How Wellness Culture has Stolen our Spontaneity:

I was recently scrolling through my own Instagram feed (yes, a pass time even therapists are not immune to) and saw a video of a woman doing her nighttime routine. Cooking, skin care, adrenal mocktail, lymphatic drainage, red light therapy- all set to the background audio stating “I don’t do sleepovers.” I have seen a thousand other videos just like it. Initially, I admittedly found myself thinking about whether or not I had the ingredients in my fridge to make the same mocktail she was drinking. Then I found myself thinking, how great! This woman is prioritizing her health and self-care and is uncompromising in her boundaries around these rituals. But then my thinking quickly shifted to oh shit. This woman has become uncompromising in her boundaries. Has this glorification of the perfect evening ritual turned into compulsion? Where is the room for spontaneity when our rituals become our religion? 

I have always been interested in the concept of spontaneity. As someone whose early career was spent working in the addiction and recovery space, I spent a lot of time developing and implementing the concept of consequential thinking with my clients. If you use this drug, how will that impact your ability to take care of yourself, get to work, or raise your children? Linking behavior with consequence is a huge part of maintaining stable mental and behavioral health. Impulsivity is often the opposite of consequential thinking. In addiction we call it getting the “fuck its.” We toss consequence to the wind and let our deepest impulses take over. 

The “fuck its” are a very real and very scary state of mind. Fuck it, let’s go get super drunk. Fuck it, let me buy the thing I can’t afford but want. Fuck it, let me text my ex. The quick dopamine hit we get in the “fuck it” moment wears off all too quickly and often lands us in regret city. We wake up hungover and depressed, we can’t pay our bills, we find ourselves back in toxic cycles with people we worked so hard to move on from. So it makes a lot of sense to find ways to hold ourselves accountable and avoid falling into the “fuck it” mentality. But I fear we may have overcorrected. And wellness culture is leading the charge. 

Routines, rituals, daily practices are all hugely helpful. Morning sunlight, walks after meals, meditation, journaling, skin care, nutrition. There is something so adaptive about finding ways to be intentional about our behaviors with the understanding that the consequences of said behaviors are wonderful. We sleep better, we save money, we regulate our blood sugar. But when our allegiance is to the ritual and not to the intuition beneath the ritual, we start to lose ourselves. 

This is where I make the case for spontaneity. Not impulsivity, the scary road that leads us to the “fuck its.” But that sweet spot of trusting our gut and acting outside of the rigidity of wellness culture. Spontaneity may look like a spur of the moment day trip to the beach or you agree to grab a drink with a new friend after work. This may mean you miss your usual morning yoga class or you get home too late to meal prep your perfectly balanced macro meal. But its consequence is not destruction. I am not saying there are no consequences. Perhaps you get home later than usual and your sleep is a bit disrupted. Maybe your to-do list gets pushed a day. But you wake and being the resilient creature you are- you adjust! Your world does not crumble. You do not fall apart. Your skin care routine and sleepy girl mocktail are there for you the following night. 

Let this be your invitation to find some spontaneity. Trust that you will not fall into the scary world of “fuck its” but that your intuition is capable of leading you into new, expansive, and growthful moments even if it somewhat uncomfortable to step outside of your ritual every so often.