Fractally Whole
I’ve been asked: “So, Heather—why health coaching?”
For many, this has looked like a divergence. “What is this about?”
For me, it’s an integration.
Now feels like an important moment to tie the threads together, as my deeper ‘why’ behind this is important—and relevant to every one of us alive today.
How does this relate to the name of this piece, Fractally Whole?
Read on to find out.
This is a longer piece—but I’m hoping to blow your mind to make it worth the read. Or, at least stretch it a little. Estimated Read Time: 6 minutes
Climate change is a context we’re all immersed in. Today, we understand that—and we understand that it is human-caused.
Not long ago, we didn't.
My first exposure to ‘global warming’ was at age 11, when most people still questioned its reality—and would continue to do so for another two decades.
Climate awareness has shaped my life—from my personal decision not to have children, to where and how I live, to what I’ve dedicated myself to professionally.
Climate awareness also brought that enduring knot-in-my-gut. That feeling of knowing something critical that others aren’t aware of… and don’t want to be aware of.
I think you know that knot-in-the-gut feeling, too, with what you’ve been called stand for in the world at different times throughout your life.
The way cycles of change feel is familiar to us now.
We live in a time when the pace of change outpaces our capacity to adapt.
Technological change is unfolding so quickly that—even if we don’t know the name of it—the feeling of the ‘diffusion of innovations’ cycle lives in our bones.
Are you an innovator, early adopter, early majority, late majority, or laggard?
While my identity aligns with being an innovator and early adopter, there are many things I am okay with being a late majority or laggard about.
Even the most encouraging of discoveries go through cycles of resistance, reluctant acceptance, and then possibly become an integrated part of our lives.
Considering that most change does carry both gifts and shadows, upsides and downsides—this ‘immunity to change’ makes a lot of sense.
Even unavoidable changes within our bodies, like puberty (and now, as I’m experiencing, perimenopause!), being ‘natural’ doesn’t make them easy.
Death, being natural, doesn’t make it easy.
And… when you know that many changes mean the very difference between unnecessary life and death—on grand scales—and others aren’t aware… or when they are aware, express resistance (!!!)… that knot-in-the-gut feeling can burn a hole that becomes mightily hard not to rage through!!!!!
Deep empathy. For all of us.
We’re navigating a lot in these times of polycrisis.
As I’m sure is true for you—many more waves of awareness have washed over and shaped me.
After climate change came more waves that have inspired and wrecked me—lifting me with the camaraderie of learning and growing with others, haunting me for not understanding more sooner, knotting-me-up with more things others don’t really want to be aware of.
Key waves that have shaped my professional arc, shared in chronological order as they’ve entered into my deep focus:
Sustainability: (now evolving to Regenerativity) practices and policies to support the long-term health of the planet, its ecosystems, and human societies.
Integral Theory: a comprehensive framework that integrates multiple perspectives and dimensions of human experience, supporting personal and collective development and transformation.
Constructive Developmental Theory: recognition of ongoing processes of our evolving capacities to construct more sophisticated ways of understanding ourselves and the world throughout our lifetimes.
Self-organizing Systems: understanding how people can accomplish things together, beyond ‘hierarchical’ vs. ‘flat’ organizational approaches.
Racism, White Supremacy, and Powerarchies: the devastating impact of entrenched systems of oppression that are driving destruction on all aspects of human well-being and the planet.
And now, the awareness that the ecological collapse and climate chaos we are experiencing in the world are also happening within our bodies—as is being expressed through our Chronic Illness Epidemic.
Every one of these waves of awareness brings tremendous gifts to all of our lives—greater understandings of why we’re struggling and suffering, and how we may grow and move through the challenges.
And yet, they are also resisted.
I’m sure you are in the midst of many other waves of awareness that you’ve been in an uphill battle of bringing to greater collective consciousness.
Thank you for your dedication—such work for change is not for the faint of heart.
The Chronic Illness Epidemic—it’s real.
Demonstrated through dramatic increases in what Dr. Peter Attia refers to in his book ‘Outlive’ as ‘the four horsemen’—the four major chronic diseases that are the leading causes of death and disability in modern society: heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and metabolic disease.
These are not just happening because we’re living longer.
While it’s tempting to list stats to ‘state the case’—like climate change: the data is in. You’ll see more writing from me about this in the future.
This current chronic health crisis is a collective outcome of systemic conditions—not a personal or moral failure.
Conversations about ‘health’ desperately need to shift from superficial conversations about ‘getting fit’ to conversations about genuine health, and what that even means.
Conversations about prevention need to shift from moralizing and shaming to addressing systemic drivers and connecting with the uplifting discoveries that are unfolding real-time.
An example being the publication last month of Dr. Casey Means’ book Good Energy—(which offers a paradigm shift to match all other paradigm shifts!)
My guts are in knots about this one, too. What is being learned to address this epidemic is inspiring, clear, revelatory—and actionable.
And yet, this too is a wave of awareness most people don’t really want to be aware of.
Understandably. We’re navigating a lot in these times of polycrisis.
And, in our times of ideological approaches to food, no one really wants anyone else messing with what they eat!—much less any other aspect of how we live our daily lives.
And, like climate change, individual actions aren’t even close to the full solution—these are systemic challenges that require systemic approaches.
Yet, caring well for four core modifiable lifestyle practices (which our doctors already advise us to do, but aren’t able to support us well in doing): eating healthfully, exercising, sleeping well, and caring for our stress—truly do make a dramatic difference.
Simple, but not easy. And unfortunately frequently applied with moralizing heaviness—with radically inadequate and inaccurate information.
There is a coherent and deeper shift that all of these waves of awareness are facets of.
All of these are facets of a coherent whole: The recognition—and remembrance—that we are sentient beings in a living world in an evolving universe.
NOT parts or things in a grand machine. Our global polycrises are symptoms of this one core, root driver.
Though this now seems shockingly obvious, this recognition—and remembrance—have been hard-won through the enduring efforts of many.
This BIG change is one we live into being—in deep integrity and compassion, from the inside out.
We are walking, living, breathing ecologies. Interconnected bio-psycho-social-contextual-spiritual beings.
Understanding and caring for ourselves as such matters. Profoundly.
We are not machines that are falling apart and breaking in a broken world who need to be punitively corrected-and-perfected back into order.
Many of us find ourselves overwhelmed, exhausted, burning out—our bodies inflamed and fatigued, our brains fogged, our hearts too literallybreaking—ironically, on behalf of the work of engaging our mindsets, cultures, and systems in facets of this deeper healing.
THAT breaks my heart.
And it just about broke me, too. This healing journey is a personally lived one.
Living this big change from the inside out—the healing and wholing of our world, does start with ourselves… all the way down to our cells.
This is what living ‘Fractally Whole’ is about:
Living in deep integrity with the core of who we are, caring for our well-being at this intimate scale, reflecting and impacting the well-being of the whole.
When we care for ourselves, we are caring for the world—and we are more resourced to be able to care for the world. When care for our own healing, we contribute to the healing of our world.
That, my friends, is why ‘health coaching’ has become such a vital part of my work. Not about “getting ripped” or falling under the spell of the wellness industry, but: how we genuinely care well for ourselves, on behalf of this healing of the whole.
