, as basketball. Besides, who could afford the calories of all those platters of nachos and chicken wings people ate while watching other people sweat it out on the court? I had costumes to fit in! “No thank you, basketball. You are not for me,” thought silly me.

Back then, I regarded spectator sports the way some people regard monster truck rallies: fascinating that so many people enjoyed them, but not something I imagined intelligent adults participating in voluntarily.

In my own defense, this egregious attitude was not entirely my fault. My parents—a classical pianist and a college professor—took us to the concert halls and Broadway theaters they loved, but never to sporting arenas. I didn’t even watch a professional basketball game until I started dating a Knicks fan in my late twenties.

At first, I watched games because he did. But bit by bit, I started learning about the players—their backstories; their strengths and weaknesses. To my surprised delight, I discovered that basketball shared all the same qualities I so cherished in books, theaters and movies. There were heroes and villains, surprising plot twists that always delivered a catharsis. It did not take long for me to get hooked.

Luckily, my love-affair with the Knicks outlasted my relationship with that boyfriend. For the last thirty years, I’ve continued to cheer my guts out every time my fellas run out onto the court to do their thing for New York.

Fortunately, my husband—also a Knicks fan—has graciously accepted that every game begins with me shouting “Go NY! Go NY! Go!” while swiveling my hips and attempting to send the team good juju. And finally, this year, after more than half a century, my loyalty was rewarded in spades when the Knicks won the NBA championship.

On paper, it sounds almost blasé. They won. Two words. Two syllables. Okay. Even the data makes it look easy. They won it in 5, not 7. It doesn’t seem like a dog fight. But anyone who was watching those games can tell you: they were all nail biters down the last second!

This Knicks squad is not a team that seizes an easy victory. Rather, they seemed determined to keep us fans perched on the edge of cardiac arrest until the final buzzer. Each game.

Just when everything appeared lost, someone would force a turnover, grab a rebound, or pull off a shot that seemed impossible. How many fans went to bed in Game 4 when the Knicks were down by 15 going into the 4th, only to miss their miraculous win at the buzzer? And Game 5? Ok, they weren’t down by 29, but they weren’t ahead until the last minutes. And yet, they won!

As someone who has spent decades navigating chronic illness, I have to admire—and I am unexpectedly learning from— a team that repeatedly refused to mistake unfavorable circumstances for a final outcome—a mistake I have made more times than I care to admit when it comes to my health.

Recovery rarely moves in a straight line. Like basketball, there are setbacks, bad breaks, injuries, missed opportunities, and stretches when nothing seems to go your way. It’s easy to despair that the current moment is the final score.

The Knicks reminded us that hope is not denial. It’s simply the willingness to remain open to positive outcomes you cannot yet see.

That is the mindset that won them the championship. This is the mindset that earns them the title “Comeback Kings.”

This year, since my health regimens have me feeling physically better than I have in decades, I’ve shifted my focus to mind games, immersing myself in the study of how our thoughts, beliefs, and emotions impact our health. I’ve read books about resilience, optimism, neuroplasticity, hope, grit, and post-traumatic growth. I’ve listened to experts explain why our beliefs matter, and heard countless stories about people who achieved extraordinary things because they refused to accept the limitations of their current circumstances.

All those months of study were insightful and valuable but not nearly as viscerally irrefutable as the master class the Knicks gave through their Championship-winning playbook.

But the benefits of mindset are only part of the lesson I took from this miraculous journey. The other lesson was about belonging—and the surprising health benefits that come from feeling part of something larger than yourself.

Like many fans, I opted to watch the final game with company. When that final buzzer rang and our team pulled off their victory, the restaurant where I was exploded in joyful shock.

Just like everyone else around me, I screamed and shook and danced in ecstasy. I hugged my husband, then any stranger within arm’s reach. I texted friends, including that long-lost boyfriend. I took selfies. I waved my Knick’s cap in the air. All the shared elation seemed to make the very walls of the restaurant shake.

When fans identify with a winning team, sports psychologists call it “BIRG-ing”–Basking in Reflected Glory. This explains why otherwise rational adults say things like “We won!” despite having contributed nothing to the outcome beyond elevated blood pressure and the occasional superstitious ritual.

Apparently, our brains don’t seem to care.

Human beings evolved as social creatures in tribes. We are wired to attach ourselves to groups and derive meaning from shared experiences. When those experiences are positive, our nervous systems respond.

Fortunately, researchers have found health benefits for sports fans even when their team loses. One recent study found that people who regularly watch sports displayed elevated excitement in brain regions associated with reward and well-being. In other words, your brain rewards participation in the experience, not merely the outcome.

Other research shows that identifying with a team, and the social connection that fosters, positively influence everything from stress levels to longevity.

Shared emotion, whether it be jubilation or commiseration, strengthens social bonds, increases feelings of trust, and creates the sense that we are part of something larger than ourselves.

In a culture obsessed with optimization, and as someone living with chronic illness, this strikes me as an underappreciated, and highly effective, form of medicine.

For years, I’ve approached health as a largely individual pursuit. Find the right doctor. Follow the right protocol. Eat the right foods. Track the right biomarkers. While those things certainly matter, the Knicks championship reminded me that well-being is not built entirely in isolation.

Sometimes it looks like high-fiving strangers at a crowded bar.

Sometimes it looks like an entire room erupting at the exact same moment when the ball drops through the hoop.

Sometimes it looks like caring deeply about something that has absolutely nothing to do with your own problems.

The extraordinary thing about all this is that it requires only one thing, and it’s free of charge. The willingness to join.

Had I never overcome my initial rejection of sports fandom, I would not be reaping the rewards of this extraordinary moment. Admittedly, it took time. I had to challenge my beliefs; overcome both my nature and my nurture. But I’m so very glad I did.

So, here’s my fan-girl advocacy PSA:

The World Cup has started. Baseball is in full swing. Football season will be here before we know it. The choices are many.

Or maybe professional sports aren’t your thing. That’s fine. Find a little League to root for; cheer on a local high school dance troupe.

The specifics don’t matter. The point is participation.

The point is to find something that gives you a reason to gather with other human beings and feel what they’re feeling; to do something that takes you out of your own personal narrative and join in something much bigger.

As it turns out, rooting for your home team isn’t the waste of time I thought it was all those years ago.

It can be a surprisingly powerful prescription for two things modern life leaves many of us lacking: connection and hope.

Unlike most wellness interventions, it’s actually fun.

Not a bad return on investment for yelling at a television.

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Twenty years ago, if someone mentioned their vagus nerve at dinner, you would have thought they were a high roller at the black jack table.

Today, they’ll tell you they’re regulating it with breathwork, red light therapy, peptides, and a scalar wave (which sounds like something that could come with either a charging cable or a shaman).

Welcome to wellness, where staying current on the latest protocols has become part health strategy and part status signaling.

New terms seem to appear every week. It’s hard to stay abreast of them all, and know what they honestly mean.

Here is a breakdown of ten terms you need to know right now.

1. Vagus Nerve

Or, the nerve that launched a thousand podcasts.

The vagus nerve is the body’s longest cranial nerve, running from the brain to the heart, lungs, and digestive tract. Think of it as the main communication highway between your brain and many of your major organs.

Why everyone is talking about it: Wellness practitioners believe stimulating the vagus nerve may help shift the body out of fight-or-flight mode and into a calmer “rest and digest” state.

Translation: If you’ve ever been told to take a deep breath, hum, gargle, meditate, or splash cold water on your face, someone was probably trying to sweet-talk your vagus nerve.

2. Nervous System Regulation

What previous generations called “calming down.”

Nervous system regulation refers to practices that help your body move from a state of chronic stress, vigilance, or overwhelm into a state of greater safety and balance.

Why everyone is talking about it: A growing body of research suggests chronic stress can influence everything from sleep and digestion to mood and inflammation.

Translation: The wellness equivalent of “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

3. Red Light Therapy

The Closest You’ll Ever Come to Being a Basket of Fries Under a Heat Lamp.

Red light therapy uses specific wavelengths of red and near-infrared light that may support cellular energy production, tissue repair, and recovery.

Why everyone is talking about it: Studies suggest it may help with skin health, wound healing, exercise recovery, and certain types of pain.

Translation: You sit in front of a glowing red panel and hope your mitochondria are paying attention.

4. Biohacking

The belief that your body is less a temple and more a home-improvement project.

Biohacking is the practice of using science, technology, data, supplements, gadgets, lifestyle experiments, and occasionally alarming amounts of disposable income to improve physical or mental performance.

Why everyone is talking about it: Because modern biohackers promise a tantalizing possibility—that with enough information, optimization, and self-experimentation, you can sleep better, think faster, live longer, and perhaps even become a slightly upgraded version of yourself.

Translation: Your grandfather followed Jack LaLanne. Today, you can biohack the aging process by following a personalized mitochondrial optimization protocol.

5. Peptides

The designer handbags of the biohacking world: expensive, trendy, and suddenly everywhere.

Peptides are short chains of amino acids that act as signaling molecules in the body. Different peptides are believed to influence different biological processes, from healing and recovery to appetite regulation.

Why everyone is talking about them: Some people swear by them for injury recovery, muscle growth, anti-aging, weight loss, and about fourteen other things.

Translation: Nothing says “bio hacker” quite like casually dropping BPC-157 over coffee.

6. Neuroplasticity

The reason midlife crises have gotten so much more ambitious.

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by creating new neural pathways throughout life.

Why everyone is talking about it: It suggests that habits, thought patterns, emotional responses, and even some symptoms may be more changeable than we once believed.

Translation: Your brain is less like concrete and more like a hiking trail. The paths you’ve used the most are easiest to follow, but new ones can still be made.

7. HRV (Heart Rate Variability)

The metric your smartwatch, WHOOP, or Oura ring uses to make you feel either enlightened or inadequate before breakfast.

HRV measures the variation in time between heartbeats. Contrary to what most people assume, more variation is generally considered a sign of greater resilience and adaptability.

Why everyone is talking about it: It’s often used as a rough marker of recovery, stress, and nervous system health.

Translation: Your nervous system’s Yelp review of yesterday’s decisions.

8. Mitochondria

The hottest cells in wellness.

Mitochondria are structures inside your cells that help convert food and oxygen into usable energy.

Why everyone is talking about them: Many wellness approaches claim to support mitochondrial function because energy production is central to almost every process in the body.

Translation: Remember when everything was your hormones? Then your microbiome? Right now, mitochondria are the new star of the show.

9. NAD+

The closest thing wellness has to premium gasoline.

NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is a coenzyme found in every cell of the body that plays a critical role in energy production, cellular repair, and healthy aging. Levels naturally decline as we get older.

Why everyone is talking about it: NAD+ has become one of the hottest trends in longevity and biohacking circles, spawning a booming industry of IV drips, injections, patches, supplements, and therapies that promise increased energy, sharper thinking, improved recovery, and healthier aging.

Translation: Because Starbucks can only take you so far.

10. Oxidative Stress

The villain in approximately half of all wellness presentations.

Oxidative stress occurs when the body produces more free radicals than it can effectively neutralize with antioxidants.

Why everyone is talking about it: Researchers believe oxidative stress may contribute to cellular damage over time, which is why it shows up in conversations about everything from longevity and recovery to brain health and chronic disease.

Translation: Think of it as rust, but for humans.

Did I leave any out? Do you have questions? Would you like my opinion about things you’ve heard about and want to try?

For extra credit, let me know what’s worked for you!

Extra, extra credit for the treatment or supplement that sounds most absurd to you.

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Bitten by an infected tick when I was eight, I began having mysterious symptoms within days that I now know were Lyme disease. Nevertheless, I would not be properly diagnosed for another forty years.

In between were decades of chronic illness that repeatedly derailed my life. Years evaporated as I cycled from specialist to specialist, trying treatment after treatment, never fully recovering, always struggling to understand why my symptoms kept multiplying.

How could this be happening, I wondered, especially to someone with access to excellent doctors in a major metropolitan area?

Then I had not one, but two children, whose struggles were equally confounding.

When I realized my own mother was also suffering from chronic illness, I began to wonder.

Was our family cursed?

Why was everyone so sick?

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

The clues for proper diagnosis were there all along.

I spent the weekends of my childhood in Westchester County, rolling down hills and playing in the woods. I went to summer camp in Maine and to college and graduate school in New England. I often vacationed in the great outdoors and later, became a homeowner in the Hamptons where deer frequently grazed on my lawn.

Not a single doctor I consulted between the ages of 8 and 48 asked where I spent time during my childhood other than my primary residence of Manhattan. No one asked where I vacationed; whether I could have been exposed to ticks, or if my own mother had autoimmune symptoms or possible tick exposure prior to her pregnancy with me.

I was a patient for more than a decade at The Hospital for Special Surgery— one of the world’s leading joint centers. During that time, I was asked multiple times whether either of my parents had glaucoma. Whether I had metal implants, mesh, or prior injuries. If I had any shrapnel in my body.

But, despite Lyme disease’s well-documented impact on the skeletal system, not one doctor ever asked a far simpler question: “Could you have gotten a tick bite?” Nor did anyone ask about my family history, which would have offered important clues.

WHAT WAS UP WITH MY DOCTORS?

My doctors were not unusually ignorant or uninformed. In many ways, they were, and are, the doctors most people encounter.

My OB/GYN was equally clueless about the potential risk my conglomerate of autoimmune issues might play in my pregnancies. Not even after I had a miscarriage, which I now know is common to women infected with Lyme disease.

“Miscarriages are incredibly common,” my doctor said compassionately. “Don’t worry. Just try again.”

Even after my second child failed to thrive in utero, when I asked if my own health could somehow be connected, my OB gently discouraged further inquiry.

“Don’t play the blame game, Isabel,” my doctor told me. “It’s best not to ask why these things happen. God has his reasons.”

At the time, his response sounded thoughtful; even loving.

Now, it strikes me as another way women are taught to stop asking questions.

THE CONTROVERSY

It’s not as if my health profile was a mystery.

I had complained to my GP for years about roving arthritis, brain fog, treatment-resistant depression, night sweats, pain in the soles of my feet—and those are just a few of my symptoms.

I was checked for everything, including Lyme disease. On standardized tests, my results were usually either negative, or equivocal, so my doctor ignored them.

