You Might Be Healthy But Are You Well?

There is a big difference between health and wellness.

What comes to mind when you hear the word health?

Is it being able to put your body through intense physical exercise? Or following strict diets of low calorie or only plants? Or maybe it’s loading the body with multiple supplements?

But what about how you “feel” despite what you are doing that might “look” like you are engaging in healthy behaviours?

According to the World Health Organisation (2021), “Health is a state where the physical body is free from disease”.

So you could technically BE healthy…

But potentially not well.

Often the main focus of health is on the PHYSICAL aspect.

But there are so many other important aspects to consider (social, psychological, spiritual, financial)

We need to learn to LISTEN to our body and not just DO “things” to our body.

Why is this important?

Your body is your home.

We have lost touch with coming home.

Always rushing from one thing to the next.

Not really stopping to take the time to be still and notice what is really going on.

Have you ever been in a home that was under constant renovation? You can’t really get comfortable. You can’t really figure out what you want to do with that table or that bookcase. And in the end it just goes anywhere.

Anywhere will do – at least for now.

When it becomes a problem, maybe then you will move it.

It’s okay (healthy) but not really (well).

What’s the purpose of wellness?

Is it just to look good? Or is it to make you feel good? Or maybe it’s to be able to enjoy the things you like doing?

Our culture is not conducive to wellness.

Our culture suggests that we should be dieting - we are a more “worthy” person if we look a certain way. How we look suggests what kind of life we “must” be living.

Our culture suggests that we should be hustling - we should be doing more, in less time. It’s seen as a failure to quit. We should be “busy” and wear busi-ness like a badge.

What we see and hear all the time influences our thinking.

We begin to believe what we see and hear. And we begin to believe that we must follow these instructions in order to meet the expectation – and the validation.

We are told what exercise we should be doing, what food we should be eating, what we should look like, who we should hang around, how we should be living our lives.

All of this leads to us not trusting ourselves.

We have forgotten how to listen to our bodies.

But we can learn how to again.

Do you want to feel like you are under constant renovation, constantly trying to fix things OR do you want to feel like you are flowing through life with ease, listening to your body to feel good rather than trying to fit into a certain image – of someone else’s idea.

When we think about health, can we be more compassionate to ourselves, and to others, and consider life through a holistic lens, with many moving parts?

There are many aspects to life, not just the physical, and we need to consider all of these.

Your body is your friend, treat it with kindness.

After all, you want to be well and not just healthy.