What The Wellness World Teaches Us About Control
Can we truly become free from being controlled by our desire to control?
The Wellness World
It’s been over a decade since I’ve embarked on recovery from an eating disorder, and also about a decade of being exposed to the “wellness world”, a place that exists on social media, podcasts, fitness and yoga studios, and in books. The “wellness world” makes me incredibly weary, and yet I cannot seem to look away.
If you are not familiar with the wellness world, let me explain. In a nutshell, it is full of people (“influencers”) who tell you what is good, what is bad, and how you can control your body. Wellness influencers are people who may or may not be experts in the fields of health or fitness, but their millions of followers dub them experts nonetheless. Such influencers often display to their followers all the expensive products and personal trainers they use (and swear by); their 12 morning beverages concocted with various supplements (think: electrolytes, grass-fed-and-finished protein powder, pulverized vegetables, the elusively named “beauty tonic drops”, and the like). We are shown the backyard sauna/cold-plunge combo they bought for $20,000, the red light therapy they do before bed, their “low toxin” lifestyle, etc. Everything they share online includes an affiliate link with a discount code to knock $4 off for us, their beloved followers. If we’re lucky, the wellness influencer will host a lifestyle retreat, sell their own personally branded and “totally clean” products, and have a program to help you do one of the following: “Become Your Authentic Self”, “Revamp Your Life”, “Reclaim Your True Body” or any other vaguely defined 30-day programs promising positive results and a one-on-one virtual call.
Okay, tongue out of my cheek. Throughout my recovery from an eating disorder—a disorder characterized by attempting to control life through controlling food and the body—I have worked hard to move away from the “Wellness World” and all of the control it promises. I’ve been mostly successful. Mostly.
So, when I accidentally stumbled across a wellness challenge on YouTube the other day called the “75 Hard”, I was angry—angry that these kind of fitness challenges exist, and that people still follow them, and, probably mostly angry that my initial reaction is still to immediately want to adopt it into my own life. Why does a set of strict rules promising “amazing results” still appeal to me? Why does my brain see a checklist of ways to control my day and my body and think “oh yeah, exactly what I need, actually I should adopt this for my entire life”?
The “75 Hard” is nothing unusual; a 75 day fitness challenge with a set of rules defining what you can and can’t do for the sake of theoretically improving your health. When considered on their own, the rules appear generally positive, if a bit much: not consuming any alcohol, working out 90 minutes daily, following a diet, reading self-development nonfiction (no, fiction doesn’t count), drinking 1 gallon of water, etc. You are also supposed to take a photo of yourself every day to document your ‘progress’; for anyone who has ever struggled with eating disorders, weight, or body image, this rule is a big YIKES.
Now, I’m sure that for some people, this “75 Hard” challenge is a good way to kickstart some healthy habits. For some people, maybe this kind of fitness program is actually a roadmap to a better-feeling life. Godspeed to those people. For me, and for many of the people who read this newsletter—especially those of you who found me through my writing about eating recovery—this challenge sounds like a recipe for a controlling, disordered life.
It’s hard for me, sometimes, to discern where the line is between healthy and not, especially when many things can start out healthy and then become not. Take, for example, the recent trend of women lifting weights and eating more protein. (If you haven’t been aware of this trend, trust me: it’s happening.) Of course, these habits are great—especially as women age, weight-bearing exercise and consuming protein becomes imperative for health. Still, we see something so seemingly positive for one’s bone and muscle health turn into yet another way to try and control your life and body. Cue: counting macronutrients and measuring pounds of muscle mass, eating a specific number of grams of protein per day and feeling guilty if you don’t, being afraid to eat at a restaurant because of those damn seed oils, and focusing exclusively on lifting weights so that you achieve the gold prize: “body recomposition”, which essentially means your body fat redistributes and you look leaner.
Clearly, I’m not built for the internet, if I’m still aggravated by all these so-called wellness influencers, but dear God, it is irritating that the focus of “wellness” always, always seems to center around external appearance and control.
This kind of rigidity and rule-following does not only exist in the wellness and fitness world: it can happen in all hobbies, religious organizations, and social groups, no matter which you partake in. Everything humans do is subject to the tendency to create a set of rules to follow, to try to control outcomes, and to manipulate our bodies and lives.
It makes sense: life is unpredictable and often hard. We want to fit in, do the right thing, look the right way, and never feel bad. When someone offers a list of rules for living and says “This is the way”, it’s naturally tempting to want to try it out. The idea that someone else has the answers we seek is alluring, albeit misguided: all you have to do is…follow these rules? Adopt this routine? Take this supplement? Buy organic?
Alright, sign me up.
Relinquishing Control
A huge part of my eating disorder recovery involved relinquishing control. The illusion of control, I’ve come to call it, because it’s true: we don’t really have control. Yet, following a program or a diet or any set of rules gives us the illusion of it; it offers us a guidebook to follow when the uncontrollable gray area called reality feels too hard to face. It’s harder to live in the gray area, where a rule might only apply sometimes, or even not at all. But that’s what life is—gray.
Controlling what I ate and adhering to strict rules about food and exercise made me feel like I had control over life and the turbulence of my adolescent emotions. Of course, it didn’t last, and doesn’t work—I then wound up being controlled, by my mind. Control and rules are all mental, they come from the mind. Life and emotions, on the other hand, exist in the realm of the present moment, which can only be experienced, not mentally contrived. My work was—and continues to be—to move from mentally constructing how I think I should be living to actually just living. Feeling. Experiencing. Being here, now, rather than thinking about what I should do at that other time. Slowly, I have gone from thinking to feeling, from over-controlling to living more presently, responsive to the moment.
If I want to truly be free from being controlled by my desire to control life, I have to quit following the rules. I have to quit measuring, counting, documenting, and weighing everything. I have to trust myself to figure life out and trust life to allow me to grow in exactly the way I am meant to grow. I have to trust that I don’t need a rule book—and thank God, because there isn’t one.
Wellness, for me, is not about spending my income on needless supplements, or surveying 15 experts about what my morning routine should be, or documenting my food or protein intake. Wellness has not and never will be exclusively about the way I look, but about the way my life feels. Wellness includes feeling connected in my relationships and to the earth, and working hard at what matters, and continuing to try new things and making decisions that feel right, not just seem right. Wellness, for me, means to allow myself to live in the gray. Without rules.
What would happen if we relied on our intuition instead of experts, our values instead of 30 day programs?
Sounds like a more well world to me.
Be well,
Maggie