Health does not equal holiness.

Pain does not preclude you from embodiment

Moral superiority is not an award for “wellness.” 

What Do I Mean: “Health Does Not Equal Holiness”

The whole premise for this statement, that health does not equal holiness, is situated in the bleeding edges of spirituality and wellness — along with who controls the prominent narrative in these spaces.

Now, this deeply depends on which spaces you occupy and exist in online, as algorithms can drastically skew what you see and who you see it from. I notice a difference across platforms, as well as which accounts and perspectives I’m shown as opposed to who friends and colleagues are shown, despite all of us existing in (and peripheral to) the health and wellness spaces online.

I want to encourage you to think deeply and ask:

• What does spirituality mean to me? 
• Who is leading the spiritual spaces I follow or am a part of?
• Is there a focus on purity, detoxifying, or eliminating entire groups of foods or products?
• Is their spirituality wrapped up in wellness? Is yours?
• Is there a mystical, unattainable, destination?
• Is there a focus on a chosen group of people?

Why? Because health and wellness is, more often than not, patriarchal, white supremacist, ableist, and fat phobic. 

“Health does not equal holiness” means that you don’t have to be perfectly detoxed, slim, neurotypical, or conform to some external standard of health to have a relationship with spirit, and to develop a spiritual relationship with your body. 

It’s Okay Not to Be “Healed”

I’ve been healing myself since I was 10, when I was first diagnosed with food allergies — this was followed by years of medical and alternative wellness practitioners, each with their own, new diagnosis and a new “cure” to “heal” me. All wrapped up in functional medicine, diet culture, body dysmorphia, and disordered eating.

Of course, none of it worked. I’m still not “healed.” And that’s okay.

Even in the last decade, I’ve added birth trauma and postpartum PTSD into the mix. I studied  Polyvagal theory under some of the best in the field and learned how trauma could also cause gut issues and things like brain fog. I had a new focus: heal the trauma, heal the gut, reclaim brain function.

I still wasn’t “healed.” Did I know myself better? Yes. Am I in a better place today for healing trauma, also yes. But, I wasn’t healed.

* If you gathered anything from this section, you can still be curious about yourself, learn, and embrace new methods, but it may not be the solution you’re looking for. It may solve a problem, but may not be your fast pass to being “healed.”

What Does it Mean to Be “Healed”

On that same note:

What does it mean to be healthy?

What are the markers you have to meet?

Is it in your best interest (mental, physical, and emotional) to pursue these benchmarks if you don’t have the same privileges, identities, and intersectionality as the people writing the label?

An important part of my contemplation over the past 28 years was learning that I’m neurodivergent. My neurodifferences came blaring even more strongly to the forefront as I healed my CPTSD and postpartum PTSD (while I was expecting them to go away!) This helped me to understand that healthy and healed looked very different in my body than in someone else’s.

Your divinity is not more or less than anyone else’s because of how detoxed you are. Nor will it be more or less because of what you eat.

Or how you feel. 

Or how your brain or body “works.”

Or how your body has interpreted and stored your lived experience.

Your body has been there for you; you’ve been in the metaphorical trenches together. I want you to have the opportunity to learn to love it and realize there’s no next level to attain, only the next conversation to be had.

I want you to know your body, not “heal” it.

When you know your body without judgment or expectation, you open windows, doors, and worlds that you never expected to find within yourself. You begin to feel your divinity, despite what society, culture, or even the wellness industry may have been pushing. You begin to feel what health and healthy means for you, and you give your body an opportunity to turn towards organicity, rather than an external standard of “healed.”

Building a Better Relationship With Your Body

I don’t want this post to demoralize you and the efforts you’ve made with your body so far. You’ve done an incredible job living with a body that may not measure up to an external standard of health within systems that aren’t made for you to thrive. And it’s incredibly complex when those systems get replicated within the spaces that promise to be different.

This isn’t the final blow. Let it be the opposite. Let it be freeing. Let this be the chance to create a relationship with YOU. 

Let it give you the freedom to learn your nervous system or your organ ecosystem. Let it turn you towards your bones and the connection of your Muscle Realm. Let your DNA turn your world upside down, and your Fluid Realm immerse you in the paradox of yourself. Allow yourself to be tender while you’re body is doing it’s thing and your energy is moving in the direction of wholeness.

I invite you to do this exercise:

Envision each of the markers, benchmarks, and measurements for health that you’ve been striving toward as a soap bubble floating in front of you. Just as fragile and just as elusive. Now take great joy and pleasure in popping each of them. As you do that, feel in your body what shifts. Breathe into those spaces.

Because knowing your body is holy, and the right relationship is sacred. You can get to know your bones more intimately through the Love, Your Bones email series. You’ll receive 10 days of daily emails from the (r)evolutionary, body-igniting, world-changing energy in your bones, and discover a part of you so solid and foundational that you won’t ever doubt their strength or ability to hold you.  Sign up here.