I for one am not ready to go back to the lifestyle that we all were used to living. As the entire circadian rythym of life has come to a sudden shift, it has occurred to me to ask the question, Who came up with the order and schedule of our lives? When was it decided that the majority of our time should be spent in the workplace? I find myself pondering these things that for so long we have just accepted as fact, inherent rule. Why?

Is it really benefiting us anymore? Is it required anymore? There’s just so many things we need to look at and maybe start a conversation amongst ourselves, we, the people.

We need to discuss this while it is happening. What has been taking place at a national level, let alone maybe a global level, but in particular for America? We are living in a period of time that the majority of the people don’t live well. They spend most of their time at work to try to bring enough income into the household to support a family, both parents working. Minimum wage does not support minimum living and if that isn’t even enough, we’ve gotten into a holding pattern with debt. People are going into debt so they can try to get to a place where they can afford a lifestyle that isn’t meager and demeaning, most of us never achieving what it is to live, we scrape by and hope we can figure out how to send our kids to college. Who decided this? Did the American people decide this? I believe that only a select few of the population actually benefit from this system that we all live in, I am seriously beginning to question the systems of our lives.

We have forgotten the order. Systems are to support people, people are now supporting systems. Humanity as a whole needs a leader, divorced of all systems to make decisions for humanity as a whole who is not governed by big corporations, agendas, politics or religion. Make no mistake we need order as a civilization, but we need leadership and order that is there for the good and wellbeing of the people. A leader that is concerned for the health of the whole and values life in every sense of the word. As it is now, money rules what is good for the people. Anyone else see a problem with this? I think it’s time for a change.

People are the collective that make up the wealth and wellbeing of the country. If people are not happy the entire world will be affected. The Dalai Lama said, happiness is the one thing we all have in common we all want to be happy and yet most of us cannot grasp it. No system can sustain happiness for the individual, but our system can and must support it. We as a people have the right to pursue happiness. The concept of happiness can be vague and somehow we all suffered the “pursuit” of it. We have the right to pursue it as it is written in the constitution of America. We must put wellness above all else. Happiness is the real generator of wealth, power, success and ultimate peace. You were meant for happiness. You were not only meant for the pursuit of it, but to inhabit it.

I am a person with a lived experience of mental health challenges who has struggled from the effects of depression and anxiety, mostly related to trauma. I have worked really hard to come to a place in my life where I have found healing. During the time of greatest pain and suffering in my life–Suicidal thoughts daily, feeling as if my consciousness was completely separated from my body I was desperate for healing. I went through the system for help. Great people of the system helped me, the system itself was not what helped me. There were people along the way that went above and beyond to help and support me. I will be forever grateful to those people for their kindness. We have to move away from the notion that there is a one-size fits all approach to healing. There is healing that occurs beyond the 4 walls of an institution, it occurs within the individual and happiness is the radiation of a healed soul. This part of the healing journey came in the form of indigenous and ancient healing methods like sweat lodges and yoga. I’ve sat in circles and not only did I find healing, I found something far greater I found myself. True happiness and healing is in the discovery of yourself. So you see 4 walls did not deliver me into myself, circles did and the connection I found with the people who shared my circle did. It’s not the pursuit that brings happiness it’s the discovery. We all have the right to discover who we are. In any form, on any road that we choose. Happiness can never be prescribed.

My healing came in ways that wouldn’t necessarily be legitimized by professionals and wouldn’t meet the criteria to be paid for by medicaid or other insurance companies. If you listen to the experts by experience (people like me) you will hear over and over again that their healing journey led them to the awakening of themselves in a spiritual sense. Let’s put our preconceived notions of God, religion and spirituality aside for a moment. Spirituality is the retrieval of one’s self. The self that gets buried under years of conditioning, trauma, oppression and ego. Spirituality or the lack of it draws a drastic line in the sand. If a person is lacking spirituality you might find that person to exhibit suffering in many different ways such as substance abuse, suicidal ideations, eating disorders, self harm, personality disorders, depression and anxiety etc. Symptoms of Spirituality might include, connection to self, inner peace, feelings of joy and wholeness, alignment with values, clear understanding of purpose and calling in life, a sense of interconnectedness, ability to withstand discomfort, and emotional intelligence. Connecting a person to spirituality is the most expedient way to heal a person and yet spirituality was divorced from the system along with religion. With that action we have sent the message that healing must be done through the measure of intellect. That is extremely insufficient and plainly ineffective.

