What Is Elevated Wellness?

We feel the term elevated wellness is redundant. For what is wellness without a feeling of elevation, lift and bliss? There is no un-elevated wellness in our view. It simply does not exist. However, since we want to differentiate between wellness with plant medicine and wellness without, we’ve use “elevated” to mark the difference.

As brother Bob says, “lively up yourself”. So while we will break down what we mean by elevated wellness means to us, we fully acknowledge that to many the term wellness will be sufficient to capture our meaning.

What does this really mean?

With that caveat out of the way, what do we actually mean by elevated wellness? For everyone at DVIBZ we are all on our own individual and community journeys of living a good life. This can and does mean different things to each of us but we will do our best to find the common threads and create a context for this conversation.

Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual + sexual, creative, relationships and ‘bliss factor’

To again quote the late Robert Nesta Marley, “When the root is strong, the fruit is sweet.” For us this means that wellness begins at the very roots of our life. Before we engage in our work, we feel elevated wellness begins with words and expressions of gratitude. Gratitude for a new day, gratitude for the day before us. Again each of us can speak, sing, dance or consume plant medicine as our expression of gratitude. It doesn’t have to look one way, even from how each of us practices gratitude from one day to the next.

Once our day is rolling, infused with gratitude and our favourite medicines, wellness becomes whatever we wish it to be. It doesn’t matter which order we approach our elevated wellness, our bodies, minds, hearts, emotions and spirits will be touched and inspired. For all things, intention is key. What we speak into existence becomes existence. The golden thread that weaves these activities and practices together is a sense of bliss. Bliss touches the heart, inspires the mind and stimulates the body. Without a feeling of tangible joy, what reason would we have to face the world, with its ups and downs?

In our relationships, in our work, in our play and in our quiet reflections we call in and cultivate joy and bliss. This can include plant medicines like cannabis and psilocybin or a hot cup of coffee. It can also exist without these. Dance, sex, service to our families and communities can also be where we feel this touch of bliss. Everyone is free to mix and match, consume plant medicine daily, occasionally or not at all. The point is to approach our wellness practices with the goal of lightness, levity and joy.

Striving for balance

There is no one way to achieve elevated wellness nor are we promised to feel good all the time. Life will bring a wide range of emotional, physical and spiritual sensations. Even striving for balance and harmony might look like not feeling either from time-to-time. It truly is the journey towards balance in our wellness that is the destination. No one outside of us can determine what balance looks like nor should anyone judge our “level” of wellness at any given moment. However, we can say with confidence that a life dedicated to elevation, joy and contribution to self and others will produce orgasmic moments of connection, bliss and awareness.

Prioritizing self care

Elevated wellness is a community affair yet it begins with the self. Before we can determine who we want to walk this path with, we must first decide where we want to go. In addition, while our communities can and will support us in elevated wellness, the strength of our personal practices and caring for ourselves will lay at the heart of our experience. Self care has become a buzzword in the past few years yet it must be, as Bob says “…the head cornerstone,” of any elevated wellness practice.

Integrating Community

What has been missing in the self-care revolution that we’ve all been experiencing in various ways is this: The healthy integration of community. If we are living a life that is empty of community we can experience ailments—ranging from poverty to isolation—that can’t be addressed by individual acts of self-care. More to the point, it is in community where the full expression of elevated wellness comes alive.

A community is more than a collection of individuals

It is an entity that can support each of us and expand the strength and well-being far in excess of what we could cultivate as individuals. Community need not be official either. A collection of close friends who consume and connect together can be a community. Colleagues who work towards a shared common vision can birth a community too. Much like everything else we’ve spoken about in this article, it doesn’t matter what the community looks like as much as the feelings of connection and joy it causes in the people who participate in it.

Elevated Wellness is a Promise Fulfilled

Down through the ages and sages, humanity has always been gifted a promise, a prophecy of a time when we all would come together. Regardless of race, religion or point-of-view this promise spoke to a way of living where each person would be valued and have the opportunity to express their gratitude and love in the way that served them. In ways simple and profound, the time that we live in is the very beginning of the fulfilment of this promise. In our communities of plant medicine, service and play, our individual acts of wellness create a tapestry of bliss, connection and well-being for all.

The road ahead may be long, but so is the journey that has brought us to this present moment. We live in a time worth celebrating, a celebration of life that will also infuse in us the energy to move our species that much further towards a time when all can meet in peace, harmony and abundance!

Stay elevated, friend.