What Does It Mean To *Truly* Embody Wellness?

What does it feel like to embody wholeness? What does it mean to truly BE WELL? There isn’t exactly “one way.” Wellbeing is not about a formula, a protocol, a diet. There is no recipe to follow for becoming well and whole, completely embodied in your essence.

To truly be well, to feel whole, no aspect of who you are, as a spiritually embodied human being can be discounted or ignored. A true sense of wellness is an integrated relationship between every layer of your Being, so much that your entire essence realigns into its real and natural state of wholeness. The answer is quite simple, yet also, very full. Contrary to the allopathic approach, we cannot have a “something is wrong so I must fix it” mentality about wellness, but we must rather hold ourselves as a complete Being. The healing journey is a journey inward, it is individual, and it is about touching deeply into the “root cause” of all the external manifestations of disease, disharmony, discomfort.

SEE ALSO: 5 Steps To Conquer Depression Holistically

What does that Mean?

In Yogic Philosophy, we as humans are seen anatomically and physiologically to have 5 layers, or sheaths, that together embody us as a whole and complete human beings. We are seen as whole and complete as a physical body, an energetic body, a thinking mind, an emotional mind, and a pure spirit.

This lens paired with the scientific reality of us being direct extensions of our environments, show us that true healing is done on a cellular level, and on this cellular level, we are affected by every single thing we are ingesting. The truth is that when we are incarnated on this earth, we are already well and whole. Mental, emotional and physical programming and ailments begin in the womb and take place largely until age 14. This adolescent period is when we are learning about our environments and our relationship to our environments, to our selves, to those around us who act as mirrors of either safety or disharmony.

Where were you when you were 5? When you were 9? What are the earliest memories you have around your environment? What were the habits and the patterns you were learning? Were you often sick? Were you well? What was your personality like? Was it allowed? Were your needs met or did you feel often ignored, misunderstood or abandoned? These are questions we have to intimately ask ourselves if we are to get to the ROOT of total embodied wellness.

We are Multilayered Beings

We are made up of what we absorb. If stress was the norm, our bodies react accordingly. Fight or Flight mode becomes our norm. This becomes inscribed patterning in our brains. In Yoga, this is called Samskara. Samskara is the patterning and conditioned responses that we learn. It is these stories we have to learn to rewrite, beginning in the mind, in order for our beings to embody wellness, well-being, wholeness. All complimentary words. We simply cannot be well if we discount any aspect of our being-ness. Nothing can be ignored, as healing begins when we can start to realign, integrate and assimilate all of our fragmented parts. Symbiotically, the body and mind work together. In unison. In complete and total harmony.

Because nothing takes place within the mind that doesn’t affect the body & vice versa.

To Be Well Begins Slowly; It is a Transformative Process rather than a Quick Fix

Wellbeing is to be at ease; in absence of dis-ease; within every layer of your being. Your body-mind is a complete integration as neither is separate. In Yogic Psychology, KRAMA means step-by-step progression.

We aren’t meant to pull the rug up and toss all that we do into the garbage. It’s important to remember there is a small space for you in bringing in the new that will, in turn, create massive amounts of space for you to breathe a little more deeply, work a little more freely and rest a little more easily. You have time. You are allowed. You are capable. Your essence is rooted in love, not in fear. Remember this while you decide to get clear. It is the little, minute changes that pave the road for embodied wholeness. Embodiment is about knowing how to live in your body Well. It is about integration, realignment, assimilation. Embodiment is the opposite of dissociation or fragmentation.

When we begin to look in towards the “root cause” of our pain, listening deep into the heart space for answers is our best way to relate to self; to begin to notice how we’re feeling — rather than using mind chatter to continue to create our narrative. It’s dropping just one layer deeper. When we can get quiet with ourselves, we hear what we’re needing to hear. The information is always accessible, the truth is always present.

Take a Moment to Write and Reflect

Allow yourself to ask your self what about your current state is preventing you from embodying wholeness. Allow yourself to ask your self what about your world is unwell? In what ways do dis-ease manifest in the mind? In the body? Holding all that comes up with grace and compassion. Drawing yourself a roadmap home…

Do you feel safe in your home life? Do you have somewhere that you can be completely calm? What are your habits like? How do you handle “hard” emotions? Can you feel free and open to be exactly who you are? What is your job like? Do you feel capable? How do you spend your free time? What is your diet like? Do you have a spiritual practice? Do you feel worthy and acknowledged by people in your life? Do you honor your Self first by holding appropriate boundaries? Take out a pen and some paper — write down whatever comes to mind first. This is not meant to be thought out but let your body tell you — what feels tight when you read the above words? Where do you KNOW you are not feeling integrated or aligned in your life? Listen to and feel in towards what stands out as a potential component of dis-harmony in your being-ness.

These questions are not meant to overwhelm, but to really get you deep in self-questioning — what is it that I have control over? What do I simply just not have control over? Am I attaching to this, rather than to my reaction around it — which in fact is what can be altered? What is stagnant, what is dense, what is negative — in my inner or outer world — that is preventing me from embodying wellness? It is the body that remembers. The mind cannot be trusted. The mind will tell you that its forgotten, while the body will never lie. Forgive your insides for not forgetting, for keeping that imprint alive, so that it may be honored and let go of. So that you may feel well, whole, integrated and aligned. In every avenue of your life.

Once we can dig deep into self-inquiry, these muddled layers can drop away. We just simply have to hold space for ourselves, lovingly.

To Be Well

To Be Well is to be in alignment with your whole self as harmonious on physical, mental, emotional, energetic and spiritual levels. Your inner landscape sets the tone for your external reality. To Be Well is the active process of becoming aware of and making choices towards Wholeness. Wholeness is the complete union of ourselves; it is our natural state. Embodied Well and Whole, may we all live.

May we know our inherent worthiness in order to take the steps we have been avoiding to take that we deeply need.