It’s important for us to have connection, it’s important to have choice and to determine our own pathway to healing. Spirituality is highly individual and people must be allowed to find their own spiritual language, given in a tongue they can understand. For me it’s a combination of yoga, cognitive coping skills, sweats, meditation, crystals, writing and belonging to a collective of like minded people. I have a community, I have a tribe.

We were all once tribes of men and with it we made incredible advancements as mankind. Our error was that we tried to do away with diversity and became rigid in our thinking, resistant to any other ways of doing things. Over time we have forgotten about our heritage of tribes and communities, we have become so individual that we are weakened and sick. We are plagued by ego. We are truly malnourished spiritually. If we do not start healing each other, with each other, we will witness the descent of man. We will fall from the heights we rose so very rapidly and with terrifying calamity.

You know even the conglomerate SAMSHSA, Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration even recognizes the importance of Spirituality in the framework of healing and yet it is largely missing from the landscape of best practices and evidence based approaches. Community, home, purpose, hope among the buzzwords of the industry. SAMHSA says in order to be well a person must be well in 8 dimensions. Wellness of ourselves physically, socially, mentally, emotionally, financially, intellectually, occupationally, spiritually and environmentally. Within the current social construct wellness in all dimensions is very difficult for the majority of the population to achieve. It costs money to be well and systems make money when we stay unwell. Medical necessity creates a necessity of illness. Professionals and businesses get paid for ill patients not well ones. Yet we scratch our collective head and wonder why suicide rates and school shootings are on the rise, why diagnosis of mental illness and disease are on the rise? It’s because we don’t value wellness. We don’t value home, community and hope.

As it stands now, I spend more time at work than I do at home. Americans like to be industrious, but is this mindset working for us anymore? How eye-opening this experience has been. How tragic at the same time. I have learned in my seclusion and forced pause that the home is where we’ve been missing from at large. We can’t afford to be at home. We can’t afford to have connections with our families, to have meaningful time together, and we are just bombarded with constant distractions to deter us from making a connection with ourselves this creating a barrier to spirituality keeping healing out of reach. The true power of the people lies within the people. People who are connected to themselves, their families and communities. People who inspire each other and provide hope to one another. That is when change can happen. When we connect within and then reach out.

We have severed connections. We have severed connections in the home, severed connections with the spirit, severed connections with our physical bodies. It’s outrageous to me that the governing systems of our lives that boast the importance of wellness are also part of the problem. The lifestyle that is forced upon us all, is what is killing us all. Beyond politics, systems and government we are humans first. Humans are meant to be placed first. What we need to heal should be given and systems should be supportive and designed around the concept of wellness in 8 dimensions. With equanimity of each dimension.

I do not want to return to cramming my relationship with my family into the weekend. It has been refreshing to be able to have time to be a participant of all dimensions of my life these last few weeks. Being able to work, care for not only my needs as an individual, but the needs of my family. There is so much wasted time in our current life structure of the 40 hour work week. That time can be maximized to enrich our lives if only the people in charge could see that individual wellness contributes to the productivity and overall health of the community. Being able to become masters of our own time and schedule to manage our lives in a way so that we can have time to search ourselves, time to devote to each dimension of wellness in our lives. A soul requires time for reflection. Time to connect creatively, to have an understanding of self through discovery. Just as much as it is important for us to be intellectual, it is just as important to be emotionally intelligent, connected to the body and spirit. This is what it means to be spiritual, the care of self in all aspects. When we are nourished we are happy. Happiness is the byproduct of Spirituality. Therefore spirituality is the new happiness.

It’s time for a serious undoing. A complete shift in the way that we approach living and working as people. Going through this has shown how interconnected we all are. We all depend on the health and well being of each other to make it through the worst of times.

Our planet and all of its creation need us to heal. The same steps apply to heal a family that apply to heal a community, to heal a country, to heal a nation and to heal a world. It all starts with healing the person. We are all one or none. Wake up. Choose awareness and have the courage to see what is begging to be witnessed a shift in perspective will change this world. First we must heal, connect and then demand that people and their wellness be put first. This is my Manifesto. A call to all mankind for man was intended to know joy. You were meant for happiness.

Written by Mya Boren