Going Inward: How seeking out your own definition of wellness plays a key role in establishing a sustainable writing practice by Carlie Blume
Wellness. We see it splashed all over social media, billboards, television advertisements. We are all familiar with it—especially these days; that loaded word we seem to be met with at every corner of our existence. But what is the true definition of wellness?
It’s really hard to know—if you asked a room full of people you could make the safe assumption that every single person would have a different definition based on the variety of ways that we as a society absorb the term in our daily lives.
This likely has to do with the fact that currently the global wellness market is estimated at 1.5 trillion dollars, with a variety of other industries making the decision to cross pollinate and get their hands on a piece of this booming industry. Which in turn means that a variety of industries that might not ever have considered wellness to be part of their repertoire are now using it, commodifying it and at times even weaponizing it against us, all in an effort to convince us we are lacking in some fundamental way.
And like the hungry ouroboros it is, the over commodification of this industry is the very thing that sparks our general feelings of “not enoughness” which in turn drives us to consume and seek even more. And so it goes.
But the truth is, a lot of us are in fact lacking something right now.
Currently, we are living through a time that has seen a variety of social, health and environmental global crises intersecting in a way we have never experienced before as human beings. And as a result, we are emotionally and physically burnt out. This could be said even more so for our chronically underpaid, overworked sectors—specifically, writing and publishing.
I remember how hard stress hit my body and spirit when I had finished my first collection of poetry, a book that centered heavily around broken family dynamics and childhood trauma. The world was also just starting to experience the beginning stages of the coronavirus pandemic and my body felt like it was shutting down on me.
Any time I managed to peel myself from the frenetic glow of my newsfeed and attempt to write, I was met with a barrage of symptoms that included body pain, tight throat and a brain fog so soupy that not even the brightest proverbial lighthouse could pierce through.
Now, almost two years later I finally see why I kept slipping off track.
Aside from having the time to appropriately process the collective trauma we were all living, I had failed to properly establish what my brain and body needed before sitting down to write, and because of this, I found myself locked in the bony clutches of self-doubt, exhaustion, anxiety and a complete deficit of imagination—essentially the four horsemen of the writer’s apocalypse.
Sure, I did my best to heed the call to engage with “self-care” and yes my afflictions might have been tempered by diffusing essential oils, soaking my bones in a piping hot bath and then afterwards meditating for a bit. But as nice as all those things are, they didn’t seem to go deep enough. I was mimicking a definition of wellness I had really only been privy to via social media, self-help books and what I was taught growing up. I had yet to define exactly what I needed in my life that would enable me to truly show up for myself.
And it was only after a conversation with a mentor of mine where she shared with me her own definition of wellness where I was inspired to write down a question I had never really asked myself before—
In what ways do I need to consider my mental, physical and spiritual health in such a way that it will help me create a consistent and habitual framework aimed to bolster my writing practice, for the present as well as for the long term?
I knew I had to start at square one. I had to slow down enough to reassess what my actual writing process entailed and the truth was, I didn’t have much of one.
Most times I saddled myself with an array of snacks, adorned my workspace with books written by aspirational authors (classic creative writing professor advice), then checked in on my celebrity gossip blogs to blow off a bit of steam before finally forcing myself to get down to business.
But the problem I found with all these rituals was they weren’t necessarily setting my mind and body up for success (except for the snacks—everyone needs those.) I hadn’t taken the time to center myself in my body, establish my mindset and set a solid, measurable goal for the chunk of writing I had planned to do (note this is so much more than just word count). I literally threw caution to the wind every time and it showed. I wasn’t writing much.
For the next couple weeks, I made the decision to take the pressure off myself and focus all my efforts on establishing what exactly my own definition of wellness would look like, and so—I made lists, I pondered and then checked in with my writing community and after spending a good chunk of time ruminating on my initial question. And at the end of it all I emerged with a solid plan that I am grateful to say works for me to this very day.
The first step was building and reassessing my writing process as well as my mindset (and I will preface this to say that this will be a malleable process that will change and shift as you grow as a writer, as an individual. What may work for you some years may not in others).
I also needed to find a way to grapple with the fear and move away from the procrastination and avoidance that I often found myself locked in. So I made a promise to myself to start each writing session with a long stretch or walk outside to prepare myself physically for the time I was going to spend sitting down, followed by a small free write in my journal outlining in point form what I intended to focus on during my time writing. I also wrote down any emotions I was experiencing about the writing itself—I found the tactile aspect of this particularly helpful in pulling myself out of my head and away from anxiety.
With only a few small alterations I forged an entirely new routine that started with the small but pivotal act of checking in with my body to see what it needed. I made the conscious decision to shift my focus inward instead of outward, a notion that at first seemed far too simple and on the nose to carry any weight, but in a world that seems to keep getting more complicated with every passing day I will confess that I have never been more grateful for a glimmer of simplicity.
Carlie Blume was born on the unceded and ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh (Vancouver). She is a 2017 graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio and her work has appeared in The Maynard, Train: a poetry journal, Loose Lips Magazine, Ghost City Review and more. Her debut full-length poetry collection, Gigglepuss is forthcoming Spring 2022 with Guernica Editions. She currently lives on the traditional territory of the Saanich, Cowichan and Chemanius First Nations (Salt Spring Island, BC) with her husband and two children.
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