The Heart of Wellness Is Compassion
We want to light a little fire of kindness in your heart. Once that fire is burning, the opportunity to help others in practical and meaningful ways may become the most valuable thing in your world.
What if the motivation to feel great in your body and your mind is not for your own sake, but so that you can more skillfully help others soften the distractions of pain, sickness, and self-absorption?
When our basic motivation becomes compassion, the whole reason for self-care changes. Motivated by compassion, we take care of ourselves in order to increase our capacity to be of service to others.
The energy that you need to break out of your rut doesn't come from shame, thinking that your bad habits are somehow a reflection on the quality of your character. The energy that you need to get up and move doesn't come from a negative body-image, thinking that how you look is somehow a reflection of your self-worth. The energy that you need to make healthy choices doesn't come from fear, thinking that if you don't improve your diet you will get sick.
The energy that you need comes from compassion for others. It comes from knowing how it feels to be stuck, sick, and afraid, and then discovering that your heart is the most powerful natural resource there is. Perhaps if you take great care of yourself you will discover that all you want to do is take great care of other people.
The heart of wellness isn't being healthy. There are plenty of healthy people who are not well. The heart of wellness isn't finding and buying that one amazing product that makes everything better. That product doesn't exist.
Really there's nothing more to being healthy than having the opportunity and making the choice. Plenty of folks have the opportunity to be healthy and don't make the choice. And more people on earth have neither the opportunity nor the choice to be healthy.
When we feel the fire of compassion in our hearts, and we see all of the people who don't have the opportunity to choose health, then we are naturally inspired to cultivate our own vibrant health. Because the more vibrant we are, the more energy and inspiration we have to care for others.
If you are a person who has the opportunity to choose health and you are reading this because you're looking for the next best thing, we invite you to consider that the next best thing is in your heart. And we offer ourselves, freely and enthusiastically, to help you turn your compassion into something priceless.
Start with our Preliminary Practices free online wellness training program to familiarize yourself with some of the essential resources for wellness. Notice how many or how few of those resources you have access to. Notice whether or not you are taking advantage of the choices that are available to you now. And then think about all of the impoverished, oppressed, disadvantaged, and generally underserved people who you might be able to help. Imagine how it might feel to help those people, to really improve the quality of another person's life.
When you're ready, we invite you to work with us to make more opportunities for health, wellness, and kindness available to all people.