What Does It Actually Mean to Be Well? - Reflections After 100 Episodes | Henry Hawk

After 100 conversations about health, healing, spirituality, the body, relationships, identity, and what it means to live a meaningful life, one question keeps rising to the surface: What does it actually mean to be well?

In this special 100th episode of Rooted & Wild, Henry steps behind the microphone alone—not to celebrate a number or look back at favorite moments, but to reflect on the deeper patterns that have emerged across one hundred conversations.

We live in a time with seemingly endless information about how to optimize ourselves. Heal your nervous system. Improve your sleep. Fix your hormones. Strengthen your body. Work through your trauma. Set better boundaries. Eat differently. Meditate. Take supplements. Find your purpose.

But somewhere along the way, wellness itself can become exhausting.

What if being well isn't about finally fixing everything?

What if wholeness isn't a destination at all—but our ability to remain in relationship with ourselves as life continues to change?

In this deeply personal and practical solo episode, Henry explores what Rooted & Wild has revealed about the relationship between body and mind, healing and becoming, ancient wisdom and modern knowledge, curiosity and certainty, and perhaps most importantly, knowing something versus actually living it.

Because information about transformation isn't transformation.

Understanding boundaries isn't setting one. Knowing you need rest isn't resting. Learning about grief isn't grieving. Knowing who you are isn't necessarily living as that person.

This episode invites you to move beyond consuming more information and instead consider four deceptively simple questions:

What does my body need from me now?

What belief or story am I ready to question?

Where am I being invited into greater honesty or connection?

What makes me feel meaningfully alive?

Then comes the challenge: choose one—and do something with it.

Henry also shares what's ahead for the solo episodes of Rooted & Wild, which will increasingly become spaces for integration: exploring the connections and contradictions between guest conversations, examining ideas he's wrestling with, questioning assumptions, exploring seasonal and spiritual themes, and asking how everything we're learning can become something we actually embody.

One hundred episodes later, perhaps the goal isn't to have fewer questions.

Perhaps it's to have better ones.

And maybe becoming well isn't about accumulating enough information to finally perfect ourselves.

Maybe it's learning to hear ourselves beneath all that information—to know when we need medicine and when we need rest, when we need discipline and when we need tenderness, when we need another person's wisdom and when we need to trust our own.

When we need roots. And when it's time to grow wild.

Rooted & Wild provides general information for educational and informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Henry Hawk. The content shared on this podcast is not intended to replace individualized medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice, nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any health condition. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding any medical or mental health concerns.

