What even is Wellness?

Think about it. What is Wellness? You could hedge your bets on it being about emotions, and mental health, but I would challenge you then, what is the difference between wellness, wellbeing and mental health?

Our lack of [talked-about] knowledge on these topics is a stark display of our frankly ignorant approach to wellness. It isn’t that the research hasn’t been done. It has.  We simply do not circulate this information; we do not teach our children what wellness is, or the importance of it. We do not honour those who have practised wellness for generations, we ostracise them. We have become so far removed from wellness and the factors influencing it that even trying to educate yourself can become challenging since definitions for wellness are so varied and confused with other departments of emotional health.

So let us start again. What is Wellness?

Wellness is a wholly encompassing sense of being; emotionally, physically and spiritually.

It is a sense of knowing who you are, accepting that, and embodying it. It is the active process of aligning your physical, emotional, and spiritual “selves.” It is a lifelong component of health that is often overlooked.

Thanks to the progressive “mental health movements” we have rallied in recent years our knowledge of wellbeing is better understood. We now know that well-being is a general, longer period of good, or poor health; emotionally and or physically. It is understood now that someone who has poor mental well-being, is likely to feel sad, depressed, stressed, or demoralised, whereas a person with good mental well-being is likely to be experiencing feelings of elation, happiness, or peace.

Whilst these same emotions are identifiers for mental health, it is the longevity of experiencing a set of emotions that determines your level of well-being. For example, you can be having a bad mental health day, in the same way that you have bad physical health days, but overall, you are pretty content. Meaning, that whilst your current state of mind, AKA Mental Health, may be wobbly, you are not necessarily experiencing poor well-being. 

Think about it like a physical illness. If you have an upset stomach for a day, you are likely to call in sick. Although you may be feeling run-down, tired, and sick, your overall view of your life is positive; work is going well, you are not having any arguments at home, and you are living a well-balanced life between work and play. The same goes for mental health.

Perhaps you are having a sad day, but other than this little hiccup, you are quite happy. Well-being on the other hand, is a more permanent state of being. Poor physical wellbeing may manifest itself as a chronic illness that makes handling your day to day challenging. Poor emotional wellbeing may include finding yourself feeling really quite sad most days. You don’t want to go to work because you hate it, you are tired all the time, and multiple clashes are happening at home. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have good mental health days; you can still find things funny, have enjoyment in your day, and eat good food, but everything just feels like a challenge and slog to achieve it. 

That’s a nutshell explanation on the difference between wellbeing, and mental health.

Multiple factors can contribute to poor well-being or mental health, including imbalanced hormone levels, underlying diagnoses, or a lack of sleep. Yet, I would ponder on whether it is the lack of alignment of your spiritual, emotional and physical selves that is most profound in obstructing you from optimising your well-being. This is where Wellness comes into it.

Wellness incorporates the component of spiritual health to help determine how you are doing.

When I talk of spirituality, and the spiritual self, I am not talking about crystals, spiritual mediums, or spirits. I am talking about your sense of purpose.

Think about it. If you woke up every day at 4am, but you didn’t know why you were doing it or what purpose that served, you are likely to be miserable. However, if, for example, you wholeheartedly believe that your purpose is to criticise the abandonment of the arts, you may find the early morning light the best for your creative expression, and therefore you would find this time sacred. Your whole perspective on the early mornings would change to a more positive feeling; bolstering your overall wellness. However, if you are floating through life, not knowing what you are doing, or why you are doing it, it is understandable that you may feel lost, confused, and unsatisfied. Pair your lack of purpose with a lack of motivation and suddenly you are finding you’re not eating well, not looking after yourself, not sleeping – making you feel frustrated with yourself, angry, and potentially hopeless. At this point, your emotional, physical and spiritual selves are so far out of whack that it becomes unsurprising that a day or week of feeling like this can swiftly transcend into multiple months; going from poor mental health, to poor well-being. Looking at it like this, you can see the cycle forming:

Diagram on a cycle lacking Wellness

Underneath it all though is our wellness, or lack of.

Therefore, in following this thread, we can interpret that the rising stats for sick days taken in the corporate world may have to do with our lack of wellness. Think about it. If we all felt motivated for our day ahead, and therefore we were looking after ourselves, our world would thrive.

When I first started connecting these dots, I was outraged. This is such a simple concept, and it makes SO MUCH SENSE. So why has it taken me this long to figure it out?

Unfortunately, I am not the only one in this boat. I would hazard a guess that most of us haven’t consider this before, and I would go as far to say that you, like I, are now frustrated that something so simple is responsible for so much. To me anyway, it feels like I skipped the basic equations and jumped straight into trigonometry or algebra. But why?

