I recently went through a season of illness that made me question many things, and I found the answers in ancestral wisdom that I’d love to share with you.
My childhood
For most of my life I have been a person who has constantly been physically sick to the point that in school I was exempt from doing sports for the fear of having an attack of asthma during almost all my childhood.
When I was 7 years old, I stayed in bed for almost 4 months vomiting my life everyday with a sickness called ‘whooping cough’. Fortunately I passed school that year thanks to the home schooling my mom was doing to me during those days.
I still remember one night, on my way to the hospital, struggling with an asthma attack at around eight years old and truly believing I would die that night. I never understood why I was always sick, mostly with asthma, the flu, or a cold but I carried that pain through much of my life.
Hashimoto and Gluten
A few years later, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease which is an autoimmune disorder that weakens my body and for me a huge relief after knowing finally the cause of my weak body. With prescribed hormones, a change in diet, and regular exercise, I started to see a huge transformation in my health after turning 22.
About three years ago, I discovered that gluten was the main reason of my brain fog, so once I stopped consuming it, I began feeling amazing. So in summary I was determinated to do everything I need to do in order to not feel sick again.
Last year, after a dental surgery, I even chose to recover using only essential oils instead of conventional medicine. I had never felt so strong before and for me, it was a real miracle to feel this way for the first time in my life.
This Year, Things Started to Change
Everything was looking great, until this year when I began getting sick again. And for someone like me, who has spent years studying her own condition and doing everything to get better, this felt like failing an exam all over again.
A lot of questions started to come to my mind, Why is my body so weak all the time? Why can’t I be normal? I was feeling frustrated and angry at the same time but life led me to an event dedicated to one of Peru’s most sacred medicinal plants ‘our mother coca leaf’ and there, I met people who brought new light to my days.
The answers from Indigenous Ancestral Knowledges
Fernando, a 80 year old sociologist and passionate about natural medicines kindly started talking to me and came up with this phrase: To avoid sickness you have to do 2 things: Eat healthy food and Clean emotions. This instantly resonated with me and I started questioning myself if indeed this new season of sickness had to do with my emotions and what were they?
Minutes later I met Lauro, an anthropologist who has studied the spirituality of coca leaves for years and read them for guidance. He said to me: Ask a question to the mother coca, whatever you want, she will reply to you. I didn’t hesitate and asked ‘Why am I getting sick so often lately’?
Lauro replied that my sickness was emotional, not physical. That shocked me for a second time as I always thought of myself as a calm person, someone who avoids emotional attachment to painful situations but maybe my body was revealing something that my mind was trying to ignore.
The Ancestral Inca Answer
I left the event with a lot of questions in my mind and today while I was walking in a little handicraft market, one of the sellers looked at me and he asked me: Why are you so sad? Which took me by a surprise because I am not really sad but maybe worried? I told him that maybe I am tired but not sad.
This man was very genuine in his inca culture and all of a sudden he started to tell me that humans we are focused so much on superficial things that we have lost our connection with other humans, that in his culture people share things together and the sharing doesn’t have to be material, but sharing laughs, sharing moments, sharing a conversation, those are the most important things to share. Something that can bring you joy and happiness.
He claimed that people complain too much these days, of too much sun or too much rain, people are never pleased and those feelings hurt themselves. I said to him, so we should have a better connection with the universe then, right? And he smartly replied to me, first you have to feel good and happy with your own universe inside and then with the rest, because we are only here in this life for a short time, we are just passing so nothing of the rest matters.
He said, see, you are here, we are talking, now you are smiling, we are exchanging a moment together, you are not alone anymore here right? This is what humans need more.
This man in 15 minutes told me all that I needed to hear. And I might know all this already, indeed I am always pushing to feel more human, but sometimes we forget about it or we have a season where we rationalize it more than really feel it.
By the end of the conversation with this man, I knew clearly that a big part of my sickness this year had to do with emotional issues that I didn’t know were hitting me in that way.
But what can I say, being human also means learning to navigate with emotional situations and this is a season of a lot of learning for me.
Picture taken from an artist from the Coca Tinkuy 2025.
The Conclusion
What I came to as a conclusion to myself is that first, Thanks life that gave me the answers through these amazing people who not only carry but practice on their daily routines all this ancestral and rich indigenous knowledge in order to be healthy as human beings.
Second, that we can’t stop having emotional situations in our lives, it is part of the package of being human but what is important is to face these situations as soon as possible once we recognize the problem, otherwise your body will tell you with a big scream that something is wrong. It doesn’t matter if you eat healthy or if you are a great sports person. Emotions are one of the most important things to deal with as human beings and we should listen more to ourselves with kindness and empathy.
And third, the Coca leaf is an amazing medicinal plant who brings more oxigen to our bodies, this is why is good for High altittude sickness, and in this way it gives us a lot of energy so this has become my daily favourite plant for feeling great.
Wish you great heath in body and mind my friends! 🙂
Ps: The next picture was taken from one of my favourite sacred spots in the Inca Lands in Cusco which brought lots of inspiration for this post 🙂
Documentary Filmmaker & Production in Peru (Fixer) 