Mary’s Wellness Manifesto

True wellness is having everything we need… not in an excessive way, but in an accessible way: Access to tools, resources, and support, that help us care for ourselves.

Wellness is the sum of our parts: physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual. If we just focus on one part of ourselves, we’ll ignore the other, and forget how to tend to that need.

Wellness is the totality of us within a community. If we focus on just ourselves, we’ll ignore our community, and forget how to tend to their needs.

Wellness is the relationship of our community to the environment. If we focus on just our community, we’ll ignore the environment, and forget how to tend to its needs.

Overlooking any of these runs risk of negatively impacting our wellbeing. Our health and wellness is the product of the interaction and interplay of complex forces: individual, social, political, economic, and environmental. When addressing “Wellness”, we have to consider all aspects of ourselves and our experience.

That’s a lot to think about! We don’t have all the answers, but we are committed to the practice of learning and asking questions, so we can find a way to create collective wellbeing.

The more we practice listening, the better we get at tending to whichever part needs extra attention or action at any given moment, individually and beyond. Checking in with ourselves: How am I feeling? Do I need to rest? Did I eat enough today? It’s a balancing act of tending to our own needs so we can also appreciate others’: How’s my family doing? Did my friend get that job? Do they need help with groceries? Does my coworker need a lift to work today? It’s raising our awareness about how we interact with our environment, and how it affects us in return: How do I feel when I spend time outside? Who’s organizing a community garden this season? How can I protect green spaces? What types of plants support pollinators? 

Wellness is all of this. It’s dynamic, expansive, and complicated. :) Our circumstances and definition of wellness will shift throughout our life. We might not ever find perfect balance, but we can make progress. Wherever we’re at, whatever our circumstances, we can aim to optimize our individual wellbeing, while looking to others for support, reinforcement, and collaboration to improve our collective wellbeing on a larger scale. Hopefully one day, we can ensure that *ALL* of us have access to the support and resources we need for meaningful self-care.

From food to self-fulfillment, wellness refers to everything beyond, and in between. Only you can determine what you need to prioritize today. But it’s not only on you to come up with the solution and support to follow through. 

We got you. We’ll do our best to share resources and suggestions that will enhance your tool kit for self-care and community-care.