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In This Issue: (5 minute read)
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What My Almost-Cold Sore Taught Me About Control
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I want to share a recent personal experience - an almost-cold sore - and what it revealed about control, agency, and emotion.
I’ve had cold sores for as long as I can remember. If you lined up my school photos from junior kindergarten onward, you’d see a recurring guest star: me, with a cold sore on my lip.
They’ve always been predictable—change of season, too much peanut butter, and, of course, stress.
Recently, after a particularly tense week, I felt that familiar tingling below my lower lip. Only this time, I hadn’t eaten peanuts, and the weather was mild. The only trigger left was my inner world.
Normally, I’d reach for a prescription ointment to stop it in its tracks. But this time, I didn’t have any, and I was desperate. So I turned to Louise Hay.
If you’re not familiar with her work, Louise Hay was a pioneer in mind-body healing and the author of You Can Heal Your Life, a groundbreaking book exploring how thoughts and emotions shape our physical health. She believed that by changing our inner dialogue, we could transform both our well-being and our lives.
Looking up “cold sores,” I found: “Too much going on at once - mental confusion or disorder.” It resonated. But what about it? I decided to go deeper.
What I discovered was that I’d been carrying disappointment and resentment - two emotions that quietly erode vitality. Disappointment when expectations go unmet; resentment when we feel wronged. Both root us in helplessness - the illusion that life happens to us rather than through us.
That hit hard. Did I want to live from that place? No.
So I shifted - from feeling like a victim of my circumstances to the creator of my life experience. From “why is this happening to me?” to “how can I meet my needs in a healthy way?” I counted my blessings, focused on what was working - and, no word of a lie, the cold sore never surfaced.
I share this not as medical advice, but as a reminder: the mind and body are inseparable. The body is a mirror of the mind, reflecting the thoughts and beliefs we most often entertain. Sometimes healing isn’t found in a cream or a pill, but in awareness, honesty, and choosing to see differently.
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Your Future Self Isn't Going To Save You
We all have a “future self” we like to believe in.
Future You will start eating better. Future You will finally get those labs done. Future You will go to bed earlier, move more, manage stress, and take supplements consistently.
But here’s the truth: Future You doesn’t exist. There’s only you, the you in the here and now, deciding what’s actually worth doing.
Most people don’t delay taking care of their health because they’re too busy or tired. They delay because admitting they’re not actually going to do it feels uncomfortable. It challenges the identity of being someone who “cares about their health” without following through.
So they keep reading, researching, waiting for the right time. But deferral is still a decision - it just costs you more energy, more symptoms, and more time. The longer you wait, the harder it gets. Momentum fades, physiology adapts to stress, and “later” becomes “never.”
Inspired by entrepreneur Justin Welsh, here’s your 5-Day Health Decision Rule:
- List what you’ve been deferring: the appointments, labs, habits, or changes you keep promising yourself.
- Ask yourself: “If I admit I’m not going to do this, what truth about myself do I not want to face?”
- Decide in the next 5 days:
• Do it now: book it, start it, schedule it.
• Or release it: admit you’re not doing it and stop pretending.
Your health isn’t waiting in the future. It’s built by the choices you make today.
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