Wellness, it’s in our hands and we’ve got this. Our journey starts here.

I know there was a reason, in the BIG LIFE picture, (you know, the one out there with the moon and stars and aura vibrations and aroma therapy candles lol), why I procrastinated about taking you on this wellness journey.That reason might be because this week had to happen.Specifically two things happened. Thing one was I had to have a check in with the oncologist on the horrible and gloomy conveyor belt that is the Vancouver Cancer Agency.And thing two: I was invited to an expressive art therapy group session at my wellness centre.Let me tell you about the latter and a revelation I had.OK, I can safely say that I’ve done, or tried, all sorts of expressive art forms, but transferring gestures (where you mimic the one you received from the person on your right and send a new one to your left) round a circle of 10 people was a new one on me...lol. As it turns out, I’m not much of a performance artist. Good to know!Anyway, I survived three go-rounds, and on the third I must admit that transferring a gesture came more comfortably. Then my second task was to pick three colours of oil pastels and write an entire page of words describing my body.I was surprised...wait...that’s not the right word. Not surprised because the words came easily, naturally. Maybe the word is happy. I was happy to have this perspective because almost every word was positive, and every word was honest. Mixed in with the predictable words like: healthy, sexy, original, talented, flexible, strong, poised, and hopeful, were unexpected words like: wobbly, cold, worldly, golden, merciful, fractured, and wise.The next task, and the most exciting one, was to take a slab of clay and build a sculptural representation of my body.I took the slab into my hands and started warming it up. My hands became silvery grey and cold as the heat of my hands began to transfer into the clay, which started to become pliable, and I started forming something...I had no idea what that should be. A complete vacuum in my brain, pieces of clay being torn, rolled, folded, torn again and suddenly the shape of my hands was emerging from the clay in my hands.It was the most bizarre thing guys. I was sculpting my own hands from that clay.But this began to make complete sense to me. My wellbeing, my health is in my own hands.Our wellbeing is in our own hands. How amazing is that? It’s all up to us, and we can do it. All we have to do is draw from our collective pool of knowledge.Who am I to be any kind of authority on this you may ask? Well, I’m not really, but I am intelligent, well read, and have invested a great deal of time and effort in my own health.I’m the daughter of two prominent medical doctors and my first line of defence growing up was medical intervention. There was never even a thought of non-medical means.I’m the partner of a Zen philosophy practising son of a naturopath doctor, whose first line of defence growing up was bed rest, homeopathy and a strict fruit diet.I’m the mother of three grown children, whose first line of defense was natural health, that is no sugar, no processed foods, and plenty of outdoor activity, and the second line was medical intervention.I'm the survivor of a very rare and possibly unstoppable type of wonky cellnossity which no one seems to know much about...read about it here if you like, but don’t go looking it up, you’ll only depress yourselves.So here I am in my mid 50s, and my dedication to wellbeing has been strong for the past 15 or so years and I’ve come this far with a humongous wealth of information, which I’d like to share with you.In the next while, and possibly over years, there will be more of a focus on wellness on my blog. We will discuss and discover information to physical and emotional well being.Hope you come along with me and share your ideas and tips.Together we can do this. We can make this one and precious life that we have a happy and healthy one.