I’ve had chronic patterns of disharmony clunking around in my body for a few decades now. So yes, I indulge in the Wellness industrial complex, because, well, where else is there to go when doctors tell you there’s nothing wrong; that your stomach pain will somehow disappear when you switch to white bread; that your insomnia doesn’t exist; that chronic fatigue syndrome never goes away and all you can do is limit your life to manage your symptoms?

And actually, some things have done me some good – okay so the therapist who tested me for allergies by putting little glass tubes of homeopathic remedies on my belly not so much, and who knows if the supplements do harm or good or if you’re just swallowing expensive chalk…

But maybe the herbs have tamed my wild hormones (except for the months when they are still actually pretty extreme), and I’ve been receiving coaching specifically to help overcome chronic illness – which has worked in some measure in that I value myself more and am more committed to giving myself what I need, and I seem to be ill for shorter periods of time. However, the hard truth is that although I wouldn’t say that I’m actually sick, it’s very very hard to stay well. The symptoms are still here and I am constantly pulling myself back from the verge. I tread a very fine line. There are lots of things I can’t do that should just be routine parts of life. If I do them, I still pay a hefty price. And that brings up a lot of emotional stuff. And getting stuck in the emotional stuff just makes things worse.

So Wellness – how deep can it really go? And why can’t it make me fully well? Am I doing Wellness wrong? Am I just not taking enough supplements, not eating nutritious enough food, not meditating enough, not doing enough exercise, enough yoga, enough enemas, enough cold water therapy, enough appropriate activities to get my nervous system to believe I’m safe enough to not fire off all these horrible symptoms? 

A lot of chronic illness seems to come down to the nervous system encountering stressors beyond the limits of what the body-mind can endure, and so the unconscious nervous system resets itself to defaulting to firing off signals that activity isn’t safe, aka a plethora of horrible symptoms. So living your life fully becomes something unsafe. And then you get stuck in that loop because the mere prospect of doing something that may land you in the languid half world of chronic illness shit for who knows how long is enough for your nervous system to generate a fear response powerful enough to actually precipitate the symptoms. 

I do try to engage in all sorts of measures to signal to my frayed nervous system that I’m actually relatively safe – that is to say, safer than my nervous system is picking up on. Part of this is engaging in activities that lead me to feel fulfilled. But the fact is that even as a white person with some class privilege and citizenship papers, I find the world that we’re living in very very stressful. 

I’m about to speak about a belief I have, and I know it could very easily come across wrong. I’m not meaning to undermine anyone else’s health condition or say that the reason for being sick is that we’re not thinking happy enough thoughts or to allude to there being some easy route to wellness where we get to suddenly leap up and proclaim that we’re healed. 

It’s just that for me, from my own very personal experience, I very occasionally have these moments. It feels like my nervous system picks up on a kind of safety and belonging that I don’t usually sense, and I slip into some other state where my symptoms fade and I actually feel well…and then the moment itself fades and life seems to return to an onslaught of stressors and obstacles. 

And I know that human life is in large part an onslaught of stressors and obstacles, and there is and always has been sickness and distress beyond what I’ve ever experienced, but in those moments…it’s like things are actually genuinely different when you sense yourself as part of a dense social fabric and you have an understanding of your place in things and you truly believe that you matter rather than just trying to convince yourself that you do and you feel real purpose and meaning. Your whole body-mind is different in those conditions. 

I think. 

Or maybe I know. 

I don’t seem to be able to recreate those moments. They are something organic. They just happen and then they go. But I wonder how much of our sickness is precipitated by modernity leading us to be so broken and separated that the stressors and obstacles inherent to life are just too much for our poor nervous systems to bear. And that is something that the Wellness industry is never going to be able to compensate for.