The Healthy Rebel
Most people around us are not as healthy as they could be. If you want to become part of the minority of people who are enjoying the best of health, you need to be rebellious with your approach to your health.
What do I mean by rebellious? Taking action to become healthy is going against the grain of our dominant culture. Most people around you will most likely not be doing pushups against their office desk, stretches on the floor, or having the courage to carve out a whole afternoon to rest and recover.
When I was working in health management (a lifetime ago before becoming a yoga teacher) a lady received loud applause and congratulations for working 20 years in the organisation, as she proudly accepted her reward of a gold watch. 20 years! I remember standing at the back of the room watching everyone clapping and supporting this ‘achievement.’
I felt very confused about this – and about the state of our society. Is this what I should be striving for? Is this what it means to be a success? The thing is, I was working in the health sector and not many of my colleagues looked very healthy at all. We sat most of the day, thought of exercise as something we might be able to fit in later, and stifled yawns through boring sedentary meetings. We talked about helping others to be healthy without actually taking responsibility ourselves. Is this really what success looks like in our culture?
“Usually I’m doing yoga in the afternoon sun while other people are frying up sausages and drinking beer looking at me like I’m a weirdo.”
I knew this was a rat race I had to get out of. I realised this was a ‘norm’ that seemed, to me, especially unhealthy…well, not normal at all!
Soon after, I quit my job, I sold almost everything I owned and started an experiment with my life to see if there was a more fulfilling and healthy way of living. Here’s where I discovered my new normal - living creatively, getting active outdoors, caring for my wellbeing, putting my own priorities first and giving back to others meaningfully through yoga. I created ‘my new normal’ (To read more about this, see here)
Normal in our culture is overrated, and in fact very damaging
Conforming to a ‘perfect’ ideal ends up squeezing the life out of us. Have you started a gym membership in the new year, then lost your willpower by the next month? Tried some extreme diet plan, and scrolled through health and fitness magazines for advice on how to be ‘better’ leaner fitter? We rebound, feel inadequate and exhausted in our continuous hunt to be better - because we are never enough as we are.
I was at the peak of my career, when I left my job. The job was everything I’d worked for at school and university – and now I had this fab new national management role. At the same time I was extremely low, and feeling dreadfully unfulfilled by my daily office routine. My key inner strengths – compassion, curiosity, empathy, were often viewed as inferior to productivity, how much time I could spend sitting at my desk, and perfecting and editing documents. I was internally aching with a feeling of ‘there’s got be something more.’ It felt like the problem was with me, but I realised this was not true.
I realised the culture’s message – ‘to work hard, climb the corporate ladder, get a husband, get a house, get a mortgage, have a kid, have another, get a better job’ – was not working for me. Or for many people I knew.
So I became a Healthy Rebel.
Truths for becoming a healthy rebel
Here’s some truths about what it takes to move to the ‘Rebel side’.
It will at first be hard
Being a healthy person in our unhealthy culture is very challenging, at first anyway. You are going against a strong flow of deeply engrained cultural norms, so you have to rebel from all sorts of automatic choices. You have to have a certain amount of grit just to avoid getting sucked into the momentum of the dominant culture machine.
I often get invites to events – weddings, engagement parties - that I turn down so I can generate time for my own rest and creativity. It definitely feels hard at the time – saying ‘no’ – but the result of saying no is always better than the people pleasing alternative. From my experience, if you keep saying yes to other people’s priorities, those people will keep asking you to fulfill their priorities. The event probably won’t align to your values and you’ll need days to recover. Yes, it will be hard saying ‘no’ at first, and you will need to get used to feeling the resistance from the world around you. Do it anyway.
When you challenge the ‘dominant culture’, you risk coming across as weird
People in your circles, even your own family might say things like “why can’t you just be normal”. Well, here’s what ‘normal’ is in NZ:
One in five adults (20%) drink alcohol in a way that could harm themselves or others
Only around half of New Zealanders are physically active to the level of the recommended guidelines
31% of adults are obese which is about 1.22 million adults
The rate of increase of obesity is 28.6% (2011/2012)
8.2% of adults experienced psychological distress in the past four weeks
Women are around 1.8 times as likely as men to have experienced psychological distress in the last four weeks
Long-term conditions are now the major challenge for the New Zealand health system. Two in every three New Zealand adults have been diagnosed with at least one long term health condition
The predominance of modifiable risk factors such as physical inactivity, obesity and tobacco consumption have continued to fuel the rise of long-term conditions
(Ministry of Health New Zealand)
I’ve had many labels for simply choosing the healthy path – a hippy, too sensitive, and even my sexuality highlighted as my reason for ‘being a bit odd’ - my own family have asked things like ‘is your girlfriend just a friend?’.
These are people around me still living in the unhealthy default reality – and trying to figure me out. The thing is, I tried ‘normal’, and normal lead me to be extremely unhealthy and unhappy. Dabbling in different living arrangements – at yoga retreats, campgrounds and housesitting has given me immense freedom and adventure. Usually I’m doing yoga in the afternoon sun while other people are frying up sausages and drinking beer looking at me like I’m a weirdo. I’ve decided I don’t want that worry or uneasy feeling of people thinking I’m weird to be the reason I stop doing what feels healthy and normal for me. Being weird means you’re not ‘normal’ – this is healthy.
We are all facing the same socially awkward choice: Break the rules or break yourself
I suggest option 1 – break the rules. The Healthy Rebel approach doesn’t try to mold you into a particular shape or size, doesn’t insist you follow a particular diet plan, it invites you to challenge some assumptions and embrace some simple self-care practices.
I love seeing a few broad shouldered ‘kiwi blokes’ turning up to my 5-week yoga courses amongst a room full of women. This is brave - going against the grain, putting their health first at the risk of being seen as a bit different. In my view this much healthier than scrolling through Instagram or Facebook liking images that make you feel aligned to healthy things but never actually showing up for yourself.