Transcript

Copy

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Rooted and Wild 2018. There's something I've been thinking about as I prepared for this episode. This is the 100th episode of Rooted and Wild. And when I realized we were approaching 100, I immediately started thinking about what I was supposed to do with this. Do I look back at my favorite conversations? Do I share 100 things I've learned? Do I talk about how the podcast started or how it's changed or where it's going? And I could do any of that. But honestly, I don't think the fact that I've recorded 100 episodes is particularly interesting to anyone listening to this podcast. I am incredibly grateful to every person who has sat down with me, shared their work, told their story, challenged an idea, and introduced us to something unfamiliar. I'm grateful to everyone who has allowed themselves to be vulnerable in these conversations. And more than anything, I'm incredibly grateful to you for listening. But I don't want this episode to become a victory lap. Because there's something much more interesting about reaching 100 conversations. When you spend this much time talking with people who think deeply about health, healing, spirituality, psychology, relationships, the body, identity, grief, sexuality, medicine, nature, trauma, consciousness, and what it means to live a meaningful life, you start noticing patterns. People who seemingly have nothing to do with one another begin saying strangely similar things. Different modalities start pointing towards the same places. And sometimes people who care deeply about the same problem arrive at completely different answers. So, after 100 episodes, there is one question I find myself thinking about more than almost any other. What does it actually mean to be well? Because we have never had more information about how to be well. And yet wellness itself can sometimes feel like another thing we're failing at. We're told to optimize our sleep, to optimize our hormones, heal our nervous systems, improve our microbiomes, eat differently, move differently, breathe differently, strength train, meditate, go outside, take supplements, work through our trauma, heal our inner child, understand our attachment style, set boundaries, drink enough water, build meaningful relationships, find our purpose, regulate our emotions, become spiritually connected. And apparently, we're supposed to do all of this while working, maintaining relationships, paying bills, caring for our families, and occasionally enjoying being alive. At some point, wellness can become exhausting. It can become another project, another performance, another impossible version of ourselves waiting somewhere in the future. The perfectly healed person, the perfectly regulated person, the perfectly optimized person, the person who wakes up every morning after eight uninterrupted hours of sleep, meditates, drinks something green, and has perfect blood work, perfect boundaries, a regulated nervous system, a thriving relationship, and a meaningful career, and somehow remembers to stretch in the middle of it. And I'm not sure that's wellness. I'm not even sure that person actually exists. Over these conversations, I started wondering whether we've confused wellness with the absence of difficulty. Maybe being well doesn't mean that nothing hurts. Maybe it doesn't mean that we've never become anxious, exhausted, sick, angry, grieving, confused, or overwhelmed. Maybe wholeness isn't the state we finally arrive at when we fixed everything. Maybe wellness is our capacity to remain in relationship with ourselves while life keeps changing. And perhaps that's why the name rooted and wild continues to mean so much to me. Because those two words describe something that initially sounds contradictory. To be rooted is to have something beneath you, something that anchors you, like values, practices, relationships, community, your body, the earth, whatever reminds you who you are when life becomes noisy. But being wild is different. Wild things cannot control everything that happens around them. They respond, they adapt, they grow toward light, they endure seasons, they lose things, they regenerate, they become dormant, they return. Being rooted without being wild can become rigidity. Being wild without being rooted can become chaos. Maybe wellness exists somewhere in the relationship between the two. And when I look back at the subjects we've explored on this show, one of the clearest patterns is something incredibly simple. The body keeps entering the conversation. No matter where we begin, somehow we keep finding our way back to the body. We've talked about breath work, osteopathy, structural integration, reflexology, blood, mitochondria, the microbiome, herbal medicine, Ayurveda, strength, hormones, sexuality, touch, trauma, the nervous system, somatic work, grief, and pain. And when the conversation begins somewhere that seems entirely psychological or spiritual, eventually the body appears. Because we are not brains being carried around by inconvenient pieces of flesh. We experience our entire lives through these bodies. Joy happens in a body, fear happens in a body, grief happens in a body, attraction happens in a body, safety happens in a body, exhaustion happens in a body, connection happens in a body. Even many of the things we describe as spiritual experiences are experienced through sensation. A chill, warmth, expansion, stillness, breath, tears, a tight feeling in the chest, something dropping in the stomach, something we can't quite explain but somehow recognize. And yet, many of us have become incredibly skilled at overriding the body. We tell ourselves we're fine when we're exhausted. We stay in situations our bodies tighten around. We eat while distracted, we breathe shallowly, we ignore pain, we push through, we numb, we intellectualize. And sometimes that ability is useful. There are moments when life requires us to keep moving, but if overriding ourselves becomes our permanent way of living, eventually something gets lost. So, here's the first question I want to give to you today. What has your body been trying to tell you that you keep trying to solve intellectually? You don't need to answer this immediately, just notice what comes up with that question. Because another