Redefining Your Identity So That You Can Heal!

Listen to the full episode here.

At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, we've discovered that one of the most powerful yet overlooked aspects of healing involves redefining your identity at the deepest level. Through our comprehensive Ending Body Burnout Method, we've observed how unconscious beliefs about who you are fundamentally shape your health outcomes, often more powerfully than any supplement protocol or dietary intervention.

Understanding the Paradox: You Are Not Your Behaviours, Yet Behaviour Never Lies

One of the most profound concepts in holistic health involves understanding the relationship between identity and behaviour. At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, our work in integrative medicine has revealed an important paradox—while you are not defined by your behaviours, your behaviours provide the most accurate information about your unconscious beliefs and identity.

This distinction becomes crucial for anyone seeking to heal from chronic health issues. When individuals identify themselves as "sick," "broken," "anxious," or "a person with chronic fatigue," they create unconscious programming that maintains these conditions. These identity labels become self-fulfilling prophecies that shape physiology, decision-making, and healing capacity.

Our approach to burnout functional medicine recognises that lasting transformation requires addressing identity at its root rather than simply trying to change behaviours or manage symptoms. When identity shifts, behaviours naturally follow without the struggle and resistance that characterises most behaviour-change attempts.

The Unconscious Mind's Role in Physical Health

Every cell in your body listens to your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about yourself. Through our work in natural healing and root cause medicine, we've discovered how unconscious identity beliefs directly influence gene expression, immune function, inflammatory processes, and every aspect of physical health.

The unconscious mind, which controls approximately 95% of physiological functions, works tirelessly to maintain consistency with your core identity beliefs. If you unconsciously believe you're weak, incapable, or fundamentally flawed, your body will create circumstances that confirm these beliefs, often manifesting as persistent symptoms that resist conventional treatment.

At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, we've observed how individuals can follow perfect protocols, take all the right supplements, and do everything "correctly" yet still struggle to heal because their unconscious identity remains unchanged. This understanding revolutionises how we approach healing and explains why identity work represents the "secret sauce" of lasting transformation.

The Machine Versus the Box: Fixing Root Causes Not Symptoms

Understanding the difference between addressing symptoms and fixing root causes becomes essential for anyone seeking lasting healing. Our alternative medicine approach uses the metaphor of a factory producing defective boxes—you can spend endless energy fixing each broken box, or you can repair the machine creating them.

Most conventional approaches to health focus on fixing the boxes—managing symptoms, eliminating trigger foods, suppressing inflammatory responses. However, our naturopathic medicine philosophy recognises that true healing requires addressing the machine—the unconscious beliefs and identity patterns that create symptoms in the first place.

When individuals shift their core identity from "broken and sick" to "whole and healing," the machine begins producing healthy outcomes naturally. This shift doesn't mean denying current symptoms or engaging in toxic positivity—it means recognising your inherent wholeness while acknowledging that healing is a process.

Practical Example: Healing Food Sensitivities Through Identity Shifts

The power of identity transformation becomes evident through real-world examples. Through our Ending Body Burnout Method, we've witnessed remarkable healing when individuals address the identity patterns underlying their physical symptoms.

One powerful example involves healing food sensitivities that had persisted for years despite extensive gut healing protocols. The breakthrough came not from another supplement or elimination diet, but from recognising and transforming the unconscious beliefs driving the sensitivity reactions.

When individuals carry shame or guilt about their food choices, or when they believe their bodies are fundamentally weak or incapable, these beliefs create stress responses that manifest as food reactions. The moment these identity patterns shift—when someone truly believes "I am strong and capable, my body digests food perfectly"—physical symptoms often resolve rapidly.

This doesn't mean food quality doesn't matter or that all sensitivities are purely psychological. Rather, it recognises that the nervous system's interpretation of food, influenced by unconscious beliefs, significantly affects digestive capacity and immune responses.

Rebuilding Rapport With Self and Listening to Inner Wisdom

Healing requires developing what we call "rapport with self"—a harmonious relationship between body, mind, and spirit where you can understand and trust the communication from all aspects of yourself. Our work in mind body medicine recognises that many individuals have lost this internal connection through years of ignoring body signals, overriding intuition, and prioritising external expectations.

The process of rebuilding rapport involves learning to listen to your inner voice—that subtle guidance system that communicates through physical sensations, emotions, intuitive knowing, and synchronicities. This inner wisdom often knows exactly what you need for healing, but it requires courage to listen and follow its guidance.

