Is it WellBeing or WellDoing?
When I write about Wellbeing as art, I intentionally choose the word "WellBeing" rather than "wellness." Wellness usually refers to physical health— perhaps also mental health. WellBeing is holistic— encompassing all areas of life, including social, relational, physical, spiritual, vocational, financial, and even a larger community context. Therefore, WellBeing equates to a flourishing life, not simply to physical or mental health.
But is Wellbeing something we do? Should it more accurately be called WellDoing?
It’s true that, when we talk about Wellbeing, we usually describe habits or practices— activities we schedule and perform. But doing these practices is not an end in itself. Rather, we cultivate habits and practices that shape and form our identity over time. For example, we write not just to produce something for publication; we write to become a writer. We practice meditation, not because meditation is a goal in and of itself, but rather to become a person who meditates. The practices and habits we do are in service of the person we seek to be.
As I suggested in the previous blog, the challenge is that we often over-emphasize the actions themselves and do not always consider the way those habits and practices shape and form the person we long to become— our being. There is a necessary ebb and flow in our doing— making space for the presence and power of a larger reality. In my ongoing commitment to live and lead from a place of holistic WellBeing, I increasingly value what I call receptivity.
Many of us can be trapped in cycles of over-effort and over-thinking. Our bodies, minds, and spirits can struggle to be still and receptive. We don’t know how to let go when we have done what we can, when we have done enough for today.
Even when we pray, we strive to impose our to-do list on God. We have been taught to say certain words in prayer. Western Christian spirituality emphasizes speaking and doing, and so we imagine that righteousness has to do with right action.
What is needed, in my experience, is receptivity— a place of extreme openness where all striving ceases in favor of simply receiving. The point is to practice moments when we learn to surrender our agenda for what we believe needs to happen in our lives and become open to what is and what might be.
When it comes to spirituality, many of us are stuck in trying too hard rather than cultivating practices of inflow and receiving. Receptivity—receiving—brings us back to questions of BEING. Receptivity is a way of reminding ourselves that the world will continue to spin without our ceaseless striving. To receive is to acknowledge that who I am as a leader and person is much more than the sum of my actions.
Each of us can name the practice of receptivity in a way that is most helpful to us: rest, Sabbath, stillness, recreation, listening, breathing, surrender, yielding. However we name it, we intentionally tune into the larger source of insight and energy in the world. In the practice of receptivity, we shift our focus and intention from WellDoing to WellBeing. Then our practices are not so much about what we do but more about cultivating moments when we surrender our agenda, our goals, and our need for answers and certainties. We position ourselves to receive and to be shaped and formed by the larger source of WellBeing in our world.
“All shall be well, all shall be well… for there is a Force of Love moving through the universe that holds us fast and will never let us go.”—Julian of Norwich
Walking (and sometimes sitting) with you,
Vicki