Alex Robshaw 
Wellness matters.
And I’m not saying that because I’m a yoga teacher or a holistic health practitioner.
I’m saying that because it’s 2021, and the concept of wellness still struggles to make its way to the forefront of people’s choices and lives.
Society is changing. Wellness is getting there, making its way through Ye Olde Ways of Thinking, but it’s still struggling to be taken seriously. People still mostly believe that money is the key to happiness. And though financial stability is very precious, it’s not all there is to life -and making money certainly isn’t the point of being alive.
I’m 35 years old, and in most places I’ve worked in my life, the last thing that was on these businesses’ minds was the wellness of their employees. I had awesome bosses in my life who did value their employee’s wellness above all, and I’m very grateful for that. But my experience is that there’s still way too many people, and businesses out there, that value profit before anything else. And though a company or small business may appear to be thriving on the outside, if the insiders aren’t happy, it’ll hurt the business in the long run.
Wellness matters.
Sometimes we think we need to keep ourselves in situations that hinder our wellness, because we believe there are more important things. We bite the bullet, and do the best we can to deal with it, until we’re done.
Sometimes, we’re done means we’ve received what we needed to receive from the situation, and can move on and resettle ourselves into our wellness, with much-needed replenishment.
Sometimes, we’re done means we reach a breaking point, and disregarding our wellness, or lack of, is no longer an option. And maybe it is that the situation removes itself from our lives, but more often than not, we have to choose to leave the situation. And that situation might be work or it might be people, or it might be a place, and sometimes, making that choice can be pretty hard, almost like a choice we don’t wanna make.
We wanna believe that things will be fine. We wanna believe that we can do this, we can get through this, we can overcome this. We can always take a bit more of whatever it is that’s outside ourselves that helps us to deal with how we feel inside, where no one can see but ourselves.
This lie we tell ourselves is this interesting, Ouroboros-like experience. We know right away that the situation goes against our wellness, and we may or may not brush off that fact. Then life happens, and the situation experiences itself through us, and eventually we realize we’ve gobbled down the serpent’s tail all the way to its neck, and there’s no more tail to chew on, and no one thinks gobbling down their own head will make anything better for anyone, anymore. That’s when the truth lights up, and that’s when we have to stop, get out, and say The End.
And sometimes we’re prepared, but most times we’re not.
If you’re like me, and you think you can do and deal with anything, and you keep pushing yourself well past your breaking point, it’s likely that situations will end in big explosions, lots of drama, and sometimes even trauma.
But the most important thing is that you get out.
That you allow the truth to be stronger than the lie. That you allow yourself to be happy.
That you allow your wellness to matter.
It may be a while before wellness is valued at the same level, by all people, in the entire world. Until then, we can act as individuals, choosing wellness for ourselves, reclaiming joy as our birthright.
What does it mean to be alive, if all we live is pain? What does it mean to live a human life, if joy is only experienced for about 3 weeks every year, when we’re on vacation, or when we only have fun when we’re drunk? Are you happy now, or do you need something outside of yourself to make you feel okay about being alive?
Wellness matters.
And as more of us make that choice every day, the experience of our lives here as humans on this Earth finds itself transformed, renewed, replenished, and ready to settle into the Change that is the Future.