Practices for becoming a Healthy Rebel
Here’s some tips to get you started on the Healthy Rebel path:
1. Notice how the unhealthy dominant culture is messing with you
You need to first notice how our culture trains us to react eagerly to external triggers and sensory cravings. I.e. “Those hot chips smell so good!”, but to ignore our body’s signals and symptoms such as “I feel drained, sore in my lower back or I feel tension in my chest.” Watch out for constant external triggers from magazines, social media, the radio.
2. Develop the ability to closely observe your own expereinces without judging or dismissing them
This helps you hear what your body is trying to tell you. If we are always reacting to whatever ridiculous and enticing message the ‘normal culture ’is throwing your way – you are not pursuing your own conscious choices, you are pursuing someone else’s agenda.
3. Slow down and listen to your body
Get out of your mind and into your body. Go to yoga, deepen your breath, find what feels good for you. For me personally I love waterfall pose – lying on my back with my legs elevated in a dark room. This takes the tension off my back and allows me to ‘detox’ from the day. What is your body aching for? A glass of water? A walk around the block? A pause to block out from the world? Some more sleep? Sunshine on your face? Boldly carving out acts of self-care will stop you having a serious health issue down the track (usually in an expensive way)
4. Have a willingness to replenish and restore
Make it your priority to top up depleted energy levels before you end up vulnerable, reactive and scratchy. We live in a culture of ‘always doing, needing more, and never having enough’ causing dis-ease and inflammation in the body. Our culture under values anti-inflammatory rest and recovery. As a result our wellbeing bank account levels (our resilience) is being permanently diminished. To stay healthy in body and mind, you must get ahead of that damage.
5. Rest even though you shouldn’t
Remember, our culture wont prompt you to take breaks or prioritise self repair until after you’ve broken down. To be a healthy rebellion you will need to:
Rest before you are exhausted and sick
Proactively care for your body and mind while you have the reserves to do so.
You’ll need strong boundaries to carve out your own space and time for your planned recovery times. Be brave, create them – boldly with assertion.
After a stressful experience – rest (yes lots of rest). Think of the long-term gains, the bigger picture. Carving out time to rest and recover immediately after a stressful experience can save you days/weeks/months, you might otherwise loose to illness, injury, or mistakes.
6. Our culture will tell you that everything is important and it must all happen right this minute
Don’t believe it. Put your out of office on for a couple of days, let the world fall down around you. Seriously , what’s is the worst that can happen? At least you’ll be in good shape to deal with it after (the dominant culture is always on the treadmill anyway, so you may aswell care for your wellbeing).
7. Get outdoors
This is not fluffy stuff – there’s research to show getting outdoors literally helps us become a healthier. Make a point to get outside, walk for 10-20 minutes. Noticing the trees swaying and the artwork of cloud formations in the sky is favourite ‘down time’ activity for me. Simply just relaxing, being still and appreciating the trees, the soft pastel colours of the sky and the sound of the birds helps me feel more peaceful, grounded and centred if I’ve been around a lot of people or driving around town a lot.
8. Have a glass of water or a herbal tea while you cook dinner
I love this as a way to rehydrate. Then, if you choose to have a glass of wine with dinner, you’ll be more hydrated which will help you sleep better.
9. Have a night time ritual
Prepare your body and mind for high quality sleep including some self-care such as closing electronic devices 1 hour before sleep time, finish up household jobs, read a low key book that’s not too stimulating, play soothing music and reduce any temptation to rush. Let go of the day with a moment of gratitude for something that went well, take some deep full breaths allowing a long exhale. Find what soothes you - do some Yin relaxation yoga. Appreciate the opportunity of feeling relaxed.
10. Embrace a growth mindset
Remember that challenges that pop up are opportunities. Nobody gets it perfect from the start. Be kind to yourself if you try to make a change and you stumble – you are going against the grain after all. A personal growth approach means becoming a Healthy Rebel is a process. It means taking a risk, trying something, failing, learning then trying again in a different way.
In summary, a few healthy people have mastered some skills that unhealthy people haven’t yet. Healthy Rebels attend to nutrition and exercise, manage energy time and attention, make wise consumer choices, cultivate awareness of media consumption, and become content with our body image. This is essentially what it means to live in alignment to the 8 limbs of yoga – guidelines for living a morally disciplined and healthy life. It’s good to find other Healthy Rebels to support you, perhaps other yogis at the studio. This will help you when you think of taking the U’turn back to your unhealthy ‘normal’ ways.
It’s your choice, break the rules, or break yourself.
Join the minority, be a Healthy Rebel.
Heart and Mind Yoga Studio in Christchurch has a Weekend Yoga Retreat coming up on 26th, 27th Feb. Take time to unwind, and have space from your daily pressures to top up your reserves and to feel more physical vitality and mental peace.
Jo Jarden is a certified personal trainer and yoga teacher in Christchurch New Zealand and the founder of Heart and Mind Yoga studio. She has 10 years experience in health promotion in New Zealand and Australia including management and promotion of national chronic disease prevention programs. She now helps people one on one with their wellbeing through yoga teaching, personal training, workplace yoga and wellbeing workshops.
Qualifications include: Certified Yoga Teacher Santosha Yoga Institute, Registered Australian Yoga Alliance 2017
Certificate in Advanced Personal Training, Fit College New Zealand, 2016
Bachelor of Science with Honours Public Health. University of Canterbury, New Zealand 2006
Bachelor of Arts Mass Communication and Psychology. University of Canterbury, New Zealand 2005
*I was partly inspired to think of health in this rebellious way by Pilar Gerisimo. Check out her book The Healthy Deviant here