“You can never trust these things,” he said, throwing a Lyme diagnosis into the trash bin of things we weren’t going to consider further.

What remains difficult to understand is how so many otherwise excellent doctors are never taught how unreliable standard Lyme testing can be — or that Lyme disease should be diagnosed clinically, based on symptoms and patient history, rather than laboratory results alone.

WHY IS LYME SO HARD TO DIAGNOSE ACCURATELY?

Part of the problem is politics and longstanding controversy surrounding chronic Lyme disease itself — a subject explored in documentaries like The Quiet Epidemic and Under Our Skin, as well as in Pamela Weintraub’s book Cure Unknown.

Another issue is that Lyme symptoms are often diffuse, systemic, and difficult to neatly categorize, encompassing neurological issues, autoimmune dysfunction, skeletal and psychiatric symptoms, fatigue, chronic pain, insomnia, gastrointestinal problems, and cognitive impairment. It can affect your thyroid, your hair, your bladder. Anything.

Women describing these symptoms are especially likely to be dismissed as “stressed,” “anxious,” hormonal, or dramatic rather than properly investigated.

To compound the matter, Congenital Lyme disease is not routinely screened for during pregnancy, nor does it appear on standard amniocentesis panels, leaving many families falsely reassured that everything is normal with their pregnancy.

This leaves women of child-bearing age particularly vulnerable to potential tragedy.

Because Lyme disease — whether you know you have it or not — can be congenital, meaning it can infect, and affect, a developing baby in utero.

This has been known and discussed in medical literature since 1985.

That was forty years ago.

And yet here we are: with limited research, inconsistent guidelines, and generations of families—like mine— struggling to piece together chronic illnesses no one seems fully able to explain or heal.

PATTERNS

Our doctors, it seems, are failing to connect some rather obvious dots.

Consider these case studies:

• Judy, in her early fifties, can barely make it upstairs. Her vertigo and arthritis are so severe that caring for her twenty-six-year-old son — who is still living at home, too fatigued most days to leave his room — has become nearly impossible. Luckily, Judy’s father, who has dementia, is now living in a senior facility.

• After seven miscarriages, Nancy finally gave birth to two children, both with serious medical complications. Her son, now 8, receives monthly IV treatments so he can go to school. Her six year-old daughter is homebound, sometimes having as many as five seizures a day. Somewhere between the hospital visits, therapies, and financial strain, Nancy’s marriage collapsed.

These are just a few of the stories I’ve heard during my time spent leading a support group for women navigating Lyme disease and chronic conditions.

There are hundreds more like them.

Though my participants come from all over the world, certain patterns repeat with unsettling consistency.

Before diagnosis, the picture often looks something like this:

• Children struggling with psychiatric symptoms, autism spectrum disorders, immune dysfunction, or chronic illnesses no one seems able to fully explain.

• Mothers carrying years’ worth of diagnoses — Hashimoto’s disease, arthritis, psoriasis, Crohn’s disease, chronic fatigue, treatment-resistant depression — often without anyone asking whether the conditions might be connected.

• Sometimes the pattern stretches back a generation, leaving families quietly wondering about grandparents with RA, dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS, or other unexplained illnesses.

FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION

Multi-generational chronic illness is everywhere and few people are calling out Congenital Lyme disease as a potential cause. So, as May — which is officially Lyme Disease Awareness Month — draws to a close, the urgency of discussing the role congenital Lyme disease may be playing feels greater than ever.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Many Lyme-literate practitioners believe that treatment during pregnancy may help reduce the likelihood of transmission and complications, though there are still no guarantees.

It hurts me to say that. But I can’t lie, either. Some of my participants who had Lyme disease prior to pregnancy were treated throughout and still have children who were infected and affected in utero.

That is an extraordinarily difficult reality to absorb, but one I have to confront almost every time I run my support group.

Young women often come seeking answers.

They know they have Lyme disease and want to know how to prevent it from affecting their future children.

I recommend treatment whenever possible.

But I also have to add, “But you never really know.”

Other women in my group are more straight forward.

“Don’t have children. Period,” I recall one mother saying. “I mean, I love my kids fiercely, but our lives have been hell.”

Often, the young women leave early, either devastated by what they hear or unwilling to accept it.

I get it. It’s frightening. And overwhelming.

But so is the cost of pretending not to see what is standing directly in front of us.

I wish I had a way to wrap up this post with a bow.

I wish I could tell you that I don’t regularly see three generations of a family impacted by Lyme disease.

But I do.

And though I can’t soften the weight of what I’ve lived and witnessed, I can at least share the resources that helped me begin connecting the dots myself.

I’d also love for you to share your experience or advice in the comments below.

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If this essay resonated with you, please consider sharing it — particularly with women of childbearing age, or families struggling with unexplained chronic illness. And if you know a doctor, or someone in medical school whose mind is still open, please send it their way.

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RESOURCES AND SUPPORT

• For readers unfamiliar with the astonishing breadth of Lyme symptoms, resources like The Burascano Checklist and The Horowitz Questionnaire offer a fuller picture of the illness’s many possible manifestations.

• You can sign up here to receive information about my support group, and sign up for it on the Project Lyme website.

• Bypass your GP if they don’t know about Lyme disease. Same advice goes for seeking help from a Rheumatologists or Infectious Disease Specialist. Instead, find a Lyme Literate Medical Doctor (LLMD), or choose an integrative or functional specialist familiar with Lyme disease.

• Project Lyme, ILADS, Mothers Against Lyme, and Generation Lyme can connect you with educational materials, practitioners, and support communities.

• Igenex or Vibrant are currently the gold standard when it comes to Lyme screening. Though they’re out of network and very expensive, if you or your family are struggling with unexplained autoimmune or neurological conditions — particularly if you are considering pregnancy — you may want to spring for it.

• If you want to move research forward, support a scientific research foundation like Bay Area Lyme

I’ve made it around the sun for another spin.

That’s right, it’s my birthday. Not just any birthday, either.

My first healthy birthday in many years, so I don’t want to let that go unnoticed, or uncelebrated, especially with those of you who have been such a close part of my healing journey.

Before I got sick, I was a SONY recording artist and performer.

My goal was simple: to spread joy.

Some of that joy got lost in the effort of recovery.

Now that I’m back in the land of the healthy, it has once again become my dominant goal because I don’t think joy and health are separate matters.

Deep in my heart, I know they’re one and the same.

This song—from the 1963 movie Bye Bye Birdie (starring Ann Margaret and Elvis Presley)— was the opening track on my 2016 album, Trouble in Paradise.

It captures everything it needs to about wellness and living joyfully.

Love to hear if it sparks joy in you, too.

Now, please, as a little birthday gift, won’t you share the songs that spark joy for you?

xo—and thanks for helping me get here,

Isabel

P.S. Thank you so much for being part of this journey. Please consider sharing!

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Imagine eighteen hundred people sitting shoulder to shoulder on ballroom chairs, eyes closed, breathing in sync, while mystical music ushers us towards another dimension.

Suddenly, the soundtrack shifts into what can only be described as chase music from a James Bond film, and a man’s voice booms through the speakers:

“COME ON! What are ya’ bringin’? You gotta WANT it! You gotta go BIG!”

Then:

“Perineum to pineal gland! Source to target! And HOLD IT!”

Behind me, someone is panting. To my left, a woman emits the sort of guttural moan usually associated with either exorcism or orgasm.

“Feel that?” our leader asks suggestively.

I think about leaving right then and there. But I don’t.

Instead, I stay through the remainder of the opening meditation session at Dr. Joe Dispenza’s weeklong retreat in Denver. I even stay after “Dr. Joe” closes the session with the words: “Now, come back to me.”

To me.

Not “come back to the room.” Or “to the present moment.” Or even, “to yourselves.”

To me.

Under other circumstances, I would file the whole thing under “n” for narcissist and call an Uber.

But I don’t.

Because, despite my discomfort with the volume of some of my fellow participants, and the turn-off of Dr. Joe’s hyper-masculine style, I want what everyone else in the ballroom wants:

Transformation. Not improvement. Reinvention.

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We all have our individual reasons for coming.

At the start of 2026, though my life was better than it had been in years, I still felt strangely unfinished with my healing. I had just clawed my way back from a debilitating chronic illness that had reduced my existence to survival mode.

Though my body had finally recovered, my identity was still lagging somewhere behind in the wreckage. So much had felt impossible while I was sick. Now that I was well, I wasn’t entirely sure which direction to head in.

It was time to become Isabel Rose 2.0.

Who, though, could she be? How, exactly, was I supposed to find her?

These were the questions foremost on my mind when I first began hearing people talk about Dr. Joe Dispenza, a chiropractor turned mega-successful author and charismatic meditation guru who holds retreats around the world for thousands of devoted followers.

And when people talk about him, they don’t merely recommend him. They rave. One friend who attended his weeklong progressive retreat called it, “the best experience of her life.”

I was intrigued.

Once I began researching, I found dozens of testimonials from those who had experienced major metamorphoses through his program. People had walked out of wheelchairs; found purpose, love, self-fulfillment … even the vacation they had envisioned.

Could I become someone new if I embraced the Dispenza meditation method?

Dr. Joe’s website featured a weeklong retreat in Denver taking place in early April. It was January when I put down my $2,699.00 to attend. That gave me plenty of time to complete the required coursework, which was a good thing, because there was a lot of it. And it wasn’t all easy.

There were lectures on neuroscience, epigenetics, quantum physics, consciousness itself, plus a great deal of terminology hovering somewhere between cutting-edge science and extremely articulate psychobabble.

I came to meditation through a much quieter tradition—a mantra repeated in silence, incense curling beside a votive candle—so some of Dr. Joe’s insistence on mastering the science behind the meditations felt oddly bombastic for a practice designed to calm the nervous system and still the mind.

But I kept with the program, my goal of becoming someone new pulling me forward.

At its core, Dr. Joe’s philosophy is simple:

Stop identifying with the version of yourself organized around fear, limitation, resentment, and habit, and become, instead, someone organized around possibility, gratitude, and abundance.

Central to his teaching is the idea of what he calls mind-heart coherence. In Dr. Joe’s framework, unless the two are aligned, the nervous system remains “incoherent,” broadcasting contradictory signals to the quantum field where, according to Dr. Joe, unlimited possibilities exist—unless you send mixed messages.

Though I occasionally recoiled from the heart-coherence lectures—though I couldn’t exactly say why—the underlying message resonated with me. Beneath all the neuroscience and quantum language was a surprisingly humane idea:

Transformation becomes difficult when your inner life is organized around punishment, shame, and self-rejection rather than love, compassion, and emotional safety. Conceptually, I found this very appealing.

I also fell in love with the meditations themselves—elaborate guided visualizations complete with cinematic music and swelling emotional crescendos with one for every occasion.

For less than fifty bucks, you can download a track that will help you kick a bad habit, amplify love, become someone new, cultivate gratitude, go to bed, wake up, connect with mysticism, or ignite your chakras.

All you have to do is become “no one, no thing, nowhere, in no time” and “tune in” to new frequencies that are readily available in the universe—or “quantum field” as Dispenza calls it.

Best part for me? I didn’t even need to know who my improved future self was supposed to be. Apparently, if I “sent the signal out” and “asked for a sign,” the Universe would handle casting.

I arrived in Denver convinced I was prepared for what lay ahead.

What I hadn’t anticipated was how difficult it would prove to execute Dr. Joe’s techniques in a ballroom filled with eighteen hundred other people, quite a few of whom were deeply committed to panting, sobbing, moaning, and convulsing. There were even a few full-on screamers.

There were also more lectures. Hours and hours more, many re-teaching the material we’d already been required to learn before arriving. In fact, there were so many—covering everything from the Fibonacci sequence to the atomic structure of hormones involved in a mystical experience—by midweek, I found myself wondering why learning how to meditate was akin to studying for the MCATs.

To compound my frustration, everyone around me appeared to be reaching peak states of insight and mystical transportation during our three daily meditations while I remained inconveniently present, feeling shut out of the quantum field despite my devotion to the steps meant to get us there.

Clearly, I wasn’t the first retreat-goer to struggle because Dr. Joe had a ready answer for participants, like me, who weren’t always “getting there.”

“You’re just not that good at it yet!” he’d bellow with a shrug. “It takes practice!”

This may be true, but it didn’t feel great to pay thousands of dollars and do all the pre-game prep only to be told I wasn’t measuring up.

Where most meditation teachers encourage people to stop striving and stressing, here I felt pressure to spiritually outperform myself before breakfast. And, with a DJ blasting bass-heavy dance music before each session, the whole enterprise sometimes felt less like a path to enlightenment than Navy SEAL training for the spiritually ambitious.

After one particularly grueling five-hour, kaleidoscope-assisted meditation—apparently designed to induce trance but which felt more like a psychological marathon—I became demoralized enough to consider leaving again, especially since the only thing I appeared to have transcended by hour five was my bladder capacity.

I was heading towards the exit when one of the retreat facilitators approached me.

“Forgive me if this sounds presumptuous,” she said gently, “but I can see that you’re struggling.”

I nodded, embarrassed to have been caught looking less than grateful to be there when everyone else around me seemed to be cruising around the quantum field like seasoned frequent flyers.

“May I ask how open you are?” she said.

“To what?” I replied. “Kaleidoscopes?” Frustration had made my tone harsher than I wished.

While I apologized, she kept looking at me quietly, her gaze so steady I began to feel exposed.

Finally, she asked, “Would you say you love yourself?”

It was a simple question, but it took me aback. Especially when I gave it some thought.

Fear had entered my life early. So had shame. Then came years of illness and all the accompanying disappointments—a body betraying me, dreams dashed, the exhausting effort of holding myself together in front of my children, friends, and work colleagues.

Over time, those experiences calcified into a relationship with myself rooted far more in criticism than compassion.

“I’m not even sure I like myself,” I admitted, “so love does feel ambitious.”

Even confessing these words out loud made me want to disappear into the ballroom carpet. Self-loathing seemed too juvenile for a woman well into midlife.

“You’ve spent a long time surviving in your mind,” the facilitator said. “But healing asks something different of the heart. The two have to be aligned if you want true change.”

