Shownotes
You can be doing everything right with your body and still feel empty, anxious, or disconnected. That's the paradox at the center of this episode, where host Shreya sits down with licensed therapist Mary Rothwell to question one of wellness culture's biggest blind spots: the belief that being well is mostly physical. Mary shares how decades of clinical work taught her that emotional, mental, and spiritual health aren't extras layered on top of the body, they're the roots the whole tree grows from.
Using nature as her guide (a plant can look fine above the soil while its roots are struggling underneath), Mary walks through what a fuller, whole-person approach to wellbeing actually looks like in everyday life. This is a conversation for anyone who has checked every box on the physical side and still feels quietly unwell inside.
About the Guest:
Mary Rothwell is a licensed therapist with decades of clinical experience, drawing on psychology, nature, and integrative wellness practices in her work with clients. She uses the metaphor of plants and gardens throughout her work to help people understand emotional and physical health as deeply connected.
Key Takeaways:
- An unresolved emotional wound doesn't disappear, it tends to resurface later as a physical symptom, so tending to feelings early matters as much as tending to the body
- Use the "wellness wheel" (intellectual, emotional, environmental, spiritual, financial, and more) to see at a glance which areas of your life are thriving and which are quietly running empty
- Notice your self-talk. Speaking to yourself with the same harshness you'd never use on a struggling plant makes it harder, not easier, to move forward
- Build a support ecosystem on purpose. The people closest to you can either drain your emotional health or help bolster it, so choose that circle with care
- When you slip back into old patterns after a setback, treat it as information, not failure. Take a quiet pause, then recommit gently rather than pushing through
- Physical wellness plans (sleep, nutrition, movement) are often the hardest to sustain consistently, so building small boundaries around them matters more than intensity
Connect With Mary Rothwell:
Website: https://maryrothwell.net
Live Like a Plant Quiz: https://maryrothwell.net/llapquiz
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maryrothwellofficial
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maryrothwellofficial
Episode Chapters:
[00:00] Welcome to Wellness Reimagined — Shreya opens with the question of what gets left out when wellness means only the body
[02:30] (approx.) Mary's Touchstone — why nature and plants ground her definition of feeling well
[05:45] (approx.) The Narrow Picture — when Mary first realized physical health alone wasn't the full story
[10:00] (approx.) Roots You Can't See — how unresolved emotional pain shows up as physical illness
[14:30] (approx.) The Wellness Wheel — a practical tool for spotting which parts of life are running empty
[19:15] (approx.) Falling Back and Getting Up — staying committed to whole wellbeing after a setback
[24:30] (approx.) A Strong Body, A Starving Spirit — Mary's closing message for anyone who looks well but feels hollow inside
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Transcripts
00:00:08 Shreya: welcome to Wellness Reimagined. I'm your host, Shreya, and this is the show where we question the narrow ideas we have inherited about health, and explore what it truly means to be well with curiosity and an open mind. Today we are widening the definition of well-being far beyond the physical into the emotional, mental, and relational parts of life that matter just as much. We are not here to add more to your to do list. We are here to expand what wellness even means. If you have been fit on the outside and anvil on the inside, then this conversation is for you. And my guest today is Mary Rothwell, who brings a wise and integrative perspective to the fuller picture of human well-being. So welcome, Mary. I'm honored to have you here on my show.
00:00:55 Mary Rothwell: Thank you for having me, Shreya.
00:00:57 Shreya: Thank you so much for joining. And just before we begin, a quick disclaimer for my listeners,
00:01:40 Shreya: And with that, first of all, Mary, I'm really glad to have you here. It's really wonderful. And, uh, I want to start you as a person before any big ideas, like setting aside anything to do with diet or exercise. What is something in your life that makes you feel genuinely well, in the deepest sense of the word?
00:02:02 Mary Rothwell: Oh, for sure, it's nature. So being in nature, being around plants, tending a garden, um, taking a hike, even having houseplants, anything that has to do with nature or plants is really where it's sort of a touchstone for me. It keeps me grounded. It keeps me well.
00:02:21 Shreya: That's beautiful. And I want to start by questioning the whole frame, because I think it quietly limits so many of us. So we have inherited this idea that wellness is mostly physical about the body looking and performing in certain way. So kind of take us into your story. Like when did you first realize that this picture was far too narrow that you or the people around you could be physically healthy and still profoundly unwell. And what did that realization open up for you?
