The truth is that all bodies are well and all bodies are not well. All bodies are healthy and all bodies are not healthy. Health is a dynamic, multi-faceted state, not a binary. Very few of us are “healthy” or “sick,” period. Most of us have systems in our bodies that function really well, and ones that benefit from support. We may live with depression, but have the blood pressure of an elite athlete. We may be metabolically fit as a fiddle, but need strong glasses. We may have poor eyesight, but easily bend into yoga poses. We may have a thriving at-home asana practice, but struggle with the health impacts of loneliness and isolation. Health isn’t a “yes” or “no.” It’s a swirling, three-dimensional set of spectrums that naturally shift throughout our lives .
It’s easy to lose sight of this. Not all health is visible, and not all sickness, or suboptimal health, is visible. My friend and I walked up a long (and I mean long) hill. At the top, I was breathing hard and he wasn’t. He might as well have spent the last twenty minutes reading a magazine on a pool float. You could “see” a difference in how our bodies handled the hill. And you might draw from that that he is “healthy” and I am “not.”
What you couldn’t see is that my friend takes nearly ten medications for “invisible” ailments, and I don’t. He is managing two long-term, incurable diagnoses that require…
