How to Be Perfectly Fine While Falling Apart

Chapter 5: The Research

The next morning, Nina opens the email from Sabrina. She finds some links - videos, articles, and a few PDFs from a doctor she’s never heard of before. She doesn’t have time to sit down and read everything. So she starts listening. While walking the dog. In the car. Sometimes even between meetings.

A calm female voice speaks about toxins in the environment - invisible influences that slowly collect in the body, confusing the systems that keep us alive and balanced. She talks about heavy metals, pesticides, mold, chemicals. And how these things can quietly build up, like dust in corners we never look at.

At first, Nina thinks it sounds a bit abstract. But the more she listens, the more she notices flashes of recognition - the headaches, the fatigue, the foggy focus, the skin that looks different lately. It’s as if someone is describing herlife.

A few days later, Nina sits on the couch in the evening, scrolling through an excerpt from the doctor’s book Sabrina sent her:

“I want you to think of your body as a city. The ideal city is developed and clean: Every aspect is maintained and in good order. There is little pollution in the environment and no trash scattered on the streets. The people are friendly and nice. Everyone in the city is safe. Now imagine what could happen to a city without the proper leadership in place and without a good mayor to govern it. Without a good, strong mayor for the city, bad things start to occur. Gangs begin infiltrating the most run-down areas of the city. Crime rates go up and the city systems are corrupted. As systems in the city start malfunctioning, overall performance declines."

She pauses. She has read hundreds of business and leadership books in her life - but none that made her stop like this. She reads the sentence again."Without a good mayor, the city starts to break down."

She’s always been good at managing - teams, negotiations, projects, people. But when was the last time she managedherself? She keeps her house clean, she eats well enough, she takes care of her family… but she never thought about cleaning herinside.

How much would her energy change if she took care of her body like she takes care of her work? How would it influence her focus, her resilience, her patience, her sleep, and also her relationships and work.

The next day, she calls Sabrina. They talk for an hour. Sabrina tells her about her own journey - the skin problems, the gut imbalance, the loss of focus - and how it wasn’t just the supplements that helped, but the awareness that she could influence how her body performs. She says she started changing small habits, one by one, and noticed she didn’t need to push so hard anymore - her body started cooperating.

Sabrina invites Nina to meet the doctor she told her about in a video call. Nina hesitates for a second, then says yes. Something in her feels ready.

That evening, she talks to her husband. She tells him about what she’s been learning - about toxins, the body as a city, and this strange new feeling that maybe she’s been managing her energy the wrong way. He listens quietly, nodding. They both think about her mother - recovering after surgery - and Nina mentions that she bought some of the products for her to try. “Maybe it can help her heal faster,” she says.

She doesn’t know if it will. But for the first time in a while, she feels like she’s not just reacting - she’s doing something.

Tomorrow: Nina meets the doctor