Why ‘Wellness’ Is Failing Us
If you scroll through Instagram right now under the hashtag #wellness, you will see a very specific aesthetic.
You’ll see matching beige yoga sets. You’ll see $15 green juices. You’ll see perfectly curated morning routines that stack journaling, meditation, yoga, and affirmations on top of a sauna, a cold shower, and enough protein for a heavyweight champion, all before 7 a.m. Great if you have the time (or don’t have kids and a job!)
Somewhere along the line, “wellness” stopped meaning well-being and became something to perform. It slowly turned into an aesthetic, not a lived, felt experience.
We started treating peace of mind like a commodity we could buy, rather than a skill we had to build. Suddenly, being “well” meant supplements, powders, creams, gadgets and protocols. It meant optimising your morning and curating your habits in just the right way.
But the problem is, this pursuit of the perfect wellness stack, the perfect morning, the perfect “hack”, creates even more stress.
Biohacking Replaced Belonging
We have drifted into an era where we look for answers everywhere, except inside.
We look for answers in ice baths and data tracking. We treat the body as something to override instead of something to befriend. The industry sells the idea that we are incomplete and need fixing, upgrading, or optimising, as if our body is a problem to be managed, not an intelligence to be trusted.
It has turned being human into a project.
But we know that ten different healing modalities and ten different rules don’t equal more well-being. In fact, often, “more doing” equals less connection.
Wellbeing Was Never Meant to Be Stacked
The truth is simpler, and much quieter. Wellbeing was never meant to be bought, stacked, or upgraded.
True emotional fitness isn’t about adding more. It’s about stripping things back. It’s about realising that you already have the essentials: breath, sensation, rhythm, and intuition.
Emotional Fitness, on the other hand, is skill-based.
It is proactive, it’s the habit of catching a negative thought spiral and reframing it. It’s the habit of sitting in uncomfortable silence without reaching for your phone. It’s the habit of choosing a moment of awe when you really just want to be angry.
It requires less fixing and less consuming, and more presence and trust.
So, let’s enjoy the green juice. Let’s appreciate the morning affirmations. But let’s not mistake the garnish for the meal.
More soon,
Jacqueline x
A Note on ELEVATE: At Elevate, we are opting out of “wellness” as a performance. We don’t teach optimisation. Our Retreats, Workshops, and Corporate Programs focus on the “active” skills of resilience and joy so you can stop working on yourself and start experiencing the full vitality of life.
