What does it mean to be well?

First thought that comes to mind is my community. Is my community well? Are the needs of my community met? If yes, then I can be certain in my individual wellness also. 

Why?

Because an individual is nothing without context; our community is our context. Therefore, if my community is unwell, then so am I. As within so without.

Even if I have amassed the gargantuan amount of money and power it would require to be more or less detached from my community and thus no longer dependent upon its livelihood, I would still experience the downsides of an unwell community, certainly implicitly but also explicitly. 

Everything has consequences. No thing, no one, exists in a vacuum. If my community is sustaining damage, that will come to effect me, whether directly or indirectly. No amount of detachment can prevent that. 

My wellness definition is based on that of the concept coined by Thich Naht Hanh of “interbeing”. 

My intention is to move us toward understanding and embracing our interconnectedness, our collective state of “interbeing”. Any and all work I do in the wellness space will be in service to this goal. 

Wellness is: Emerging. converging. Re-emerging.over and over again.

It is wholeness, fullness, and completeness. And not in the way that a deadline is achieved; in the way you can allow yourself to sink into the soil that is your community, and know with unwavering certainty that you will be held, that it will not buckle under your weight, but lift you until you feel weightless. That you will be watered and pruned and warmed by their energy. 

Thriving and surviving within in a well-tended garden. THAT is well-being.