Out of the nine realms of wellness, the importance of social wellness tends to be overlooked. Thankfully we had the opportunity to talk to social wellness guru Natalie Levy. Responding to her want for a community of like minded women, Levy founded the event-based series Babes Who Brunch Club. This series creates a community for women in pursuit of a healthy lifestyle to come together.
Through our interview with Levy, we discuss the importance of human relations, community, and support on your social wellness. Levy is also a life coach who coaches women who want to launch service-based businesses in 90 days. Through her love of human connection and helping others heal, we get all the juicy deets on the roots of social wellness.
Wellness in the Eyes of Natalie Levy
In our chat with Levy, she reveals her original interest in wellness stemmed from 11 years of depression and disordered eating. From bursting into tears at random times to having an unhealthy relationship with her body, Levy finally decided she needed to make a change in her lifestyle.
After her wellness suffered for years, Levy came to the conclusion that helping others through their mental challenges made her feel her best. She then decided to follow her passion and attain her Masters in Applied Pyschology. Levy knew that in order to help others she needed to heal herself first. This sparked the dawn of her wellness journey. Years later and she is now a life coach and created an event-based series for women in the pursuit of a healthy lifestyle.
In our interview with Levy, she talks us through all the main aspects of applying social wellness to your life.
Why is it so important to your social wellness to have a supportive community?
“There’s tons of research on human connection and how strong relationships improve long-term health. I mean, just hugging on a daily basis drastically improves your immune system! Basically, we are social beings with the need for physical and emotional connection. I believe that then we have a community of like-minded people, it impacts our self-esteem and makes us feel safer to be ourselves.
However, this is not always readily available to people. Sometimes healthy relationships aren’t modeled in the home, or someone’s larger than life personality is too big for their small town, or maybe someone has an alternative lifestyle that not many people can relate to. Yet, the truth is that there’s someone out there for everyone. I believe community can be found easier than ever thanks to the internet. So if anyone is reading this and doesn’t feel like they have a community, do some research and find a virtual group to hang out with!”
Is there anything you have learned from creating Babes Who Brunch Club regarding the importance of community, social wellness, and human connection?
“I once heard Gary Vee say something to the effect of, ‘If you’re not invited to the party, throw your own’. The way I interpreted that is, to build your own platform so you can create the experiences you want to participate in, with the people you want to connect with. That’s what I did with Babes Who Brunch Club. I didn’t quite see the types of networking events I loved, so I cultivated my own.
I think community building is something many people want to do, but they don’t know how. I’m not going to simply say ‘build it and they will come’. There’s a method to enrolling people into your vision and creating experiences that will inspire people to connect and come back. But, I will say that if you really want to build a community and find like minded people, and you haven’t found a community that you want to join, be proactive and create your own.”
So what exactly does wellness mean to you and why?
Wellness is such a loaded word now that it’s become such a huge industry! Personally, wellness is about enjoying myself as much as I can for however long I’m here. You can have the most expensive face masks, and a luxurious robe, and a million dollars in the bank and not be ‘well’.
To me, wellness is eating a mostly plant-based diet, moving my body, building strong and loving relationships, exploring new places, learning something new daily, advocating for things I believe in, speaking to myself nicely, and focusing on building financial wellness through my business. I love face masks and robes too! But those are nice-to-haves and not necessities when it comes to feeling good.”
What imagery comes to your head when you think of people’s social wellness?
“I think of people gathering in a community. While my primary business is coaching, I also founded the event series Babes Who Brunch Club because I believe that community is a form of wellness. I can contribute a lot of my confidence and well-being to the relationships I’ve nurtured throughout the years. I wanted to create a container where bonds are created, important conversations are had, and wellness related activities are affordable and accessible.”
What do you think is a common misconception about health and wellness?
“I think that because the term ‘health and wellness’ has been hijacked to represent an industry, we’ve come to believe in the commoditization of wellness, when in reality wellness is available to us at all times. You don’t need to get acupuncture and then reiki, after sitting for an hour in an infrared sauna and standing on your head while touching your nose, in order to be ‘well’. You can simply have a really grounding morning routine (free), practice breath work (free), journal (free), spend time in nature (free), move your body in some way that feels good to you (free), and laugh a lot (also free).
