Be Well Lead Well® is committed to advancing the consciousness and capabilities for more inclusive, well, and wiser leadership. In support of these efforts, Be Well Lead Well® Director and Wisdom Works CEO, Renee Moorefield curates monthly content and resources for The Wellness Moonshot: A World Free of Preventable Disease, an initiative of the Global Wellness Institute. The goal: to bring together global wellness enthusiasts, from scientists and educators to health experts and business leaders, to eradicate preventable disease worldwide.
Each month, Renee explores wellbeing leadership through the themes of The Wellness Moonshot Calendar. Below is an excerpt from June’s theme: READY.
June 2022 | READY
As leaders of The Wellness Moonshot: A World Free of Preventable Disease, we are up to a bold challenge together. We’re guiding something that has never been done before—a moonshot that requires us to step into leading new wellness possibilities.
How can we personally ready ourselves for this kind of leadership?
This question was at the heart of my conversation with Christina Yap, leader of two Global Wellness Institute initiatives, writer published by the United Nations and Thrive Global and international speaker. Christina is a senior human resources professional at the global technology company ABB.
FROM DISEASE TO DIS-EASE
Christina says we can ready ourselves for wellness leadership by first reconnecting to the original definition of the word disease. In contemporary language, we use the word, as in cardiovascular disease, to mean sickness or illness. But when first used, the word disease didn’t refer to a physical malady with distinguishing signs and symptoms; it meant “lack of ease,” that discomfort, uneasiness, or distress that can pervade our lives and work.
In truth, many of our greatest wellness challenges may stem from a deeper dis-ease we hold in our relationships with others, our planet, and ourselves. When we reframe disease as dis-ease, we can recognize the deeper unsettledness and anxieties we feel toward challenges and changes that affect us every day, such as the pandemic, social unrest and political strife, the Ukraine crisis, and more. This acknowledgement is vital for our individual and collective wellbeing. It is the honest place from which we can create a future we desire—a world which fosters wellness for all.
CULTIVATING THE INNER SPACE TO NAVIGATE CHANGE
The challenges we face in our lives and work naturally decenter us. They can also throw us off course. So, the second way we can ready ourselves for wellness leadership is to learn to see change as an invitation to developing new wisdom in our wellness leadership. Christina believes a starting place is to ask ourselves: Can we learn to navigate the changes we’re experiencing with greater ease and inner space?
Yes, we can! In our conversation, Christina maps out three phases for embracing change, a compassionate approach we can use in our organizations and communities, our teams, and our own lives.
