wellness when you're broke. getting back to free self-care.

i don’t know who needs to hear this but wellness when you’re broke looks very different. it’s not matcha lattes, pilates studios and fancy journals. it’s sitting in silence before your day starts. it’s meditation. it’s EFT tapping. it’s prayer. it’s taking deep breaths and actually feeling your feet on the ground. it’s tuning in with self and being able to tell exactly what you need in that moment. it’s opening a window for fresh air. it’s flirting with the sunlight before checking your phone. it’s free.99 and it’s the most grounding kind of luxury there is.

we’ve been tricked. we’ve been told that to ‘be well’ we need to buy wellness. that healing has to come in a bottle, a supplement, a product or a retreat. but the truth is, you can’t purchase peace. honestly, i don’t even know if peace is something that you find. i think it’s something you create. and you can’t brand stillness. you can’t sell presence. and yet, this is the kind of wellness that actually works and that’s actually life changing and changes our relationship with self.

this type of wellness isn’t as cute or aesthetic. it’s messy. it’s real gritty work. it’s the kind that happens when you’re at rock bottom and you realize you need to get quiet so you can hear what your life is saying. it’s walking instead of scrolling. it’s journaling instead of venting online. it’s choosing an early bedtime over another round of doom scrolling or burnout. it’s EFT tapping, stretching, hydrating, talking to God. it’s hugging trees. it’s grounding your feet in the grass. it’s washing your sheets. it’s opening up the blinds. this is wellness, too.

somebody in the comments said, ‘i got a full night’s rest the other day and woke up feeling like a whole new person’. another person said, ‘this is my idea of wellness whether i have money or not’. another person said, ‘it’s hard to do this when in survival mode’. the thing is taking care of yourself, changes how you meet yourself. creating daily habits is a part of conditioning your body and your belief system with feeling like you deserve good health. i think sometimes we tend to overthink self-care especially when we’re low on funds when it can be as simple as setting boundaries, getting more sleep, drinking more water, and flirting with the sun first thing in the morning.

capitalism and overconsumption has tricked us into believing that buying more and doing more is a part of self care. more rituals, more products, more structure. but what if we just be? what if being still is the entire point? we are human beings, not human doings. for a while i always thought i need to ‘do’ before i can ‘be’ but i was wrong. doing looks like constantly trying to optimize yourself. more tracking, more fixing, more improving, more proving. it’s waking up with an invisible checklist in your head: meditate, workout, post content, drink water, stretch, heal.. heal. heal. heal!

it’s endless motion that never really lands anywhere because we’re trying our worth to progress. being on the other hand is all about being present. it’s breathing and realizing that this is the moment, the one you’re already in is more than enough. it’s waking up slowly and gently, it’s stretching before your feet even hit the ground. it’s hydrating yourself by sipping on room temp lemon water without your phone nearby. it’s noticing the sunlight hitting your skin and letting that just be the medicine. it’s not performing wellness, it’s participating in your life.

and being doesn’t mean doing nothing. it just means doing everything with a heightened sense of awareness. it’s praying and listening instead of rushing to the next thing. it’s cooking because you want to feel nourished, not just to be fed. it’s walking to hear yourself think. it’s not adding more, it’s subtracting the noise. yet doing seeks validation. being builds connection. doing exhausts you. being restores you. and when you finally allow yourself to be, your body stops bracing for impact and starts to trust your pace again. maybe wellness isn’t about reinventing yourself, it’s about remembering yourself.

having a house fire (in 2018) and moving abroad (2018, 2020, 2024) completely changed my relationship with ‘stuff’ and having more things. it’s easy to feel like you need to buy something to feel better: a new outfit, a new gadget, a new version of yourself.

but i don’t really relate or connect to that anymore. losing almost everything showed me how much peace lives in simplicity. meeting parts of myself in other countries and seeing how different cultures live such fulfilling lives with less has really changed me. less really is more. less noise. less clutter. less distraction. i’ve learned that feeling good isn’t something you can purchase. it’s something you practice.

not to state the obvious but being broke forces you to get creative and that creativity might just bring you back to life. it’s getting your books from the library. going on a walk during lunch. sitting in the park. making a $3 dinner that still feels nourishing. sipping tea in bed before work. visiting free art galleries and museums. cooking simple meals with love. saying no when your body says no. giving compliments. spreading joy.

the basics are not boring. they are the foundation. they don’t trend because you can’t sell them. but they’re what hold you together. every time you slow down, hydrate, breathe, or choose rest over chaos, you’re coming back home to yourself.

so maybe this is your reminder that you already have access to the richest version of wellness. when you have breath, you have life and that’s the wealthiest thing you can have.

cheers to getting back to the basics.
cheers to healing in ways that are free.
cheers to remembering that being well was never supposed to be expensive.

and if you want to keep this conversation going, i talk about this more on my YouTube channel. i host a series called Full Cup, where we pour into the mind, body, and soul through intentional conversation, books, and personal evolution. it’s all about learning how to live well, from the inside out.

with gratitude,
Arielle