My point is that health and wellness looks different for everyone, and it certainly doesn’t need to be fancy or expensive. Just to reiterate, I love reiki (I’m reiki certified I & II), and I love infrared saunas, and acupuncture, and juices, and health food stores. But in many places and for many people, those are luxuries. Everything you really need to be well is at your disposal at all times.”
What initially made you interested in improving your own health and wellness?
My initial interest in improving my health came from my experience with depression and disordered eating. After losing my mom in early adolescence, I fell into a depression of varying degrees for about 11 years. Depression doesn’t always look like lethargy, or sleeping all day in a dark room, or losing interest in everything. I was still a high achiever, with a social life, and extracurriculars. But I would also cry myself to sleep, burst into tears at random, had a fraught relationship with family, started drinking at a young age, and had a very unhealthy relationship with my body (to name just a few experiences).
When I was around 15 years old, I realized that I felt my best when I was supporting others through their mental health issues and decided I would become a clinical psychologist. Long story short, I obtained my Master’s in Applied Psychology but ultimately decided against getting my PhD. Still, in my early 20’s, I acknowledged that if I wanted to help people heal, I had to heal myself. I started on what some may call a spiritual journey and repaired my relationship with my body, and now here I am!”
Do you have any tips for anyone going through a tough or challenging time in their social wellness?
“This is tricky, because there’s no one size fits all, and every type of difficulty will require a different response. However, if I were to give one universal tip, it’s to move your body and find a somatic release. We store a lot of tension, hurt, disappointment, and trauma in our bodies, some of it ancestral. Movement, especially intentional movement, can help us release a lot of what doesn’t serve us. Ecstatic dance, breathwork, EFT tapping, Kundalini yoga, or just dancing around your bedroom naked to Beyonce, are all things I do to keep my energy flowing and feeling good.
Another small suggestion is to find wonder again. When we’re going through a tough time, the smallest things can seem like grievances. So this may be easier said than done, but I’ve asked my clients to take a walk and start to look at everything as if it’s the very first time they’ve seen it— flowers, trees, grass, butterflies, the road, the house next door. We go through our lives so preoccupied and taking everything for granted. We kind of have to in order to be productive in modern-day society. But I guarantee that if you took a walk today down your street and made it a point to find wonder and awe in the little things, your world would seem a little bit brighter and more exciting.”
When you start to lose confidence or participate in self-doubt what is the first thing you do to combat that?
“I make an effort to observe my thoughts. I ask myself questions about where my self-doubt is stemming from, what triggered it, what’s true about it, what’s not true about it, etc. I don’t necessarily always come up with answers right away, and sometimes I just allow myself to feel the things! But finding answers isn’t the point.
The point is to treat my thoughts and subsequent feelings as experiences instead of as truth or defining characteristics. All of who we are is literally a compilation of stories and narratives. My whole thing is to pick and choose the narratives that I like and that work for me. While that doesn’t make me impermeable to dips in self-esteem or mood (I still have my fair share of depressive episodes), it allows me to bounce back a whole lot quicker.”
When we feel down, our environment plays a key role in healing. What is your #1 suggestion for maintaining a sacred space to heal in?
“Everything and every space are sacred with intention. Of course, it’s nice to have tools like Palo Santo. It’s nice to create an altar with crystals and trinkets. But, none of it is actually necessary because healing happens within.
If you want to create a sacred space, my suggestion is to witness your innate sacredness. Connect with your guides. Connect with your ancestors. Write prayers. Dance naked. Bless your space with your own words. Take care of your body. Say nice things to it. Feed it nourishing food. Sit in stillness and quiet often. Basically, create your own rituals. That’s all you really need.”
Is there anything you have learned on your wellness/self-healing journey that you wish you could go back and tell your old self?
“That I am being divinely guided in all that I do. Nothing is an accident. Everything ends up making sense at some juncture in my life. And I am protected and loved, period. Also, that my sadness didn’t define me. That my body, my weight and my appearance doesn’t define me. And that one day, I would look in the mirror and love myself, because that’s not something I thought was possible for me when I was a teenager.”