notes

Well-being to me is a total acceptance and awareness of what’s going on in my emotional landscape. It’s a constant checking in on how I’m doing, and the openness to realize that well-being is personal and ever-changing, and what I needed for myself yesterday might be different than what I need tomorrow! Well-being is acceptance, peace, honesty, truth, recognition, and trust. —Orlando Villarraga, poet, musician, visual artist

I like to nurture my well-being by seeing my self-care as art. I create artwork, listen to music, go for a walk and notice nature in the most unlikely of places, make food that feels good, tastes good, and looks beautiful, drink a Matcha Latte in the sun, and surround myself with people who push me to be a better person while valuing me in my incomplete form, knowing we are all incomplete in some way. —Wednesdae Reim Ifrach, Owner, Educator, Supervisor, Consultant, & Reiki Master, Rainbow Recovery

Are there any emotions that you relate to more than others?   Are there any emotions that are unfamiliar to you or that you don’t experience often?   Pay attention to any bodily sensations or thoughts that come up as you explore the different emotions highlighted in this piece. What information might they be giving you?

For me, well-being is pretty directly tied to having a connection with my body and my senses. I find that the moments I feel most out-of-sorts, stressed, or overwhelmed are often the moments when I've “checked out” of my body. Reconnecting to an embodied, sensorial awareness grounds me in the present and often creates a sense of spaciousness where I'm able to be responsive, rather than reactive. —Zach Morris, Artistic Director, Third Rail Projects

To me, well-being considers the entirety of a person’s experience and the capacity someone has to be in the moment and support their body and mind to the best of their ability. Well-being isn’t the absence of mental or physical illness or a life free of heartache or challenges, but rather how someone approaches and sorts through their experiences and reactions.   Well-being is about having a sense of purpose, integrating experiences, holding onto hope, recognizing when you have choice, and being able to express yourself in a way where you feel seen and understood. And, importantly, well-being isn’t a solo experience, it’s also about relationships, connection, and community.  Well-being isn’t static. It fluctuates over time, even over the course of one day. It’s something we can sense, assess, and respond to. Self-awareness, compassion, and the ability to be attuned to others are all integral to the state of our well-being.   Self-expression, bringing balance into our lives, noticing what choices or opportunities we have, connecting to our culture or other things that help us feel a part of something bigger—all of these support a sense of well-being. The biggest strength of well-being is that each of us gets to decide it personally because no one else gets to decide what brings us a sense of balance, comfort, or fulfillment.