January 13, 2026
Tonight, as I sat welcoming the heat of the infrared sauna, I listened to a voice note from a friend. She spoke about her frustration—how money has become entangled with her health, her healing, even her sense of self-worth. The exhaustion in her voice felt familiar. I’ve been sitting with similar feelings lately.
There’s a quiet guilt that creeps in at times when I’m fully immersed in alternative ways of caring for my body. A subtle questioning: Is this worth it? Is this indulgent? Is this too much?
But something shifted in me tonight on the drive home.
A memory surfaced—one I hadn’t thought about in years. I was sitting on the couch with my mom after one of her chemotherapy treatments. Her body was tired, altered, moving through something unimaginably hard. She looked directly into my eyes and said, with a casual laugh,
“This is what a million dollar body looks like.”
Twenty-something years later, that sentence landed in me differently.
A million dollar body isn’t one that conforms, performs, or produces. It’s not measured by productivity, thinness, or compliance. It’s a body that has been invested in. Fought for. Listened to. Honored. A body that has survived, adapted, and continued to choose life.
That memory clarified something for me—especially in how I want to move forward with Brigid and the choices I make around healing and money. If someone is going to receive my money, I want it to be people who are living their passions. People who are in devotion to their work. People who are actively imagining and building something different.
I no longer want to keep feeding a system I believe is broken—one that profits from disconnection, dependency, and suppression of intuition. If opting out in small, imperfect ways is what’s available to me right now, then so be it.
Maybe I’ll learn something along the way.
Maybe I’ll gather wisdom that’s meant to be shared.
Maybe this is how momentum is actually built—not through grand rebellion, but through consistent, values-aligned choices.
What I do know is this: you can’t expect new results while continuing to do the same things.
And perhaps reclaiming the worth of our bodies—seeing them as already million dollar bodies—is where it all begins.
11/11/2026
Here I am again, looking back at one of my earlier writings about Brigid.
It’s interesting what happens when you revisit something you wrote months ago. Sometimes the words land differently. Sometimes you realize that, without even fully recognizing it, you’ve started living out the very things you were questioning on the page.
When I wrote about my mom’s words — “This is what a million dollar body looks like” — I was reflecting on the worth of our bodies, the money we pour into our health, and the systems we continue to participate in even when something inside us questions whether there might be another way.
At the time, I knew something was shifting in me. I just wasn’t entirely sure what that shift would look like in practice.
Now, as I sit with those words again, I can see some of the changes we’ve begun implementing in our own lives.
As a family, we’ve started paying for a direct primary care membership. Rather than operating through the traditional insurance-based model, we pay a membership fee directly for access to primary care. We’ve also returned to seeing a holistic dentist regularly, paying those expenses out of pocket. And we’ve started putting money into a health savings account to help offset some of these costs.
These are small steps, perhaps, but they feel meaningful.
They represent a willingness to invest in the kind of care we want to receive. To build relationships with practitioners whose approach aligns with our values. To be more intentional about where our money goes and what we’re choosing to support.
And yet, there’s still a piece of this that feels unresolved.
We’re still paying into the health insurance system, carrying a high-deductible plan because I haven’t yet dedicated the time to sit down and seriously explore what another path might look like for our family.
Part of me feels the contradiction in that.
I talk about wanting to step outside a system that doesn’t always align with my values, and yet I’m still participating in it. I can feel the desire to do things differently, but I can also feel the fear that comes with questioning something we’ve been taught is essential to our security.
What would it actually look like to step away?
What would it feel like to trust ourselves to make thoughtful decisions about our family’s healthcare while also acknowledging that illness, accidents, and the unexpected are real parts of being human?
I don’t have those answers yet.
And perhaps that’s where this reflection becomes bigger than health insurance.
Earlier this year, I wrote that I wanted to work on my money story in the coming year. I wanted to look at the beliefs I carry about money, security, receiving, spending, and what it means to have enough.
Now I’m beginning to see how deeply these threads are woven together.
My relationship with money. My relationship with my body. My relationship with safety. My relationship with the systems I’ve been taught to depend on.
They aren’t separate conversations.
When I think about investing in my health, there’s a part of me that can feel guilt. Is this too much? Is it worth the cost? Should I be spending this money somewhere else?
And underneath those questions, I wonder how much of my relationship with money has been shaped by the idea that security comes from participating in the systems we’re told will protect us.
What happens when we begin questioning that?
I’ve looked into healthcare-sharing programs, trying to understand whether they might offer an alternative. But one of the things I’ve struggled with is that these programs generally aren’t designed to cover the ongoing membership fees associated with direct primary care or other forms of care we’re choosing to pay for out of pocket.
So, for me, the question remains: Am I simply paying into another just-in-case fund while still carrying the cost of the care I want to receive today?
I understand the need to plan for the unexpected. I’m not dismissing the importance of protecting our family from a financial crisis. And I recognize that stepping away from traditional insurance comes with real risks, especially when a serious illness or emergency enters the picture.
But I am curious about what other options exist.
I’m curious about the people who have questioned the conventional path and found a different way to navigate healthcare — one that feels financially sustainable while allowing them to remain connected to the kind of care they believe in.
Have any of you stepped away from the traditional health insurance industry? If so, how did you navigate that transition? What did you learn? What would you do differently? Are there options I may not have considered?
I would genuinely love to hear your experiences, especially from other families navigating this in a thoughtful and practical way.
Because I’m realizing that reclaiming our health isn’t just about what we eat, which practitioners we see, or how we choose to support our bodies. It’s also about examining the structures surrounding those choices and asking whether they truly support the lives we’re trying to build.
I don’t think I need to have every answer before I begin asking better questions.
Maybe this is part of the work I promised myself I would do with my money story. Maybe it’s another invitation to examine where fear is making decisions for me, where my values are asking for more alignment, and where I need to slow down enough to explore the possibilities rather than simply continuing along the familiar path.
I’m not looking to make a reckless leap. I’m looking to understand my options, to make informed choices, and to find a way forward that feels more aligned with the life we want to live.
And perhaps that brings me back to my mom’s words once more.
A million dollar body.
What would it mean to truly live as though our bodies are worth that kind of investment?
Not just in the money we spend, but in the choices we make, the questions we ask, the relationships we build, and the courage it takes to reconsider what we’ve always believed.
I’m still figuring that out.
But I think I’m ready to begin.
In Peace, Love and Service,
Rebecca
