Nurturing Conditions of Health
Our bodies, brains, and souls are navigating a lot. The recent immense increase in mental health challenges and chronic illnesses—autoimmune disease, cancer, heart disease, etc.—is in many ways a direct outcome of the cultural and environmental conditions in which we are embedded.
The state of our planet, devastating losses of biological and cultural diversity, the climate crisis, systemic cultural oppressions, institutionalized racism and white supremacy, global governance crises, increased toxins and environmental degradation, our industrialized food system, the down-sides of antibiotics, the impacts of viruses, the high stress and sedentary nature of many of our professions, contention within nutrition science—these are but a handful of the challenges we are facing. Each has impacts on our mental and physical health.
We are called in this time to embody the positive change we want to see in the world—to live the change from the inside out... to heal. When we're swimming in the consequences of global crises it can be hard to direct energy and attention toward our own care, much less discern which changes in our lives and lifestyles might achieve the impacts we need. Add onto this the 'fixing' mindset of many approaches to improving health, and systems and institutions that treat us like neglectful owners of malfunctioning machines. It's enough to make a person say "f*ck it!"—you know what? Yes! F*ck it all!
We do not need fixing! We are remarkable, conscious, self-aware beings, already whole, with ongoing potential for learning, growing, and healing. Our bodies are complex ecosystems unto themselves, comprised less of human cells than of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and protozoa—we could even be considered magnificent organisms of interspecies collaboration!
What we DO need are conditions that nourish health!... and we each have a role for nurturing such conditions for ourselves, one another, and our world.
Taking action in spite of—and because of—the challenges we are facing can be a source of motivation all its own. We have remarkable power and sovereignty in relationship with our health and overall well-being. While there are no true panaceas or miracle cures, understanding that our symptoms are providing information, and are not just problems to fix, changes everything. Listening to this information and developing one's own path of response can be profoundly uplifting, motivating, and energizing—not to mention contagious in the most positive of ways for others around us.
