The Very Definition of Health!

I met a wonderful lady while out for a friend’s birthday in London recently. She works as a yoga instructor, retreat facilitator and also has a role in training mental health professionals within the NHS.

We discussed what wellbeing means to us (and how this is sometimes quite different to the NHS’ definition!) and she shared something of what ‘health’ means to her too.

She defined it as ‘peace’, and a sense that there is something deeper beyond the language used to define someone as unwell. I thought this was wonderful. While there is of course a role for traditional medicine and when we are unwell we must seek treatment, it is important that we do not let this define our identity.

Sadly, many of us seem to find our sense of selves in labels. We are ‘good at this’, ‘bad at that’. We ‘work in an office’, we are ‘a mother’, ‘a father’, a ‘daughter’, a ‘son’. It’s not our fault. It’s an inevitable result of being part of society (and quite necessary too at times). But the challenges come when this becomes all we are.

If we are not who we’ve been told we are by the language of society, then we are surely not our ‘illness’ either.

Who are we underneath it?

That person is, in my eyes, the very definition of health.