I used to spend half my income at Erewhon

A two-part series on caring for myself outside of consumption culture

My first year in L.A., at the Silverlake farmers market. I had just opened my private practice. 2013. Photo x Anaïs & Dax

Part 1

When I lived in Los Angeles, I probably spent a third of my income at Erewhon. Some months it was closer to half.

If you haven't visited Erewhon, it’s an upscale health market with a major celebrity and cult following. If you had anything to do with the wellness scene in the early to mid 2010’s, Erewhon was the place to pick up the latest trend, liquid Ormus and the like, and network with others hustling to retain A-list celebrities in their practices or tap tech VC’s for their mindfulness startups.

In those days I was fixated on consuming supplements. I popped more than fit in one hand to get through a twelve hour day in a waitlisted breathwork practice. Living in L.A. taxed my body, energy, and psyche in every way possible. Those daily herbal tonics, superfoods, and high doses of minerals to boost my immune system and keep my cortisol in check became a necessity. 

If the income I spent at Erewhon kept me going, making a name for myself in the wellness space kept me high. There was palpable magic in the ways my practice evolved so rapidly, in the invitations I received to speak at bigger and bigger events, in the celebrities who started frequenting my practice. Yet underneath it all was a feeling I just couldn’t shake. 

Like every time I felt the thrill of success and stability, someone kept sliding another jenga piece from my carefully constructed tower. That someone had a voice, and their favorite thing to say was, Everything you’ve ever wanted is just over that canyon to the west. Just beyond your grasp. Unless…

So, you keep trying. You keep pushing. You keep popping the herbal pills. You keep drinking the mushroom lattes. You keep eating the salads. You keep going on the juice cleanses. You keep networking. You keep inching your way to a life that you know will answer all of your prayers.

If. You. Can. Just. Get. There.

And in some ways I did get there. I did make it.

Not to the multimillion dollar mid-century home in Malibu with a private chef and pilates teacher that everyone around me was trying to manifest, but to my own version of there. 

The version where I had a community of like-minded friends and finally left the unpopular, weird girl of my youth behind.

The version where I hit a six-figure income doing what I was most passionate about at the time, teaching breathwork.

The version where I spoke to hundreds of people at fancy conferences and got interviewed on popular podcasts.

The version where I sold my first book at auction and am still earning royalties from it.

The version where I shopped at Erewhon multiple times a week.

The thing is, what they don’t tell you about making it is that it’s not an end game. Once you have worked yourself to the bone for some adjacent version of the dream, you have to maintain it.

That’s when my life began to break down.

This is the part of the story where I frantically consumed in an effort to maintain my version of “making it.” Each day I felt more depleted than the last. It took more ashwagandha powder, buffalo bone broth, organic kale salads, and expensive sessions with my L.A. acupuncturist and somatic therapist to get through long days of client sessions and networking events.  

And on a deeper level, I was coming unmoored. My sense of purpose had become conflated with how much income I generated. My value was no longer intrinsic, it was dependent on how many clients I could see in my practice, how many likes my recent sponsorship post received on social media, and how much more I could increase my rates. My body became something to fix, a project to keep thin, a vessel for more consumption to keep up with the cycle of striving.

Then, I hit a wall.

Or as Chris Kresser, integrative medicine practitioner to the stars, called it: HPA axis-dysregulation. Aka: adrenal fatigue. Aka: burnout.

My body broke down. This looked like thinning hair, never ending exhaustion, irregular menstrual cycles, and chronic low back pain.

My anxiety increased. This looked like an inability to focus, sleepless nights, short term memory loss, disconnecting from friends, feeling on edge, and hypervigilance. 

I knew things were bad; I was not in denial. But in order to take care of myself, I had to take time off. It turns out, taking time off was the last thing I wanted to do. 

So I put it off. And kept going.

Then one night, it became clear to me that it was no longer an option to keep going. 

My partner Nic's beloved grandmother passed away and we were staying at a hotel to get all of her things in order and clean out her apartment. I got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. Probably all the nettle tea. The next morning Nic discovered a huge wet spot on the carpet just outside the bathroom door. Confused, we checked the sink and toilet for leaks. There were none. Then we noticed it had a smell. Apparently, I never made it to the toilet. My exhaustion was so deep and I was so delirious that I had peed—on the floor—without knowing it.

I was supposed to be showing up for Nic during this huge moment in his life but looking down at the floor, I realized I could barely take care of my own.

Something had to give.

This essay was written in two parts, here is part 2 on navigating burnout in a culture of consumption.