The Post-Wellness Era

Whenever a note takes off and spreads like wildfire, I take it as a sign that a deeper conversation lies beneath the surface and must be excavated:

I wasn’t expecting it to take off.

When I posted it, I was kind of anticipating that it would just be a throwaway—that it wouldn’t resonate, a stream of consciousness too niche for anyone to identify with.

Boy, was I mistaken.

I don’t know what my actual most popular note is, but I’m certain it has to be this one at this point, and that’s incredibly telling of a truth that many are feeling but few are talking about: we’re tired of wellness.

Maybe I should rephrase: we want to be well, but we’re sick of the perfectionistic, commercialized wellness that profits off of us never feeling like we’re ever doing enough. Always a new problem to solve, always a new boogeyman to be afraid of, any skin condition, gut issue, sleep problem, or nervous system dysregulation, our fault for not trying hard enough (or shelling out enough money).

So today, I’d like to elaborate. To dig beneath the surface and explain what I mean when I say “post-wellness”.

And before I begin, I know I shouldn’t have to say this, but this is based on my own personal experience with making my way across the wellness spectrum. All I have is my perspective. It’s likely different than yours, and that doesn’t make yours (or mine) incorrect. That said, I think my experience reflects a version of what a lot of people go through to arrive at “post-wellness”. As always, take what resonates and leave the rest.

Wherever there’s a “post”, there must be a “pre”. The first stop on the wellness spectrum is what I’m calling pre-wellness: maybe you just started going to the gym, and you’re just starting to consider the fact that what you eat affects how you look and feel. At this point, a good portion of your diet is probably ultra-processed “health” food—if the package has “high protein”, “gluten-free”, “Keto”, or “sugar-free”, you’re buying it. You’re likely doing bro splits at the gym, maybe supplementing here and there, and macros are everything. You’re starting to peek behind the curtain of health and wellness, you’re dipping your toe in, but you’ve still got a lot to learn.

Then, you have peri-wellness: this is the person who is in it. The person in peri-wellness spends all of their time listening to podcasts and all of their money on supplements, cold plunges, biohacks, and gadgets. This person might have some underlying health condition they’re dealing with—acne, IBS, PCOS, autoimmune, and the like, and was probably gaslit by a doctor, causing them to take matters into their own hands. They’re avoiding seed oils like the plague, won’t burn a candle in their home, have an air purifier in every room, and use only non-toxic cleaning products. They’re probably thinking about moving to Austin, TX. Most of their conversations involve something to the effect of, “Did you know Bayer owns Monsanto? They literally make you sick so they can sell you the cure!”. For this person, wellness is all-consuming. It’s their entire personality, and they’re a little insufferable (no hate—I’ve been this person and she still comes out from time to time).

And finally, we arrive at post wellness:

You went through the peri-wellness stage, learned and did all the things, and came out on the other side.

The conclusion: a life of obsession and living in perpetual fear is not a life.

The stress of maintaining such a lifestyle kept you fighting an uphill battle as symptoms persisted or got worse, no matter what you did. The perfectionism and isolation, intolerable.

People in post-wellness, to reference the original note, know that smoking a joint, baking cookies, laughing with your friends into the night, looking at the stars, and gawking at the moon can be just as healthy, if not healthier, than making sure you get home in time so you can put on your blue light blocking glasses and start your bedtime routine.

They know there’s a time and place for everything. They still care about wellness, but it looks different now—they still exercise, still avoid fragrances, cook meals at home, and have a red light filter on their phone. They might still over do it on the supplements from time to time, and still fuck around with dry brushing, castor oil packs, and make their own electrolytes…

But these things no longer have them in a chokehold.

They know when to press pause and indulge without guilt. They know that when they feel perfectionism and stress start to take over, it’s time to loosen the grip and nab a croissant, and lay in the sun. They learned, the hard way, that there’s a fine line between habits and routines, and a self-imposed prison.

Post-wellness is akin to wellness burnout—the pressure to keep up with every trend and every conflicting study gave them whiplash. But it enabled them to step back and see that there’s nuance and context to everything.

The thing about getting to the post-wellness side of wellness is: You have to go through it. You can’t just arrive there. I mean, I’m sure you can, but that’s a different thing, and more power to ya. If I could help someone arrive here without the agony of going through it, I would consider that a great achievement. But to arrive at post-wellness, and to really enjoy it and let it sink in, you have to learn by experience.

The only way out is through.

You have to find yourself in the throes of obsession, let it take over your life, drain your bank account, steal your social life, and your sanity, only to come to realize that none of it “fixed” you. A child won’t really understand that a stove is hot unless they touch it. And a girlie won’t understand the perils of “wellness” until she finds herself isolated from the world in the name of “health”.

But the only way to come out the other side is by experimenting and learning what is actually contributing to your wellbeing, and what is just clout to show the internet wellness mob, look, I’m one of you.

Now to the “making friends” point of the post:

First, let me say, not every friend you make needs to be a lock-step, mirror image of you. In fact, they shouldn’t. But shared values and interests are at the basis of most relationships.

In post-wellness, connection reigns supreme. I know that our time together is far more healthful than literally anything I could leave to go do by myself. And for me, I want a friend who appreciates a farmers market meal, and a walk after for our digestion. Who understands the magic of being barefoot on the earth, without needing to have a conversation about it. To do the things, and use it as a conduit to free you up to talk about deeper things like the scale of time, to freak out over the size of the universe, to wonder how we got here and where we’re going.

To know each other more intimately, beyond, “can you believe they’re poisoning our food and water?!” Yes, I can. Anyway, what do you think about the multiverse theory? Where are your ancestors from? What do you think life was like for them?

What we want is to be nourished. Yes, literally, but socially, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually as well.

We biohacked ourselves into shiny, indiscernible robots with no personality, and now all we want to do is lie by the sea, eat a nectarine, and let the juice run down our hands. To have a conversation with the man who owns the restaurant around the corner and hear his life story. To drink wine, eat bread, and dance.

We dream of a simpler life. Less breadth, more depth.

For those in post-wellness, we don’t want tips, tricks, or “hacks”. We don’t want to buy more supplements, empty our savings on devices, or spend our livelong days bobbing and weaving around the next toxic thing that’s killing us. We’re tired of the revolving door of next greatest things.

We want to LIVE.

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