Wellness Calendar: Tuesday 16 December

The sixteenth revolution
[The importance of relationships; connections and wellness; universal wellness]
So far, we’ve largely explored ourselves as though we’re living in a bubble, in splendid isolation. Let us now transition to viewing ourselves, our wellness, our internal world in relation to the outside world.
If we were an alien watching Earth TV, we might be confused by viewing the rosy, harmonious relationships portrayed during the advertisement breaks only to see a world of conflict, wars and misery on news reports.
Relationships can be the most amazingly wonderful thing, but they can also be a nightmare – and all things in between. And while it may be an obvious thing to say, isn’t just about everything we do based around relationships in some way or other – whether it’s with another person, ourselves, an object or a location? Aren’t relationships the source of 99.9% of all our happiness and 99.9% of all our distress? This being the case, it seems to be a worthwhile pursuit to explore and understand our relationships in order to improve them, using and accumulating internal and external knowledge via our wellness lens.
What do you make of the following statements and ideas?
We cannot be ourselves without other people – others help to define who we are by the very fact that they’re around us. We depend on other people to bring us up when we are small, to keep us safe and provide us with things. The quote, “I am because you are” comes from a South African philosophy called Ubuntu, meaning the universal bond of sharing that connects all of humanity.
“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”
Desmond Tutu
Knowing that our wellness is tied up with other people, and other people’s wellness is tied up to us, can we move forward on our revolutionary path and consider the needs of others as equal to the needs of ourself? Can we consider the needs of the individual as being equal to the needs of the collective? Can we consider the notion of universal wellness (the wellness of everyone) as the only way for us to ensure our own wellness?
Here is an incomplete list of themes and concepts around relationships that may be useful for us to explore as we go through life.
Our relationship with the outside world. Our relationship with ourselves. Our relationship with our family. Our relationships with friends. Our intimate relationships.
Our relationship with our body. Our relationships with animals. Our relationships with objects. Our healthy relationships. Our dysfunctional relationships. Our relationship with loss. Our relationship with power. Our relationship to work. Our relationship with money. Our attachments. Our meaningful relationships. Our meaningless relationships. Our relationship with our environment. Our relationship with authority. Our relationship with morality. Our sexual relationships. Our spiritual relationships.
Our relationship with hope. Our relationship with fear. Our relationship with time and ageing. Our loneliness. Our sense of belonging. Our sense of worth.