00:02:52 Mary Rothwell: Well, I'm a trained therapist, so I think I've always believed that from when I was very young and when I went through training, it was really about, uh, working with our thoughts and our emotions was most of my training. But the longer I did the work, the longer I worked with my clients. I started to see more how we are really one entire being. So our emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual health are all connected. So you talked about if we look physically well, that doesn't necessarily mean we feel okay inside. And I use that example because I talked about nature. I used that example with plants because sometimes a plant can look wonderful in the pot that it's growing in. But if you look at the roots, they could be growing around the bottom of the pot. It could be root bound. So there's a lot of things that can be going on underneath. And I believe that if we don't tend to those emotional wounds, then they will at some point become some type of physical malady.
00:03:58 Shreya: That's so true. And, uh, in widening your own definition of wellness, what was the hardest assumption you had to release?
00:04:09 Mary Rothwell: Um, the hardest assumption to release, I think, is that when you have something physical going on, a lot of times you have to look very, very far below the surface. So for instance, if we have an upset stomach, it may not just be because of what we ate. We may need to look at how our gut is actually functioning and what sorts of healthy bacteria or unhealthy bacteria are there. And so we need to really go down to kind of the roots of how our body is functioning sometimes to find the answer when we don't feel well.
00:04:49 Shreya: Yes, I truly like that really lands because the physical picture is so dominant that we rarely think to question it. Like we just assume that if the body is fine, we should be fine. But what you are describing is the quite delusional or like of of doing everything right by the narrow measure and still feeling unwell underneath.
00:05:15 Mary Rothwell: Yeah. I think we can also think that if we have a physical issue that we should be able to take a drug and just be better. And so a lot of times, you know, short of just having a headache and taking an aspirin, um, a lot of times even a headache has a deeper root. It might be an inflammation caused by a certain food or it might be internalised trauma. So I think this idea, especially in Western Society that you should be able to just take some pill or apply some kind of ointment to your skin and just be better is very, very simplified. And often it doesn't really get to the root of what's happening.
00:05:56 Shreya: Yes. And let us slow this down and look at what gets left out. Like when we reduce wellbeing to the physical whole essential parts of being human get quietly ignored. So I'm genuinely curious, like, what are the dimensions of wellness that this body focused view neglects? And what actually happens to a person when those deeper needs to go unmet, even while their physical health looks perfectly fine?
00:06:26 Mary Rothwell: Well, I think that we can feel I mean, first of all, I don't think that we ever feel well physically if we really aren't well emotionally. Um, and so I think sometimes two. We will think that we can push past something like if something happens to us and it's some kind of traumatic event. And first of all, I think again, some societies think, oh, you should just be okay, get through it, be okay. And I think we're also told that we if we take too long to handle grief or a loss or to work through a trauma, then we are not, um, we want to just cover it up. We want to just push through it and then it's unresolved. And so it kind of just stays in there. And then it will start to come out in ways that will be physical. And sometimes it can be as serious as a cancer. You know, there anything that we have unresolved, if we try to ignore it, it will create some kind of physical malady.
00:07:34 Shreya: Yeah. And, uh, of those neglected dimension, which one do you think people suffer from most without even naming it.
00:07:45 Mary Rothwell: Well, I think that it's emotional. I think that we try to push aside things that are difficult instead of really, you know, trying to process them, whether that's with a therapist or with a, with a coach, um, or really admitting that something was difficult. And we carry a lot of that learning from when we're kids. So if we have a difficult childhood, we learn to cope in certain ways. And then later those things typically don't work because we're not in that environment anymore. And so I think we don't we neglect to understand that we're now in a different environment and we actually are safe, but we still can continue to do some of the same types of unhealthy habits or interactions or relationship patterns that really don't serve us anymore.
00:08:37 Shreya: Yeah. And I think there is something in what you just said that I want to go for a second. Like emotional health, meaning connection, a sense of purpose. These are not luxuries layered on top of real values. They are central to it. Like you're showing that a person can have a strong body and a starving spirit, and our culture gives them no language for that hunger. Mhm.
00:09:03 Mary Rothwell: True. And so that's another reason I talk about nature so much, because everything in nature is interconnected. And the one thing that I talk about a lot is pollinators. So if you know anything about flowers, you know that they are there so that there can be seeds. So there is the next generation of plants, but we can't have those seeds and those new plants without the flower being pollinated. And so to do that, we often need a pollinator, which would be like a bird or a bee or a butterfly, something like that. And so even in our own life, I use that analogy that there are people that can help us. And there are people that we help. And so that community you talked about being connected. We really need our community. We need to find people that we can rely on and trust the same way we want to be that thing for others because we are really made to be a community. And so I think when we think about our ecosystem and what is in it, who do we bring to our lives? Because they say you are the most like five people that are closest to you. So you want to have healthy, strong relationships. And those are the things that can help bolster your emotional health also.
