Coming together through Health and Wellness

During this challenging time, the topics of health and wellness have never been more important, but what do we mean, exactly, when we say “health” and “wellness”? How does our background inform our attitudes about these words? How does upbringing, culture, education, life experiences, and work environment affect the way we “practice” health and wellness, or affect our access to it? At a time of great diversity in thought and experiences, I wondered if there are certain themes in health and wellness that are universal across all of us.   Could these themes help us connect with each other? But we also know that one size doesn’t fit all – while the themes maybe common, are we communicating in a way that can connect us all or do we need specific language to bring different groups together?  My passion (and need) for bringing people together through health and wellness led me to meet a now friend, Kristin Williams, an amazing yoga teacher and physical therapist, who grew up in a very different environment than me – yet, she holds the same passion for health and wellness that I do.

We quickly saw how the topic of health and wellness could bring people together, but we needed to listen and understand different perspectives. We started conversations listening to each other. Because of our friendship and trust, we are able to challenge each other while still bringing a compassionate ear to one another’s different views. These conversations have been extremely healing in a time when it feels like a lot is out of our control. We hope to learn from you as well. This is the beginning of a series where we will use curiosity to discuss how health and wellness fit into your life and how, given our experience in evidence-based practices, we can help.  

We started the series with something we believe is a universal need in starting a health and wellness journey -- compassion....