I walked away from our conversation in a daze, reverberations from her truth-bomb rippling through my psyche until it was time to go home two days later.

And so, after a grueling week of walking meditations, seated meditations, lying down meditations, sunrise and sunset meditations, and three group healing sessions, I found myself wondering what, exactly, had happened to me in Denver.

Had the retreat “worked”? Would I recommend it to a friend? Go on another?

It had clearly worked for many participants because, on the final day, eighteen hundred people from sixty-one countries rose to their feet and gave Dr. Joe an extended standing ovation.

I rose with them, cheering for his energy, imagination, and obvious desire to help people suffer less. I was also cheering for the sheer scale and theatrical ambition of the production itself. I say this with wholehearted admiration: Joe Dispenza puts on a hell of a show.

But there’s more to it.

People do not travel across continents, wake up at four in the morning, stare into kaleidoscopes, and spend a week attempting to rewire their consciousness unless something inside them is genuinely hurting.

And perhaps that’s what Dr. Joe understands better than most.

People are desperate to believe their suffering does not define them and can be transcended.

Including me.

So, no… I did not leave as some luminous new being vibrating at a higher frequency.

I did not transcend my ego, levitate emotionally, or develop the ability to manifest parking spaces through conscious intention.

But somewhere between the panting strangers, the clenched perineums, and my repeated attempts to broadcast intentions into the quantum field, I uncovered something I can no longer ignore if I still hope to become the person I traveled there to find.

If I really want to become someone new, I’m going to have to be kinder to the person who’s gotten me this far.

Not through force. Not through striving. And probably not through someone screaming “SOURCE TO TARGET” at my pineal gland.

But slowly—thought by thought, habit by habit.

Because for all of Dr. Joe’s endless talking and teaching, I suspect the real work I have to do right now has less to do with the quantum field than learning how to unite my mind and heart.

So, I’m going to stay with the practice a while longer.

Not because I’m certain the quantum field is listening.

But because, for the first time, I finally understand the assignment.

Beyond the Rx made its debut a little over a year ago, born from my desire to document my attempts at getting well.

“Well from what?” you might be wondering if you’re new here.

At the time, I was trying to rid myself from the symptoms of an obscure autoimmune condition—Meniere’s Disease—that was, quite literally, taking me down.

And I do mean down.

When an attack hit, there was no graceful or dignified way through it. One minute I’d be upright, functioning, possibly even being charming—and the next, the world would tilt, spin, and drop me to the floor where I’d vomit and convulse for hours.

A body malfunctioning is not a pretty thing. There’s no amount of education, income, or good lighting that can dress it up.

Sick is sick. A major, unglamorous bummer.

As time went on, the attacks came faster and harder despite my attempts at healing both on and off the beaten path.

I stopped seeing friends. Work became sporadic. Leaving the house felt… ambitious.

My life—once grand-seeming and large—shrank to the size of a pinhead.

Still, at the end of each attack, I was still alive. Which was no small miracle.

I was alive, and determined to find my way back to health because I simply refused to believe the bathroom floor was my destiny.

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Specialists at top hospitals assured me that Meniere’s has no known cause, and no known cure. My best—indeed, only—option was to sever the nerve in my afflicted left ear. This would fix the vertigo, but it would also leave me permanently deaf on that side.

As a singer, that felt unacceptable.

Hell, as a person who enjoys the sounds of life, it felt unacceptable!

As my illness progressed, I thought about Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who marched 37 war elephants over the Alps in the fall of 218 BC. His strategists warned him there was no possible way to go over the narrow paths of the steep range with a bunch of pachyderms. Legend has it, Hannibal shrugged and replied: “Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.” Which is Latin for:

By God, he did. And so did I. Because, as of this writing, I have not had a Meniere’s attack in almost half a year.

Now, how about that.

Yes, in real time, with many of you watching, (and possibly, in part, because you were watching), I achieved my goal.

So, then… Should I cue the confetti and roll credits? Retire from wellness entirely and pivot to interpretive dance?

Not quite.

Because many of have asked the obvious question:

How did I do it?

Was it the kidney cleanse and coffee enemas? Dry fasting? Three times?

Or the food restrictions? The blood filtration therapy? The IVs of immunoglobulins, peptides, and stem cells?

Was it environmental changes? Joy cultivation? Positive thinking with excellent lighting?

Was it one of those? Or all of them combined?

The answer, my friends, is an emphatic no.

None of those things worked to cure me of Meniere’s—at least not for any meaningful length of time. They helped—and each one of those efforts had its rewards—but none did the trick.

So, what did?

Let’s backtrack.

I vowed to cure myself of Meniere’s in January 2025 and began documenting my journey in March. By early October, I was worse than I’d ever been. When the attacks started coming four times a day, I finally admitted defeat and scheduled surgery.

As the dreaded day grew close, tension knotted my muscles so badly that I braved an outing across town to see my chiropractor.

“Have you ever asked Meniere’s what it wants to teach you?” he asked as he twisted my neck into alignment.

What is wants to teach me…

“That I’m off balance?” I offered.

“Are you?” he said.

We can all take a moment with that.

And so began the first real shift.

As I began the process of trying to untangle the specific nature of my imbalances, both literal and psychological, my chiropractor continued working on my body. At the end of my session he said, “You know… you should call Matt Wolfe in North Carolina. He’s a very innovative thinker. Might help you avoid surgery all together.”

North Carolina? I had barely made it across town. Still, when you’ve run the gauntlet and there’s nothing more to lay down, you call whomever the Universe sends. So, as soon as I got home, I called Matt Wolfe.

A 16-year survivor of pancreatic cancer, Matt, who owns Phoenix Holistic Center, listened to my story and recommended I download an app.

An app?

I had flown across oceans, filtered my blood, starved myself voluntarily for nine days at a time—and now we were trying… an app?

“That’s cute,” I said to myself.

“Trust me, sister,” Matt added. “This one will change your life.”

The desperate will drink their own urine if someone claims it will cure them, so I thanked God I hadn’t been instructed to pee into a wine glass, and promptly visited the NuCalm website.

“NuCalm: Feeling Good, Made Easy.” Those are the first words you see when you open the web page. Sounded promising. I read on. (If you want to try it, use this link and type in the code WELCOME10 for a 10% discount).

NuCalm offers a choice of scientifically developed, FDA-approved sound frequencies that shift the brain, and in turn, the body, out of fight-or-flight and into a parasympathetic state—which is the one where actual repair takes place.

If this sounds like something Gwyneth Paltrow might recommend on GOOP, I had the same thought. Still, I listened to one of the tracks through a paired bluetooth speaker while I slept that night, just as Matt advised. And, for the first time in months, I made it until morning without a Meniere’s attack.

So, I kept on listening—while I slept, wrote, made my kid pancakes, did laundry, walked around town, sat on planes, soaked in the tub.

I listened while I tried to untangle all the ways in which my life was out of balance. And I listened while I implemented necessary changes to a life that needed pairing down and recalibrating.

Within ten days of listening to NuCalm, the attacks stopped altogether.

Not reduced. Not improved.

Gone.

And then other things began to shift.

As I continued to listen to the various tracks, my gut calmed down. My depression lifted. My energy improved. I even circled back to some of the previous protocols and found my body more receptive to them.

Which raises a question that has truly rocked my world.

What if the body is less broken than we think and simply more overwhelmed?

What if calming the nervous system isn’t just supportive… but transformative?

Welcome to Year 2 of Beyond the Rx.

If Year 1 was about everything I did to my body, Year 2 will focus on what I do with my mind.

Of course, I’ll still explore physical protocols—red light, scalar waves, pelvic floor therapy (a journey we will absolutely giggle about together).

We’ll also begin meeting together as a community this year. There will be support groups to join, soon; songs to sing together; dance moves to master, canvases to paint and drums to beat.

But the emphasis is shifting.

Toward neuroplasticity.

Toward belief.

Toward deep calm.

Toward the possibility that the instructions we give our bodies matter more than anything we might swallow, snort, or inject.

I know this is not a new idea, but the effects have been so seismic for me already, I can’t not share it—especially for those of you who might need the reminder.

We may have way more influence over our healing than we’ve been led to believe. In fact, miracles are possible using nothing more than the stuff we were born with—our minds, our breath, our imagination.

Outrageous, yes. Also practical, budget-friendly, and, if my experience is any indication, worth investigating because the results are undeniably beneficial.

Now, come with me!

Tell me what you’re trying, what’s working, what’s not. Or just leave a ❤️ so I know you’re out there. Because if Year 1 taught me anything, it’s this:

There is more than one way through, and it’s time we started comparing notes.

xo,

Isabel

DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical expert nor am I a sales rep for NuCalm (though you can get a 10% discount by using my affiliate link and typing in WELCOME10). My interest in sharing the app with you is to explain what I learned in the using of it. But you can calm your body down through other means, like meditation and exercise, or through programs like Primal Trust or DNRS. NuCalm was my particular portal to understanding what it meant to have a quiet enough body to heal itself.

Spirits were high as our hosts spilled out the front door with hugs and happy shouts. It was time for our annual “honeymooniversary,”when we celebrate love, friendship, and our shared enjoyment of the great outdoors.

I had our house gift in one hand, my suitcase in the other, as we approached the entry. Everything felt festive until we took a few more steps inside. Then, my husband and I both froze.

The smell was strong and familiar.

Mold.

I looked at my husband and he looked at me. I could tell we were both trying to stay calm while wondering what to do.

Three years had passed since we’d been forced out of our own beloved home because of it, but the trauma still lived in our nervous systems. Mold had taken a wrecking ball to our lives — brain fog, infections, hotel hopping, kids struggling, thousands of dollars in remediation. So, we “knew from mold,” as my Jewish grandmother might have put it.

Our hosts, meanwhile, seemed to be breathing different air.

This happens sometimes when people with stronger constitutions encounter something in the environment that brings the immunocompromised, like us, to our knees.

But my husband and I are both immunocompromised, having lived with chronic Lyme disease and other complications for many years. In my case, Meniere’s Disease nearly destroyed my life until I clawed it into remission a few months ago.

Was I about to have a relapse? Mold has always been a trigger.

“You gotta see this place” our hostess said. “It’s too precious.”

My eyes began to burn as we got the grand tour.

“Here’s the TV room… and the kitchen… isn’t the Sputnik light fixture perfect? It’s an original.”

Pressure began building in my ears — the early warning signs of an impending attack.

“Could I step outside for some fresh air?” I asked.

“Not right now,” our hostess said cheerfully. “The mower’s out there. He’ll be gone in an hour. Let’s just relax. I put out some snacks.”

Guacamole. Chips. Punch.

Or, as my brain translated: histamine, salt, insulin spike. Three things I couldn’t afford to mess with, especially not with mold in the mix since it always heightens my sensitivity to everything.

Still, I sat down with them, smiling, even reaching for a chip.

At this point, you may be wondering why I didn’t just speak up.

Good question.

There are those of you who wouldn’t have hesitated. But there are others, like me, who struggle in moments like this.

Why, indeed, is it so damned hard for us to speak up for ourselves, especially when our whole quality of life sometimes depends on it?

I can’t attest for everyone, but here’s my best attempt at explaining myself.

Short answer? I can be a colossal wimp sometimes.

Longer answer? I’m a middle child. A hard-wired people pleaser. I swear, I’d rather quietly lose a kidney than inconvenience a host. Especially a host whose worldview differs from mine.

Because here’s the thing about our friends. While they’re incredibly warm, kind, dependable people, the sort others refer to as “salt of the earth,” their relationship to illness hasn’t been forged in the fiery pits of chronic disease and environmental toxicity like ours has.

They’ve never watched escalating symptoms meet dismissive doctors. Never discovered arsenic in their tap water after years of unexplained illness. Never found black mold under their bedroom floorboards.

In their experience, the system works.

In ours, it didn’t.

People who haven’t been forced into medical exile rarely understand those of us who have.

So, there ya’ go. I was pretty sure our hosts wouldn’t understand where I was coming from.

I was pretty sure they’d think I was a kook.

Result? I nibbled chips and suffered in silence like my Jewish grandmother may have in another age.

Then again, my grandmother is long dead, and silent suffering is as outdated as kid gloves and girdles.

Still, did I do what I needed to do? Nope. Call me old fashioned. Or a fool. Either will do.

My husband handles these moments with more grace, but even he hesitated. It was too soon after arrival to register disappointment.

I was going to have to do something, so I asked, in the teeniest, tiniest voice, “Is it possible there’s a little mold in here?”

“Not a chance,” our host said, pouring punch. “The owners redecorated the whole house during Covid.”

“Clean as a whistle,” his wife added.

I wanted to ask about the air ducts. But I didn’t.

The smell did not exist to our hosts. And if it didn’t exist for them, reopening the topic felt rude.

“Why don’t you unpack?” our hostess suggested. “Make yourselves comfy.” She showed us to our room across from the kitchen.

Reader, it may as well have been across from the Love Canal. The toxic smell in our little bedroom was eightfold what we suffered in the living room.

My lungs rebelled and within seconds I began to cough. The pressure in my ears was getting more persistent. Fortunately, the lawnmower had stopped, so I evacuated into the backyard, where there was a quaint seating area. Not far away stood a small cottage.

“What’s in there?” I asked after everyone else joined me outside.

Turns out, the property came with a guest house.

“Could we see it?” I asked enthusiastically.

“Later,” our host said, kindly but firmly. “It’s Jacuzzi time.”

“You don’t ever use the cottage as a changing room?” I tried.

“No,” our host said. “We keep it locked, actually. Don’t want the neighborhood cat getting in. Or a vagrant.”

“Let’s get into our swimsuits!” our hostess cheered. “Last one in is a rotten egg! I’ll grab the rosé.”

At this point, my husband and I pretended to return to our room to put on our suits. In truth, we stood in the carport while I ranted.

“What am I going to doooooo?” I sobbed.

“You have a choice,” my husband reminded me. “We aren’t in prison. Just say something. You don’t have to be aggressive, or hysterical. You can be polite and still ask to see the guest house. Maybe the air is cleaner in there.”

Confidentially, I hoped my husband would ask for me, but he clearly wanted me to advocate for myself and he wasn’t wrong. It was a step I needed to take.

