It was an awesome sunny day on the beach. I didn’t have a care in the world, just enjoying the water and sand in my fav yellow swimsuit with sparkly thingies after a nice seaside lunch of tacos and margaritas. Life is good.
When we think of wellness, the most common impression is of willpower, struggle, restriction and enduring discomfort for the sake of health. Things like eating in “moderation”, doing detoxes and cleanses, not enjoying foods we love that have been labeled “bad” are what people think I promote when they find out that I’m a wellness coach. The number one request I get is for meal plans. I’m cracking myself up while I have a slice of chocolate cake with my chai for breakfast. No, no meal plans here.
When I do a search for wellness all I find is bone skinny white women eating salads and doing the latest fitness fad. I see a whole lot of arbitrary and externally imposed obligatory behaviors and rules, in pursuit of something. It’s very posed and Instagrammy, and I’m guessing, isn’t even joyful for most people. I am baffled by how if we removed the words wellness or health, why anybody would want to willingly pursue such a miserable existence! Just for social media likes? Or occasional praise about body esthetics? Or in avoidance of what we have been brainwashed to believe is the absolute worst possible fate on earth: being fat?
How is all this flavorless wellness activity supposed to make us super healthy when health can’t really exist in a life devoid of worldly delights?
LifeBliss Lisa
Maybe we should start asking if the people who live by the diet and wellness rules are actually healthier than everyone else. Do they catch fewer colds? Do they live any longer? Are they happier, or happy at all?
What is wellness?
Wellness is a deliberate set of individual choices, habits and actions that lead to The Good Life—a way of living that not only includes the absence of disease but also a state of mental, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual balance.
But the last thing that comes to mind when thinking about wellness is actually living the good life. Because mainstream wellness is not fun, relaxing, joyful or inclusive. It takes quite a bit of mind twisting to make mainstream wellness look like something we would actually want, but for the fear of what the opposite of wellness might look like. In other words, just like diet culture, fear is the motivation, not the good life.
I’m here to present a whole different view of wellness, that’s more authentic, and isn’t built on seeking something that is impossible or extremely difficult to attain or a way to feel superior to others because of the grueling drudgery and pure unhappiness of it.
What does wellness look like to black women, if it’s not just dieting and exercising for a skinny white girl body, but with added gorgeous brown skin and a big round booty?
LifeBliss Lisa
…And maybe some thick thighs? We can’t piecemeal construct a vision of wellness if the base is racist diet culture with a few tweaks here and there, without abandoning our rich cultures. Our cultures are the foundation we need to live the good life, full stop.
Black joy and mainstream wellness are contradictory.
LifeBliss Lisa
Wellness as a Path to the Good Life
The good life is a subjective concept. Generally, the good life is a life that is satisfying and fulfilling in most aspects. For some people, it means living in the lap of material luxury, being able to afford expensive clothing, housing, vehicles and experiences. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
But for the purposes of this post, the good life means living a life that is low stress and enjoyable with mind, body and spirit in alignment. It means not having to struggle and spend too much time fighting to attain some elusive thing or status. It’s a chill lifestyle, where health comes easily and there’s time and resources for meaningful and satisfying activities. It really means living your best life with what is available. The point is not a journey to an end, but to experience some of the good life every day. The good life is highly flexible, based on day-to-day circumstances.
The good life could include painting, gardening, hand dancing, teaching, daydreaming, cooking spaghetti or being able to touch your toes. You get to decide what the good life looks like–you get to define your wellness, based on where you are right now.
What would the good life feel like? While what it takes to live the good life actually differs, the feeling is often the same, overall peace, joy and contentedness. It is easy to forget what this might feel like if we have been struggling and stressing for years, or even decades. But no matter what the situation, the good life can begin at any time, there’s no need to wait for some “thing” to happen in the future.
What a day in the good life could look like
I encourage my coaching clients to create an ideal day in the life towards the beginning of our work together because it can help with clarity but is not really easy to do. I often find myself in working on this having to create some fictional set of circumstances from where to begin. Like a day in the good life after I start making a six figure salary.
The good life has to start right now, for the most part. I may not be thinking about how the good life looks on a Tuesday because Friday is better. But generally, we work with current circumstances. Or a general description could look like this:
Waking up every morning feeling good about yourself. Not being super concerned about the size of your body, and recognizing all the other wonderful things about yourself.
Having a nice breakfast of whatever you feel in the mood to eat and working or planning what you want to do for the rest of your day. Focusing on what you WANT to do, not what you think you SHOULD or have to do.
Being happy because you can do something that you’ve been putting off forever until you get to a certain weight. Feeling confident, so you just do it.
Meeting up with friends for lunch at any restaurant and ordering whatever you want and eating it until you feel satisfied and leaving the rest. Or eating it all, it doesn’t matter and not judging yourself about it.
Exercising regularly, but doing it to keep your heart healthy, your stress down and your mood and immune system up. Success is based on staying consistent with whatever it is, even if it’s moderate movement. Not weighing yourself to determine your success.
Having all the energy to do the things you want, but if you don’t, you rest.
Not thinking about food all day long and not feeling some kind of negative emotion about what you eat.
Having mental space to focus on other things than food and weight like hobbies, relationships, social causes, helping others, travel, etc. and nothing is holding you back from doing anything.
Much of the stress in life has fallen away, and I’m healthier because of it.
How to focus on wellness to experience the good life
- Clarity – most people never realized the choices they have and so never considered them. Now, there are no limits so you have to gain clarity on what you really want so you don’t go running in circles. WHAT DOES THE GOOD LIFE LOOK LIKE FOR YOU, ONCE YOU’VE LET GO OF THE MAINSTREAM? DETOX FROM DIET CULTURE WELLNESS THAT PLACES IMPORTANCE ON BODY WEIGHT AND SIZE.
- Intuitive eating/body neutrality – most women in the US suffer from stress and worry about food, eating and body weight is to the point that it affects everything else in their lives and manifests itself from literally everything, even issues that have nothing to do with food, eating or body weight. This is why food freedom is so incredibly important.
- Gratitude/Thankful appreciation sets the energy up for attraction.
- Manifestation Ritual/align spirit – regular manifestation practices that can be as simple as journaling or as involved as creating a spirit altar for meditation, depending on individual needs and preferences.
- Movement – our bodies are generally meant to move around. Movement (if possible) is required to maintain a healthy body. It relieves stress, lightens moods, helps with sleep, and keeps the body strong and flexible.
- Community and social connectedness – play a major role in mental and emotional health, as well as stress relief.
Wellness and the good life are what you make them. As black women it is way past time for us to define for ourselves what we want our lives to look like, without the false promises and cultural exclusion of the mainstream wellness industry. Reclaiming wellness for ourselves is imperative for creating the lives of joy and health that we deserve.
Ready to kick off your own wellness to the good life journey? You don’t need to struggle through a shit ton of research and do this, not that articles. I can be your guide. Book your intake session with me to get started today.
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I’m LifeBliss Lisa and I coach black women on how to create intentional, healthy, soft lifestyles.