Questions for Connections: a new tool for exploring wellbeing
Since 2017, the RECOVER: Urban Wellbeing team has been working to address the complexity of wellness in Edmonton. We are being guided by the wisdom of those who have experience living on the streets of our city, as well as a long history of philosophical thought -- learning from the generations of knowledge of Indigenous, Eastern, Western, and interdisciplinary perspectives. We’ve come to understand that wellbeing in our city is about a sense of connection and balance. We’ve been learning (and unlearning) that in order to foster wellbeing within ourselves, within our communities, and within our city, our work is to nourish six types of connection:
Connection to body and self
Connection to family, friends, and community
Connection to land and ground
Connection to the sacred
Connection to the human project
Connection to culture
On an instinctual level, this makes sense.
Of course, the larger question is: how do we actually do this?
One way, is to foster a sense of curiosity about how the six elements of connection show up in our lives, and in the lives of people we are in relationship with.
The RECOVER team does this by reflecting on interesting questions on our own, as a team, and with others. Through these conversations, we’ve been able to tap into a deeper understanding of what wellbeing means to us as individuals -- and as a collective. Exploring these types of questions has helped us to more deeply look at the current systems that are keeping problems like racism, poverty, houselessness, and social isolation stuck in place. And, they are pointing us towards imagining new futures and designing new solutions that we think could really help. Especially within the context of *gestures generally at the world in 2021*.
To help us in this work, we’ve created Questions for Connection. This new tool has been designed to help people move towards a deeper understanding of what it means to be well. The questions contained within the tool are helping us sense how wellness could be brought in to all of our relationships, activities, and interactions.
As you explore the tool, we know that a lot of the language you’ll find within it -- words like “love”, “nourishment”, and “connection” -- are new for an entity like the City of Edmonton. We also know that this type of language can be difficult to use in places that have a certain understanding of what it means to be “professional.” If you are in need of it, we give you permission to try this language on for size yourself. You may be surprised -- as we were -- to discover how it helps to create new pathways to understand how together we might co-create the conditions for wellbeing for all of us in our city.
With appreciation,
The RECOVER: Urban Wellbeing team
PS If you like this tool, you might want to check out this Self-Location Guide as well. It is meant to help us become conscious of how we are carrying ourselves in relation to the communities served and incorporated in our work.