Using Therapy Tool 101, I reviewed the stakes.

Our hosts might think I was difficult and get annoyed.

They might even think I was crazy, making shit up about their lovely rental house.

Which would most certainly cause tension and mar our time together.

It might even end our friendship.

Could I live with that?

I would have to unless I wanted to have a relapse.

Still terrified of confrontation, I did what any emotionally mature adult would: I sent a text.

Hey guys. Much as I love this adorable house, my immune system seems incompatible with something in our bedroom. Could we possibly look at the guest cottage?

I hit send.

Silence.

What did I do next?

Pick a fight with my husband about nothing.

When he refused to join me in my tantrum, I got a hold of myself and put on some calming music to lower my cortisol, which, in and of itself, could cause a relapse.

I was Googling local hotels when our host appeared, dangling a key.

“Let’s take a look,” he said, heading towards the cottage.

He didn’t acknowledge the text, or ask how I was doing, but he also didn’t seem angry.

And the cottage was perfect. Fresh air. King bed. Banana frond wallpaper. A ceiling fan. Relief so immediate it was spiritual.

By the time I got to the jacuzzi, everyone seemed relaxed. Our hostess never mentioned my reaction to the main house, or my request to change accommodations, nor did she ask if I felt better, but she also never made me feel like I’d overstepped their hospitality.

After two terrific days of hiking and laughing and desert sun, we flew back to Manhattan’s winter freeze.

All that drama I’d imagined? Never happened.

What did almost happen was a relapse — all because I didn’t want to seem difficult.

Isn’t it astonishing how often the real threat isn’t rejection but our own compliance?

It makes me wonder how often we confuse politeness with self-betrayal.

It also makes me look back with deep shame and regret on times when I crossed a potential dinner companion off my list because they didn’t drink alcohol and I deemed them “no fun;” or I rolled my eyes because a guest asked for a feather-free pillow or a nut-free meal.

From the vantage point of time and circumstance, I now realize how much can be at stake on both sides during such confrontations.

It takes maturity to ask for what you need. And an equal measure on the part of the listener not to let a special request awaken their own insecurities.

Here, I’m thinking about the poor vegan who brings on all kinds of interrogation and commentary when innocently asking for a veggie burger at a barbeque.

(Or about the guest who asks if she can try a different bedroom because she’s struggling to breathe in the one she’s been shown.)

If you think all this has been easy to confess at my age, think again.

It’s all the more difficult because I know it’s something I’m going to have to revisit for the rest of my life.

For this reason, it would really help me to hear from you.

• How do you navigate self-advocacy when you know your needs will be inconvenient to those around you?

• Have you ever made someone else wrong for self-advocating in a way that was inconvenient to you?

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For those of you who are new here, Beyond the Rx was born out of my attempt to heal myself from a chronic condition—Meniere’s disease—which, at its height, caused spontaneous vertigo attacks multiple times a day accompanied by a number of unsavory symptoms and consequences including severe hearing loss.

I launched this Substack in March 2025, when I went to Montenegro to try dry fasting, which I heard could cure whatever ailed me. Dry fasting involves not eating or drinking (anything) for nine straight days, in my case, three times in a row— no casual wellness experiment, so you can accurately infer my state of mind at the time.

Let me put it to you straight. Unable to live a normal life anymore, I wanted to recover and was ready to try anything to succeed.

Nine and a half months later, I have big news: I did it! I’m well. Pretty well, anyway. No more Meniere’s. Haven’t had an attack since early November. What do you think of that?!

I’ll tell you what I think…

Strike up the band! Bring out the streamers! Cue the mariachi band! Isabel Rose is standing on solid ground, ladies and gentlemen, and her hearing aid is in the back of the closet somewhere collecting dust.

Will I relapse? I guess I could but I’m not putting that idea into the universe. Besides, it isn’t where my head, or body, is these days.

Because I figured something out over the last two months that I think is key to my success.

I’ve begun to honestly trust that I’m okay—and the important word in that sentence isn’t okay. It’s trust.

Because once you’ve attained the potential for physical health, doesn’t mean you can stay there. Not unless trust enters the equation.

Trust is what blossoms when the body finally feels safe. And safety is what healing is all about.

Now, what, exactly, do I mean by safety?

Well, there’s physical safety—your body is no longer being blindsided by sudden symptoms that cause pain or sudden collapse.

There’s environmental safety—the world around you stops feeling hostile, unpredictable, filled with hidden threats.

There’s psychological safety—your own thoughts stop being a constant form of sabotage.

And then there’s relationship safety—you don’t feel judged by people in your orbit; love is flowing rather than skepticism or feelings of alienation. You feel companioned; accepted.

When even one of those forms of safety is missing, the body stays on high alert. Danger feels imminent, even when it isn’t. True relaxation is impossible. Calm, even, feels premature.

That mistrust isn’t sheer pessimism. It’s earned. You don’t mistrust because you’re negative. You mistrust because you’ve been blind-sided too many times by too many assailants (environmental toxins, food allergens, stress, even people). The body remembers because it’s smart and wants you to be okay.

But eventually, your beliefs evolve because your experiences change.

You get into an Uber that reeks of air freshener—and nothing happens.

You eat in a restaurant and notice a few grains of salt in a sauce—and the walls don’t start spinning.

I’m not talking about any dramatic moments. No bells go off. No insights arrive fully formed.

But your body takes note. It starts to register safety again—not as an idea, but as a pattern.

Muscles begin to release. Not just the obvious ones, but the small, unnamed ones you didn’t realize you were clenching.

Breathing deepens. Sleep stops fragmenting. Digestion resumes.

This new-found trust doesn’t arrive immediately, but once it’s there long enough (say, two and a half months), you can trust it. And your body can too.

This much seems clear from my newfound steady horizon. For a long, long time, I wasn’t living in my body. I was monitoring it.

Health protocols may have opened the doors to wellness. Obviously, one—or many, in combination—of the treatments I threw at myself, worked. And there is no end to the gratitude I have for my doctors and healers.

But true wellness—the kind that lasts—is what takes places after you begin to realize that your metaphorical house is safe. You can put your bags down, sit on the couch, and stop listening for footsteps in the hall.

And if that sounds small, it isn’t. It’s the difference between surviving in your body and finally—quietly—being home in it.

There’s a song by Kacey Musgraves that captures this feeling perfectly.

In case you don’t feel like watching a video or you’re unfamiliar with this stunning song, check out the lyrics.

When it rains, it pours
But you didn’t even notice it ain’t rainin’ anymore
It’s hard to breathe when all you know is
The struggle of stayin’ above the risin’ water line

Well, the sky has finally opened
The rain and wind stopped blowin’
But you’re stuck out in the same ol’ storm again
You hold tight to your umbrella
Well, darlin’, I’m just tryin’ to tell ya
That there’s always been a rainbow hangin’ over your head.

It’ll all be alright…

The second verse is even better. If you don’t know the song, I give it two thumbs up.

Thanks, Kacey. You nailed it.

And for my fellow travelers along health’s highway, if I could regain my health, hopefully you can, too. Because if there’s a rainbow over my head, my friends, the sky is large. And I’m sure it’s there for some of you, too.

Anyone else have any triumphs to share? Or need some encouragement. Let’s get the conversation going.

I’m writing this little New Year’s post for anyone who struggles with either food restrictions, alcohol restrictions, or loneliness.

If I’ve learned one thing in my 57 years, it’s this: I’m totally unexceptional. Which is precisely why I know I’m not the only person dealing with this little trifecta of woes.

Trying to come up with a solution to take into the new year, I hit upon something from my recent past that may resonate with those of you who identify with one or more of the above issues (and even with those of you who don’t).

The idea came to me last May, when, due to medical reasons, I had to face a birthday without so much as a bite of cake or a sip of alcohol.

“You can’t celebrate without cake!” my teenager wailed. “What will we put the candle in?”

“I’ll figure something out,” I said. And I did.

A quick Google search for “Fun Things to Do in NYC” introduced me to bachata, a partner dance from the Dominican Republic.

After watching an instructional video from a dance studio not too far from my apartment, I decided I might be able to persuade my dance-averse husband to join me—especially since the class included a complimentary shot of tequila.

And off we went—to a bare-bones studio in a slightly sketchy part of town that was, nevertheless, packed with people of all ages. I took a spot in the front row so I could follow the teacher, and within minutes the entire room was stepping to the right (leading with the hip), then stepping to the left (with a hold for two), then adding a spin, laughing, ball-changing, bachata-ing away until we were ready for partners.

My husband and I—married seventeen years—put our arms around each other shyly, like teenagers at a high school dance. But once the music started back up, we redirected our focus towards our bodies—trying to stay in time to the music, cursing when we screwed up, laughing at ourselves, offering each other reassurances.

After years of shared worry—about life, about our kids, about my health—we walked out feeling unexpectedly close. All because we tried something new. Together.

After class, still sweaty and slightly dizzy from the spinning, we ducked into a nearby restaurant. Normally this is where joy collapses for me—the mental math of menus, the dread of hidden salt and sugar, the effort of making conversation while scanning for risk.

But that night was different.

I ordered greens with olive oil and sparkling water with lemon and felt… content. Not deprived. Not resentful. Even without a birthday cake, I felt full as we talked about the class, the teacher, the neighborhood, whether we might go back, maybe even make new friends.

And all the while, my body was still humming, my cheeks still flushed. Instead of calculating risk, which so often takes me out of the moment, I was able to bask in the afterglow of a shared experience. And, judging from my husband’s transformation that night from reluctant non-dancer to enthusiastic partner, it’s clear that my joy fed his in a mutually beneficial loop.

Now, you may be thinking, But you have a husband. I’m single.

Fair point. But I will tell you a secret: you can feel lonely even with your husband. Besides, there were plenty of single people in that class, happily paired with other singles. The instructor rotated partners constantly, which turns out to be part of bachata’s appeal. Everyone collaborates. Everyone participates. Everyone has fun.

Now, I’m not suggesting you all find a bachata class. Or a spouse. Though I’m not knocking either.

What I am suggesting is participation.

For me, that means a shift in mindset: from cozy to activated. From staying home to showing up. I think of it the same way I think about going to the gym for cardio. I dread it—especially in winter, or rain, or honestly… always. But I go, because I feel better afterward. One hundred percent of the time.

So, I’m making participation my New Year’s resolution, and I invite you to join me.

We can call it The Joy Initiative and check in with each other from time to time. If enough of you join me, we can re-christen it The Joy Collective. But it’s going to have to start with each one of us making the decision, on our own, to get off our butts and join something.

Because the antidote to loneliness isn’t waiting for an invitation that may never come—or may not suit you anyway—but in conquering your inertia and engaging in activities that foster joy and connection. Like taking a dance class. Or an improv class. Or finding some club or other to join. Or… you tell me in the comments below!

Because, let’s face it: joy and connection are the keys to the kingdom of happiness.

Now, tell me—what Joy Initiative activity would you like to try in 2026?

And, more importantly, who’s in?

GOOP’s annual Holiday Survival Guide barreled into my inbox at the start of the December.

I deleted it. Immediately. Not with any glee or eye-rolling, mind you. Just because GOOP advised in a past guide that a cape could be a useful tool for saving your night—an idea I did roll my eyes at when I first read it—doesn’t mean I still hold a grudge.

Because here’s the thing: I own a cape now. I do. A beautiful cape. An expensive cape. One I bought last fall with wild optimism, imagining myself swanning through December in it like a duchess.

But where, exactly, am I supposed to wear it?

If we looked at my December calendar together, you wouldn’t find many glamorous evening plans. No office parties (I work at home, alone). No family fêtes (everyone scattered this year). No glittering circuit of invitations requiring a “strategy,” as GOOP might put it, or the right face mask to maintain my glow.

Here’s what I do have: one friends’ dinner, one holiday concert, and a lot of quiet nights at home. Certainly nothing that calls for a cape unless I tie horns to my dog’s head and play matador in the living room.

Which might be why that GOOP guide elicited such a strong reaction in me.

Was it just jealousy?

Even after the post was gone, I sat there in front of my computer, marinating in a mixture of what I came to realize was grief, regret, and self-recrimination even though moments before I saw it I was sitting at my kitchen table drinking tea and contentedly marveling at the fuschia-tinged sunrise.

Which is why I knew, once I got a hold of myself, that my response wasn’t about the GOOP guide. Or even my lack of invitations this season to parties at which a cape might be an appropriate wardrobe choice, let alone a survival tactic.

My reaction to that post was about comparison.

December does this. It may arrive with twinkling lights and festive playlists but it also comes with a quiet reckoning. A moment when we take inventory—of our relationships, our careers, our calendars, our sense of belonging—and ask ourselves, sometimes cruelly: Do I measure up?

Judging by my reaction to that GOOP email, my answer—at least in that moment—was not especially kind.

But why? What is it about the holidays that brings on such self-criticism?

Holidays are supposed to be about giving and benevolence. Why, then, am I not more benevolent with myself?

Culture broadcasts the wrong message—Get out that cape! It’s party time!— and the vulnerable (me) easily fall prey to bouts of compare-and-despair.

Which serves absolutely nothing.

As the month has progressed, I’ve made some useful observations that have returned my equilibrium.

(1) I have plenty to celebrate, with or without a packed calendar.

(2) A packed calendar is not a referendum on success.

(3) Celebration can be an internal affair and does not require a destination or companionship or a cape.

(4) My cape isn’t going anywhere. I can wear it another time.

(5) Self-acceptance and self-compassion are the best holiday survival tools of all. Trite, or not, these are words I return to again and again.

Now I want to hear from you.

Is December invigorating or exhausting for you?

What do you struggle with at this time of year?

I’m listening.

I recently started EMDR therapy. Have you heard of it? It’s basically the Apple Genius Bar for traumatic memories. You walk in with a psychic glitch—some emotional beach ball you’ve been trying to hold underwater for years—and somehow, through a series of eye movements, tones and buzzing gadgets, your brain updates its operating system while you sit there and talk.

Having struggled for years with depression and a near-comical inability to move forward in life, I figured: what do I have to lose? So, I found a practitioner near my apartment and made an appointment.

After my therapist placed headphones over my ears and little electric discs in each palm, she suggested that we get started by having me share with her something I wish I could redo.

