Sick In A Sea of Wellness – how wellness culture is making us anything by well

It’s not your fault.

It’s not mine.

But it’s where we find ourselves.

Sicker than we’ve ever been.  Depression, chronic disease, anxiety.  All at an all-time high.  

In 2023, the American Psychological Association reported that 60% of Americans aged 35-44 suffer from a chronic illness and that 45% have received some mental health diagnosis, with women ranking among the highest population.  

That’s almost half of us walking around our world today who are physically or mentally sick.  And that’s just the tiny percentage who have been “diagnosed.”  

We are sicker, physically and mentally, as a society today than ever before.

And yet – we’re surrounded by “wellness” culture everywhere we look.

There are more self-help books than ever before, more online diet and exercise programs, and an endless scroll of wellness influencers and self-proclaimed “experts” available 24/7 at the slight touch of a finger.

Most often (but not always) served to us in a sea of whiteness, of privilege, and in monochromatic “aesthetics.”  A uniform, socially agreed upon picture of “wellness.”  A one-size-fits-all, right or wrong approach to how our bodies should look, what they need, and how best to care for them.

Which begs the question: Is this sea of “wellness” we find ourselves living in, all the programs, diets, and supplements, actually making us unwell?  

Is the world of “wellness”, actually making us sick?

From education & empowerment, to perfectionism & shame

There has always been a way things “should be” in American society.  A socially agreed-upon ideal of “success.”  An end goal we’ve all been told to chase to be successful, to be happy.  

College, marriage, two kids, and a mortgage. The American dream.

Then, you’ll be successful.  Then, you will have “made it”.  Then, you’ll be happy.

In the age of social media, “wellness”  has become the next thing on that list for women.  

Yes, you need to be smart and successful. Manage a career of your own, but also be a good wife and mother. Sit on the school board, limit your kids’ screen time, and make home-cooked meals. 

And while you’re at it, remember to manage your stress, get 8 hours of quality sleep, and eat 35 grams of protein each meal.  Oh, and don’t forget your nightly gratitude journal #blessed.   

Intentional or not, “wellness” went from something meant to educate and empower women to becoming instead another tool for women to perfect and shame themselves.

Another thing added to women’s already overflowing, unrealistic list of things to accomplish in 24 hours. Another way to judge herself. To feel less than. To feel lack, unworthiness, and shame.

An unattainable, always-moving target that will never be reached. By even the thinnest, youngest, most aesthetic influencer out there. 

At its very best, the world of “wellness” is setting women up for failure; at its worst, is slowly killing them. 

Subconsciously adding to this narrative.

In full transparency and accountability, I think I subconsciously added to this narrative for a long time.  Sharing beautifully, meticulously edited photos of my home, my meals, my life.  Glimmers of a false reality.  Of something I wasn’t.  Not realizing it at the time. 

For years, I’ve been working in the online “wellness” space, focusing on empowering women with tools to increase their self-awareness and mindfulness and live more connected to their true selves. My intentions have always been pure in this space: to genuinely help women feel more at ease and at peace in their days.  

But even for me, someone in this space, it’s obvious how even the well-intentioned “noise” out there is creating more confusion, self-doubt, judgment, and shame.

Not only do I see that message coming through with many of the women I work with, but I feel it firsthand in my own life, too.

Preparing to lead a meditation, only to be yelling at my four kids in the background moments before a call.  Feeling a need to always be “on”, to look a certain way, to present myself in a certain way was overwhelming.

The irony that I was teaching self-love and awareness while also feeling a sense of unworthiness myself would almost be funny if it wasn’t true.

Constantly feeling like a fraud.  A failure.  Like someone could peek behind the curtain at any time and realize the emperor had no clothes on.  Although I led meditation and helped women find more calm and peace in their lives – I, too, was still on that same quest.

None of us are immune to the inevitable comparison trap that happens while holding these devices in our hands.  The constant influx of messages telling us how we could be doing more, better, faster, more efficiently.  How our bodies could be smaller, our bank accounts bigger, our skin smoother, and our homes more “aesthetic.”  

What was meant to be a profile I created to help empower women, without realizing it, became a tool that disempowered me along the way.  

I had put myself in a cage with my online presence, one that presents as “wellness”, but not necessarily well.

I share this story now not to give context about myself but to highlight how even the most well-intended wellness “experts” struggle with some of the very things they preach. And that, although it might not be readily admitted (or even recognized), much of the “noise” in these spaces is overwhelming for even them as well. No one is immune. No one.

We ALL struggle to feel well physically and mentally. Even the self-proclaimed “experts”.