My view is that there is a large lack of teaching about spirituality and its themes; directly resulting in a lack of wellness. We get taught in schools what eating undercooked chicken may result in, or what banging your head, hard, can cause. We learn basic first aid for sore arms or swollen ankles, and yet, when we make the comparison, how many times did you help someone who had hurt their ankle compared to someone upset, or angry? I am not saying first aid is useless – it is not! What I am saying is that for something that is so central to every one of us, we all are blind to it. The research is there though! So, is it that we don’t understand the content? I would disagree, as I am hoping that so far you are with me on this. So, if it isn’t that it’s too complicated, and we have already established its importance (so it can’t be that it is pointless), what is it stopping us from learning?

Personally, I would argue it is due to the colonialism, patriarchal, and capitalistic ideologies that underpin a large proportion of our world that this topic is so rarely addressed. Before you call me a raging feminist (which you wouldn’t be wrong about) just bear with me. Each of these ideologies rejects spirituality. It is laughed off as ‘hippie tea’ and ‘star signs.’ Stereotypes dictate that it is for privileged white girls that use it to justify their behaviours or to break up with their boyfriends who ‘aren’t compatible.’ Don’t get me wrong, I do also fall into this stereotype (you can’t blame me – he was an Aries!), however, when you look at the history of spirituality, the stars, and the unconscious, who researched it and advocated for it the most? You guessed it. Men.

It is funny to me that at the point women started becoming empowered by these exact same concepts, they were labelled as witches and then burned. Fortunately, burning at the stake is now illegal, and frankly being called a witch is a compliment. So instead, we get labelled as crazy, or get told it is all ‘bullshit.’ However, indigenous and uncontactable tribes still have immense connections to spirituality, resulting in community, and purpose. Though the research is mixed, tribes have shown to have an improved quality of life against their westernised counterparts. I do not find it coincidental that despite being categorised as one of the most ‘at risks’ group by the World Health Organisation, a group who prioritises wellness has a significantly different quality of life.

Yes, it can be argued that they may not have the same day to day stress. Yet it can be argued just as well that the stresses they do have are detrimental to them. Sickness could bring a whole community to its knees. No food would deplete their numbers, resulting in less protection. Bad weather? Their homes get utterly destroyed. Yet these same things can be just as detrimental to us. The storms that have littered the world, the fires, and the winds that have torn families apart. We can go back and forth on who has it better or worse, and as I mentioned, the research is mixed, but what is definitive is the role spirituality and wellness have on their way of life.

When we compare that against what is going on in western countries, we see there are ample examples where a sense of purpose, and wellness, has empowered group of people – motivating them forwards and improving their quality of life.

The Covid-19 ‘Wall Flowers’ based in London. Each of them have their own life, and family. Yet they have a collective purpose. They are on this planet to be heard and seen. Respected and remembered.

The Just Stop Oil Protesters believe it is their purpose to reverse the effects of climate change and fight for the worlds future.

Teachers. Their passion is on educating the next generation. Their purpose is to help children the way they wish they had when they were a child.

Actors and individuals in the arts believe their purpose is to bring enjoyment, and laughter, or a platform to criticises, educate, and reflect on society, in the same ways historians may find their purpose is learning from the past to ensure we do not make the same mistakes.

A person’s wellness is singularly influenced by them. No one can change that. So maybe I am wrong, and historians are going to start writing to me about how their purpose is actually to do with uncovering the truth, or to preserve historical relics.

My response: you still have a sense purpose though. That in itself is wellness.

Cocky I may be, but I am confident in what I saying.

I could go on. Perhaps a different day I would. For now, though, I will leave you with my closing argument:

In accepting spirituality and wellness, you provide a foundation for improved mental health, wellbeing and life-satisfaction as you will navigate your life with more intention, motivation and purpose.

Wellness and Spirituality does not necessarily mean hippie tea, reading the stars, and crystals. However, does it really matter what makes you happy if it is harming no one else? To me, spirituality is what you need to do to satisfy your soul.

I believe it is my purpose in life to be kind and to help people. When I act against that, I feel physically uneasy. It clashes against my purpose and my values. So, I move through my day with intentional steps; motivated by what I hope to achieve in my future. To help reach that dream, I work today. And tomorrow. And the day after. As I know that the path I am on is the right one. There is something so right about what I am doing. There is an alignment between all three selves. If I am honest, it is exciting.

Do I drink hippie tea and look to the stars for signs? No comment. However, if I did, and I believed it was something that brought my physical, emotional and spiritual selves together, for a more harmonious way of living, could you really criticise me?

Like I said, if something helps you, why not do it?

Bringing your spiritual self into the spotlight, and understanding what you feel your soul needs may help you. Call it listening to your soul, listening to your body, whatever you want to call it, but if you felt tired, you would know your body needs sleep – we have been taught this. So, consider this one last thing: if you feel unmotivated in life and like you are going nowhere, maybe it is because some part of you isn’t fulfilled. That my friend, is your spiritual self begging you to discover your purpose. You owe it only to yourself to try.

There are many avenues that this piece could take. We can explore colonialism, or delve deeper into the characteristics of spirituality. Frankly though, I just hope this has given some insight and education into wellness. It is a starting point.

From here, we can go anywhere. As long as we go there with purpose.