🏆CC🪷🔵 | Wellbeing | The Floss

I read a list of simple things to do every day. Walk for ten minutes. Meditate for ten minutes. Eat a balanced meal. Take a stroll in the sun. Floss. Exercise for thirty minutes. Sleep seven to eight hours. Breathe. Be silent. Go inside.

And I kept coming back to the floss.

Not because it is the most important thing on the list. It is not. It is the most specific thing on the list. The rest of it could be in any wellness app. Any onboarding screen. Any “5 simple habits for a better life” post that shows up in your feed at 6 a.m. with a stock photo of a woman stretching on a beach. “Walk for ten minutes.” “Meditate for ten minutes.” “Nourish your dream with 7-8 hours of sleep.” I have read those sentences a hundred times. They do not land. They slide off. They are the “Rise and Shine Beautiful Souls” energy. The “let the sunshine kiss your skin” energy. The “be the Happiest version of YOU” energy. And I close the tab.

But the floss. The floss is a specific object. It is in a specific tube. It is in the bathroom cabinet. It is the thing I do at 10:47 p.m. with the toothpaste on the counter and the water still running and the child already asleep in the next room. And the floss does not need a “serene oasis for your mind.” The floss does not need to “nourish your spirit.” The floss is the floss. And I do it. And then I do not do it for three days. And then I do it again. And the doing and the not-doing are both the point. And the floss is the one thing on the list that I recognize as mine. Not a “wellness practice.” A Tuesday night. A bathroom. A tube of floss.

The walk is not a “brisk 10-minute walk”

The article says “a brisk 10-minute walk or a quick energizing workout will do wonders.” And I thought: that is not what the walk is. The walk is the thing I do when I need to get out of the room. The walk is the car in the parking lot and the ten minutes I stand there because I do not want to go back inside yet. The walk is the specific, quiet, unremarkable act of putting one foot in front of the other and letting the body do the thing the body does. And it is not “brisk.” And it is not “energizing.” And it is not “doing wonders.” It is the walk. And the walk is ten minutes or forty minutes or I do not know how long. And the not-knowing-how-long is part of it.

The silence is not a “practice”

The article has a whole section on “Embracing The Silence.” It says silence “allows us to slow down, decompress, and reduce the sensory overload.” And I thought: that is a description of what happens when you close the laptop and turn the phone over and sit in the kitchen for ten minutes. It is not a “practice.” It is not something you “embrace.” It is the room getting quiet. It is the refrigerator humming. It is the wind in the branches. It is the specific, quiet, unremarkable fact that nothing is asking for your attention for the next ten minutes. And the body does the thing it does when nothing is asking. The unclenche. The jaw. The shoulders. The “I am still here” exhale.

The “going inside” is not a technique

The article says “going inside of you refers to the practice of self-exploration and introspection.” And I thought: that is the 3 a.m. waking. That is the kitchen table at 5:40 with the cold coffee and the notebook and the pen and the thing in the body that you are trying to write down and you cannot. That is not a “practice.” That is not “self-exploration.” That is the body doing the thing it does when the house is quiet and the mind is not pacing and the only thing that is moving is the pen on the page. And sometimes the pen writes the thing. And sometimes it does not. And the not-writing is the going-inside. And the going-inside is not a “benefit.” It is the Tuesday. It is the 3 a.m. It is the notebook.

The list is the list

I am not going to “commit to at least 30 minutes of exercise.” I am not going to “carry joy in my heart and spread The Happiness.” I am not going to “be the Happiest version of me.” I am going to floss tonight. Or I am not going to floss tonight. And both of those are the point. And I am going to walk when I need to walk. And I am going to sit in the kitchen when the room gets quiet. And I am going to write the thing at 3 a.m. when the body will not let me sleep. And the list is the list. And the floss is the floss. And the walk is the walk. And the silence is the silence. And the 3 a.m. is the 3 a.m. And none of it needs to be “transformative.” And none of it needs to “nourish my spirit.” And none of it needs a stock photo of a woman stretching on a beach.

The floss is in the bathroom cabinet. And I am going to do the thing. Or I am not going to do the thing. And both of those are fine. And that is the whole thing.

🎧 If you would rather listen to this one, the audio is here. Take it if it is for you. 

This is part of Coach Clear. The slow, honest work of finding your way. coachclear.net