What is wellness?

In my book, “Your Wildest Dreams; A Parkinson’s Love Story,” I chronicle our journey seeking healing for my husband’s Parkinson’s Disease. The symptoms he lived with for seven of the 16 years he’s had the disease were severe and intolerable. Andy continues to live with Parkinson’s but we found our way to healing and living in wellness, not sickness.

To do this, we had to learn what wellness was. We discovered that wellness is when a person lives without an illness or disease defining their life and lifestyle. Wellness is absolutely a condition that can be manifested while still living with illness or disease.

For Andy and I, we discovered after all our adventures in natural and mainstream medical treatments, (yes we looked at them as adventures) his sense of self was intact and his worst symptoms were stabilized. At that time we were able to once again plan new adventures, work together, be creative and even, at times, have disagreements.

For us, this was wellness.

On the other side of the coin, it is quite possible to be healthy – as in not living with an illness or disease – and also not live in wellness, which requires lifestyle choices.

How many human beings choose daily to make choices that bring them anything but wellness. Too many to count. Why do we do this?

There are uncountable individual reasons but I see all those reasons falling into a couple of categories.

Displacement, disconnection and separation from source. When a person feels separated from their source of self and love, then unhealthy choices get made. Sometimes this leads to illness and disease or unhappiness and depression and once in a while it leads to new awareness, understanding and wellness.

It’s up to each person how it unfolds.

I’d like to know what wellness looks like for you?

Are you healthy and unwell? Do you have an illness or disease and yet live in wellness?

What is happening in your life?