When Healing Isn’t Profitable: The Cost of True Well-Being
Mental health resources may be free.
But healing? Rarely is.
As someone deeply committed to her people, I’ve had to face the painful truth-
The system was never built with us in mind.
Shareholders Before Safety
When medicine chases profit, it answers to shareholders—
Not to the people.
Not to the communities it claims to serve.
It was never built for trust, for connection, or for community.
And yet, true well-being requires all three—not as a trend or an afterthought, but as the foundation.
Healing Takes Time. Systems Don’t Make Room for That.
Somatic work is deeply relational.
It’s not just about fixing symptoms or regulating emotions.
It’s intimate, vulnerable work that invites us back into connection—
with our bodies, our pain, and the parts of ourselves that have been buried by shame, fear, and survival.
But the world we live in moves fast.
Too fast for this kind of depth.
And our medical systems—by design—mirror that speed.
They prioritize production over presence.
Profit over people.
Because if we slowed down long enough to really feel, to really see, to really remember who we are…
That would threaten the entire structure.
“Free” Isn’t the Same as Accessible
This is the contradiction we live inside of-
Mental health resources may be “free” or publicly available.
But the kind of healing that truly transforms lives?
It takes time.
It takes space.
It takes safety.
It takes community.
And those things are rarely available in the places that claim to support our wellness.
The Practitioner’s Dilemma
Even as a practitioner, sitting on the sidelines of these systems is painful.
I often see people after they’ve been chewed up and spat out by fast-moving, disconnected institutions.
And lately, I’ve been asking myself:
“How can we begin to weave somatic work into the rupture—closer to where harm happens—instead of waiting until the damage is done?”
What would it mean to go back into the field—
into the schools, the hospitals, the shelters, the systems—
and bring this work where disconnection is happening in real time?
The Edge I’m Standing On
If I’m honest, it’s easy to stay within the comfort of private practice.
To support individuals in deep, meaningful ways.
And yet… remain distanced from the very systems I long to see transformed.
Distanced from the people who may never be able to afford my services.
And the truth is-
So many are sick. So many are in pain.
This isn’t new—but it’s now the majority.
We are living at the fraying edges of capitalism.
And when a system starts to collapse, it gets louder, more chaotic, more consuming.
It has no boundaries.
This system lives in us—
A collective dysregulation that becomes personalized in each of our bodies.
And yet, we call it “self-healing.”
What Now?
Yes, healing one-on-one matters deeply.
It’s sacred work.
But so does being where the rupture is—on a larger scale.
And that’s the edge I find myself on right now.
These are the questions I’m sitting with:
How do we make healing more relational, more communal, more accessible?
What does it look like to disrupt systems not just with critique, but with care?
How can we meet people before the breakdown—not just after?
I don’t have all the answers yet. But I know this-
They don’t make space for what takes time.
For healing.
For safety.
For belonging.
Because they’re not built for purpose.
They’re built for production, productivity, and profit.
And so many of us are starting to remember that We Deserve More.
We always have.
