What is Wellness Bypassing?
You may have heard of Spiritual Bypassing. But have you heard of Wellness Bypassing? Since the pandemic this term has become more widespread. Why? Because there is a wellness fever that seems to have gripped our world since Covid. And not necessarily in a positive way. Wellness has become restrictive, prescriptive and almost polarised. You live in one boot camp or another. Why is this important? Because these approaches defy the point of wellness and in many cases leave people in a worse situation than when they started. Let’s dive into this topic so you can see why it’s so important.
What do we mean by Wellness Bypassing?
Let’s first dive into what Spiritual Bypassing is so you can have some context. Spiritual Bypassing is where people have a tendency to use or hide behind spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid unresolved emotional issues or psychological wounds. It may protect a person from their pain but it won’t actually resolve the issue at hand. Instead, it glosses over the problem, leaving it to fester without any true resolution.
In a very similar way to Spiritual Bypassing, the term Wellness Bypassing refers to when someone is militant with their health, trying to practise a health routine with 100% perfection, but then in other areas they contradict this routine with unhealthy habits. These rigid practices usually stem from marketing campaigns, adverts, social media or gurus preaching the latest health trend.
Why Wellness Bypassing is not promoting wellness.
These days, it seems like wellness has become a members' club. You either fit in or you don’t. If you fit in, then you are living a life of wellness. If you don’t, you’re not. But that is not what wellness is. Wellness is your whole being, your environment, your food, your work, your family. Wellness is your entire ecosystem. And today’s marketing gimmicks have shined a spotlight on wellness as if it is a trend. Wellness is not a trend, it is your birthright.
The challenge is that a lot of people practise wellness in a way that doesn’t help them to understand the why behind their health choices. They may go to the gym five times a week, or only eat vegan or keto. But the trouble with this is that if you just go to the gym and then don’t move for the rest of the week, that is not true wellness. If you are eating vegan, but then stuffing your face with ice cream and candy the rest of the time, that is also not wellness. But you believe you are practising wellness because you are doing this one thing 100%.
Promoting a rigid routine is not wellness either.
Taking nutrition as an example, so many people are fixated on eating a certain diet, that they end up removing so many nutrients from their body. You may be vegan for health reasons or for environmental reasons. But are you making sure that you're getting enough nutrients along the way? Or are you just getting stuck at going vegan and then bypassing the rest of the hard work that is needed to understand what works for you. You can live a very healthy life by balancing what you eat, how you move, and how you deal with your emotions. Our bodies need a whole range of foods to get the right nutrients, because we all have different bodies, systems and hormone balances. There is no one cure that fits all. There is no one diet that fits all. We need to find what works for our own unique body.
Why understanding Wellness Bypassing is important
Wellness Bypassing is a very important topic in today’s world because it’s resulting in a very stressed, on edge and unhappy society. Similar to Spiritual Bypassing, it’s another form of using practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved issues and unique wellness needs. Just because someone wants to start a healthy routine or bring more health and wellness into their life, doesn’t mean that they need to start from scratch or abolish everything they are currently doing.
It’s also super important to understand how much capacity you have for incorporating something new into your life, and does your current life support the wellness goals you have in mind. Because if you don’t have the right support system or environment, when things get tough you will fall back on your old habits. And this will result in feeling depleted and feeling like you failed. Which totally defeats the purpose of trying a new goal. You want to empower yourself to succeed. New goals should be exciting and support your life, not make it more stressful or difficult.
Moulding your health habits to your routine
Taking Ayurveda as an example, your Veda is all about setting a routine that you can fall back on in the hardest of times. If we start with strict and rigid wellness routines, we’re setting ourselves up for failure because these routines are not inherent and intuitive. You need to build up to a certain new routine, and learn how it works for you.
Once your new routine starts becoming inherent and intuitive, you can then start adding on to it. You're not bypassing anything because you’re moulding your routine to you, to how you work, to what feels right for you, to what supports your quality of life, happiness and overall well being. Once you have gradually integrated a new wellness routine, there is much less chance of you failing because it's becoming part of you rather than becoming an imposition on you.
Doing a life audit as a prescription.
Similar to going to a doctor to find out why you might be ill, and then receiving a prescription to heal your ailments. A wellness practitioner will very often prescribe a life audit, which looks at all areas of your life to see what is working and what is not. The big difference is that while the doctor is just looking at one specific point of your health, a life audit looks at the whole of you. Your body, your emotional state, your past, your environment, your food, your habits, your relationships.
Many people believe that our health is random, that our body parts and organs are sole entities, and that we need to be dependent on medication to survive and get better. This couldn't be further from the truth. Our body and all our organs are part of a whole ecosystem that depend on each other to function. Nothing is independent of each other. If one part of you doesn’t work, it will affect other parts of your body and system. Which is why a life audit is so important, because then you can understand what aspects of your health, choices and life may not be supporting you and may be causing illness.
Working with a coach.
Kokorology was founded by Sabin Lakhani, who is herself a coach, because she saw that there was a huge gap in the wellness industry due to the fact that wellness is often looked at through a very narrow lens. Health is often regarded through specific points, rather than looking at and auditing the whole person and their environment. Kokorology studies the methodology of alignment through movement, nourishment, healing and pausing. It looks at the whole ecosystem of the person. With this methodology, Sabin is able to work with her clients on multiple levels, looking at every aspect of their lives and helping them to be more mindful about everything they do and what is around them. It’s a more holistic approach to wellness and what works for clients.
If you’re interested in working with a coach, but don’t know where to start, explore Kokorology and see how the alignment of movement, nourishment, healing and pausing could support your life and help with your goals.
Change starts with a small seed. Plant your seed today!
Visit: https://www.kokorology.com/