“My whole life?” I said flippantly.

Off her look, which was not amused, I thought about the question more deeply. I had just written a post about the day I jumped into a leaf pile at age eight and got Lyme disease—an event that reshaped everything that followed. But trauma has its own agenda, and instead of returning to my parent’s backyard, where that leaf pile awaited, my mind yanked me to a stage at the jazz hall of Lincoln Center, where I was performing at my second Cabaret Convention.

“Cabaret Convention?” my therapist asked shakily.

I don’t blame her for the confusion. The words “cabaret” and “convention” should never appear in the same sentence. Cabaret, as an art form, should be practiced in dimly lit rooms where an elegant singer trades witty asides with the audience over the romantic clink of martini glasses or champagne flutes. A convention, on the other hand, brings to mind carpeted hotel ballrooms where people shout pitches while combing through merch booths.

And yet, in 1985, the Mabel Mercer Foundation established the Cabaret Convention, a weeklong festival meant to make the art form seem relevant again—a noble goal, considering that cabaret rooms have been closing one by one since the 1970s like a species going politely extinct.

But a few cabaret rooms were still hanging on in 2002, when Anything but Love—the indie romantic comedy I co-wrote and starred in—was being released. I played a cabaret singer in the film, and as part of the PR rollout, I was booked to perform two songs at that year’s convention.

I wasn’t a real cabaret singer, mind you; I just played one in the movie. But I was preparing a cabaret release concert for friends, family, cast mates, and agents anyway. I figured, why not give 1,500 convention-attendees a teaser? If they all came opening weekend, I’d be on my way to stardom!

In other words, I was game. I was also naïve. Without any real performing experience, I failed to find the “sweet spot” onstage where the monitors give the performer feedback. Without hearing myself, I couldn’t find pitch. In short, I bombed. Truly bombed. The New York Times singled me out—by name—as the lone “lackluster” performer in an “otherwise terrific evening.”

“But that was your first cabaret convention,” my therapist pointed out. “You said the second?”

“Yes,” I confirmed. “The first was embarrassing but it seemed like a beginner’s error. Something I could learn from and forget about. But the second one …”

I shook my head in mortification just thinking about it.

My therapist asked when the second appearance took place and I explained that it was a full decade after my first. By then, I had left acting to become a real cabaret singer.

The invitation to perform came about after Donald Smith heard my first CD, “Swingin’ from the Hip.”

Donald Smith was the founder of the Mabel Mercer Foundation and a booking agent who wielded tremendous power in the world of cabaret from 1980 until his death in 2012. He also happened to be pals with my father, who slipped the cabaret impresario a copy of my CD when it was fresh off the press. As a favor to my dad, Donald took a listen.

“It’s absolutely maaaahvelous,” Donald swooned over the phone after telling me he’d listened to it twice. “You’ve really matured as an artist. You must perform at this year’s convention.”

I was elated!

Certain my performance would be both a redemption and an announcement of my readiness to join the ranks of other beloved cabaret artists I worshiped, I got right to work preparing for the event.

Everyone was given six minutes, walk-on to walk-off. I chose two breezy, upbeat standards from my CD—songs that suited my voice, my temperament, and my personality. Like me, they begged, which is to say I aimed to please.

“Should I sing first and then say hello,” I asked my then-boyfriend as the big night approached, “or should I introduce the first song and then sing?”

“Depends,” he said. “Which songs?”

When I told him, his face twisted as if I’d confessed a crime against the American Songbook itself.

“You can’t do either of those,” he said, brows knitted. “Those songs are for pussies. You gotta come out swingin’, like the name of your album.”

Let the record reflect: my ex-boyfriend meant well. He adored me, believed in me, and had fronted his own rock band in the 90s, which meant he had experience. And opinions about what worked on stage and what didn’t.

Then again, back when he had performed, it was in grunge bars in the East Village. His audiences had body piercings; tattoos; dyed hair. There may have been a mosh pit. My audiences went to the beauty parlor for their weekly wash and set and kept laxatives on their night tables. Even so, my boyfriend’s opinion mattered to me, so I listened.

“Cabaret is a dying art,” he went on. “You can stand it on its head. Breathe fresh life into it. Show ‘em something new!”

He suggested I do this by choosing two edgier numbers from the album, including my smoky rendition of Pat Benatar’s 1980’s smash, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.”

If I had to guess, I’d say the average age of an audience member at the Cabaret Convention is somewhere between 70 and dead. They would consider Johnny Mercer edgy. So, Pat Benatar was essentially death metal.

“Don’t you think I should give them what they’ll like?” I asked.

“If you want to be like everyone else, sure,” my boyfriend shrugged. “If you want to be a trailblazer—if you want to steal the night—go with mine.”

Reader, I wanted to steal the night.

So, I changed my plan.

The dominoes began falling quickly after that.

Though I am a writer—with an MFA in fiction and a Doubleday publishing deal—I convinced myself I didn’t know how to introduce the new, edgier songs. So, at my boyfriend’s urging, I hired a professional writer. And not just any writer—a former Bette Midler writer.

“You’re in great hands,” my boyfriend assured me, even though the script didn’t arrive until the night before the show. When I read it, I panicked— not because I barely had time to memorize my lines but because the opening sentence referenced my breasts. More specifically, my tits.

I had never said anything more risqué than “damn” onstage. Sure, Bette Midler could have pulled it off, but I was Isabel Rose.

“Did you consider asking for a rewrite?” my therapist asked.

“Of course,” I said, catching myself getting defensive. “But there wasn’t time. And the writer swore the audience would be on the floor laughing. And my boyfriend loved it.”

“So?” my therapist asked.

“So…” I said, looking away.

On the night of the show, I arrived at Lincoln Center’s jazz hall wearing a butter-yellow gown bedazzled with sequined rays and a train. The dress was breathtaking—on loan to me for the night from a friend of one of Beyoncé’s stylists.

If I had been accepting an Academy Award, it would have been perfect. For a cabaret convention, it was… way too much.

To make matters worse, hoping to match the level of the dress, I hired professional hair and makeup artists even though I usually did my own. Which is how I ended up waiting in the wings to go on with a beehive tall enough to pick up satellite signals and lashes thick enough to create their own weather system.

I had aimed for approachable. Instead, I looked like Ann-Margret and a citrus soufflé had a baby.

Still, I convinced myself, if I committed hard enough—if I walked out confidently, smiled brightly like Ann-Margaret did when she performed for the soldiers during her USO tours—my performance might somehow gel into something magical.

Spoiler alert: It did not gel.

I walked onstage, hit my mark, opened my mouth, and began with the line about my tits. And let’s just say a sheet of ice formed instantly between me and the audience—one of those thick, killing frosts that tells you everyone is experiencing secondhand embarrassment on your behalf.

The singing went fine, technically. But emotionally, I knew something terrible had happened.

As soon as I walked off stage, Donald Smith was waiting in the wings to confirm it.

“And when did you become a star?” he asked with quiet disgust.

It was the kind of line that doesn’t just land; it annihilates.

At dinner after the show that night, my gentle father leaned over and whispered, “What made you say those things? I’ve never heard you speak that way.”

My aunt added, “It was certainly … different,” in the tone people use when they mean “unrecognizable.”

My boyfriend, alone, insisted that I had been “original” and “interesting.”

“Could he have been right?” my therapist asked.

I paused as the discs in my hands pulsed and a low tone jumped from ear to ear through the headphones.

“Maybe,” I said. It was an overwhelming thought.

“Was that it for your cabaret career?” my therapist asked.

It actually wasn’t. I went on performing for several years—made another CD, Trouble in Paradise, and several YouTube videos, performed at clubs in New York and LA. But the cabaret world never fully welcomed me back and eventually, I quit. Not because I stopped loving it, but because I could no longer afford the financial cost of mounting my productions or the emotional one that resulted in having to beg people to hear me sing.

“And you regret it?” my therapist asked.

I shrugged, ambivalent. Then I admitted that the day I stopped singing professionally was the day the color drained out of my life.

“Then our job,” she said gently, “is to bring the color back.”

I wasn’t sure what I was thanking her for as our session ended—the possibility of performing again? Or the simple relief of naming the shame I’d carried for decades. Both, probably.

With several weeks of distance now between me and that session, I can honestly report that something in me has, in fact, shifted.

I had no idea how much shame I’d been dragging around! No idea how deeply I had internalized the belief that I had ruined something in a permanent, unfixable way when that simply isn’t true. And I had no idea how possible it still might be to pick up pieces of a dream I once dropped—if that’s what I still want.

But the real revelation wasn’t about career.

It was about identity.

With hindsight—and the strange clarity EMDR brings—one truth stands out:

It is always better to show up as yourself, even when the idea is petrifying.

Maybe especially then.

And maybe that’s why EMDR is so useful—not because it erases the past, but because it lets you reopen the corrupted file and reinstall the part of yourself you accidentally deleted.

The next time I perform, it will be as Isabel Rose—the one who aims to please and leans away from edgy. The one who worshipped Debbie Reynolds and Doris Day, not Joan Jett and Chrissie Hynde.

Now I’ll ask you:

What’s the moment you’d redo, if you could?

And what part of yourself would you bring back into the room?

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First and foremost, I’m grateful my symptoms have stopped torturing me. That’s the headline. But the subhead—the one we don’t like to print—is how quickly we humans forget our blessings.

Think about it: as Americans, we can feel deeply bonded after a shared national disaster. We hug strangers. We promise to live better. But once the crisis recedes, our gratitude does too, and before we realize it, we’re back at it, behaving as if safety and health were givens rather than graces.

Case in point: yesterday I fell into a prolonged panic spiral because my house wasn’t ready for Thanksgiving guests. I cycled through crying jags and hyperventilating fits, certain I’d never get across the finish line.

I’m not all that unusual—lots of people lose it over holiday prep. But I, tragically, cannot. When I spiral emotionally, my cortisol shoots up, and cortisol is not just bad for everyone; it’s particularly bad for someone who has only recently outrun Meniere’s disease, wherein stress is a known trigger.

And here’s the humbling part: I don’t even know exactly why the attacks stopped. My doctors and healers threw the kitchen sink at me: stem cells guided by red light; peptide IVs; blood cleaning; chelation therapy. Plus, I’ve been listening to so much NuCalm (which I highly recommend) my nervous system now operates like it’s on a long-term meditation retreat.

Was it one thing? All of it? Or did the disease simply get bored and wander off after two final years of spontaneous, fiery mischief?

Without an answer, I’m left only with gratitude. Which begs the obvious question: why jeopardize it?

I think about that first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims and Native Americans sharing a table in an improbable, fleeting moment of coexistence. We all know what happened next. I guess that Kumbaya moment was fleeting.

Maybe forgetting is simply part of the human lot. But why?

In both the Bible and the Torah, there is a repeated instruction to remember—to bind faith “as a sign on your hand” and to write it “on the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.” Not because God demands constant attention, but because humans need constant reminding.

I’m the first to roll my eyes at Thanksgiving excess. One friend calls it “Thanks-for-Taking.” Every year I ache for the millions of turkeys sacrificed to our gluttony and think of those who have no food while I contemplate a second slice of pecan pie. But I never regret our family tradition of going around the table and naming that for which we are most grateful.

This year, mine is simple: I’m grateful Meniere’s has finally loosened its grip. How long that will remain true is anyone’s guess, so I’m going to bask in this gratitude as long as I can and work hard to remember how good it feels to be healthy—to stand upright; to be in life rather than watching it pass by from my bathroom floor.

I’m also grateful to my doctors, my body, my family, and my friends. Their support, like my health, is not a given.

Yes, I’m also grateful for food, shelter, and medical care. For peace, prosperity, and a good Netflix series. But this year, I want to lean into the holiday more deeply, so I’m sharing my Gratitude Prompt List with you below—and I invite you to share your own in the comments.

Happy reflecting. And take gentle care of yourselves this Thanksgiving.

Remember: self-sabotage and self-denial belong at no one’s table.

Now… for your reflection inspiration:

Isabel’s Thanksgiving Gratitude Prompts

Choose one — or more — of these:

1. A piece of culture that made your year better

(A song, movie, show, meme, book, podcast, TV series, piece of music, etc.)

2. A tiny invention or technology that makes your life better

(AirPods, Zoom, Google Maps, ChatGPT, heated car seats, etc.)

3. A place that became your refuge

(A bench, a café, your car, a favorite beach or park.)

4. A moment of pure luck or perfect timing

(The train you caught, the plane you missed that bought you a night in your favorite city. A happy accident.)

5. A meal, treat, or drink that brought you real joy

(That perfect latte, that one unforgettable restaurant dish, the Tres Leches cake at Spring’s Tavern.)

6. Something — or someone — you finally let go of

(A habit, a commitment, a belief, a person, a worry.)

7. A habit you picked up that improved your life

(Walks, stretching, reading before bed, not answering texts immediately.)

8. A significant problem that found a resolution

9. Something you bought that earned its keep

(A bag, a pair of shoes, a kitchen gadget, a water bottle.)

10. A surprise joy you didn’t see coming

(An animal encounter, a rainbow, a great conversation, a job offer or promotion.)

11. A tiny freedom you cherish

(Your morning routine, the ability to choose your path, time to yourself.)

Share away! (Humor allowed).

xo,

Isabel

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Not long after we arrived, I spotted a young mother filming her toddler as he took his first wobbly steps toward a huge leaf pile. It was a classic scene that melted most onlookers’ hearts—except mine. Honestly, I had to fight the urge to shout, “Stop!”

Am I one of “those” mothers? A paranoid killjoy who never let her kids get dirty? Hardly. If anything, I’ve always been rough-and-tumble about the outdoors—which is precisely why I know how much danger can lie in wait, even in nature’s most seemingly harmless bounty.

People often associate tick bites as a summer danger, but my first known attachment happened in October 1976. It was a gorgeous, unseasonably warm morning filled with the rich aromas we associate with the season. I’d had apple cider and homemade doughnuts for breakfast and now I stood, squinting into the sun—an eight-year-old red-haired, freckle-faced girl—waiting to launch into the enormous leaf pile we had made in our Westchester back yard.

