Reimagining Wellness in ‘American Detox’ from Kerri Kelly

“This book is an invitation for people to ask themselves hard questions about what it means to be well, and to learn from those who have been leading this movement and those who have been marginalized,” says Kerri Kelly about her new book, American Detox.

September 11th changed life for all of us, but for Kerri Kelly the impact was especially personal. In the aftermath of that event Kerri upended her life and went on a search for wellness. In her new book, American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal, and in this conversation, Kerri explores the ways in which our culture of wellness perpetuates systems that are deeply unwell. She leads us in a conversation that helps us find our way towards the deep, connected wellness that nourishes us all and away from individualistic focus that keeps us stuck in unhealthy comparison and competition.

Our distorted ideas of wellness hurt us all, and those ideas are so deeply embedded it can be hard to even see them. Kerri pulls back the curtain and gives us a path out, a path towards true healing.

About Kerri Kelly:

Kerri Kelly, is the founder of CTZNWell, a movement that is democratizing wellbeing for all. A descendent of generations of firemen and first responders Kerri has dedicated her life to kicking down doors and fighting for justice. She has been teaching yoga for over 20 years. She is a community organizer, wellness activist, and author of American detox, the myth of wellness and how we can truly heal. Kerri is also recognized across communities for her inspired work to bridge transformational practice with social justice. Kerri is a powerful facilitator, TED speaker, and is the host of the prominent podcast citizen, that is spelled CTZN.

Three Actions:

1. Interrogate yourself. Be relentlessly curious about what you've been taught, how you've been shaped and indoctrinated by dominant stories and dominant narratives and cultures, and how that's holding you back from your own wholeness. So be curious about that. And how that's a part of a larger system, and how you're a part of a larger system.

2. Locate yourself inside that system. What is your place, and proximity? We're all impacted and implicated in different ways. So it's really important for us to both take responsibility for our part in this mess. And also see ourselves as part of the solution? So it's like, locate yourself so that you can step into your right role and responsibility.

3. Engage in collective action, get political, work with other people, line up in solidarity with organizations who are on the frontlines of the many issues that we are navigating right now. Because personal solutions are not going to solve the many problems, the many systemic and collective problems that we're facing. And so it's really important for folks to see their practice beyond the cushion, and to see wellness as a radical political act, as we work to create the conditions where everybody can be well.

Q: How did the concept of the book start?

A: I'll be honest, a lot of what I grappled with in writing this book was how to be critical of the dominant culture of wellness, or the industry of wellness, if you will, rightfully so, because it's toxic, and it's riddled with issues. And also how to appreciate the fact that I was changed by a lot of the practices. That brought me to wellness. I was transformed, I was healed in many ways. And so I just want to name that because that was a contradiction that I had to navigate as I was writing this book.

And I think that first sentence, this is not a rejection, but a reclaiming sort of speaks to the yearning that called me to this question, which was, wellness isn't making us well in its current iteration. And yet, we all deserve to be well, and so what does it look like. Like what is the way in which we can reclaim wellness? Or reimagine wellness is actually the word I got to at the end of the book, that creates the conditions for everyone to thrive. And what that calls us to do if we're really asking and honoring that question, is to confront everything that's in the way of our collective wellness, not just our personal wellness, the wellness in our bubble, or on our mat or on our cushion. But a wellness that understands that our well being is bound, that our liberation is bound, that our future, our collective survival, is bound up with one another.

And so as I got on this path, and I tell a lot of stories throughout the book that demonstrates what I would call my unraveling, it's sort of like I discover wellness, and then I start to fall apart and unravel and try to pick up the pieces along the way. But much of sort of my unbecoming, my unlearning, my unraveling in the pursuit of true wellness, of the actual truth was to come up against the ways in which cultivate wellness.

Q: It's interesting that you say that, because I think that when people hear the word wellness, they have such a narrow definition of it. And that is largely because we are told that it's about our personal wellness, when you go to the doctor, and the doctor says, how are you? And they're asking about you. They're not asking about your family, they're not asking about your community, they're not asking about the context, often of your work. So it's always this very specific, very narrow perspective, rather than looking at the whole person and the whole community and the whole entity. So I think that that's a very important context.

A: I love that you said that. In the structures that exist, in the systems that we're forced to move in we don't know what's possible. And isn't that part of the beauty? And so if we can lean into the question, instead of assuming that we know, sourcing from the limitations of our mind the limitations of what has been familiar and what is default, then actually, that opens up an entire world. And one of my mentors, Taj James, who I write about a lot in this book, says that in this very precarious moment where we're literally facing down collective extinction, he says, it's not as important to have the right answer, but to ask if we're asking the right questions. And I just really appreciate that. And I tried to do that. There's lots of questions in this book. In fact, I want to say that I completed this book, and I was left with more questions when I started. I hope that's a good thing.