The Focus of Wellness
Wellness(-illness) shifts the focus to the context in which the content (the 'problem', i.e. the symptom, sickness or disease) is arising. As a result, wellness is available in health and/or disease and establishes the cellular and physiological environment (context) for our future body.
Each and every one of us is a 24/7 living, breathing broadcast station – and our cells are the listening audience. How strong is your signal? How clear is your signal? What is the quality of your signal? Do you know what affects your signal? What program is your channel broadcasting? As the next generation of cells comes to life, their structure aligns to this signal (your bioenergetic environment). The cells of the body are constantly renewed and, over the course of approximately two years, are completely replaced with a fresh generation of cells (with the exception of the nerve system). Health and disease take time to manifest; both are the result of sustained wellness or illness in our lives.
A brown leaf never turns green.
Focus on what will determine the future content, which is the context. Grow a new leaf.
This is the Core of Wellness
Today, our healthcare system, and many specific therapies, are focused on symptoms, dysfunction and disease. This is because they are reactive and respond to psycho-physiological processes late in the game, or already in crisis. Operating by diagnosis is only possible after disease has begun to manifest. A diagnosis of 'health' is vague and does not lend itself easily to a course of action. As it stands today, for us to engage and use our 'healthcare' system, there must already be a problem to work with. This is not healthcare; it is diseasecare. From the get-go, the goal is actually to have less of whatever 'problem' might exist, e.g. pain, symptoms, dysfunction, disease, etc. This approach is characteristic of many therapies, where it begins with the focus on what's ‘wrong’ (the existing content). Action (treatment) is only taken to stop some process from occurring in the body and if there is nothing to stop, remove, or fight (i.e. no existing content), there is nothing to do. Even 'preventative' medicine at it's best is still only early detection.
Are we to be satisfied with this as our only approach to creating vitality and longevity for ourselves and in our family?
Research1 into the meaning of wellness puts the power to heal and create a new body in the hands of the individual. Wellness provides everyone with access to something new, paving a pathway to creating sustainable change within our lives and in our own bodies. Regardless of what is happening, no matter what has happened before, wellness offers a powerful framework to shift our focus to what’s working and recruit new, intelligent resources in both health and disease. In fact, wellness and illness are seen on a continuum which is distinct from that of health and disease. So, while these concepts overlap, are associated, and exert influence on each other, being well (expressing wellness) is different than having health (optimal function). Similarly, having a disease (altered function) is different from being ill (expressing illness). Wellness/illness and health/disease are assessed differently, have different focuses, and offer different approaches to vitality and longevity.
The way in which we arrive at the conclusion “I am well” vs “I am ill” is very different than the way we are judged as healthy or diagnosed as diseased.
A judgment of health/disease is typically arrived at through allopathic, often medical, examination of a person’s body. Indeed, many diagnoses must be made by healthcare professionals and cannot be confirmed without the results of any number and combination of diagnostic and potentially invasive testing maneouvres. Contrarily, wellness/illness is perceived by the individual and is an overall self-assessment about where one is headed, how things are going, and if everything is going to be okay – regardless of the presence or absence of health and/or disease. It is the generalized perception of where things are at regarding our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. Wellness/illness speaks to the relationship we have with our body, our state of health and/or disease, and more generally, our current life circumstances. So while an individual’s state of health or disease may remain the domain of healthcare professionals, and to a larger extent the dominant culture, wellness can only be assessed - and created - by the individual, from within.
