The Challenge of Wellness

(Originally published in the Powell River Peak)

One of the challenges of the human condition is that we all seek our personal paradise - a good job, a good relationship and a good home in a good community. And then we want to stay there.

But time has its way, and we don't get to stop when we get where we want to be. Like Alice's Red Queen, we have to run as fast as we can just to stay in one place.

(There's more...)

How do we stay well? As presented at last weekend's Live Well: A Night Celebrating Wellness event at Brooks Secondary School, wellness is a lot more than not being sick. Author Brian Luke Seaward spoke about being a whole person - whole in mind, whole in body and whole in spirit.

That takes good food. Folks who would never think of pumping trash gas into the tank of their vehicle often forget that their body needs prime fuel as well.

Malaspina University-College professor Les Malbon talked about the 50-mile diet, and how much better it is to eat whole foods that are fresh and local. It's not good when food is trucked in from a factory farm 1,000 kilometres away, or from Chile or China. It may be cheaper, but the food is less nutritious, less flavourful, and may be tainted with toxins. And it devalues local farms.

Malbon pointed out that since 2001, more than 30 per cent of the agricultural land around Nanaimo has been lost to development. As Powell River looks to sustainably manage growth at the Saturday, January 19 community sustainability charter meeting, it's worth considering that the original meaning of the word paradise was orchard. Do we want more orchards, or more parking lots?

When wellness program organizer Jim Palm called Dr. Jeanne Paul to invite her to speak at Brooks, she told him she had been to Brooks before--for one day. It was 1951, when there was a deep well of prejudice against first nations peoples, and Paul was taken from Tla'Amin (Sliammon) First Nation and sent to boarding school.

Now, half a century later, Paul was a featured speaker, and other first nations participants were integral to the program. It was a testament to the way the non-aboriginal communities and first nations communities are building together to achieve a true regional wellness.

For the community, wellness is about integrating all the individuals into a coherent whole. That doesn't mean groupthink or hive mind, but healthy interactions, free of prejudice, coercion and fear.

Seaward emphasized how humour and humility are central to that, and author-educator Chris Bratseth put the spotlight on kindness. Small acts of daily kindness are the food that grows healthy communities.

Eagle Walz, who was also honoured on the weekend, has done an immeasurable amount of work on the Sunshine Coast Trail. He didn't do it for money, or even for the thanks of strangers who hike those trails, never knowing the man who helped make the trails possible. He did it because he lives here. He gets to enjoy them and so does everyone else.

Wellness multiplies wellness.