Wellness Journalism: Environ-mental?

The habits of modern civilization have emphasized the individual as being separate and disconnected from our environment. This makes it easier to plunder, control, exploit. We take what we want, and throw away the rest.

But when we don’t consider the environment, we neglect our very selves.

The first thing to understand about environmental wellness is that you are a product of your environment.

As a culture we seem to recognize that children need a healthy, positive environment in order to thrive. Yet we forget to create that same environment for ourselves, and wonder why we are miserable. We don’t realize the impact of the environment on our well-being. Instead, we ignore the environment but take ourselves personally. We make ourselves sick.

I once lived in a house with a roommate whose mother, for reasons of her own, decided that I was trans-gender. This would have been fine with me, really, but she made a point to throw comments in my direction that were specifically intended to be hurtful. “You’ve got broad shoulders like a man,” she would say to me in the kitchen while I poured my cereal. Another time, as I was walking past her room, she called after me, “Super-Freak!” This environment was clearly quite toxic.

My friend Melanie works in a restaurant where the cook spends all day stressed out, yelling at everybody, and the walls are coated in lead-based paint.

Then there's the DMV.

I daresay that most of us have been exposed to dysfunctional dynamics: hostility in the home, workplace or schoolyard, or chemically toxic, polluted environments where health is not at hand. It’s hard to feel good when your space is messy or disorganized, in a material or emotional sense. The immediate environment has a tremendous impact on well-being: we literally absorb the energy of our surroundings. It is our responsibility to plant ourselves in an environment that offers the necessary nutrients for growth. Ultimately, our environment determines whether we whither or thrive.

A solid understanding and appreciation of environmental impact on your life empowers you to spend your energy in the most efficient way possible. There may be aspects of your environment you cannot change, but there are many you can.

In a healthy environment, you can make a real living.