Over the holidays, I went with my wife and her parents on a hike in the Grand Canyon. It was the most gorgeous and beautiful thing I ever did in my life.
Let me just say that my wife’s parents are fitness champions. They run marathons, triathlons, ultra marathons, and megathons. So you can imagine they were motoring up and down the Canyon.
It was an intense seven hours, capped with a 4,000 foot near vertical ascent for the last portion of the experience.
As it goes when you enter a seventy-million-year-old landmark like the Grand Canyon, you see things you normally don’t see, on the outside and the inside. Lessons become clear that may not have been so clear before.
But one lesson in particular really stuck with me…
There are a million messages right now telling you what to cut out of your life in 2014. No sugar, no grains, no this, no that.
Is life about what you cut out? Or is life about what you enjoy?
The ancient Grand Canyon reminds us: We are here for such a short time in the vast scope of history. If a roll of toilet paper represented the five-billion-year timeline of our planet, the existence of human history on the planet would only be 0.1 mm of a square of toilet paper.
So stop worrying so much about how you look, what you allow yourself to eat or not eat, or how much money you earn.
Your soul is currently on a trip in an exotic location (Earth) with canyons, oceans, stars, and snow. Are you enjoying your journey? Be honest.
Before you answer…
Consider that much of modern wellness is entangled in extrinsic factors like how you look, what clothes you wear, what kind of yoga poses you do.
Maybe you’ve seen the pictures on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook like:
Here I am in a one-handed handstand. Practice makes Perfect. #HandStand #AsanaAllDay!
Crow Pose while surfing this sick wave on the Big Island. #GratitudePrincess
Green Juice Throwdown! #30LBSin30Days
This is a form of wellness for people with a certain type of body, a certain type of income, a certain amount of free time.
Should something as important as wellness be so exclusive?
Maybe it’s just me, but a scroll through my Instagram newsfeed makes me feel hairy in the all the wrong places. (I know, I know, I know what the self-helpers are saying right now: “Dave, you are projecting.”)
I’ll tell you what I’m projecting: A NEW TYPE OF WELLNESS that is inclusive of the other 95% of the population.
- Here’s a shout out to anyone who, like me, feels like a Ford F-150 on the yoga mat and doesn’t care about doing fancy poses.
- Here’s a call to action for anyone who wants to embrace wellness but just can’t stomach green juice.
- Here’s a rally cry for those of you who can’t make the trip to Hawaii (work, kids, $$$$) but are all for a trip to your Inner Hawaii.
If you, like me, are part of The Other 95%, let’s be honest with ourselves. Wellness does not come when we can balance on our hands or bare our belly on the beach…
But when you can find someone to hug (or high five)
But when you can perceive beauty as a feeling (not a look)
But when you can smile because you have surrendered (not dominated).
Try this on for size: Happy is the new healthy.
@YeahDave (Click to Tweet!)
David “Yeah Dave” Romanelli has played a major role in pioneering the modernization of wellness in the United States. He believes wellness and feeling good is so much more than fancy yoga poses, green juice, and tight-fitting clothes. Dave launched his career fusing ancient wellness practices with modern passions like exotic chocolate, fine wine, and gourmet food by creating Yoga + Chocolate, Yoga + Wine, and Yoga for Foodies. His debut book, Yeah Dave’s Guide to Livin’ the Moment, reached #1 on the Amazon Self-Help Bestseller List. Check out his new show Yeah Dave! and discover more about his journey on www.yeahdave.com.
*Image courtesy of Markusnl.
