Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well? This question has always haunted my spirit. It’s from Toni Cade Bambara’s novel, The Salteaters. It is also apt for today. That and what does being well mean for the public’s health, from a social justice lens, radical wellness too and not from experts alone, or those who have credentials, but from you the general public and with your fiction or nonfiction?

Who are your go to references for being radically well and how do you even begin to define wellness for yourself? Of course it led me down a rabbit hole, one where I am now obsessed with how people, those in fiction and non fiction, those with expertise and none, define what they mean by wellness.

I have been struck by the myriad of ways people define wellness, especially those focused on people of color. It matters to me these days that for the public, we define what wellness means, not just from what the dominant literature may tell us, but from everyday people who continue to struggle with answering the question: ‘Are you sure, sweetheart, you want to be well.’ So, from what I gathered from the Bettina Love’s profound book ‘We want to do more than survive’ wellness is:

A choice

A type of freedom that comes when you let go of your fears and move your anger into a space of healing.

Wisdom and being well is hard work.

Part of social justice work.

An inner life that refuses to be treated less than human.

Being vulnerable.

Finding the roots of your own Black Joy, Black love, and humanity.

Choosing to see ourselves beyond illness or disease.

Having an inner self that can be quiet and enjoy life.

Recognizing the pain of our ancestors knowing the beauty and resilience of that pain lives on in us.

Knowing who you are regardless of what is thrown at you.

Integenerational.

Different for different people.

Healing that is unrecognizable to White people and different from them.

Being your best self while fighting injustice.

Fighting racism with life, grace, compassion.

Having mental space and freedom to dream, give hell, and retreat to one’s community of love for support, fulfillment, and nourishment.

Being whole.

Bringing your full self.

Joining others in the fight for humanity and antiracism in love and solidarity.

Confronting internalized White supremacy, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Isamophobia, fat phobia, classism, ableism, and the rage that comes as a result of these hateful ideas.

Keep doing more than surviving with these radical wellness definitions in mind.