Pt 1: The Lessons Hiding in Chris Williamson’s Video on His Illness
Even the “discipline” Stoicism guys are realizing you can’t muscle through healing.
Dear Companions,
Yesterday, Chris Williamson — the host of Modern Wisdom — shared the complex medical ordeal he’s been navigating.
Most of you probably know his face. His show ranks around #150 globally and has nearly 3 million YouTube subscribers. It appears he didn’t stop podcasting throughout his illness.
In Part 1, I’ll go through what Chris shared about his experience, and where I think his approach could deepen — based on my own four years of healing.
(No way could I have run a major podcast at my worst — I couldn’t even leave my room, so I’m not being critical.)
In Part 2 — my usual Sunday post — I’ll share a short list of recommended revisions to his Healing Stack.
Current state of healing — Crash Phase
What stood out in his thirty-minute vlog about his tough healing journey is that he is still in the thick of it. It’s rare to see someone in the first year. I can tell you, that version is still full of sadness, pain, and a lack of self-compassion.
If I turned the sound off and watched his clenched teeth, his phase would be evident to me. He is in what I call the Crash/Stabilize world of the Healingvrse. Here, hurt, pain, and anger rule. Any shred of acceptance feels like a million defeats.
Doctors have diagnosed him with Lyme, mold, heavy metals, and other autoimmune conditions. Inflammation in the nervous system, in the limbic system. Inflammation in the brain. Inflammation in the body. Loss of regulating abilities. And then the emotional distress on top of that becomes crippling.
He says there’s a part of him that curses himself. He says he feels depressed because he has no energy. That he can’t stand the smell of cut grass. Or the smell of people. Especially girls. Strangers on the internet agitate him. So do his friends. He is agitated by music. By silence. Severe tinnitus. No multitasking. Spelling errors. Disordered words. Can’t recall names or why he walked into rooms. He struggles to forgive, or feel gratitude, or feel anything at all. Happiness and fulfillment, as he puts it, have been “nerfed” out of existence.
He uses the word agitated, and for me, I experienced it as physical pain.
The two lessons of his healing journey
He keeps ruminating over a key lesson of the Healingvrse:
Working hard will backfire. You cannot muscle through healing.
This is his most frustrating realization — that after a year of trying, he still hasn’t been able to fix it. Despite spending 50% of his entire time on it.
Another frustration: the moving target of his health. Some symptoms fall away and new ones appear. At first, he could sleep — sleep gave him respite from feeling like crap — and then he lost the ability to sleep. I was the reverse of that, but either way, fight or flight was ON.
A dominant body-only approach creates a misbalance in the Healingvrse
From what I can see in the video, he’s more dominant in the Body state. I imagine this is where many podcast bros end up, even if they talk about philosophy. It’s just a lot easier to find the body and productivity content in today’s world. It’s the first line of attack.
I see him lifting heavy weights in the video, even though he talks about severe tinnitus. Chris admits he believed his silver bullet would be blood “cleaning.” This meant using an inter-jugular line in Mexico, going straight into the heart. He felt excited because he thought it was a holy grail treatment. At some point, I too considered blood cleaning — with UV, without UV, but I stopped short.
I’ve had my share of intense experiences. I’ve done 20 sessions of transcranial magnetic stimulation. I’ve taken experimental things like rapamycin, methylene blue and about 5 different antibiotics for months. But…about 6 months in to my experience, I also began the process of rewiring my mind. Without it, I would not have made it.
Has he explored TMS or brain rewiring alongside the body work? Has he been okay with being still? Has he taken long walks with no purpose? Has he paused the podcast? Is he at the beach, taking in the salty air? Has he just focused on getting better sleep for a month, two months, or three? Has he given himself the chance to see defeat with kindness?
Some will argue with me and say: this isn’t his head. Of course not; these are real symptoms. The body interventions will eventually begin to add up and help him feel better. But there’s a lot more to it. A lot less too. It’s a difficult balance to strike.
