Curing the blind: lessons from working at TrueNorth Health
A rainbow over the TrueNorth main courtyard (December 2022)
UPDATE: An improved version of this article, with more comprehensive advice, is published in the Fall 2023 Health Science magazine. Become a National Health Association member today to read it!
2022 was the best year I’ve had so far due to one place: TrueNorth Health Center.
TrueNorth specializes in water-only fasting and promotes a whole food plant-based diet (WFPB) free of salt, oil, and sugar (SOS). Patients overcome cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and get off medications they were told they’d be on for life. Plenty of Internet material espouses the benefits of a WFPB SOS-free diet and fasting. Instead of reiterating it, my goal with this account is to offer new insights into TrueNorth’s magic.
I first arrived to TrueNorth as a patient: 2018 as an outpatient, and January 2021 for an inpatient fast. I felt compelled to fast at TrueNorth after hearing the success story of Christina Gore, who resolved a sixteen-year headache through a water fast. Like her I have spent years trying everything to resolve my 24/7 chronic pain, severe “accommodative spasm” of the eyes which has lasted 8 years to date.
The fast didn’t magically cure my condition. It was only 7 days, after all. It still delivered many benefits. At around day 3 of the fast, I began experiencing the greatest mental clarity and peace I’ve ever felt. The physical restoration gave me first-hand experience of how powerful the body is in healing itself.
Fasting also resets your taste buds. Steamed zucchini tastes like a decadent dessert. Normal food, unadulterated by processed chemicals, tastes delicious as it should.
Some of the food I was served during refeeding. Steamed, unseasoned, and delectable. (January 2022)
I chose to work at TrueNorth because it aligns with all my values. Now, as an employee, each day teaches me new lessons. I wake up feeling so grateful that I get to work with such superb, kind, and inquisitive colleagues.
Sometimes, the patients ask me if I’m always happy or why I’m always smiling. I say I'm not happy all the time (no human is!) but I am most of the time, and it's because of them. It’s hard to not feel happy at TrueNorth, where patients actually get well. We’re not peddling drugs on them - in fact, we do the opposite. We remove toxins from their lives to allow their bodies to repair themselves.
We see medical miracles so often that it becomes routine. A few I witnessed:
The story of a patient coming in blind, and walking out with restored eyesight.
People arrive with wheelchairs, walkers, and canes. Then depart on their own two feet while donating the devices they no longer need.
A patient show how the lymphatic tumors on her body had disappeared during her fast. They were no longer visible nor palpable. She had traveled here against her doctor’s medical advice.
The dining hall is a mecca of story sharing. The truth of how society has a sickcare system, not a healthcare system, becomes obvious through each lurid story. I felt so lucky to be able to sit in a private place where people shared the truth about iatrogenic harms. Many patients call TrueNorth a sanctuary and safe space.
The patients humble me. We are all fighting for our lives in some way. We aren’t just trying to survive, we are trying to thrive. We want to be happy. The people at TrueNorth modeled how true happiness stems from human connection and living free of addictive Pleasure Trap substances.
Is it possible to be that happy on "boring" food? Yes, it is. I loved watching a patient, pre-fasting, eat a raw salad with no dressing as if it were the most delicious food on earth. His content, cherubic smile touched me.
My lunch included TrueNorth’s famous lasagna, which people run into the dining hall to devour. I asked him if he wanted a taste. Just the smell was mouthwatering.
He said no. The salad already delighted and satiated him. For the past few days he’d been enjoying the pre-fasting raw fruit and vegetable diet. Even without a fast, the taste buds can reset when one abstains from the Pleasure Trap.
The patients also reminded me of what it means to be human. I loved their expressions of creativity, an aspect of life I’d been neglecting. I enjoyed:
Their musical performances, like the show put on by a blind pianist and a singer.
Their paintings, masterpieces that leapt from patients’ imaginations as they fasted in their rooms.
Their zest for life, such as the vibrant energy of the 90+ year old Olympian who told me to never stop moving.
And ironically, while TrueNorth is a fasting center, it taught me the value of living slow.
I learned that speed, impatience, and a reliance on convenience cause us to fall prey to modern-day illnesses. I learned to chew more and hurry less. I learned that just as we should savor our food, we should savor the moment.
Left to right: The nearby Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery which has beautiful walking trails, the view of the sunset outside my office window on my last day of in-person work, the nearby streets during autumn.
“We didn’t have instant messaging back in the day. We had to write letters to each other,” said one patient to me when talking about dating her husband. "And it worked out fine."
Since hearing that, I remember that it’s okay and even healthy to not check my phone constantly and respond right away. Many patients come here to fast from more than just ingested substances. They fast from technology, work, and other burdens that knock life out of balance. Many come to TrueNorth during a time of life transition and experience epiphanies during their fasts, as I had.
Change is healthy. As we age, we may feel like we’re in a rut because we fall into routine. One patient described how sometimes, he asks his elderly mother what she’s doing for the day, and she’ll say that she has nothing to look forward to. She’ll say “Each day is the same.”
He tells his mother this:
“Don’t look back. Always look forward. And always try new things.”
The healthiest patients seem like the most positive ones. They enjoy novelty and learning. It keeps their bodies agile and brains nimble.
Don’t let the days blur together. What new experiences do you have planned for 2023?
I will still work with TrueNorth Health Center remotely as I look forward to my next adventure: New Zealand. A unique experience for a woman who’s lived in Northern California her whole life. I’ll be in Wellington starting February 2023 and am staying until… Who knows :)
Left to right: Meeting up with an online community friend at TrueNorth, surprise presents on my birthday, the Front Desk store’s treasure trove of educational material and food.
It is impossible to encapsulate a year’s worth of learnings into one essay. Thank you to the patients and staff at TrueNorth. I will dearly miss being along likeminded souls who embrace alternative forms of healthcare and living in an unconventional - even subversive - way.
TrueNorth restores peoples’ vision. It sheds light on the path forward to optimum health.
But how do we stay on this path?
I want to help foster community. To help people maintain a health-promoting lifestyle, even outside of TrueNorth's walls. To help keep our compasses aligned to the right direction, the True North.
Let’s stay in touch online. I'll try to update this blog more with health-promoting information - subscribe if you want email updates on new posts. They won’t be more than once weekly, pinky promise.
See you around, dear friends ♥️