My older sister had just finished a flip. It was my turn again. Not as brave, I pawed a few acorns away with my royal-blue Adidas, adjusted a loose strap on my overalls, counted to three, and did a shallow swim-team dive; a belly-flop, really. My head disappeared beneath the leaves as I breast-stroked forward, giddy with the joy of total immersion in my favorite season.

When our mother finally called us in for lunch, my hair was full of twigs and crumbly leaves. I didn’t realize that I was also hosting an uninvited guest; one that couldn’t be brushed off with a wave of my mother’s hand, or even by the soap and water in the bath I took that night. I didn’t discover the freeloader until the following afternoon, when I paused, during a game of tag, to put my hair into a pony tail.

“What’s that?” my big sister asked, pointing to a spot behind my ear where the lobe met my neck.

My fingers found the destination quickly. I felt something hard there; like it had a shell, or a coat of armor. Panicked, I tried to pick it off, but couldn’t. Our mom was inside making lunch, so we summoned our dad, who was nearby with his rake. After close inspection, he announced, “It’s a tick.”

“Gross!'“ we both screamed.

Our dog sometimes got a tick. They looked like big, black boogers. And they held on so tight, our mom had to drown them in oil before pulling them out with a tweezer.

We didn’t have any Baby Oil near the yard, so our dad employed a different strategy. Pulling a box of matches from his pocket, he lit one, blew it out, and pressed the smoldering tip to my neck. I yelped, but the technique worked. While I soothed my burn, the creature released its grip and fell to the ground like a fat, charred raisin.

“She’s bleeding!” my sister cried, drawing the focus back to me.

“The tick is bleeding,” my father corrected. “Isabel is fine.”

I now know that the best way to remove a tick is like this. I also know to save it, put it in a zip lock bag, and send it to a lab like this one to be analyzed. But we knew nothing about that back in 1976.

In fact, the tick bite was long forgotten by the time I woke up roughly a week later in my Manhattan bed in the middle of the night, my cheek marinating in a puddle of vomit I couldn’t move out of because my neck was so stiff I couldn’t lift my head. When my mother took my temperature, she discovered it was 104.

These are textbook Lyme symptoms, but, back in the fall of 1976, no one outside a small Connecticut town called Lyme—just north of our weekend house— had heard of the disease researchers were just beginning to name.

The morning of that first stiff neck (there were more to come), our Manhattan pediatrician made a house call—because in 1976, that was still a thing—and diagnosed me with the flu. (It was early for flu season and neither of my sister’s caught it, but that’s what he said I had and we didn’t question doctors in our house). He prescribed 2 baby aspirin and suggested my mom get me a different pillow. I was back at school by Tuesday.

Was I all better? Hardly. My symptoms came and went over the years, but I loved school and I hated staying home in bed. So I did what many kids do when they don’t feel well all the time—I hid it.

Besides, my problems weren’t that bad: occasional ringing in my ear; shin splints; pain in my knees; allergies; warts on my hands; burning flares of red up my tendons; growing depression and anxiety. My parents, and even my kind pediatrician, didn’t pay too close attention. I was just “a kid.” And “kids” got sick. It was part of growing up. I spent most of my time immersed in dance classes, piano lessons, going to Hebrew school, doing homework, participating in plays, hanging out with friends.

The idea that a single tick bite could alter a life—multiple lives including my future children conceived decades later—was unimaginable outside stories set in places like Africa, where everyone knew you could Malaria, which was bad for unborn children. But in NYC? How could anyone know?

But some people did know. Word was getting out.

And by the time I was a mother of two young children, both struggling with a constellation of autoimmune and neurological issues (some of which defied diagnosis), information was already out there that could have helped us.

But none was offered. So, I became my own detective. Struggling with a host of autoimmune challenges myself, I began wondering if something hereditary was at play. When I asked my OB and pediatrician if there could be a connection between my autoimmune issues and my children’s constellation of challenges, both doctors gave me the same pat answer: “There isn’t any known cause for why some children fail to thrive.”

Which wasn’t true. And still isn’t.

Had the medical establishment of the time been diligent about continuing education, both of my high-priced doctors (with multiple diplomas and awards on their walls) should have know these facts: Lyme disease can be transmitted in utero, infecting and affecting the developing fetus.

The first confirmed case of congenital Lyme disease was reported in 1985.

My children were born in 2001 and 2009—ample time for the American Medical Association to have integrated Lyme awareness into its syllabi like it does with all other major medical advances. Word most certainly should have reached the doctors who treated me and my family through the 90s and early oughts. Yet despite my lifetime of symptoms; and despite the lengthy questionnaires I filled out (no, I didn’t have shrapnel in my eye; no, I didn’t have whooping cough or a pacemaker) not a single doctor ever asked if I’d been bitten by a tick.

They all took long lifestyle interviews, too. They were aware that I grew up in tick-infested Westchester. They knew we had a summer house in the equally infested Hamptons. I had a dozen or more symptoms by the time I was growing babies in my womb including roving arthritis, Bell’s palsy, brain fog, and treatment resistant depression—but not one of my many doctors or the ones that went on to treat my children connected the dots.

I was 48-years-old when I finally saw a Lyme-literate doctor named. I began by telling him that I had tested negative for Lyme disease multiple times. This is when I finally learned the crucial reality: regular Lyme tests offered by places like Labcorp or Quest are unreliable. The only test he used for diagnosis was an IGeneX bloodtest, whose results confirmed his suspicion: I had Borrelia burgdorferi, the infection we know as Lyme disease, plus the co-infections, Bartonella and Babesia. Both my children tested positive for the same.

Still trying to process the magnitude of our health debacle, we began treatment immediately. Some of it helped and, in time, we all found steadier ground. But there is still no cure for Chronic (also called “Late-Stage”) Lyme disease; only endurance, and the search for meaning inside the mess.

I found mine in community, hosting Zoom support groups for mothers like me. Week after week, we compare notes and trade resources. Coventional treatments like antibiotics have been successful for some of us and for some of our children; but often, we talk about alternative approaches which are more affordable, or tackle the problems from a different angle. I hear about red light therapy; amp coils; herbal tinctures; neural retraining methods for managing pain.

I also hear about the devastation so common in our community. Despite different states, doctors, and diagnoses, the pattern repeats: our children are often on the autism spectrum; have seizures, rashes, feeding tubes, relentless pain. They cut themselves or engage in dangerous activities or habits as a way to cope with their misery. Mothers have left their careers to become full-time caregivers; some have raised housebound children who are now house-bound adults—never able to attend school or college or hold a job.

Many congenital Lyme sufferers live with overlapping conditions—autism, POTS, PANS, or autoimmune syndromes that blur the line between body and mind because inflammation of the brain can cause any number of mood disorders or physical malfunctions that make life a challenge.

Some report gender dysphoria or change in sexual orientation as an occurrence in the population of Lyme-afflicted kids. Is there a link? What about sleeping disorders? Are these connected to Lyme disease? These are the kinds of issues we debate in the safety of my meetings and why they’re such a lifeline for a community that has been so deeply and deleteriously marginalized.

HERE ARE SOME SYMPTOMS OF CONGENITAL LYME DISEASE:

We’ve also all heard the same dismissals: our children are just suffering from “anxiety.” They’re “attention-seeking,” or “hormonal.” Gaslighting by the medical community remains the rule, not the exception. I’ve always wondered why this is. Do difficult cases scare doctors away because of insurance rules? When did doctoring become a game of pass-along? Why are we so stigmatized, even after so many years of suffering? Why isn’t there an accurate diagnostic tool widely available? Why isn’t Chronic Lyme and Congenital Lyme a required part of medical school training?

The CDC calls congenital Lyme “possible but rare.” They wouldn’t dream of saying that if they sat in on even one of our support groups.

We are living evidence that congenital Lyme is not rare. What is rare is finding a doctor willing to see it, and science that can accurately test for and treat it.

Where are the protocols? Who is collecting the needed stats? Why is progress not being made when millions of lives are at stake not just here but around the world? Lyme disease has been discovered in over 80 countries worldwide. It’s a global pandemic.

When COVID hit, science moved mountains in months. Today, no one questions Long Covid. Most people offer sympathy. And yet, forty years after the first report of congenital Lyme, there’s still no public urgency, no meaningful research, no roadmap for families like mine and nothing for me to tell a mother who wants to know how to prevent Lyme disease from spreading to her unborn baby.

People often think certain ailments run in family lines. It’s time to start realizing that infections like Lyme disease can run through a family line, too, causing infections and conditions that could be eradicated with proper treatment.

If you or your child have unexplained illnesses—mental or physical—don’t let anyone tell you it’s “just stress,” or that you, or your child, struggle from a freak “medical mystery.”

Check here for common Lyme symptoms.

Find a Lyme-literate physician here.

Ask your doctor for an IGeneX test.

The best way to manage Lyme is not to get it—or to pass it on in utero—in the first place.

And remember this, too: Lyme disease is a symptom-based diagnosis, not a blood test based diagnosis. If you have enough symptoms, ask for treatment. If you feel better, great; if not, move on. But don’t let Lyme, or its co-infections, steep deeper and deeper into your body. The downstream consequences include links to dementia, MS, ALS, Parkinsons and various cancers. You can not afford to wait, nor can you remain uneducated.

And for god’s sake, stay out of those leaf piles and don’t let your kids play in them, either. Of course, no one wants to be a Debbie Downer, but given what I’ve experienced, my conscience compels me to share this PSA in hopes of sparing others. Because sometimes, what passes with the season takes root in us forever.

My entire body tuned in to investigate. It sounded like a tidal wave was crashing inside my eardrum, which was both alarming and oddly fascinating until a high-pitched metallic whine joined the surf. Within seconds, sweat drenched my body, and the walls spun in slow, sinister circles. As December’s gray morning light seeped into my room, I lay in my bed, clutching the sheets, wondering what in God’s name was happening.

Ten minutes later, the wave receded, and the ringing dissolved into silence. The walls of my room also slowed to a halt. As soon as I was confident the world was steady, I jumped up and shifted into autopilot. There were teeth to brush, clothes to lay out, a six-year-old to get out the door. Whatever had just happened would have to wait.

It wasn’t until I was picking up flowers for my centerpiece an hour later that I realized there was still a strange, insistent pressure in my left ear. It was as if I’d descended in a plane and couldn’t regain my equilibrium. There was also something wrong with my hearing. I snapped my fingers next to my left ear. Nothing.

Mild panic began to take hold, but I figured a Claritin or two would fix the situation. When my symptoms were no better an hour later, I ran to my ENT, who delivered my diagnosis with gravitas: “Meniere’s disease,” he intoned. No known cause. No cure. Just a list of things to avoid — salt, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, stress. I tried to process it. He couldn’t seriously mean to avoid all of them, I thought. Surely moderation would do.

That night, I poured Chardonnay for my guests and hosted the dinner I’d been planning for months — smiling, nodding, pretending I could hear snippets of conversation I was already missing. The party was a success and life moved on. I cut back on the forbidden foods for a while but eventually stopped thinking about them. My hearing, though slightly dulled in my left ear, held steady. The pressure was gone from my eardrums. The vertigo and tinnitus stayed at bay. As for stress? I was a New Yorker. Stress was practically my love language. Trying to avoid it was like trying to avoid pigeons. Impossible. I gave it no thought at all.

Two years passed without incident. Then, on the first warm, blue-sky day of April — the kind of day that dared a Broadway Baby like me to sing show tunes in public — it happened again. I was at a podiatrist’s office and the nurse had just called my name. One moment, I was putting aside a dog-eared copy of People; the next, my body was drenched in sweat, and the walls were spinning — not the lazy carousel of that first attack, but a full-tilt carnival ride with no emergency brake. I staggered into the exam room just as the vomiting began.

The doctor, thinking fast, shoved a pink foot bath under my chin. It’s funny, the details that stick with you. And thank God for his quick reflexes, because the vomiting didn’t stop. It came in relentless waves, each one triggered by the smallest twitch. Absolute stillness was my only option. Unfortunately, I was occupying the doctor’s only exam table in his only exam room and he had other patients to see.

An ambulance was summoned. I didn’t want one; hated all the fuss; but I also had to submit to reality. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t stop puking. I was helpless.

At the ER, an IV drip of meclizine finally halted the spinning. Though I explained to the attending doctor that I had Meniere’s disease, he wanted me to stay for observation. Not a chance. That fluorescent-lit purgatory was meant for the sick and infirm. I wasn’t one of them. I just had this strange, spontaneous condition that had shown up unbidden and was now banished. Relieved, I signed myself out ASAP and stepped into the still-stunning, cloudless afternoon.

Here’s the strange part: the moment I breathed in the fresh spring air, I all but forgot the hell I’d just been through, a phenomenon that’s stayed with me through many a dark episode. That’s what health is — not the absence of illness, but the bliss of forgetting about it.

For a while, that’s how things went. The attacks came now and again. Some years, there were none at all. I almost forgot Meniere’s existed until I got Covid; the version that lingers. And then, it was as if the virus flipped some malicious internal switch. Suddenly, Meniere’s was back, with a vengeance.

The attacks started coming monthly. Then weekly. Eventually, they stopped bothering with a schedule and showed up whenever they felt like it — sudden, brutal, impossible to predict. Each episode hit harder than the last. The world didn’t just spin anymore; it whipped around me like a tornado while my stomach staged a full-scale mutiny — seizing, twisting, emptying itself from both ends simultaneously. What once lasted two hours now stretched to six.

I’d end up marooned on the bathroom floor, my arm going numb, my neck twisted in some awkward and uncomfortable position, too terrified to move lest I trigger another wave. And when it was finally over, I’d be left with even more hearing loss; enough to require a hearing aid.

By the end of 2024, I was no longer living a normal life. I never knew when — or why — an attack would strike. Every outing felt like a high-stakes gamble. Even the smallest bite of food or sip of water could trigger disaster. I started going down in restaurants, during a school tour, at a Broadway theater. I vomited into my purse in the back of a taxi, and into an emptied popcorn bucket at the movies. My worried, heroic husband carried me through the lobby more times than I can count.

