#SpeakToHer: Intellectual Wellness
Intellectual wellness is what pushes us to participate in mentally stimulating and creative activities. One side of that is learning: gathering information that interests you and asking more questions to broaden your understanding. The second half of intellectual wellness is sharing that knowledge with others. I am still learning to do this. Sharing what I see and how I feel has been a huge point of growth for me over the past year. (& here I am blogging AND telling people to read my writing. Growth.)
Since I am a person who loves to learn, I am rarely bored. I have also made it a point to surround myself with people who are brilliant and almost inexplicably cool in their own unique way. The person I’m highlighting this week is my friend Diana. She is one of the most grounded people I know. Even in her being heavily rooted in who she is, she always makes a way to reach upward and outward to learn more and experience the world from different perspectives. When I went to visit her last weekend for this shoot, I got to witness her flex her dynamic personality as she introduced me to “everyone she knows in Oakland”. It was kind of mesmerizing seeing her navigate a wide spectrum of conversations from the complexities of being a woman of color in corporate and then switching to who the next Bachelor could possibly be.
When we sat down and spoke, I learned so much more about her.
I started the conversation with just asking what drives her to go out and seek people and experiences outside of her normal day to day interactions. She responded, "You realize there is this whole world out there and all these people in it. I am one of many." Diana’s statement encapsulates a major idea behind intellectual wellness. Though it centers personal knowledge, its foundation is built on everything and everyone outside of you. It is not just about consuming facts, it’s about sharing them as well. When she said that she is “one of many,“ it adds another layer to this form of wellness, in that it decentralizes the individual in exchange for the opportunity to connect to the greater world.
“You realize there is this whole world out there and all these people in it. I am one of many
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I personally know that it can be difficult to take your ego out of external experiences because it’s innate to look at the world through the lens of your own perspective. However, shifting that perspective is one way that we build understanding about others and grow as individuals. Diana spoke on this idea of meeting something you haven’t experienced before and how she uses it to open up more. “Not only do you get to know a bunch of stuff, you get to decide how it fits into your world view. Does it agree with it? Does it disagree with it? Does it change it? I seek out things that change how I think.” Seeking opportunities to expand your mind by being brought face to face with something you may not align yourself with is challenging, to say the least. I am definitely an introvert, so I am all about preserving energy. BUT, as I have been learning, using this as an excuse only hurts my growth potential.
So, do I have to enter every room with high energy and try to make my way center in order to reap the intellectual benefits of being a social butterfly? Because honestly, that seems exhausting. Diana doesn’t think that you have to do that at all. * phew * “I'm not always the loudest person in the room, but there is a sense of gravity that I have.” The question that you have to ask when coming into a space is, “What version of yourself do you bring here?” She continued by saying that it’s not necessarily about being overbearingly present, but by knowing who you want to show up as. It allows her to focus her energy and be 100% present there.
As I continue this series, based off of this conversation, I will keep in mind that this is more than just me reaching out to the women who inspire me and learning about them. The act of sharing their stories and the information that I find is equally important, if not more so.
E.