At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, we've observed how symptoms often represent the body's way of getting your attention when you've broken rapport with yourself. Heartburn, digestive issues, pain, and other symptoms frequently arise when you've acted in ways that contradict your authentic needs or values.

The Role of Congruence in Physical Healing

Congruence—living in complete alignment between your ideal self and actual self—represents one of the most powerful states for facilitating healing. Our holistic wellness approach recognises that when you're living congruently, "as you live and breathe," your nervous system relaxes into states that support optimal immune function and cellular repair.

Conversely, incongruence creates chronic stress that manifests as inflammation, hormonal imbalances, digestive dysfunction, and the constellation of symptoms associated with body burnout. The feeling of incongruence often shows up as a vague sense that "something's wrong" or "I'm not being true to myself."

The journey toward congruence involves identifying areas where your behaviours, choices, or circumstances contradict your authentic values and identity. This might involve difficult conversations, boundary setting, or significant life changes, but the health benefits of living congruently are profound.

Creating Your Character: Choosing Who You Want to Be

One of the most empowering aspects of identity work involves recognising that you can consciously choose who you want to be. Like creating a character in a game or story, you can define the attributes, values, and behaviours of your ideal self and begin embodying that identity now.

This process doesn't involve becoming someone you're not—rather, it involves removing the limiting beliefs and false identities that obscure your authentic self. Your true identity possesses unlimited healing capacity, inherent worthiness, and natural vitality. The work involves clearing away the programming that blocks access to these innate qualities.

Finding role models who embody qualities you want to develop can accelerate this process. These might be people you know personally, public figures, or even composite characters drawn from multiple sources. The key is identifying specific attributes and behaviours you want to embody, then practising them consistently until they become natural expressions of your identity.

The Courage to Transform Identity

Changing identity requires courage because it often means letting go of familiar patterns, even when those patterns cause suffering. The known, even when painful, often feels safer than the unknown possibilities of transformation.

Our personalised medicine approach recognises that courage represents the tipping point before healing accelerates. When individuals find the courage to listen to their inner wisdom, trust their bodies, and embody their authentic identity, transformation often happens rapidly.

This courage might involve stopping supplements you've relied on for years, changing relationships that no longer serve you, or making career shifts that align with your authentic values. While these changes may feel scary, the alignment they create supports profound healing.

Integration and Sustainable Identity Transformation

Creating lasting identity shifts requires consistent practice and integration into daily life. Our whole body health approach includes developing sustainable practices that reinforce new identity patterns while gradually dissolving old limiting beliefs.

This integration process involves regularly connecting with your ideal self, noticing when you slip into old identity patterns, and compassionately redirecting yourself back to alignment. Over time, the new identity becomes natural and automatic, supporting continued healing and growth.

Through our health optimisation strategies, we help clients develop practices that support ongoing identity development while addressing the physical factors that affect nervous system regulation and overall wellbeing.

Ready to discover how redefining your identity could unlock the healing that's been eluding you despite trying numerous treatments? We invite you to explore how our comprehensive approach to identity transformation could help you access your body's innate healing capacity and create lasting health. Book a Discovery Call with us to learn more about our transformative methodology, or take the first step through our Connect the Dots consultation to begin understanding how your unconscious identity might be affecting your healing journey.

Remember, you are not your symptoms, your diagnoses, or your past struggles. Your true identity is whole, capable, and designed for vibrant health. When you're ready to explore this deeper approach to healing and step into your authentic identity, we're here to guide you on your journey to lasting wellness and authentic self-expression.

Listen to the full episode here.

Chris & Filipa Bellette are the Founders of multi award-winning health practice Chris & Filly Functional Medicine, which is best known for ending body burnout (for good!) in “busy” people with energy, mood and gut issues. They have worked with over 2,000+ burned-out clients in the past combined 25+ years, with their own passion for ending body burnout coming from their own personal experience of body, mind, family & business breakdown, after a prolonged period of physical and mental stress.

Filipa is an accredited Clinical Nutritionist, Functional Medicine Practitioner, Coach & Trauma Therapist. She is also a Ph.D. Scholar, author & regularly featured the media, such as Forbes, Body+Soul and The Daily Telegraph. Chris is a Burnout Recovery Coach & an accredited Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) Master Practitioner, with a Bachelor of Human Movement Science. He has existed in high-performance realms of the sporting (think national athlete) & business industries and knows what it takes to get out of hustle-and-grind culture to thriving. 

They were recently awarded as the Tasmanian State Winner & National Finalist for the Telstra Best of Business Awards 2022, and Winner of the Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards 2022.