thing these conversations have taught me is that healing and becoming are much more intertwined than I once thought. We talk about healing as though its purpose is to return us to some previous version of ourselves. Something happened, something broke, we heal it, we go back. But I don't think that's how most meaningful healing works. Sometimes there is no going back. Grief quite literally changes you. Parenthood changes you, illness can change you, sobriety changes you, trauma changes you, love changes you, age changes you, loss changes you, and yes, even healing changes you. The goal cannot always be restoration to who we were before. Sometimes healing is becoming someone capable of carrying what happened without allowing it to determine everything that happens next. Sometimes healing is grieving, sometimes it's strengthening, sometimes it's accepting or releasing, or finally becoming angry at the situation that hurt you so much. Sometimes it's finally becoming tender. Sometimes it's forgiving and releasing someone. Sometimes it's realizing forgiveness isn't what you need. Sometimes it's discovering that a coping mechanism which once protected you is now preventing you from living. And that brings me to something I've been thinking about a lot in my own life. Becoming yourself often requires subtraction. We talk constantly about personal growth as accumulation. Learn one thing, develop another skill, adopt another practice, read another book, take another course, become more disciplined, be more productive, become more spiritual, become more successful, get healed. But sometimes the next version of ourselves doesn't need anything added. Sometimes something needs to be removed. An identity, an expectation, a relationship to success and money, a belief about what other people need us to be, a role we became so good at playing that we forgot it was a role, a survival strategy that became a personality, a dream we've outgrown but are afraid to admit we no longer want. A definition of ourselves created by someone who no longer knows us. So, I want to give you another question. And this might be the question from this episode that stays with you. What are you still carrying because an earlier version of you needed it? Not because you need it now, but because they did. Maybe that earlier version of you needed to be liked. Maybe they needed to achieve. Maybe they needed to stay quiet. Maybe they needed to be impressive. Maybe they needed control. Maybe they needed to disappear. Maybe they needed to take care of everyone else. Maybe they needed to be tough. Maybe they needed to never need anybody. And perhaps that strategy worked. Honor that. But ask yourself now, do you still need it? Because survival strategies can become prisons long after they stop saving us. Another thing I've come to appreciate through this podcast is how much knowledge we inherit and how much we discover. This show has moved backward and forward in time almost constantly. As we've talked about Ayurveda and herbal traditions and seasonal festivals, astrology, inner healing, ancestral practices, and ways of understanding human beings that existed long before laboratories, imaging technology, or modern medicine. And then we've talked about microbiomes and mitochondria and hematology, neuroscience, medical care, technology and psychology, emerging ways of understanding the body. I find that intersection fascinating because I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that we have to choose a camp, that everything is old wisdom, or everything is old superstition, that everything modern is progress, or that everything modern has disconnected us from nature. Reality seems much more complicated than that. Our ancestors understood things we have forgotten. They also believe things that were wrong. Modern science has revealed extraordinary things about the human body. It also continues to revise itself as we learn more. That's not a failure, that's what learning looks like. Which means that maybe one of the most important skills we can develop isn't certainty or labeling one thing or another, but rather develop discernment. Can I remain curious without becoming gullible? Can I remain skeptical without becoming cynical? Can I listen to someone's experience without automatically turning their experience into universal truth? Can I encounter an idea I don't understand without immediately accepting or rejecting it? Am I allowed to change my mind? I hope that Rooted and Well can continue to be a place where those questions are allowed. Because I don't think that my job here is to tell you which worldview you're supposed to adopt. I want to introduce you to people who spent years thinking about things most of us barely have time to investigate. I want to hear what they've learned. I want to ask questions. Sometimes I want to challenge them. Sometimes I want to be challenged. And then I want all of us to decide what deserves further exploration. Because if 100 episodes have taught me anything, it is that curiosity is often more useful than certainty. But there is danger in curiosity too. We can become collectors of ideas, kind of like when we scroll through Instagram and we just look at one thing after the other. I think this is especially true in wellness. We learn terminology, we discover modalities, we learn what the vagus nerve does. We know what our attachment style is. We know our dosha, our birth chart, our supplements, our trauma responses, our personality type, our love language, our nervous system state, our blood markers, or our archetypes. We can become incredibly sophisticated at describing ourselves without actually changing how we live. And that's the next question I want episode 100 to place directly in front of us. What are you actually doing with what you know? Because information about transformation is not transformation. Understanding boundaries is not setting one. Understanding grief is not grieving. Knowing exercise is important is not moving your body. Knowing you need rest is not resting. Knowing a relationship is hurting you is not making a decision about it. Knowing what you want is not asking for it. Knowing who you are is not necessarily living as that person. Eventually, knowledge asks something from us. It asks to become embodied. So rather than