That December, while my body was having a rare respite over Christmas break, I stumbled across a book called Starving to Heal in Siberia. The premise was insane and irresistible. If I forwent food and water for nine days, and repeated the process three times within three months, my body would go into a state of autophagy — meaning the good cells would eat the bad ones — and I would emerge cured of all the mysterious ailments that had been tormenting me, including Meniere’s disease.

Eureka! A DIY solution I could actually control—which was more than I could say for the Meniere’s. My husband and I rejoiced. It wasn’t a pretty option, but it was an option, and we didn’t have any others.

I tracked down a dry-fasting retreat in Montenegro where I could complete two of the three fasts back-to-back under the supervision of the doctor who pioneered the program. Encouraged, I leapt into the New Year with the best kind of fuel: renewed hope and a fierce sense of mission.

I completed my first two fasts in March and April, and the third in late May on my own back in New York. Afterwards, I felt great — and grateful. The Meniere’s attacks were gone. My hearing improved so much I retired my hearing aid. I was upright, functional, and convinced I had finally cracked the code of my own body.

Then July happened. On a 14-hour road trip, an air filter in my car that I later learned was caked in black mold sent me spiraling. This time, the attack lasted twenty hours. Afterwards, I didn’t have the energy or willpower to fast again so soon, so I flew to a cutting-edge medical clinic I learned about in Switzerland, where I spent days tethered to IVs that promised to set me right. I flew home feeling energized and ready to tackle a busy September. One week later, I awoke at 2:30 a.m. locked in the familiar, merciless grip of yet another major attack.

While I waited on the bathroom floor for the spell to pass, staring at the line where the tile meets the vanity, I felt all hope seep out of my spirit like air from a punctured tire. What now? How was I supposed to stand back up, not just literally, but in every way that mattered? I was exhausted and depressed. I had thrown every ounce of money and mindset shifts at my ridiculously named but demonic disease. It didn’t seem to make a dent. No amount of privilege or punchlines seemed able to fix me.

To say I felt disheartened does not do my devastation and frustration justice. Even so, as the world slowly stopped spinning and the vomiting subsided, I realized something major: I was still breathing. I could still see, talk, hear—not fully, but enough. And, as I discovered by 6am, I could rise. So, I did. I rose and made my way to my bed, where I collapsed with the relief of someone who’s survived a shipwreck. And there I lay for a few delicious minutes, my muscles relaxing for the first time in hours. The stillness was a blessing, and I acknowledged it.

What I wanted to do next? Leap up, looking glamorous, and scale a tall building in a single bound while someone filmed my amazing feat of recovery so I could post on social media. The clip would go viral. I would get more followers; a book deal; soar to cultural prominence, Rocky style: a real-life paragon of triumph over adversity. Instead, I shuffled to the kitchen in my bathrobe and made a cup of tea. After that, I pulled some pancake batter out of the fridge and made my son breakfast.

And those were my first steps back. They weren’t anything big. I wasn’t going to get any “likes,” from a cheering fan base. But that’s how it goes. Sometimes, victory looks less like a standing ovation and more like just standing.

For the next few days, I kept my life small. Technically, I was back on my feet — but only just. My confidence was in tatters, replaced by the bone-deep weariness that years of chronic illness carve into you. I took short, cautious walks. I worked a little, but not much. I ate like I was defusing a bomb—suspicious of every bite. I made gratitude lists. I texted with friends and family, trying to stitch myself back into the fabric of connection after the isolation of the attacks and the half-deaf hush that always lingers after an attack, creating an unnerving scrim between me and reality.

Rosh Hashanah arrived with all its talk of renewal and abundance, but the lofty optimism only made my anxiety spike. How do you think about new beginnings when your greatest accomplishment of the week was unloading the dishwasher?

The days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are meant for reflection. Mine have focused around one specific idea: how do you keep going even when you are out of options?

In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Austrian psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor, Viktor Frankl, wrote, “Those who have a why to live can bear almost any how.” When I was growing up, I believed my “why” would be the shiny successful career I imagined would define me. I was going to be a famous actress and writer. I dreamed of winning a Tony. An Oscar. A Pulitzer. Alas, it’s been hard to chase glory when I’ve spent so much time struggling to simply remain upright.

Over this past week, I’ve come to understand that my why is much more intimate than a glittering career— and infinitely more precious. My children need their mother. My husband needs his wife. My parents need their daughter. My sisters, one on each side, need their middle.

As a kid in the 1970s, we used to play with little egg-shaped toys called “The Weebles.” Their jingle on TV? “Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down.” They were weighted at the bottom, their core always grounded. That’s what my why does: it anchors me. It doesn’t stop the wobble, but it does ensure that I find my way back upright.

Meniere’s disease is a rare condition, but we all have our own version of it. Here’s what I know from all the hours I’ve spent getting back up off the bathroom floor: if you can rise and take care of the basics, you’re laying the foundation upon which everything else is built. It’s how joy returns and how purpose reblooms.

Because the real victory isn’t just surviving the blow—to paraphrase Rocky Balboa— but staying in the game; getting back up and reclaiming the joy that makes life worth living. And as I sit in temple tonight and tomorrow on the holiest day of the Jewish year, that’s the intention I’ll carry with me: to seek that joy, even with my challenging circumstances. Because joy is still out there, and that, on its own, is reason enough to rise.

As my taxi wound its way from the Munich airport through vineyards and villages picturesque enough to have been stamped onto porcelain plates, I realized I wasn’t sure what “taking the cure” might actually entail. I vaguely imagined hikes and soaks in mineral spas. “Would the water be still or sparkling?” I giggled to myself as my taxi came to a stop in front of a large, multi-level gingerbread house straight out of Grimm’s Fairytales. The enchantment continued at check-in, where a concierge— resplendent in lederhosen— welcomed me with an elderflower cordial. If everything was this charming, maybe three days in Bavaria actually could restore me to my factory settings.

I set off at once to discover what the property had to offer. It was in the relaxation suite that “storybook Bavaria” slipped off its robe and revealed…well, more than I’d anticipated. One moment, I was admiring the well-stocked herbal tea station; the next, I was staring through a glass door into an enormous sauna where a dozen men and women lounged across cedar planks as naked as models in a life-drawing class.

My locker-room-modest inner child clutched an imaginary towel around myself as I took in pubic grooming that ranged from Victorian topiary to minimalist modernism. I ordered myself not to ogle but I did have to question whether I was comfortable enough in my own skin to participate in such an unselfconscious group ritual. I filed it under “m” for “maybe later,” and made my way down the hall for my first treatment.

Billed as a “Kneipp Herbal Renewal,” Hilde, my therapist offered me a choice of oils. I opted for juniper—best for sore muscles and the closest I was going to get to a gin and tonic for the next few days—and, swaddled in a towel, surrendered myself to her ministrations.

As Hilde worked on me, I learned about my treatment’s namesake. Sebastian Kneipp (1821–1897) was a parish priest in a small mountain village with tuberculosis. He didn’t have the budget to cure himself at a spa in a glamorous location like Baden-Baden, Bath or Vichy. Instead, he used what he had at hand: hikes in the mountains, icy plunges in glacial streams, folk herbs, rest, and simple, nutritious meals. After he recovered, his sick parishioners copied him and recovered, too, and soon “Kneipp’s Cure” was Europe’s wellness craze.

Kneipp eventually boiled his methods down to five pillars: water, exercise, plants, nutrition, and balance. They remain the backbone of wellness centers everywhere, though, as I was about to learn, one pillar at the Schloss had clearly been, shall we say, “adjusted to taste.”

Breakfast each morning consisted of a buffet that looked less like it was aimed at restoring—or even maintaining— health, and more like Oktoberfest. Platters of sausages, cold cuts, and cheeses were flanked by pretzels the size of steering wheels. Nearby, baskets of breads, croissants, and pastries waited their turn to be picked like carb-heavy contestants in a gluten beauty pageant. All that was missing was a doctor at the exit handing out Lipitor.

Used to American-style “healthy” breakfast options like green juice and chia pudding, I worried there’d be nothing for me to eat, but after scouring the buffet like a detective, I followed the trail from a few sad-times jars of raw, unsalted nuts over to a bowl of Bircher muesli. I cannot lie. I got some serious, Oliver-Twist-at-the-orphanage vibes from that bowl of cereal.

Since it was my only option, I ladled some into my own bowl. I regretted it quickly. With its papier-mâché texture and the occasional surprise of a raw almond shard or slimy raisin, I’m sure you can see why breakfast didn’t exactly “have me at hello.” And I can hardly imagine the spread was consistent with Kneipp’s original plan for a nutritious and balanced way to start your day. Still, I was fortified enough to participate in the morning’s activity: a guided hike in the Alps.

Towering spruce and pines, butterflies flitting through wildflowers, sweeping Alpine vistas—from my first step onto the trail, the hike was everything I could have hoped for. And at the summit? By God, there was a full-on party going on, complete with yodeling and dancing. Then came a Kneipp-defying twist: a hut built in to the side of the mountain serving each hiker a stein of beer large enough to host a family of ducklings.

Now, I’m no teetotaler. I used to love a cold beer at the end of a ski day. But in the middle of it? Alcohol is dehydrating and inflammatory—two conditions that can set off a Meniere’s attack—not to mention make anyone too tipsy to get down without swerving into a tree. Feeling virtuous, I stuck with water, but when my guide brought out a regional specialty of fried dough dusted with powdered sugar, I couldn’t resist.

Beer, I reasoned, is ubiquitous and clearly not a smart choice mid-hike. But this treat? It might be my only chance, ever, to sample it. So, I spiked a few pieces with my fork, and for a few glorious seconds, my mouth lit up with joy. Then it was time to rejoin my hiking party on the descent.

All was going well until we were about a mile down the trail. Then I felt it: a wave of dizziness and a familiar pressure in my ears—the precursor to a Meniere’s attack. I thought about the dough: every bite a tiny Molotov cocktail for my system.

Why had I said no to beer but yes to dessert? What kind of self-sabotaging idiot was I?! Panic took hold. Two hours of switchbacks still lay between me and the safety of my room at the hotel. What was I to do?

Channeling my inner-Kneipp, I worked with what I had: slowing my breath, sipping water, moving step by deliberate step. I filled my lungs with fresh mountain air and focused on the birdsong, the rustling of the wind through the trees, the bursts of laughter from other hikers…

Gradually, the ground steadied and the pressure in my ears eased. The attack seemed to be easing. I got lucky.

I was just regaining my confidence when the trail forked at a suspension bridge strung across a gorge. “If we take this,” the guide announced, “we’ll save an hour. If not, there’s a longer path around. We can meet you at end.”

(Have I mentioned that heights have always terrified me, even without vertigo looming?)

One by one, I watched my fellow hikers scamper across as though the bridge weren’t swaying over a chasm littered with jagged boulders.

It was my turn. I was the last one. I didn’t want to hold up the group. And part of me already understood the metaphor at hand: if I could cross that swaying span above the gorge, maybe I could prove to myself that fear doesn’t always get the final say. So, I took a deep breath, stepped onto the swaying planks and willed myself to walk. Halfway across, the planks jiggled, and the gorge yawned beneath me, but so did a rush of adrenaline. “You got this,” I whispered. And I did.

Back at the hotel by mid-afternoon, exhausted but proud of my accomplishment on the mountain, I was more than ready for the final Bavarian wellness method I had yet to try. Some people call it “hot-cold cycling;” others, “contrast therapy.” Either way, it entailed shvitzing in a hot sauna, then plunging into cold water.

And just why have these two modalities become the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of Northern European wellness? Well, heat dilates blood vessels and cold constricts them. Together, they act like a pump, improving circulation and flooding the body with endorphins. Some people do this in their shower, or at their gym; at the Schloss, it took place at a sauna situated in the woods on the shores of an ice-cold mountain creek.

Sweating in the sauna was the easy part. After the rigors of the day’s hike, my muscles were grateful for the penetrating heat. Things got real, however, when I was standing at the creek’s edge, contemplating a dive into the 45-degree water.

Would it hurt? I imagined pain, followed by hypothermia. But I’d come all the way to the Alps to heal, and this ritual was one of the cornerstones of the resorts therapeutic offerings. So, I counted to three and dove.

The icy shock was exhilarating, in a good way. In an “I’m-alive-smack-on-the-ass” way. In fact, it was so exhilarating, I ran back into the sauna and repeated the cold plunge again. By the third round, I was grinning like an idiot and hi-fiving my fellow plungers. I was a convert.

That night, sitting in the bar with a cup of tea while listening to a cocktail pianist play American standards, I realized, with a start, that I’d be heading home in the morning. Had I been cured? Hardly. Autoimmune conditions don’t vanish in three days. But, did I feel better? Lighter? More alive? Absolutely.

The joy derived from mastering fear and having new experiences had been everywhere — in the shock of cold water, the sway of a bridge, even in the ill-advised bites of fried dough. And joy, I realized, is curative in its own right.

Ultimately, I was glad to have made the pilgrimage to the mountains I’d read about in some of my favorite books. But in the end, I realized being cured doesn’t have to mean “health completely restored.” Sometimes, it’s simply joy restored — and that, too, is worth the pilgrimage.

KNEIPP TAKE-HOME TIPS

Water? A hot shower followed by ten seconds of cold. Nothing wrong with it and you don’t need a passport.

Exercise? A brisk 1-hour walk or 30 minutes on your favorite cardio machine at the gym delivers the same endorphins as a hike in the Alps minus the lederhosen.

Plants? A drop of lavender oil from Target offers the same benefit even without a backdrop of cowbells and wildflowers.

Nutrition? Adhering to your “no” list is non-negotiable. Location doesn’t grant immunity—just better scenery.

Balance? Sausages and saunas. Muesli and Lipitor. Fear and exhilaration. Holding both without falling apart is what wellness is all about.

It was mid-August in the Hamptons and we had two oddball houseguests, three nights to fill, and one mission: to show these East End newbies the much-ballyhooed “scene.”

I should probably start by letting you know that my husband and I aren’t particularly “sceney” ourselves. This summer, we’ve stayed away entirely as my husband, who’s marathon-training, is in bed most night’s by 9 p.m. so he can wake and run ten or sixteen miles. As for me, for medical reasons, I’ve had to drop salt, sugar, dairy, and alcohol—basically, the four major food groups. Given this, it’s been easier to simply stay home and cook. Still, our guests both asked for a tour of the Hampton’s hot spots, and we wanted to be good hosts. So, we lined up three very different restaurants and gave it a go.

