🔥 A DIAGNOSIS & A TURNING POINT
“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!”
I first encountered this poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay in my high school English class. Little did I know its wisdom would precisely capture my life decades later…
In late 2020, at the height of the world’s “Great Pause - I was officially diagnosed with a rare autoimmune skin condition. Like most autoimmune diseases, there is no complete cure. Mine specifically had no known proven treatment. And as with most autoimmune diseases, the risk of developing additional autoimmune diagnoses increased with each passing decade of life, if root causes were not addressed.
Amongst all the “Chaosmos” of 2020 - this was another jolt - but also a signal.
A divine transmission through the vessel of my body.
And I recognized it instantly - an unmistakable visible SOS from God.
My name “Deepa” means “light” in Sanskrit - a meaning I embodied without realizing how deeply it mirrored my life. For years, I had lived as if my light could never dim- burning my candle at both ends without realizing it.
☕Five cups of coffee a day since I was 15.
💤 Five hours of sleep a night on average since high school.
📚 Relentless grinding through college, medical school, residency, fellowship, & medical practice.
💌 Sustaining a 4 year long-distance relationship with my husband in different states early in our marriage.
👩🏽🦱 Navigating solo parenting during residency and fellowship in my “pseudo–single mom” era to our first two Littles.
⚠️Enduring 3 emergency C-sections, each with complications and extended recoveries.
🚨 Surviving a near-death experience on the operating table during the birth of my daughter.
⚕️ Learning to come into my own as a young physician early in practice, while raising our 3 young “Lightbeams” with nearest family living hours away in Chicago.
🏠 Holding down the homefront while Peter commuted 3 hours a day, once our family was finally living under one roof.
ENDLESS STRIVING. ENDLESS GIVING. ENDLESS PUSHING.
My body finally spoke the truth my soul already knew.
For nearly 3 decades I had been firing on all cylinders fueled by a combination of cortisol-adrenaline, my own sky-high standards, and a deeply ingrained mission to accomplish. I carried many roles, countless responsibilities, and even more expectations - from others, but mostly from myself. And like so many women in medicine, especially as a mother, I powered through every long call, every sleepless night, every impossible week with the same quiet mantra: just keep going.
Yes, I had accomplished much …. But at what cost?
Because the truth is simple - there is NO light from an extinguished flame.
Slowly, steadily, silently, I had been depleting myself … running on near empty.
My diagnosis was not random - it was the cumulative result of years of unrelenting stress and unchecked inflammation. Even as a physician, I had ignored the warning signs.
The diagnosis became the moment everything clicked. I could finally visibly see what was happening to me.
And something deeper ignited within me.
A spark. Then a tipping point. Leading to a shift.
🌌 CATALYST FOR DISCOVERY. A DIAGNOSIS BECAME A DOORWAY
At first, I did what most physicians do:
I researched. I dissected the science.
I dove deep into evidence-based medicine, mechanisms, triggers, and patterns.
And the more I learned, the clearer it became – What I was facing was bigger than any single diagnosis.
It was the result of societal overwhelm—our collective autoimmune state.
A society addicted to hustle and speed.
A culture that glorifies perfectionism and youth.
A generation living in chronic sympathetic overdrive with no true rest.
A world believing our worth is tied to productivity, scorecards, and accomplishments.
And then normalizing all of it, until it becomes our baseline.
Unrelenting stress → hormonal disruption → chronic inflammation → led inevitably to disease.
Not just mine - but all autoimmune disease, and in fact, most modern illness.
That realization cracked something open in me.
Opening a doorway disguised as disease.
🌿 THE BREAKTHROUGH, PARADIGM SHIFT, PIVOTING & COURSE CORRECTION.
Healing began the moment I understood it would not come from a prescription alone.
My paradigm shift was internal:
Consciousness that I Am the Medicine. That my healing was within.
So consciously I made a choice to rebuild: slowly, intentionally, consistently.
One micro-shift at a time.
I began reclaiming what I had long abandoned in the name of achievement:
First choosing to nourish better and correcting nutrient deficiencies.
Reintroducing some form of daily movement.
Creating margin in my days by honoring time boundaries.
Granting myself permission to breathe, pause, recalibrate.
Attempting to protect sleep as a sacred pillar.
Anchoring mornings with prayer & weaving it throughout my day.
Simultaneously I consulted experts and trusted colleagues in functional medicine who introduced me to restorative tools I had never considered for myself such as cryotherapy, infrared sauna, and halotherapy.
And something remarkable happened.
My body began to heal.
My skin cleared.
My brain fog lifted.
My energy returned.
My once diminishing “Inner Light” steadily burned brighter !!!
Not because of one chang - but the synergy of many.
A constellation of physical, emotional, mental, environmental, and spiritual alignment …creating a new way of being.
And this is where I journeyed from UNDERSTANDING to INNERSTANDING to finally OVERSTANDING.
🌱 OVERCOMING BARRIERS • COLLAPSING TIME • CREATING AND SUSTAINING AN ALIGNED ENERGETIC ECOSYSTEM
Even as a physician, blessed with so many resources, knowledge, and unwavering motivation, consistently carving out time and accessing wellness tools was incredibly difficult. I travelled to St. Louis & Chicago whenever I had the chance to seek these experiences.
And I kept thinking:
If this is hard for me… how much harder must it be for everyone else?
If these tools transformed my health – how can I make it easily accessible?
That question became a pull.
The pull became a vision.
The vision became a calling…
Eventually planting the seed for Salt & Light Wellness.
🌄 THE VISION: A SANCTUARY ROOTED IN NATURE, SCIENCE, AND SPIRIT
I envisioned a nature-based, science-backed, spiritually rooted, private space right here in Springfield … where resetting was not a luxury or a distant destination—but a local, immersive, restorative experience.
A space where the overwhelmed mother, the exhausted professional, the chronically ill, the injured student athlete could walk in depleted …and walk out feeling more whole.
A space to reset, tap into, and harness our medicine within.
A space that serves as both anchor and compass
—guiding each person back toward their full potential.
Salt & Light Wellness was created as a solution - a sanctuary designed for people just like me, just like you, just like all of us - who are trying to keep up with life while longing for a place to recalibrate.
Here, modern science meets ancient wisdom.
Here, your body remembers how to reset.
Here, you’re not rushing, striving, or performing …. you are returning to yourself.
This is not a spa.
This is not a trend.
This is a BECOMING . . .
To EVOLVE • To EXPAND • To ELEVATE
🌀 CIRCLING BACK TO OUR WHY
To circle back to our greater purpose & Our Why . . .
Salt & Light Wellness exists to create a sanctuary where you can replenish and give back from overflow, not depletion.
To preserve, strengthen, and amplify your essence….
🧂 To be Salt - grounded, essential, preserving what matters….
💡 To be Light - radiant, illuminating, igniting the path…
For YOURSELF….
For OTHERS…
For the WORLD !!!
My hope is that my story serves as a lighthouse.
In the words of Jon Acuff …
"The scars you share become lighthouses
for other people who are headed
to the same rocks you hit."
Salt & Light Wellness was not meant to be just about me ….
it is about Us as a Collective.
Truly it is my honor and joy that your path and mine intersect here.
I am certain Salt & Light Wellness will help CULTIVATE and REVEAL the Unique Light within each soul who walks through our doors.
✨ With Love & Light,
Deepa Ann Cyriac-Thirunelli, MD
Visionary & Co-Founder, Salt & Light Wellness