Episode 038: You're Already Perfect — Discovering Your Wholeness Through Eastern Medicine with De'Nicea Hilton Harper
I am so excited to share this conversation with you because De'Nicea completely shifted how I think about healing, wholeness, and what it means to be "perfect." Within five minutes of talking, I was ready to tell my husband I had a new love — that's how aligned we were on everything from neurodivergent business strategies to why Western medicine keeps us stuck in diagnosis identity.
De'Nicea Hilton Harper is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, holistic well-being consultant, and creator of The Perfect Playground — and she's about to blow your mind with her approach to health that honors your rhythms instead of forcing routines.
Why Eastern Medicine Changes Everything for Neurodivergent Women
Listen, here's what I love about Traditional Chinese Medicine — it doesn't box you into a diagnosis. You can't walk into a TCM practitioner's office and have them say "you have endometriosis" or "you have ADHD." Instead, they'll tell you there's a hiccup happening in this general vicinity of your body, and we're going to work on supporting that system.
This expansiveness toward healing is exactly what De'Nicea brings through Contemporary Oriental Medicine (COM). As she explains, "We're taking the ancient medicine and applying it here to today, now." COM recognizes that we're dealing with EMFs, microplastics, and environmental stressors that didn't exist thousands of years ago — so the medicine evolves with our reality.
When you identify with your problems — "I am someone who has PMDD" or "I am someone with anxiety" — you're going to keep seeing those problems everywhere. Eastern medicine flips this completely by focusing on the systems and patterns, not the labels.
The Truth About Being Perfect (Yes, Really)
Here's where De'Nicea completely rocked my world. She tells her clients, "You're perfect." And I know what you're thinking because I thought it too — what do you mean perfect? Nobody's perfect!
But here's the thing: the root meaning of "perfect" is whole and complete.
"When you say whole and when I say whole and complete," De'Nicea explains, "I think about this giraffe pattern. It's all of the giraffe pattern." Even the valleys and rivers are part of the wholeness. But when we don't believe we're whole, we start trying to fill those spaces with things that might not actually resonate with who we are at our core.
You know how we say "I need to get my shit together" or "I need to get myself together"? De'Nicea points out that we're literally speaking about coming to our wholeness — but we already ARE whole. It's just about reframing our relationship with ourselves.
This isn't just feel-good philosophy. When you truly understand that you're already whole, it becomes much harder for others to manipulate you by selling you on what you're "missing."
Filters, Not Boundaries (And Why This Matters)
I've always struggled with the concept of "setting boundaries" because it becomes another thing you have to constantly think about and enforce. Are they pushing this boundary? Do I need to reinforce it? We don't need another thing to worry about.
De'Nicea uses the term "filters" instead, and this subtle shift changes everything. "The boundaries are already there," she says. "It's the quality of it and whether or not we're actually implementing it."
Think about it like this — you already have filters. The question is: what's being allowed in, what's being allowed out, and where might we want to strengthen the quality of those filters?
Why Your Body Symptoms Are Actually Messengers
Here's what fascinated me about De'Nicea's approach: when someone comes to her talking about digestive issues, menstrual discomfort, or headaches, she's simultaneously seeing challenges in relationships — both with self and others.
"It's not just a headache," she explains. "We would have 12 different diagnoses for somebody who says it's a headache because we're getting into the nitty gritty details of where it's showing up, what's making it worse, what's making it better."
Each organ system has a mental, emotional, and spiritual role. Your body is trying to maintain harmony, and symptoms are information about how you're responding to your internal and external environment.
Instead of trying to eliminate symptoms, De'Nicea focuses on building your terrain — strengthening your capacity to navigate what's happening in your life.
Rhythms, Not Routines (Finally, Someone Gets It!)
You know how I'm always talking about working with your cycle instead of against it? De'Nicea takes this even deeper. There are multiple rhythms happening simultaneously — menstrual, lunar, digestive — and understanding these rhythms is key to sustainable well-being.
"People with ADHD don't have habits, they have streaks," I shared with her, and she completely got it. Plus, if I'm luteal, you're not getting the best of me — and that's just data, not something to shame myself about.
The problem is we've adopted this productivity culture where we expect the same output every single day. But that's not how bodies work, especially not neurodivergent bodies.
The Self-Abandonment Epidemic
We talked about something that absolutely gutted me: how women are socialized to abandon ourselves readily. By our 30s and 40s, we have no idea who we are because we've only identified as wife, mother, caregiver.
Here's the thing — ancient spiritual teachings about releasing ego and helping others were written from the male perspective. For men, the path to enlightenment often involves stepping back from self-centeredness. But women? We've been conditioned to abandon ourselves from day one.
The path for us is different. We need to reclaim ourselves, honor our wholeness, and stop outsourcing our worth.
Building Business Around Your Energy, Not Against It
As entrepreneurs, we often adopt the same productivity expectations we're trying to escape from corporate life. De'Nicea and I both learned this the hard way.
"I do very well when I'm on a call," she shares. "Let me just get on a call with you, tell me what's going on, and then I'm going to put this stuff together." She tried offering DM chats and messaging support because that's what everyone says you should do to scale, but it made her feel anxious and "on call."
So she shifted to what she calls "micro consulting" — intensive calls where you get in, get to the nitty gritty, get your next steps, and get out. No constant messaging, no being on edge waiting for notifications.
Just because someone says group coaching is how you scale doesn't mean it works for your energy. I'm the same way — we talk about intimate things that people won't share in groups. I'd rather offer early morning or late evening calls when my clients can focus without kids running around.
Getting to Know Your Terrain: Practical Steps
If you're ready to stop fighting your body and start working with it, De'Nicea suggests what she calls "dating yourself" — becoming BFFs with your body systems through observation, not judgment.
Start with one area for a week or two:
Menstrual/Lunar Rhythms: Track where you are in your cycle and how your energy, mood, and capacity shift. If you're not actively menstruating, follow the lunar cycle.
Digestive Patterns: Not just if you're having bowel movements, but really notice the details. Any cramping, cravings, how you feel before and after eating.
Sleep Patterns: When you naturally want to sleep, what affects your sleep quality, how you feel upon waking.
The goal isn't to change anything initially — just observe. You'll start seeing patterns of how your physical body responds to stress, relationships, work demands, and environmental factors.
"They're telling you things," De'Nicea says about symptoms. "If you have headaches, where are they? What makes them better? What makes them worse? When do they happen?"
Why Fun Must Be Now, Not Later
Here's something I cannot stress enough: if you're telling yourself you'll have fun when you hit $100K months, when you sell the company, when you achieve XYZ — your fun will never happen right now. It will always be with the next goalpost.
Fun isn't a reward for achieving goals. Fun is fuel for sustainable success.
De'Nicea's business, The Perfect Playground, is literally built around this concept — creating space for women to play their way to healing. Because joy and healing aren't mutually exclusive.
Where to Find De'Nicea
I'm so grateful De'Nicea is now in my world, and I know you're going to love connecting with her:
Website: www.theperfectplayground.com
Special Gift: Claim your $20 PlayDough credit at www.theperfectplayground.com/gift
Personal Website: www.yesiamperfect.com
Instagram & Threads: @itstheperfectplayground
If you want to stay connected with conversations like this that challenge conventional wisdom and honor your neurodivergent flow, make sure you're on my newsletter. The OGs get first access to all the good stuff I'm creating.
Remember: you're not broken, you're not too much, and you don't need fixing. You're already whole and perfect — it's just about remembering that truth and building your life around it.
