Internal Wellness VS External Wellness

I have been sitting with this contemplation for many, many years.  

It has emerged slowly through my own lived experience of recovering from a severe eating disorder, divesting from diet culture, and learning how to trust myself and my body again. 

As a highly sensitive person, I notice patterns, emotional textures and subtle shifts. I experience strong somatic knowing, heightened sensitivity to incongruence (something feels off) and sensitivity to injustice.

Often, I notice things long before I fully understand them or can make meaning from them.

For many years, I did not trust these internal signals.

They showed up as irritation, visceral stirrings in my belly, obsession, or a persistent sense that something was not quite right.

Instead of listening, I spent many years numbing, controlling, avoiding or trying to to out-think them.

It has taken me many years to recognise that these internal signals are not inconveniences to override but valuable information that I need to pay attention to.

Writing helps me process much of what I notice and feel, usually over a period of time.

What I hope to offer through my writing is never meant to be rigid or black-and-white.

I understand and appreciate the nuance and complexity of being human.

I offer the following as an invitation - a framework to consider - perhaps as a way of exploring wellness beyond the surface-level messaging and many of the normalised cultural narratives we have inherited. 

This reflection has been a long time coming and I offer it with curiosity and care. 

For much of my life, I lived outside of myself.

I lived disconnected from a felt sense  of my body and what it was trying to communicate. I searched externally for answers - though diets, rules, control, achievement, perfectionism, wellness trends and endless attempts to manage myself into feeling better.

External wellness looked like management and self-surveillance.

Slowly - through recovery, yoga, nervous system work, self-reflection, making mistakes, unlearning, learning, growth and lived experience - I began building a sense of self-trust.

Below I have compiled a list of internal and external factored influencing wellness as I have personally come to understand them.

Of course, there is overlap between them and they are not truly separate, but rather two sides of the same coin. Sometimes we move between them and sometimes we live more heavily inside one than the other.

But I offer this as an invitation to explore and reflect upon.