Radical Wellbeing
Well-being is an act of revolution. Only you can define what ‘well-being’ means to you.
In a Capitalistic society that is designed to keep people sick and depleted, being healthy and well can feel elusive. Global health and wellness is a massive industry valued at $5.61 trillion and is projected to grow to $8.47 trillion by 2027 (Statista). Our entire Capitalistic society is engineered to drive the continuous consumption of products and services, all in service of the singular goal of increased GDP. We have a society and culture that only values and prioritizes GDP growth. Capitalism, as society’s founding philosophy, relies upon its people to work constantly in order to drive such growth. It also relies on the constant extraction of Earth’s resources, without the need to replenish and care for it. It does not care about the tools, it only cares about the outputs.
Our society’s “healthcare” system and wellness industry are also founded on a Capitalistic philosophy. We do not have a society or culture that is designed to value or prioritize the health and wellbeing of its people and planet. If our society was healthy, we wouldn’t need an $8.47 trillion dollar wellness industry. The industries exist, not to ensure the health and wellbeing of our people, but rather, to manage and minimize the symptoms of the sick. It is a sick care system, for when things have already broken down and no one seems to be able to understand any of its root causes or how to heal for the long-term. The industries churn out more products and services to the sick and the unwell, and in turn, keep them dependent in ongoing consumption. Think pharmaceuticals that suppress chronic symptoms, supplements, forever therapy and spiritual coaches. They are all band-aids that only serve to mask, suppress, or provide short-term comfort, but will never heal the root cause of disease and sickness. Enormous amounts of toxic pharmaceuticals are produced and consumed every year, with questionable disclaimers and side effects. People pump themselves with toxic skin products to try to fix old skin layers (which in the long-term is pointless because it’s dying), inject themselves with botox (which is a toxin that causes a life-threatening type of food poisoning called botulism), will undergo unnecessary surgery to enhance their physical appearance (which in the long-term scrambles the energy meridian lines in their bodies), or will consume artificial supplements and protein powders (filled with questionable pulverized ingredients and hundreds of unregulated toxins), all with the false illusion of health and wellbeing.
It is also important to consider the enormous amounts of money that is spent every year to market said products and services to the masses. Most money is spent on marketing, than the products themselves, in order to sell a false promise, a lie, an illusion of beauty, health, and wellbeing. Marketing is so prolific and majorly under-regulated, that people clamour to spend money on products filled with toxins, that are actually harmful to human health and wellbeing. The majority of products on the market are engineered for the cheapest ingredients, sold at the highest costs. The majority of food and produce available on the market are also engineered for the cheapest ingredients and production, selling food that is nutrition-less, and filled with artificial ingredients, toxins, growth hormones, antibiotics, etc for the body to process and clear out. In short, people spend an awful lot of money on waste that requires more energy from their body to filter out.
‘Wellness’ is a marketing term. It’s a term that is used in business to frame health and well-being as something that is obtained externally, and purchased and consumed through products and services. But in the end, wellness is a meaningless term because it represents an illusion of wellbeing. Wellness is the false promise, a marketing claim, of a product or service sold on the market. It is a sparkly band-aid that masks or covers up what is really going on below the surface.
Go to a spa, sign up for a week-long retreat, do a juice cleanse, buy some products to reverse the signs of aging. But all of these things do not change the fact that a body is under-rested, under-nourished, and over-loaded with waste. The basic care for human bodies is actually quite simple. Give it plenty of sleep and rest, clean air and oxygen, sunlight, a natural, peaceful and healthy environment and home, high quality food and nutrients, regular cleaning and waste removal, and a clean soul, heart, body and mind. The effort and energy required to ensure your health and well-being comes from you. All of the products and stuff is just noise and waste for the body to process and remove.
I say that well-being is an act of rebellion because actual well-being requires you to go rogue. As a human being living in this world, you have to exercise increasingly more discernment and inner strength to continuously educate yourself, connect with yourself, reinforce your boundaries, meet your own needs, experiment, and learn how to properly care for and nourish yourself in the way your mind, body and soul uniquely needs…despite all that is conventionally reinforced and offered in the market. Every single human being and soul is different in terms of the requirements of care. So forget all of the external garbage messaging, societal norms and expectations, marketing and media that do an incredibly good job of convincing people what wellness looks like. They have no clue. Their job is just to sell. It is why it is so incredibly important to learn how to connect with your true self or soul, to begin to understand your own requirements of care and from there you create and live the life of health and well-being that you need and deserve.