Well-being - losing the unhealthy metaphors

By guest explorer: Mae Wright

A while back, I took six months out of paid work to focus on my well-being. Or, as I saw it then, to stop feeling rotten all the time.

Life had been overwhelming, family needs had been complex, work had been deflating, my house was cluttered and unclean, projects sat neglected. I had been unrelentingly busy and was exhausted. And my health, left on the back burner, gradually but inexorably boiled over. A not uncommon story.

I hoped my well-being might return with a complete rest. For some weeks, I did nothing but sitting around; I sat and I read. Just read. Luxurious. Then, for something completely different, I went on a snorkelling holiday. Amazing.

When I returned, I started on the mess of overdue tasks and chores and neglected projects nagging at me from every surface in my house. I wrote a long list and slowly started to tick things off. My house became more pleasant as the layers of clutter and dirt disappeared. Satisfying.

I wasn't pushing myself; I slept in, often staying in my PJs till midday. I covered the basics: diet, sleep and exercise. I got back into Pilates. I reconnected with friends. I relished wearing my comfortable draw-string white linen pants and loose t-shirts around the house, the image of well-being.

But nearly three months into my break, I felt edgy, maybe less exhausted, but definitely nothing I like my idea of 'well-being'. And I felt like a failure: I had the luxury of not having to work for a period without worrying about money, something that many could not, but I still just felt rotten.

It seemed I was just no good at 'balance'. Being 'in the now' had never happened. When I thought about my lack of zest, I felt anxious. And not once had I wanted to spring into the air on a beach with the sun as back-lighting. 

My being was far from well. I needed something else.

Despite being sceptical of self-help writing, I read books and websites that promoted well-being through self-care, mystical practices, detox retreats, various therapies, or exploring ideas about being 'fully' human. They promised a lot, but they mostly seemed like hype; and they were expensive. My years working in health services had fostered a strong scepticism about the health and questionable well-being industry. I figured I could end up paying a small fortune for little benefit. But I kept reading randomly, not quite ready to accept that this bloated genre didn't have anything much for me. Because I needed SOMETHING.

My regular diary writing had by this time morphed into a sort of well-being journal. Or maybe more a 'Where the hell has my well-being gone' journal. I wrote most days.

One day, reading back over earlier entries, I was struck by how frequently I criticised myself for not feeling better than I was. I was safe, physically well, had financial security for the medium term and connected to some lovely humans. I scolded myself about my lack of enthusiasm for life. I berated myself to just relax. Underneath it all, festered the guilt of my privilege at being able to take time off work yet still feel rotten. 

Was I just one of the many affluent, self-focused and strangely unwell Westerners?

This much was clear: I should not be stressed about anything. I should feel relaxed and good. But I didn't. Was my well-being lost forever or just very weak from lack of practice or was there part of me I wasn't looking after? I just didn't know.

The answer came in the final well-being book I read. In The Wellness Project, Phoebe Lapine, who has Hashimoto's disease, takes a year to review her diet, her cosmetics and cleaners, her tendency to eat poorly and drink excessively to socialise, the problems caused by her lack of organisation which she had always assumed was her natural state, her identity of being carefree and appearing young and cool. Having many years on Phoebe, I thought, 'Got all that; I've been through that learning'.

So, the book told me nothing new about how to foster well-being. But what struck me, when it was concentrated into a single year, was the way the author unpicked and unravelled much of what she had assumed were good ways to live. By discarding many ideas about what makes a rich and satisfying life, she restored her sense of well-being.

Might the same process of unpicking help me?

I started thinking about my ideas about well-being itself, and found myself looking at the images and metaphors I had for well-being.  

When I visualised me with 'well-being', I saw myself starting the day with yoga practice in my comfortable white linen pants, then making peaceful transitions from stillness to meaningful activity and back, calmly attending to my various tasks and other people throughout each day, not focusing on 'getting things done' but still being creative, productive and connected to others, and being fully in the moment, fully in each day, and finishing a satisfying day with meditation. Where did I get that image though? Was it my idea? Or did it come from magazines and social media? Did it come, perhaps, from the well-being industry? How much of it was based on what I really need and want and would enjoy?

I started questioning whether my white linen pants were actually essential to my well-being.

In my journal writing, I dug into my subconscious metaphors for well-being. What kind of thing was 'well-being'? What did it actually mean not to 'have' well-being? Was it a thing I've lost? Part of myself I've neglected? A positive state I had buried under too many other things I wanted to achieve? Was it an illness of my core being? Undeveloped muscles of mindfulness and relaxation? Lack of balance in meeting my different needs?

I eventually identified my well-being metaphor. It was a monster. 

My metaphors for achieving well-being included ticking off a check list of essential components of a good life, with time for each component shared according to a Venn diagram with the perfect amount of overlap, simultaneously balancing these components on a symbolic see-saw, resulting in a rich and nourishing life recipe with the right mix of ingredients and flavours (still on a see-saw clutching my Venn diagram!), which would generate a sense of peaceful flow, like water over rounded rocks. Well-being 'success' would result in unending calm with ample time sitting in my white linen pants and bare feet reading uplifting literature, preferably near the beach. 

When I realised all this, I laughed out loud... with relief. I had borrowed, patched and adopted an impossible conglomerate metaphor for well-being and then berated myself for not achieving it. I was metaphorically messing with my own well-being. When I wasn't in a peaceful 'flow state' - when something wasn't done on the 'life check list' by the end of the day, or I felt the 'emotions see-saw' was tilted, or it seemed my 'life recipe' had too much garlic - then I thought there was something wrong with me. But really there was something wrong with my metaphor.

Unknowingly, I had absorbed other people's images and metaphors for well-being. Someone else had declared that 'calm' and 'balance' and 'level' were good to achieve. Good for whom? Others had written books telling me which direction to take to achieve well-being. How could they possibly know what I needed?

The impediment to my well-being had been my idea of what it was.

Once I stopped trying to tick off a metaphorical well-being check list and ensuring I had the balance, overlap or recipe right, while staying in the moment, and above all, maintaining a sense of calm… well, I just felt a whole lot better.

I had not found or achieved or strengthened or nurtured my well-being. I had instead abandoned my idea of a state of balance which I would achieve once I worked out the right direction to head or mix of activities and practices to adopt. I stopped seeing well-being as a prescription from other people who knew way less about me than I did myself.

These days, I'm feeling pretty good and when I don't feel good, that's okay too. 

My white linen pants are no longer a symbol of anything at all. 

Images used under Creative Commons, CC BY SA

• Jumping: https://leadinglearner.me/2013/10/23/5minwellbeingplan-by-leadinglearner-and-teachertoolkit/
• Check list: https://www.salescoach.us/5-key-principles-of-successful-selling/
• Venn: https://ianluntecology.com/2014/04/06/urban-biodiversity-human-well-beingrban-well-being/
• See-saw: https://www.rcn.org.uk/news-and-events/blogs/six-weeks-notice-please-predictable-shift-patterns-are-key-to-wellbeing
• Soup: https://smritidisaac.com/2015/02/02/bone-broth-soup-with-the-works-how-to-flood-your-home-with-the-aroma-of-warmth-and-wellbeing/  
• Rocks: http://www.tomcorsonknowles.com/blog/tips-for-a-well-balanced-life/
• Beach: https://www.goodfreephotos.com/cache/people/man-sitting-on-the-beach-monochrome_800.jpg?cached=1552038495
• Sign: http://plantothrive.net.au/