When it comes to wellness, things get real personal, real fast. You might not have realized this, at least not in a powerful way, because so much of what we think about wellness is external. We’ve all heard it, a thousand times. Eat less. Move More. Practice mindfulness. Go running. Take a walk. Reduce your cholesterol. Lose weight. Join a gym. Start a yoga practice. Meditate. When we hear it, we know it sounds like a good idea. We know we’d like to be able to do all those things that the experts say will make us well. Sometimes we make a valiant effort to begin it: the new gym membership, the books on mindfulness stacked and ready on the bedside table, the diet we are sure will change everything. Inevitably, life intervenes and when we wake up in the morning six months later we still find ourselves, well… not well. As least not as well as we would like to be. And not as well as we know we are capable of being. The reason for this isn’t because you are a failure and you never do what you set out to do, or any of the other myriad of stories you can find to beat yourself up for not feeling like you want to feel. The reason for this is because you started off looking in the wrong places. You started off your commitment to wellness by looking outward. You based it on what you should do, according to the doctor, or your wife, or the article on the internet, or even your own ideas of what “wellness” looks like to people looking in. You, in fact, are the expert on your own wellness. And anything you do that does not honor your own personal version of what wellness feels like, as opposed to what wellness looks like, will end up leading you further away from what you already know is possible for yourself, a life where you feel good inside your own skin. You know this is possible, or you would never buy the book, or join the gym, or listen to the guy on youtube. Your dedication and effort is not what is in question. It’s your orientation that keeps you from going precisely where you want to go. Once you realize this, you have what you need to begin. And if you change your orientation about wellness from the external to the internal you will also have what you want. In six months, you will feel more well. We each have our own gateways into wellness. For some it is the gym. For some it is yoga. For some it is meditation. For some it is running. For some it is eating certain types of foods. There is no way that is better than the other. And within each path there are many variations, the only variation you need to concern yourself with is the one that speaks directly to you. This requires trust. Trust on what your inner experience tells you. Your longing to be well is a part of your reason for being here. You need it, you deserve it, it is your own. You already know the way into your own wellness. Your body knows, your heart knows, your mind knows, your soul knows. You just have to move towards it, and it will take you everywhere you need to go. To move towards it, you must make a commitment to yourself to follow your inner voice, the one that comes from deep within your core. You can find its message in the experience of joy. What feels good? What feels so good you would pay to do it every chance you got? What do you crave most? A long run in the forest with your headphones in? An hour of sitting in deep stillness? Twenty minutes of walking up the biggest hill you can find at top speed? Nourishing yourself with food that delights both your senses and your environmental consciousness? Yoga that makes your body dizzy with satisfaction and puts you at your edge every time? The more you honor your inner pull towards wellness the more wellness will come into your being. It doesn’t have to be hard. It shouldn’t be hard. It should be satisfying, and challenging if you like to be challenged, and comforting if what you need is comfort, and spacious if you need space, and it should have room to change and grow and blossom as you do. For that’s what you are: a changing, blossoming, growing thing, and your pull towards wellness is your pull towards yourself. Honor that pull, listen closely to its call, and you will find yourself where you want and need to be. Where you need to be is at peace inside your own self. Your inner wellness expert has arrived on the scene. Listen to her with your whole heart. She knows exactly where you belong.