Exploring wellbeing through the grammar of being well
So often we link wellness to adjectives of positivity. The smiley-face emojis, the sun on the cloud-to-rainbow chart, the inspirational goals we are told to set ourselves, ‘don’t worry, be happy’. It’s a clear trajectory from ‘bad’ to ‘good’ and a linear pipeline to wellbeing. In emphasizing only good, as ‘good-enough’, we are already setting the bar high, as just sustaining good can be exhausting. Yet, in a neo-liberal, competitive, capitalist society, ‘good’ on its own is actually rarely enough. We are constantly looking for ‘better’ and then ‘best’. To be ‘better’ is to compare ourselves constantly against others. This comes at a risk to wellbeing. In trying to be ‘better’ there is a suggestion that there may be something wrong within us, something that needs ‘fixing’. Yet, if we subscribe to the concept of neurodiversity, and embrace the neurodiversity paradigm, we understand that each of us navigates and interacts with the world in uniquely dynamic and fluid ways. A sing...
