The Interconnectedness of Wellness

If you follow our content, you may have heard us speak about the interconnectedness of wellness over the past few months. As we have been faced to reconsider the meaning of health and wellbeing in the aftermath of the pandemic, we came to realize something. Our personal wellbeing depends on the wellbeing of the life forces around us. We are connected more than we know and each of us have a responsibility to care for ourselves not only for our own wellness, but that of the life around us as well.

What does the interconnectedness of wellness mean to you?

Tricia Reilly Koch, Co-Founder of BB&R Wellness 

“For too long, the language has implied “nature” is apart from us—something we need to help. It’s something weak for us to fix. Humans are the savior. What we finally understand is that by helping what we’ve talked about as “nature,” we are truly helping ourselves. There’s no difference. The actions are the same.

There’s a whole wellness sphere that talks about nutrition, sleep, and non-toxic living as though the choices we make only affect our bodies, and as though our bodies are the only entities that matter. People have made positive changes in their lives that won’t last because the environment is still weeping. You can tend a wound on one arm, but if there’s another wound on the other arm with an untreated infection, the whole body can become septic. 

We can’t continue to believe our efforts to improve ourselves are in isolation. We can’t save ourselves without addressing the very land we stand on.

What is making us sick is the same thing that’s challenging forests and rivers, flora and fauna. We are all facing the same crises. To divide our efforts between conservation on the one hand and health/wellness on the other is missing the entire point. We are sick because our planet is sick. Our planet’s health is our health. Healing nature is healing ourselves. We are nature. And we matter. All of it is us.”

Doro Bush Koch, Co-Founder of BB&R Wellness

“Our wellbeing is interconnected.  Our health is connected to the health of every living being on the earth and the earth itself.  We need to care for our own health, the health of those we love,  the health of our greater community, the health of every living thing, and the health of our environment.  Health itself is interconnected--we don't just mean physical health. It must include emotional, relationship,  spiritual, financial, environmental, literacy, and vocational health to name a few.  Once we expand our definition of health, we can't help but see that our world is interconnected and that the health of one sector depends on the health of all sectors.  At BB&R, through our conferences and on our podcast Health Gig we include discussion on every aspect of health to highlight our interconnectedness.  We cannot be healthy if we live in silos taking care of only ourselves.  We must connect to the world, like trees whose roots grow in every direction and intertwine with one another to create a tapestry of connection.”