Wellness Gone Wrong!

This picture is me trying to figure out how to keep my P.L.A.Y. mindset and stay on track with my wellness during a time when my usual self-care is inaccessible, or rather, according to our Governor, non-essential.

Before you get upset and want to take this down a political road, stop, just STOP!

This is about wellness and how wellness centers apparently don't hold the same cache as say, candy stores or liquor stores. You know, those things you secretly love, but know to keep at arm's length as often as possible, lest you become UNwell.

Make no mistake, my self-care is absolutely essential to me. It is essential to keeping my family well. Yes, MY wellness is essential to keeping MY family WELL!

In my opinion, at a time of National crisis, such as this, a wellness center should be as important as any clinic or hospital. After all, this is where we go for the self-care and the supplements that keep us from filling one of those much needed hospital beds. I will forever be shaking my head wondering how a candy store was allowed to open, and somehow be deemed essential, while the place that keeps me running and healthy was deemed the opposite.

I mentioned the other day that I feel like a vehicle that is well past the due date for an oil change and a tune up. Guess what? My car's "wellness" was deemed essential too. This realization was a tough pill to swallow, or shall I say tough "supplement" to swallow, since I don't take pills.

Keeping my head up and remaining positive, while the aches and pains of a life well lived sneak up now and then, has been a quiet challenge. I play with my dogs. I signed up for online yoga. I found a small business that did curbside delivery and bought a new pair of tap shoes, and dusted off a dormant hobby. I have used my essential oils, homeopathy, and taken my supplements. I have read books. I have studied. I have crossed things off checklists. I have done what I may to keep my wellness and wellness mindset on track as much as possible.

I am a person who is disappointed in not having my favorite wellness center available, but I'll cope. Correction, I HAVE been coping. Some days are better than others. I am, after all, human. What about those who have needed those wellness centers much more than I? I know of a number of people who utilize their local wellness centers to: keep them from tipping that scale into the territory of Type 2 Diabetes, help them from slipping back down a slippery slope of addiction (food, prescription drugs, etc.), keep their body fine tuned with massages and detoxes so they don't get sick or get those around them sick. For those of us living a life of wellness, who know what it feels like to wake up and be your best, this has been tough to come to terms with a system that deemed candy and liquor essential, while wellness centers, and for that matter, dog groomers (proper animal husbandry is essential to an animal's health and wellness) were deemed non essential.

My shirt in the picture states that: "Shopping is cheaper than therapy". I would gladly take a trip to my wellness center to start to feel like me again over any shopping trip. That picture is how I feel after two plus months without the self-care that helps me "fire on all cylinders", to borrow another car analogy. I strive to stay out of the hospitals, especially during a time like this when those beds are needed for the truly sick, and I pray for those affected by this crisis. I pray that we never see a pandemic like this again in my lifetime, but in the event that we do, I hope that wellness centers, yoga studios, gyms, and dog groomers will be given as much consideration to be deemed as essential as a candy store, a liquor store, or an auto mechanic.

I heard a rumor today that I might get to go back to my favorite wellness center next week. Don't tease me Gov.!