Swimming in dirty water

If a fish in a tank were sick from swimming in dirty water, you wouldn’t give it medicine; you would change the water.

For decades, we’ve been fed medicine without even realizing it. 

All the green juices, strength training plans, protein-packed and hormone-balancing diets and supplements; although well intended, are all just medicine, that will never make us well. 

What we need instead is to change the water.

We are not sick or broken.  There is nothing wrong with you or with me.  We’ve simply been swimming in the dirty water of our minds.  

Water that has been polluted by everything from the stress of working to meet daily demands, to social media and the false narratives of perfectionism that we’re constantly bombarded with, to the societal expectations of beauty that we’ve subconsciously agreed to and fed into.    

We’ve become so accustomed to swimming in this toxic sea that we’ve confused the problem. 

We’ve confused a problem out “there” with somehow believing it’s in “here.”    

A problem that has created more stress, confusion, and anxiety in our day-to-day lives. Leading to more self-diagnoses, more chronic inflammation, more anxiety, and more depression.

Leaving women feeling worse, physically and mentally, not better.

Not addressing the actual problem.

I’d like to believe that most (not all, but most) of the things presented to us in the wellness world started with good intentions. I believe that most people sharing their expertise or programs are sincerely trying to help. But what originally started as pure intentions has since been twisted and capitalized on.

The onslaught of information and messages women are being bombarded with daily creates an added layer to an already stressed system. Not taking things “off” women’s plates to help them feel well, but instead adding things on.

We know and unanimously agree that chronic stress creates inflammation and disease in the body. And while many of the messages being served to women are disguised under the veil of “wellness,” we know that it’s instead adding to women’s stress loads (not diminishing). And more chronic stress means more chronic inflammation and more disease.

The world of “wellness” today is not only not helping women feel well; it could be doing the opposite.

More importantly, though, what I don’t see the wellness world touching upon, and what seems to be glaringly missing to anyone watching, is ways to address the things that are keeping women in our society so unwell.

Although I am in no way an expert in this area, even from my vantage point, there are a handful of areas this space is choosing to ignore (either because they can’t be capitalized upon, aren’t Instagram friendly, or simply feel too big/too controversial to touch).

Including, but not limited to:

• The overwhelming burden of stress women in our society are carrying
• The lack of support given to women in homes, communities, and the workforce
• Outdated beauty norms
• The disassociation and disconnection women feel from their true selves due to all of the above.

Changing the water

While the “wild wild west of wellness” isn’t going anywhere, with a bit of awareness, perspective, and hopefully conversations like this, we can begin to slowly change the waters women are swimming in.

We can begin to have conversations about why we’re feeling so unwell and sincerely address our needs, as well as those of women as a whole.

The first step is realizing that neither you nor I are broken. That there is nothing “wrong” with us. We do not need to be fixed.

What we need instead is change; in our world, our homes, and our minds.

Unwell versus unsupported – unburdening women

One of the biggest roadblocks to women not feeling well is the glaring lack of support in our community, workforce, and homes.

Women today are expected to not only have careers and aspirations but also parent more than any other generation. Spending more time with their kids and in their homes than generations before, while also working outside the home.

And they are doing it all alone. Unsupported.

• We need more support for all women in our communities and workplaces and to practice being both givers and receivers of help. Reframing it from a sign of weakness to a sign of unity. It’s just what we do, what we ALL do.
• We need a better division of labor (physical and emotional) in our homes regardless of gender. While over the decades, women have been empowered and encouraged to change their roles and join the workforce outside of the homes, men have not been challenged enough to do the same within our homes. We preach that gone are the days of women holding down our homes – yet physically, we have not caught up with the times. It’s time we do so. Regardless of gender in a partnership, it is time that we have these conversations and challenge the way our homes are set up.
• As a society, we need to model more equanimity in caretaking that falls outside of stereotypical gender norms. We need to teach not just our girls but our boys the importance of homemaking, nurturing, and caretaking.

No woman can be healthy, happy, and well if she is overburdened at home. It’s just the law of physics. We must unburden women.

Challenge outdated beauty norms.

I hear a lot of conversation about changing beauty standards, redefining beauty, and yet I don’t see it reflected on social media, in ads, or in the products being sold.

We are still being told not to age, not to grow in size, not to be who we are. To cover our grey hair, to inject our wrinkles, to contort our bodies.

Not to make us “healthier”, but to make us more accepted. More liked. More pleasing.

In particular, fatphobia and ageism are still heavily present in our modern world, no matter how much we try to pretend it’s not. There is a certain look that is “acceptable” and a certain look that is not.