A doctor in the video says, “You can have a great attitude. But if chronic stress leads to chronic fatigue, your attitude won’t fix that.” He says Chris is proof of this. But actually there’s a lot that Chris can do with his attitude. The term attitude is an ocean of beliefs, ideas and practices.
New mind approaches
Chris ends the video saying he has a “complex illness” that he has to find the “serial killer” in his body. And that right there says it all.
The term “serial killer” fits in the crash/stabilize state. Healing means not seeing your illness as a harmful part of you. This is complicated stuff.
In the end of the video, he admits the jugular medicine didn’t work. This made him think, “You are broken.” “You will never have the vitality you used to have.” He says:
Submit to a new mode of being. Slower. Darker. Sadder. More lonely. But at least without the pain of hoping.
His voice cracks.
Chris Williamson’s Reading List — a clue
His approach is clear just from analyzing one pdf: a top 100 Reading List. It betrays weaknesses in his approach.
It embraces hustle culture, focusing on productivity and self-reliance. It values grit and intellectual rigor but overlooks emotional healing and relationships. There’s little focus on attachment, trauma, grief, or nervous system repair. This is the softer work of integration in the Healingvrse.
Some books he recommends on Self-Discipline / Productivity.
Atomic Habits — James Clear
Essentialism / Effortless — Greg McKeown
Deep Work — Cal Newport
Getting Things Done — David Allen
The War of Art / Turning Pro — Steven Pressfield
Indistractable — Nir Eyal
Ultralearning — Scott H. Young
Chasing Excellence — Ben Bergeron
Unsurprisingly, we find a bunch of Stoicism:
The Obstacle Is the Way, Daily Stoic — Ryan Holiday
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor — Donald Robertson
How to Be a Stoic — Massimo Pigliucci
The Art of Resilience — Ross Edgley
There are spiritual books, but they pretty much all seem to approach it less from faith or myth and more.
Neuroscience (Sam Harris, Robert Wright, Gary Weber)
Evolutionary psychology (Wright)
Direct experience and phenomenology (Tolle, Singer, Katie)
In other words, these are books that frame inner work as a mental skill — a way to build consciousness and awareness through practice. It’s more cognitive training than devotional act.
These are great access points. Necessary, but not sufficient. And when mixed with a focus on productivity and stoicism, it risks leading to a mindset that you can work through pain. His experience shows that you cannot.
You work, and don’t work — try, and then stop trying. Have I said yet that it’s complicated?
12% fiction
Ah, fiction. Something that seems so utterly useless when you are sick. And yet…
Chris lists Animal House and a few other fictional books, but truly beautiful literature and poetry are missing from his list. At a time when a simple phrase or poem could open up a universe of healing, that’s a loss. Of course, Orwell is great, but perhaps dystopian novels are best for a later stage.
He has excellent memoir choices. They include Shackleton, Frankl, and Alistair Urquhart, a WWII POW survivor (now I’m going to pick the Forgotten Highlander up). This inspiration matters. I’ve often talked about the value of reading stories of courage and endurance. But I noticed something was missing: artists, mothers, fathers, healers, and stories of daily emotions.
In Part II, I’ll go deeper into the mind and soul side of healing that appear to be missing— ideas like Sarno’s work, play, self-compassion, loving-kindness, and letting go. I’m sure he has the body world covered, but I would suggest replacing more rigorous activity with things like fascia release, or trauma informed yoga, too.
If that sounds lame, I’m sorry, but that’s what it is.
For now, if I could leave a note for Chris in the Healingvrse, I’d say:
You will figure it out. You will get out of the Crash, into Build, and then eventually Expand. You might even get to the end before I do.
You are in the Healingvrse, and so the path goes forward every day, even when you feel you’re most stuck.
You will be better. And you will be better for it.
With much love from the Healingvrse,
Rebecca
P.S. if this is interesting for you, please take the intake and find your phase: healingvrse.com.