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 singular ‘better’ human being doesn’t exist. Instead, our differences mean that we each have our own needs and preferences. To be ‘better’, to ‘fit’ all environments, or those given prestige and value, and to have to mask authentic ways of being, demands additional energy we may not have within us. What may therefore on the surface appear as ‘better’, depends heavily on the point of view from which ‘better’ is judged or perceived. It is vital that we understand how ‘better’ can also lead to meltdowns and shutdowns, as well as to increased strain on overall mental health and wellbeing.

 

In this respect, the concept of ‘best’ is of most concern. How to be your ‘best self’ is something I hear and have also used myself in the past. My curiosity now is around whose ‘best’ are we really trying to achieve? I do wonder how much such phrases are related to capitalist ideology.  I ponder, does continually working to be our ‘best’ leave any room for simply being and being comfortable with who we are? Why add a superlative to ‘selfhood’, when this should be understood and respected in everyone? Instead, the everyday, ordinary and authentic ‘self’ may simply not be enough to be well in the eyes of a society that drives ever harder, and expects ever more.

 

Stopping the uplift-upspin phenomenon of ‘good, better, best’ requires us to move away from seeing wellbeing as another object for us to possess. It is more useful to see wellbeing as an action, a verb, and a personal journey (McGreevy et al., 2024), weaving throughout the places and events of our life stories, intertwined with the echoes and memories of past experiences and guided by the whispers of our future. Self-determination theory goes on to outline three core elements of wellbeing: autonomy, competence and relatedness, or a connection with others. ‘Better’ and ‘Best’ have no place here because wellness is crafted as we move along our own intrinsic and distinctive path, succeeding at our own pace and following our interests, knowing where and with whom we belong.  ‘Being well’ in the world is at the heart of wellbeing.

 

The uniqueness of our wellbeing further negates the need for comparison. ‘Well’, as an adverb, is a more useful tool, as it opens curious exploration of the how, when and where of being for each of us. Part of this process is seeing how being in the world is a co-constructed in conversation with the environment around us. Effective individualised and reflexive wellbeing support is about making time to explore and to join these conversations; learning to ‘be alongside' and making time to listen; offering space to discover and expand, not to define and reduce. In this relational endeavour, we prioritise the epistemic authority of lived experience, and disrupt more traditional unidirectional notions of wellness, built on positions of hierarchy and knowledge as power.

 

Changing the grammar of wellbeing is a necessary shift in thinking, if we want to truly embrace the neurodiversity paradigm. A move away from a world order created from perceived certainty, and measurable intent, to a space of creativity, possibility and greater compassion for what it means to be human. In our current world, where difference is too often an underlying cause for the most horrific human acts, support for the action of being well, and all the love that that action entails, is timely.  When we learn to accept and value all ways of being, we are one step closer to developing a more human understanding of what is meant when we talk about humanity.

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