Stillness, Simplicity, and the Surprising Truth About Healing

By Dr. Jason Gonzales, Upper Cervical Chiropractor in Chico, CA

Every once in a while, it helps to step outside your regular routine and get quiet. That’s what I did recently on a three-day backpacking trip deep in the Tahoe National Forest.

No cell signal. No traffic. No headlines. Just the sound of the wind through the trees, the weight of a backpack, and enough stillness to notice what my body had been holding.

As I set up camp each evening, I felt a shift that’s hard to describe. It wasn’t just the relief of putting the pack down, it was something deeper. A kind of reset. A quiet reminder that my body knows how to exhale, if I give it the chance.

That trip gave me a clearer view of something I see every day in my chiropractic office here in Chico: most people are carrying too much. Not just physically, but emotionally and mentally too. Chronic symptoms like fatigue, anxiety, poor sleep, recurring migraines, and digestive issues often stem from a nervous system that never gets a break.

And in today’s world, that makes sense. We’re constantly bombarded with messages to do more, achieve more, accumulate more. But when you’re always in “go” mode, healing takes a backseat.

That’s what I’d like to offer you in this post, a chance to pause, reflect, and consider whether your current approach to health is actually helping you move forward, or just keeping you stuck in a loop.

I didn’t go out there looking for some big revelation, but what I came home with was this: most of us are carrying way too much. Physically, emotionally, mentally. And the things we think we “need” might actually just be weighing us down.

It’s funny how that shows up when you’re backpacking. Every single thing you bring, you carry. Food, water, shelter, gear. If it’s not essential, it’s just extra weight. But out here in the day-to-day world, we collect stuff constantly, subscriptions, obligations, expectations, purchases, like it doesn’t cost us anything. It does. Even if we’re not aware of it. There’s a mental load to all of it.

And that load can make it nearly impossible to heal.

In my practice, I work with women who are doing their best to hold everything together. Many of them are dealing with recurring migraines, anxiety, chronic digestive issues, poor sleep, or fatigue. They’ve tried the meds, the diets, the labs, the supplements. Most of the time, the answers they’re getting are surface-level. Just enough to mask the symptoms and keep going.

But going where?

If you’re spending your life managing symptoms instead of getting to the root of the issue, it’s no wonder you feel stuck. And if your body is in survival mode all the time, of course everything else feels hard.

You don’t have to disappear into the woods for three days. But you do need permission to unplug sometimes. You do deserve a break. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to stop performing.

Just because you have a lot on your plate doesn’t mean you have to carry it all without pause. Especially not alone.

Real healing is not about pushing harder. It’s about learning when to stop. Learning when to listen. Learning how to trust your body again.

And that kind of healing takes time.
Not forever, but more than a week.
Not 10-minute visits, but deeper support.
Not a new pill, but a new perspective.

That might mean choosing a different kind of care—someone who asks better questions, spends more time with you, and treats your whole body, not just the symptom of the month. It might take more effort at first. But it leads somewhere. Somewhere sustainable.

Out there in the woods, I let go of a few things.
The constant need to be “productive.”
The feeling that I should always be buying something new.
The internal pressure to keep up with everyone else.

That stuff falls away when you spend three days carrying your life on your back. When simplicity becomes survival, clarity follows. And I realized I’ve been craving more of that in my day-to-day life. Less clutter. Less noise. More presence.

If you live in Chico or nearby and you’ve been stuck in a cycle of trying to “get by” while dealing with unresolved health issues, I want to encourage you: don’t wait for things to fall apart. You don’t need a rock-bottom moment to justify taking your body seriously.

You just need to decide that you’re worth listening to.
That your symptoms aren’t random.
That you’re allowed to want more from your healthcare than just a refill and a rushed visit.

Because your body is wise. It’s been talking to you this whole time through those signals, fatigue, pain, disrupted sleep, anxiety, digestive issues—and asking you to do something different.

So do something different.

Put something down. Say no to something that drains you. Step back from something that no longer feels aligned. And then, take one real step toward healing—not managing, not coping, but actually healing.

You don’t have to have it all figured out.
You just have to start.

~ Dr. Jason Gonzales