What does it mean to be healthy and what does wellness look like? We live in a time where we have so many choices about how to be healthy, from changing our diets to adjusting our exercise regimens to paying more attention to our mental health than ever before. While it’s great that we have so many options, it can also be intimidating! It’s hard to decide on one approach when there are so many others out there! This can make finding and staying on the right path challenging.

We considered this topic because it aligns with the Well Together Brand, but also since we’re celebrating Juneteenth and Pride this month, we though it would be fitting to apply the theme of liberation to wellness.

A few things come to mind when considering liberating wellness, including:

• Personalizing the Wellness Definition

• Representation in Wellness

• Diversity of Wellness Practices

Personalizing The Wellness Definition

Why do you think so many people struggle with wellness? Research reports that one reason is because as a society we lack a universal definition of wellness. Of course, as we’re discussing a liberating you might think we don’t need a universal definition, but it could serve as starting point for communities to begin/continue the conversation of wellness. Additionally, with this approach communities can encourage community members to create their own personal definition of wellness and bring all these definitions together to create a shared wellness definition to foster a clear strategy to guide the work to help people thrive and live well. Also, since wellness is such a broad topic, creating our personal wellness definition creates space for us to consider our unique wellness needs and create a wellness vision that aligns with who we are, our values, our beliefs, and aligns with the nourishment we need (mind, body, and spirit) to complete the divine mission that we were planted on this earth to fulfill. This is powerful because by developing our own personal wellness visions, this renews our mindsets, our authentic self, our belief in our agency over our own lives, and energizes the actions we take to enhance our experience of wellness.

Representation in Wellness

One of the reasons, I started Well Together is due to the lack of representation within the wellness industry, which was first highlighted by my personal experience and then by numerous overlapping experiences expressed by my clients. Oftentimes, this lack of representation is first noticed in society and media, but then also in schools, the workplace, the community, etc. For example, often times in the workplace I remember receiving numerous trainings about wellness and self-care, which I appreciated, however, many times I found myself unable to relate to the content and the facilitator and even sometimes questioning whether I was worthy of wellness.

Additionally, when considering the intersections of my identity as a black, woman, queer, and masculine presenting divine being, I especially found it hard to relate because I rarely saw individuals that looked like me, had a number of experiences where I felt like my experience wasn’t competently understood, and received inadequate resources that were not accessible and are were limited in substance to provide the holistic perspective of caring for myself.

Diversity Of Wellness Practices

Similarly to the previous section, in our efforts to magnify wellness it’s important that with magnify the whole person as well as the countless practices that we can engage in to restore our wellness foundations. This can be as simple (simple with practice) as being still, practicing mindful breathing, meditating, journaling, healing circles all the way to learning and applying practices of our ancestors. By exploring the diversity of wellness practices we learn that there is no right or wrong way to do wellness and we recognize that there are endless avenues that we can utilize to liberate our total being and enhance our well-being.

Concluding Thoughts

To end, I’m sure that we can all agree that wellness is a broad topic and looks different for everyone, therefore, this creates space for us, both the individual and the collective to continuously design our wellness visions that evolve as well evolve, cultivate spaces that are inclusive of all the diverse ways we show up, and open our minds and hearts to the diverse ways that we can enhance our well-being.

Well Together is dedicated to being the leaders in wellness space, to not only continue to liberate wellness, but also liberate the minds of the individual and the collective through our interactive, strength-based, culturally competent educational experiences.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about how we as a society, community, or even on a individual level can continue to liberate wellness.