giving you 100 lessons from 100 episodes, I want to give you four final questions. And you may want to write these down. The first is about your body. Ask yourself, what does my body need from me now? Right in this moment. Not six months from now. Not when you've lost weight, not when work calms down, not when you have more money. Now. Maybe your body does need more movement. Maybe it needs strength. Maybe it needs urgent medical attention. Maybe it needs nourishment. Maybe it needs sleep, touch, or more sunlight. Maybe it needs you to stop criticizing it every time you see your reflection in the mirror. Don't overcomplicate the question, just listen. The second question is about your mind. What belief or story am I ready to question? Notice I didn't say eliminate. Question. Maybe it's a story about aging or about money or about what you're capable of. Maybe it's something that you learned from your parents. Maybe it's something that culture taught you by osmosis. Maybe it's something that happened 20 years ago and became evidence for how you think the world works. You don't have to replace it today. Just become curious about whether it's still true. The third question is about relationships. Where am I being invited into greater honesty or connection? Maybe there's something you need to say, or that you need to hear. Maybe someone needs an apology from you. Or maybe you need an apology from them. Maybe you need to ask for help. Maybe you've confused maintaining peace with maintaining connection. Maybe there's someone you've been meaning to call. Maybe the relationship that needs honesty is the relationship you have with yourself. The fourth question is about spirit, whatever that word means to you. What makes me feel meaningfully alive? Alive, not entertained, not distracted, not productive, alive. What makes time disappear? What brings you into contact with awe? Where do you feel yourself return? Maybe it's a meditation, a prayer, or music, or hiking, or cooking for people you love or gardening. Maybe it's crafting something or standing beside the ocean, dancing poorly in your kitchen. Maybe it's sitting quietly enough to realize you're already here, body, mind, relationship, and spirit. What is that for you? And then I want you to do something very difficult. Of these four questions, choose one. Not four. One. One thing that you're actually going to do differently. For the next month. One practice. One conversation. One boundary, one experiment, one appointment, one commitment, one thing you stop doing, one thing you begin. Because I would rather you leave episode 100 and change one small thing than listen to the next 100 episodes and change nothing. So I come back to this. What do we do with all of this? Where do these ideas intersect? Where do they contradict each other? What am I learning? What am I questioning? What am I changing my mind about? What am I experimenting with in my own life? What patterns keep appearing across conversations that seem completely unrelated? And how do we take all of these ideas about wellness and life and vitality and spirituality and actually turn them into ways of living? I don't want Rooted and Wild to become an encyclopedia of wellness. I want it to remain a living conversation about what it means to be human. And maybe that's the biggest thing these first 100 episodes have given me. Not necessarily all of the answers, but they have given better questions. Which brings me back to the very beginning. The first episode of this podcast was called Come Back to What's Real. And there's something strangely perfect about arriving at episode 100 and realizing that I'm still asking some version of that question. Underneath all the modalities, underneath any diagnosis, underneath all philosophies, underneath all identities, underneath the best optimization, underneath spiritual language, underneath the wellness industry, under everything we've accumulated in an attempt to understand ourselves, what is real? What is real? What's real for you? What does your body actually feel? What do you actually want? Who do you actually love? What are you actually afraid of? What are you pretending not to know? What brings you alive? What needs grieving? What needs tending? What needs changing? What needs accepting? What are you ready to stop carrying? And what is asking to be born through you now? In the midst of all the noise and all the fog, let's clear the air and let's listen to ourselves for a moment. Maybe becoming well isn't about accumulating enough information to finally perfect ourselves. Maybe it's learning to hear ourselves beneath all of that noise and information, to know when we need medicine and when we need rest, when we need discipline and when we need tenderness, when we need to push ourselves and when we need to stop, when we need another person's wisdom and when we need to trust our own, when we need roots and when it's time to grow wild. So, yes, today marks 100 episodes of Rooted and Wild, and I am incredibly grateful. To every guest who trusted me with the conversation, to everyone who shared an episode with someone they thought needed it, to everyone who listened while driving, walking, cooking, exercising, lying awake at night, or moving through some chapter of their own life, thank you, thank you, thank you, truly. But I don't want to celebrate 100 episodes simply because 100 things were published. I want to celebrate what those conversations might become once they leave the headphones, because the point was never to know more. The point is to become more present to the life we're actually living. So, before this episode ends, come back to those four questions. What does my body need from me now? What belief or story am I ready to question? Where am I being invited into greater honesty or connection? And what makes me feel meaningfully alive? Choose one and do something with it. Don't wait until you're completely healed. Don't wait until you understand everything. Don't wait until you're certain. Don't let the next hundred episodes become another hundred things you know. Let them become something you live. One hundred conversations later, I don't think I have fewer questions, I think I have better ones. And perhaps that's where the next hundred begin. Until next time, stay rooted and stay wild.