Why Wellness Matters To Me

When I get stumped and writer’s block is making it hard for me to write my monthly blog post, I go to a website to get some help. No it’s not chatgpt but a site called answerthepublic.com. I’ve been using this site for years to get the pulse on what people want to learn in the health and wellness sphere. What surprised me today was one of the most searched questions was why does wellness matter? I’ve been a massage therapist for 8 years, a yoga instructor for 5 years and a Reiki practitioner for 18 years. Wellness has been a part of my life since my young adulthood and I’ve made it my life’s work to help others find a higher standard of wellness in their own lives. Hell, I even put the world wellness in my business name! Why does it really matter to me though? This has never really been a question I thought the public needed answered because I made the incorrect assumption that it was obvious but not everyone’s life revolves around this subject and it got me thinking. Why does wellness matter so much to me? Why do I care so much about other people’s wellness? This is a very personal question we can ask ourselves to gain better understanding into why we do what we do, why we have certain habits and why we are motivated to live the way we do.

When I really started to think about it I realized that my deep interest and caring for this topic is rooted in my years as an activist. At 18, I began to engage in activism in the environmental and social justice spheres. I was part of different groups that helped the marginalized groups of my community in Charleston, South Carolina as well as focusing on climate change work which I saw at the time as essential to social justice work (you may be thinking duh right now but in 2005 many activists I worked with weren’t considering this connection).

I would spend many weeknights and weekends when I wasn’t in classes or working one of my three jobs, volunteering. I volunteered for the largest union in South Carolina, the International Longshoreman’s Association (predominantly black in Charleston), in their pilot program teaching English as a second language to immigrants. This program helped to heal racial tension between the black community and latin@ population until it was dismantled by ICE raids that left students too scared to return.

At 19, I helped run a grassroots community kitchen helping to feed homeless folks every Sunday, predominantly veterans who had been abandoned by the system and were living with little to no assistance for PTSD and other disorders due to war. I would gather donations, cook food and serve and distribute anything we could to make sure they were fed. I also helped organize markets where folks could come and get nice toys, clothes, bedding and other essentials for free. We charged zero dollars and ran it all from donations. During this time I went to my first Reiki Share and was able to scratch together the money to get my first training.

At 20, I helped start the Holy City Bike Co-op, a non-profit that worked toward helping folks get free bikes and learn how to fix them. We would have free classes on Sundays and give out free parts and once a month would offer our bicycle maintenance skills to fix bikes for free. This is when I was able to get my second Reiki training and began to see how energy work helped me continue to do activism work, which was hard work and could be draining.

At 21, I graduated early from college, moved to Europe and began learning how to farm organically, regeneratively through volunteering with World Wide Organization of Organic Farms. I learned a whole new type of living in Europe and how working with the land could be it’s own form of activism. At this time I really started making the connections between corporate greed, pollution and the intricate connection between capitalism, climate change and colonialism. I moved back to the US and became a teacher, hoping to teach children how to be kind to each other and the earth.

At 28 I was burned out as a teacher and decided to go back to farming and worked at caring for plants instead of people for a couple of years. This is when I got Lyme disease which ended up being a 6 year journey of chronic illness that led me to leave farming and go in to massage therapy and yoga. This was a pivotal time for me in my wellness journey and it has connected me deeply with those who experience chronic pain and illness.

The thread that ties all this work together is my desire to care for people and the planet. A deep well of empathy has moved me throughout my adult life to try to help others and find ways to ease suffering where and when I can. All the volunteer work I’ve done over the last 2 decades has been accomplished because of love, care, empathy, teamwork and a desire to see less suffering in the world. I couldn’t see it then, but these efforts built my foundation for the work I do now. It’s why, even with DEI initiatives shut down in the U.S. I will continue to offer a BIPOC fund and safe space for the LGTBQIA+ community. I truly believe that when one group suffers, it has a trickle down effect that ultimately hurts all humanity. As an energy worker I’ve experienced moments where I feel a deep sense of connectedness to all living things on this planet and I can’t help but notice that interconnectedness and how it directly affects us all. The mysteries of life, of the universe, are vast web and they work together in a kind of dance that is vital to the balance it takes to maintain homeostasis and life on earth.

I truly believe that by caring for ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbors and our wider community of people, plants and animals we can contribute to deep healing that is needed for everyone, not just in our country. Times are wild and unpredictable at this moment in the U.S. and around the world and while I continue to stay committed to my ideals from 20 years ago, I find that it can be difficult to mentally stay in a place of love and caring. This is why wellness matters so much to me. Without it I can’t take care of physical, mental and spiritual health. Without it, I can’t hope to pass that wellness on and try to help relieve suffering in this world. Without it, I truly believe this planet is a lot less lovely of a place to live. Wherever you stand politically, religiously, philosophically what I know to be true is that I want to keep caring for you, for me, for your family and loved ones because staying in a place of love and caring is how we stay connected and without connection, it’s hard to enact change that benefits us all. I sincerely wish you health and wellness during this time of change and don’t hesitate to reach out. There are ways I can support you in person as well as from a distance so never forget I’m here and want to help however I am able. I’ll just close with a favorite quote of mine from Dr. Jim Nicolai, “Where health is the destination, wellness is the journey.” Wellness is part of this journey of life and I’m grateful to be on the path with you.