We were, to be sure, a ragtag group. Picture us, as we headed towards Montauk on our maiden night out. Theo, twenty-one and fresh from college graduation, lounged in the far back dreaming of celebrities and tequila shots. One row ahead of him sat Andre— forty-nine, sighing over his recent break-up in that singularly French way, scanning the horizon (and his dating apps) for a Hamptons hottie he could whisk to St. Tropez by Thursday. Across from him, our sixteen-year-old son, a self-proclaimed “foodie,” leaned his head against the window, likely fantasizing about ceviche, gnocchi with oyster foam, perhaps a panna cotta or affogato for dessert. Up front, I was hoping for low salt cuisine and witty conversation, while my vegan husband, at the wheel, was yearning for plant-based choices that wouldn’t look like cardboard and taste like sorrow.

As a group, we were—in restaurant terms— a “complicated order.” Still, I had high hopes for a fun night together as I stepped out of the car in my white linen pants, platform clogs, and a silk halter top. My lips were glossed, my eyelids were smoky, my hair was pulled back in a beachy chignon. I was ready to see and be seen even if it was a quiet Sunday night.

The restaurant we chose is situated on the bay. With a 7:30 reservation, we were expecting a pastel sunset accompanied by acoustic guitar. Instead, we walked into what can only be described as a throbbing nightclub.

Girls in fishnet leggings layered over thongs pranced to a beat that was so loud I could feel it in my molars—and this was just the parking lot.

My husband looked ready to bolt when Theo’s face suddenly lit up. “Jason Sudeikis,” he stage-whispered. “Three o’clock!”

And indeed, there he was, bless him—holding court on a deck perched above a red-roped dance floor that writhed beneath him like a prehistoric beast.

“Jason Fucking Sudeikis,” Theo swooned. We were in.

In minutes, a hostess let us know our table was ready. We trailed behind her, winding our way past rope-swings hanging from wooden ceiling beams, one occupied by a sun-streaked blonde who looked like she’d misplaced her shirt somewhere between lunch and now.

Our son was asking me who this Jason-person was when we reached our table—a huge, round, built-in for twelve—perfect for dancing on but disaster for conversation between five diners. Each of us would basically be shouting across state lines.

I scanned the room for a better option but saw none. Resigned, I looked towards my husband for help. Good man that he is, he took the first bullet. His view? Us and the wall. I took the next (as a good hostess should)—a seat with a direct sightline into the chaos of the kitchen. We gave our son and two guests the best of it: a sliver of water view framed by a wall of glossy, tan, scantily clad “scensters” taking selfies, downing drinks, bopping to the distorted bass. My son called it a “subwoofer apocalypse.”

Thank God, a waiter appeared to take our drinks orders. While I stoically chose water, I recalled my (recent) drinking past, when this kind of place would have felt initially foreign until two cocktails in, when it might have morphed into thrilling. I might have even found my way past the red rope and onto the dance floor for some sweaty, hip-thrusting fun. But now—sober and sitting between my dance-phobic husband and son and two houseguests so far away they may as well have been in Sagaponack—I could only register a slight ringing in my ears and acknowledge the futility of yelling across the table.

My husband looked like he was serving time. Theo and Andre were scanning the crowd like it was a menu. Our son was playing Subway Surfers on his phone. I had to do something. Flagging down a passing waitress, I obtained the secret I needed: the restaurant’s internet password. Bestowing it upon the table felt like the single most important gift I could offer that night.

At some point between Instagram scrolling and ordering some new placemats on Amazon, a waiter frisbeed our dinners across the table at us. Shrimp cocktail for me, burrata and tomato for Andre, lobster roll for Theo, steak frites for our son, rigatoni for my husband. No one complained. Plates were cleared before we’d finished our final bites.

We’d made it! We could go home! But no, Theo announced the dance floor opened in three minutes for all diners. Andre was in. I was lukewarm. My husband and son voted for home.

I suggested we split up. “That’s why we have Uber!” I cheered. But we somehow all wound up back in the car anyway. Part of me was relieved; part was disappointed.

I was about to apologize for the fiasco of the entire outing when Theo said,“My first celebrity sighting! How dope is that?!” Andre added, “Did you see that brunette by our table? I got her number.” Our son was back on Subway Surfers, unphazed, so it seemed, by the excursion.

Though my own eardrums were fried and my dinner had been decidedly underwhelming, maybe the night wasn’t a total flop; just a private flop for me. Still, I hoped we could do better the following night.

This time we headed to a buzzy Malibu transplant in East Hampton. Thumbs up for two big-name celebrity sightings before appetizers (Cameron Diaz and Emma Roberts). Thumbs down for the food, so bad we had to send several entrees back to the kitchen. They comped us and plied us with desserts and extra drinks, none of which I could enjoy; all of which forced me to take even deeper “calm-the-fuck-down” breaths.

Because, in addition to coping with the food disaster, I also had to deal with the noise. Or did I fail to mention that it was almost as loud as it had been the previous night? This time, it wasn’t another overzealous DJ, but bad acoustics: bare wood floor, unadorned walls, and a high wood ceiling. Every peel of laughter or explanation of disbelief from nearby tables ricochet around the room like buckshot.

When it was time to get back in the car, I couldn’t have been more relieved. I was, therefore, surprised when Theo asked if we could stick around for a post prandial night cap at the bar so he could grab a few furtive selfies with the aforementioned celebs.

“Two for two,” my husband said to me as we got into bed that night.

“I know,” I agreed. “Two strikes.”

“No,” he said. “Two for two on celebs. Andre and Theo are going to be dining out on this for months.”

To each his own, I thought, praying the last of our choices would prove gentler on my nervous system.

And at first, it did seem like we’d nailed it with a perfectly sized round table in a garden with a fountain, soft yacht -rock in the background, flattering lantern light, but— oh no! When we sat down, our chairs were so low to the table top we felt like they were meant for hobbits. Our chins hovered just above our plates. It wasn’t a definitive strike out; just an awkward moment made up for by a fabulous menu.

“Lobster ravioli?” my son asked, “or the coq au vin?”

“Naturally, I recommend coq au vin,” Andre said, “though they do also have bouillabaisse, so if you like fish and saffron…”

While we debated the choices, Theo looked around restlessly, so I looked aroud, too. There were no celebrities. In fact, the average age of our fellow diners appeared to be deceased.

Tant pis, as Andre might say. So, it was sedate. It was still a sought after table that required a credit card downpayment to hold. That said, when the waiter took my order and I gave him my list, I got a look so withering I thought he was about to revoke my dining rights altogether.

I apologized, expecting him to counter with, “No problem!” but he didn’t.

“I’ll have to ask the chef if he will consider accommodating you,” he said snootily. Then he turned on his heal and left without having gotten my husband’s or Theo’s orders.

Turns out, the chef was delighted to accommodate me. We clincked glasses in celebratory relief. We sipped our drinks. We put down our glasses. We looked at each other. We look away. Then, we fell into a prolonged silence.

Though we could finally hear each other, what could we talk about? It was our third night out together. We’d already covered everything. Twice. It was time for an intervention.

I don’t like phones at the table, but I whipped mine out and found an online version of Table Topics—my go-to conversation-starter cards. “If you could live during any time period, when would it be?” I asked. This was followed up with, “If you were a steak, how would you be cooked?”

Reader, by the time our food arrived an hour and a half later, my emotional steak had been burned to a crisp.

Later that night, as I lay beside my husband, I told him that I didn’t want to dine out for the rest of the summer, and possible not ever again, period. “Don’t be dramatic,” he mumbled, falling asleep immediately. But I didn’t fall asleep. Instead, I did a full autopsy of our recent outings, analyzing what changes could have been made to keep me from feeling so dissatisfied.

There was, of course, the obvious: bad food, bad service, bad setting—it was all there. Studies show ambience can make the same glass of wine taste like a fine vintage under warm lighting and like cough syrup under fluorescent glare. Table shape affects conversation while background noise shapes appetite.

“Loudness can physiologically increase stress hormones,” says Charles Spence, a psychologist at Oxford who studies the science of eating. “It changes the way we taste—often dulling flavors,” —which might explain why my shrimp cocktail on night #1 tasted like overworked gum.

In addition to the challenging ambiance, there was our lack of common ground, solved—thankfully—by conversation cards. Sociologist Claude Fischler calls the interplay between diners “commensality.” When it’s off, dinner stops being nourishment and a shared positive bonding experience, and, instead, becomes theater. And not Broadway theater; more like amateur improv class, where you’re just praying for your scene partner to throw you a line.

So, okay. There were many incongruous elements that resulted in my having a tough time on those three particular nights out. And the Hamptons are, admittedly, pumping at maximum. Restaurant staff are fried; everyone is trying to keep up with the churn and burn of a resort town in the waning days of summer. Even still, plenty of people enjoyed those very same restaurants, on those very same nights. What was it about me that made them so intolerable?

My husband has accused me more than once of being a “control freak.” While I prefer to think of myself more like Meg Ryan’s character in the movie When Harry Met Sally (who just “wants it the way she wants it”) I do agree that I become stressed when things are beyond my control.

After deep introspection, I landed on the idea of safety. And I think this is an important point. And not a new one but, instead, a deeply ingrained emotional response to a feeling of powerlessness.

We all want to feel safe, wherever we are. Maslow's hierarchy of needs places safety right after food and water. Apparently —and I can vouch for this— without feeling secure, we struggle to reach for laughter, thought, or connection. Instead, we freeze. And “freeze” isn’t just a figure of speech—it’s biology.

When we “freeze,” the amygdala—the brain’s threat detection system— flips into high alert, flooding the body with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Muscles tense and the vagus nerve dials the parasympathetic nervous system into a kind of emergency state. Blood is redirected from the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain that handles higher thinking—down to the body’s core and large muscles, prepping you for survival instead of conversation. Which is why, in the middle of a too-loud dinner, my body isn’t just quietly irritated; it’s running a Stone Age program designed to keep me alive in a tiger’s den.

People think control freaks are bossy. But, at our core, we’re safety freaks. Research shows that safety needs come from our deep desire for predictability. The more we can count on how things will go, the calmer we feel. Throw in a few food sensitivities and we’re talking, major red alert for the nervous system in a restaurant where pleasing the diner is secondary to moving the table.

Let’s pause for a moment and think about food “issues.” Most people who suffer from them would never choose them. (Who would willingly skip a choose board? Or a bowl of pasta? Or fresh baked bread? That would be NO ONE.)

Studies show that people with food sensitivities often feel “anticipatory anxiety.” Eating out usually requires me to have more will power than a Golden Retriever staring down a rotisserie chicken, and I’m not always successfully. Which doesn’t just result in guilt. For me, it could result in major medical consequences. This means I have to stay on my A-game. Sadly, even when the restaurant gets it all right, the hyper-vigilance siphons away almost all real pleasure.

Meanwhile, there are others—people like Theo and Andre—who thrive in exactly the kind of overstimulating environments that make me want to hide in a closet. Psychologists call them “high-sensation seekers.” These are the partiers who crave loud music, bright lights, and unpredictable energy. While they have a dopamine spike in chaos, my cortisol blows through the roof.

Okey-dokes. So, I’ve got a bunch of issues. Does it mean I need to stay in?

No, no, and again, no. That would be awful. Boring. And lonely.

The antidote to a hard night out vs. a fun one lies in attitude and preparation.

Here is my personal game plan. I’m sharing it with you in case I’m not the only one hanging on for dear life when I go out for dinner:

DINNER OUT CHEAT SHEET

1. Pre-game Pep Talk

• Think: what can I learn here? About food, about people, about myself. Even bad service is a case study in patience. Even the menu can be a lesson in creative writing—who knew ‘foraged greens’ means ‘wet lawn clippings’? Be the scientist, not the victim.

• Before stepping into the restaurant, remind yourself you’ve done harder things: childbirth, colonoscopy prep, assembling IKEA furniture. Remember: this is not war; it’s just dinner.

• Try smiling as you walk in. Endorphins flood the system, your shoulders drop, and, for a few minutes anyway, you can pretend you’re about to have the best night of your life.

2. The Table Test
Too close to the kitchen? Too far from the action? Directly under an arctic vent? Switch tables. You’re paying, not auditioning for Survivor: Restaurant Edition. Moving tables isn’t proof that you’re an intolerable diva—it’s self-preservation.

3. The Noise Test

• If the music is so loud you can feel it rewriting your DNA, or the other diners are channeling their inner frat party, make a trip to the bathroom, or walk outside. Even five minutes beside a dumpster is preferable to dinner at Coachella.

• Remind yourself that you’re not moving in; it’s just dinner. Zero lease agreements have been signed.

• Focus on one tablemate and pretend you’re at a private dinner for two.

• If all else fails, leave. Struggling through a dinner miming, or shouting, “What?” like your great uncle at Thanksgiving, isn’t dining, it’s shared trauma masquerading as merriment.

4. The Gratitude Test
Look for small mercies: your chair doesn’t wobble, no one’s doused in cologne that screams “taxicab air freshener;” the breadbasket bypassed your table (hallelujah! one less test of willpower). Say thank you in advance: you don’t have to do the dishes; you have clean drinking water; you live in a country where women can leave the house. Then tack on a bonus thank-you for not being seated next to someone loudly explaining crypto. Do all this because perspective pairs nicely with sanity.

5. The Conversation Test

If conversation stalls and everyone is scrolling under the table, take out your Table Topics Cards (or pull them up on your phone) because nothing revives the table like asking whether people would rather fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses.

EPILOGUE

On Wednesday morning, we dropped Theo (and his phone filled with celebrity pics) at the train while Andre caught a ride back to the city with a beauty he met on the beach. Back in our living room, My husband loosened his laces like he’d just finished a marathon; our son sat down at the piano and launched into some Chopin; and I mapped out our next few meals.

That night, I made dinner for my family in my own kitchen with ingredients I knew and served it at my own table. Honestly? Best meal of the week. The Hamptons have their share of “it” tables. Mine happens to be ten feet from my stove, facing the hydrangeas.