I was at a recent meeting called to discuss Ashcroft’s brand “Wellness awaits you” and how to take it to the next step.
The phrase is rather nebulous and has everyone asking “what does that mean?” which can be a good thing because it means people are thinking about it.
And as they think about it, hopefully they will discover for themselves what wellness means to them.
Even if they think it’s silly, they’re still thinking about it.
Wellness is the opposite of illness.
Yes, you can do just as much to keep yourself well as you can to make yourself ill. And being well is a great deal more fun.
The body is naturally in a state of ease. Illness creates a dis-ease. Holistic health practitioners work with the body to help it reach the state of ease once more.
And that’s the real short form of natural medicine, which has been around for as long as humankind has been around. And every so often the allopathic medical community (and its supporters) re-discover things that the holistic crowd has always knows - “Hey, whole wheat bread really is good for you!” or “Wow, the body fights off infection by itself if you leave it alone!”
Two weeks ago there was a news item making the rounds: “Urban stress changes brain, scans show”.
You see, until it’s been proven (again and again) by some professional, it’s not true.
Those of us who live in our small communities, and value our lives here, already know that city stress creates unhealthy changes in ourselves, because most of us came from the city at some point.
(The UN says that by 2015, 70 per cent of the world will be urbanized.)
Daily living in crowded, noisy and polluted cities cause a host of disease caused by stress and by an unhealthy environment.
As an extreme example, think of being in the middle of the Vancouver riot, and then think of being here.
Here is wellness.
Wendy Coomber is editor of The Ashcroft-Cache Creek Jpurnal