In my 20s, “wellness” has become a blueprint for how to live. I approached it as many women do: Instagram sparked curiosity and perfectionism shaped by years of internalization shoulder. All smoothie ingredients had functionality. Every morning I had to maximize my routine. Rest has been obtained. The joy is doubtful. I mistaken control for care. And like many of us are trying to do the “right” thing, I rarely stopped to ask if it actually made me feel good.
Looking back, it was part of a larger system of wellness propaganda that I haven’t fallen anymore.
Features from the interview Ingetalon
Wellness Propaganda I’m not falling in my 30s
Now, in my early 30s, I have the opportunity to learn the idea that wellness is all-purpose. It is sometimes disorienting to let go of the rules, especially when you are constantly selling the next routine, ritual, or reset. But I came to realize that it is worth maintaining that it is something I see where I am, not where I think I should be. This is my job. It’s about turning inward, adjusting the noise and creating peace with the fact that the most nourishing path is the least performant path.
Wellness doesn’t mean you’re always feeling good. It means giving yourself the freedom to feel everything.
From beautiful food to fun nutrition
Beautiful food was once my whole personality. I believed that the more food I could cut out, the healthier I would become. But beneath the surface, its stiffness overshadowed something more painful. My eating disorder shaped not only the way I ate, but how I saw myself. Like many women, I confused discipline with health and misled control for control. “Clean” has become a moral category, and I lived in fear of something processed, luxurious or enjoyable. The world of wellness praised it. And I did it too. My mental and emotional weight has become too heavy to carry.
What saved me was not the new food philosophy, but the slow, often unpleasant realization that nutrition cannot come from fear. Over time I learned that there are no inherently bad foods. And ice cream and pizza with friends on a summer night is just as valuable as a green smoothie on a Tuesday morning. Today I eat in a variety and flexible way. Yes, I eat for energy, but also for joy, connection, and enjoyment. There are no more moral halos in my diet. This means that guilt is not clouded either.
Try this instead:
Once you start learning to eat a clean diet, start by noticing the conversations of your inner foods. Does certain diets bring shame? Do other people make you feel “good” or “bad” about yourself? Instead of assigning value, practice neutrality. Let me eat something that once scared you. Enjoy it. enjoy it. And see what happens when the food is food again.
The toxic aspect of merciless productivity
Who else is obsessed with the high level of getting things done? I used to pack my days with back-to-dos and wear burnout like a badge of honor. Wellness wasn’t how I felt to me. It was how efficiently I could function. I believed that just learning the right morning routine and productivity hacks would allow me to pass the low-anxious ham that ultimately continued everywhere. But even on my most productive day I rarely felt peaceful. No matter how much I achieved it, it didn’t seem to be enough.
I started asking different questions, bumping into walls, emotionally and physically. What does it look like prioritizing presence over performance? Can you make your day meaningful even if you’re not productive? Slowly, I began to exchange pressures to optimize with my attentional practice. Now I build my days around things that are important to me. It creates nutritional conversations, intensive working hours and open space in between. I still love the checklist, but I no longer confuse busyness with value.
Try this instead:
If you get caught up in a constant loop of actions, try a time-based approach. Identify the most important things at the beginning of the week feel-I just haven’t achieved it. Maybe it’s connection, creativity, or rest. Next, you’ll build a schedule about supporting that feeling. And remember: productivity is not a measure of your value. It’s just a perfect and meaningful part of life.
Releases toxic positive grip
For years I thought everything was fine if I could just stay positive. I curated my thinking in the way I did an Instagram feed. I repeated the mantras like “only good vibes” and tried to reconstruct all the difficult things as lessons. And there’s something I have to say for optimism, but I used it to bypass the feelings I didn’t want to feel. Sadness, anger, disappointment – did not fit the version of wellness I was trying to maintain. I believed that if I went in, they might take over. So I shut them out.
But here is the truth: emotions demand what you feel. And the more I tried to give them a sheen, the more they found a way to surface through anxiety, burnout and cutting. What I came to understand is that the real well creates space for the full range of emotions. It quietly embraces a tough day. In tears that don’t need to be fixed. He gives a deep breath following the truth. Now I strive for emotional integrity, not for positivity. I make good days good and I will not be embarrassed and have hard days present.
But here is the truth: emotions demand what you feel. And the more I tried to give them a sheen, the more they found a way to surface through anxiety, burnout and cutting.
Try this instead:
Pause when you seduce “positive thoughts” on how to get out of discomfort. Ask yourself: what am I? actually Do you feel it now? Name it without judging. Let yourself sit together, keep a diary through it and talk about it with the people you trust. There is strength in being with your feelings. It’s not about pretending that they’re not there. Wellness doesn’t mean you’re always feeling good. It means giving yourself the freedom to feel everything.
Performance and Wellness as a Living Experience
That makes sense: in our visual first world, I believed that health was something I had to prove. It wasn’t just how I looked after myself. It was about how that care looked to others. I recorded everything: my matcha, my yoga mat, my nightstand book. I was always reaching out to a kind of aesthetic validation, curating versions of health that seemed calm, balanced and ambitious. I wasn’t conscious and was not trying to perform. But in a culture where sharing is the default, I struggled to separate the rituals I thought I should (and demonstrated).
Finally, I realized that the real wellness moments were something I didn’t post. A walk I took without a phone, a quiet cry I had in the shower, a warm bowl of pasta I made after a long day. These were rituals that were not very similar, but all meanings. Today, I measure the quality of my health, not by how it looks, but by the feelings that follow. It’s not performance. It lives deep.
Try this instead:
We will audit your ritual. Ask yourself: is I doing this because it feeds me? Or is it because it fits a particular image? Start introducing moments just for you. Leave a phone in another room. Don’t worry about what it looks like. Keep your health quiet and even invisible, unpopular. That’s where magic lives.
The most beautiful health is yours
My wellness in my 20s was loud. It called for attention – structured, aesthetic, often performance. But what wellness did I find in my 30s? It’s quiet. It is not required to be seen and there is no need to justify it. When I’m worried, or when I call a friend rather than pushing through, it’s a long walk. And cold memories? I finally admitted that it wasn’t for me, and it is freedom in its own right.
This is the kind of health I want more: intuitive, incomplete, completely my own.
If you realise that wellness really solves what it should look like from what feels good, you know this. You are not alone. There is a lot of freedom in letting go of rules that are never actually suitable. Start small. Be honest and start. And don’t forget that wellness is not something to master. It’s something to live.
Source: Camille Styles – camillestyles.com