We owe it to ourselves, each other, and all women to begin challenging these norms. To call out filters when we see them being used on social media (we have nothing to hide; why are we filtering who we naturally are?), to not only stop denying our own aging but welcome it as the beautiful gift that it is, and to recognize where we carry our own biases about our images.

The goal – to cultivate an environment where a woman’s looks are the least interesting thing about her.

Call out the veil of perfectionism that women are expected to carry

Something so beautiful happens when a woman feels safe to let down her guard and share her struggles of holding it all together. How she feels less than perfect. It lowers the guards of every woman around her, and there is a uniform voice of “Me too.”

For centuries, women have been expected to be perfect—to do it all, do it well, and do it smiling.

And while we all KNOW there is no way to do it all, we still pretend we can.

We are not authentically showing up online, in our communities, and in the world, and we are doing each other a disservice.

We have forgotten that our power lies not in our ability to perfect but in our humanity. That is a woman’s superpower. The ability to connect. To unify. To see herself reflected each other.

We deny this to ourselves and each other by holding so tightly to the veil of perfectionism we’ve been told would make us worthy.

Our worthiness is in our humanity, not our perfectionism. We must find it again.

Reclaiming our internal wisdom.

For centuries, women knew how to feed, care, and nurture themselves. It was intuitive. There was no online program, no podcast or group coaching. She just knew.

She knew how to listen to her body and trust her intuition.

We are living so far from that now.

Instead, women have (through no fault of their own) handed their power over to every doctor, healer, expert, influencer, and coach. She is looking outside herself for answers instead of looking in.

We have lost the ability to not only trust our intuition and internal wisdom, but to even hear it.

But it is still there. Our inner wisdom and intuition is still there, speaking to us now. It just comes out as anxiety, a discord, a pull at our heart that something is “off.” Begging us to listen.

We need to continue to encourage each other to start looking inward for the answers we’re searching for. We need to filter the flood of noise out there and trust that we still know what’s best for our unique bodies.

It is time to remember that everything we’re searching for already exists within us. There is no answer “out there” that doesn’t already exist “in here.”

And finally, we must learn to BE with ourselves.

To slow down. To reconnect with our true selves again.

To cultivate not just mindfulness but awareness.

An awareness of self.

The Tibetan word for mediation roughly translates to “become familiar with”.

To become familiar with oneself. To know thyself.

Due to our current world and environment in which we find ourselves, most of us are living disconnected from our true selves.

We aren’t familiar with ourselves. We’re familiar with our racing minds, our anxieties, our worries, our stress, our suffering.

But we aren’t familiar with ourselves. We’ve lost our connection to our true self. And it’s creating a disconnect in our minds and bodies that I believe is at the heart of us living so unwell.

We can not heal a body and mind that is disconnected.

As uncomfortable as it may be, we must learn to BE with ourselves. Our whole selves. The parts we love and the parts we shame.

We must learn to once again know ourselves, before we can try to love and heal ourselves.

Although mindfulness is beginning to be discussed, it is not prioritized or practiced in American culture. In fact, it goes against everything we’ve been taught to “do” and “achieve.”

It is up to us now to recognize the resistance we’ll face in our modern world, one that tells us that productivity is more important than “being” with ourselves, and push back.

To notice our internal drive to “do” instead of “be” with compassionate curiosity and know that there is another way to live.

To model this in our homes, relationships, communities, and most importantly, foster this within ourselves.

We can do better

I am in no way suggesting that much of what is shared in the wellness space is not helpful. It very much is. Knowledge is power. Learning how to care for our bodies and minds is helpful, important, and needed.

AND

We need to have conversations about what’s missing in the wellness space and continue to challenge ourselves and each other.

The pendulum has swung too far, placing the blame and responsibility of wellness on the individual rather than on us as a collective.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are sicker as a society than ever before. I personally don’t know one person who feels “well” in all areas of their life and isn’t struggling in some way.

We need tools to address not only the acute issues at hand (with things like supplements and diets) but also the underlying current of our world—and truly ask ourselves why we’re all feeling so unwell.

So much of the burden of well-being has fallen on women. That somehow, they are the ones to blame. That they are lazy, not eating right, or jut don’t have ‘coping skills”.

We’ve been putting our heads in the sand for far too long.

And it’s time for a change.

I challenge all of us, myself included, to look inside ourselves, our homes, and our communities and ask each other, “What is it that you truly need to feel well? How can I help?” And then listen.

I believe that all of our hearts are in the right place. Mine. Yours. (and every wellness expert out there),

No one wants to feel unwell.

We are all worthy and deserving of feeling well and good in our bodies and our minds. It is our birthright.

It’s time we claim it.