00:10:20 Shreya: Yeah. And of those everyday patterns, which one do you think quietly does the most harm to a person? Overall well-being.
00:10:30 Mary Rothwell: Everyday patterns. I would say trying to handle things on your own to not um, either find a source of support or think, you know, people don't care. Trying to be separate from your community, from your ecosystem. And also, I think to believe that what is happening around you can't impact you. So for instance, if you're not in the right environment that supports you, and I talk about this with with ourselves comparing to plants too. If a plant is struggling, we don't say there's something wrong with the plant. The plant is lazy, or the plant is not trying hard enough. We look at where it's growing and how it's growing, but for ourselves, we tend to blame ourselves. I'm not trying hard enough, or I'm being lazy or I'm being selfish and we we can be really harsh with ourselves. And so I think that's another key is to be really aware of how you're talking to yourself. Because if you're using that harsh self-judgment, it makes it so much harder to kind of cope and pull things together and kind of have that forward momentum to feel well.
00:11:41 Shreya: Yeah, I think I think that is the piece most conversation just skip past because the imbalance hides in plain sight in the meticulous attention to the body, alongside total neglect of the inner life, like the track macros and the unspoken briefs side by side, like you are showing that we have become experts at measuring the measurables and while while ignoring the things that actually determine how we feel.
00:12:11 Mary Rothwell: Mhm. Yeah. We tend to look at what's wrong. And instead of looking at what is working and trying to do more of that, and we know we do have to obviously recognize the things that are not okay, but that's the disease model. And I think we're all made to thrive. We just have to find the right environment. And sometimes that means the right people. Sometimes it means the right way of sort of thinking or changing relationships. So I think, yeah, I think it's really important to recognize what is happening inside your own brain also because sometimes it's our self-talk that is the defeating issue.
00:12:55 Shreya: Yeah. And let us talk about what a fuller approach looks like because people came here for something to actually do. So for someone listening who realizes they have been focused only on the physical and wants to tend to their whole self, what does a more complete approach to well-being look like in practice? Not adding one hundred new tasks, but real, doable ways a person can start caring for their emotional and mental health too.
00:13:25 Mary Rothwell: So I would focus on, first of all, like I said, trying to connect. Just try to connect to nature as simple as you can. But I think overall, when you're talking about balanced wellness, there is something called the wellness wheel. And if you just do a Google search, anybody is going to find a ton of images of the wellness wheel. And basically, when we think about a car, we want the tires to be balanced because otherwise if one is wobbly, then the car is not going to roll. So when we think about our own wellness wheel, it looks like pieces of pie in a pot, you know, a round pie. And so one of those would be intellectual, one would be emotional, one would be environment. So how does your environment look? One would be spirituality. And so there can be up to eight different areas. One is financial. And so if you look at that image and think about all the different slices of life, is there one or two areas or are there one or two areas that aren't really you're not really doing great and that might be you need more spirituality or maybe your relationships to feeding, or maybe you're not doing things that you enjoy. You know, that idea of having hobbies or you're not allowing yourself to process emotions. So looking at the whole round pie of your life, that whole wellness wheel, it's figuring out, and it doesn't need to be a big quiz. It can just be like considering because we all know inside, I think what we need. And so just being still. And that's why I always come back to nature, being outside, sitting under a tree, taking a walk and really putting your phone away and being quiet and thinking about where are the areas that you feel are really strong for you, and where are the areas where you might need to have some support?
00:15:22 Shreya: And of those steps, which one do most people resist even though it tends to nourish them the most?
00:15:30 Mary Rothwell: Well, everybody's different, so I don't know that you can say there's one thing I think that's a little simple. I think maybe the hardest thing for people is to try to maintain physical health because eating healthy can be really challenging. We have so many good foods that are sugar laden. Um, and I think even understanding nutrition or making sure that we have time for movement at least five times a week, you know, we can think, oh, exercise, I don't want to exercise. So overall, I would say from my clients that I, you know, that I've worked with, if I would say average, what is the most difficult? I would say it's to maintain some kind of physical, um, wellness plan. So again, to have consistent, healthy meals, to get enough sleep, that is a huge one. We think we can just push through and six hours is enough for everyone. And it really typically isn't. So I think that focus on creating boundaries in your life so that you do get enough sleep. You do eat well, you do limit alcohol. you limit caffeine, all of those things. That's probably, I would say, where people struggle the most to stay consistent.
00:16:52 Shreya: I appreciate that you did not just pile more on to people already are overwhelmed, because that would be the point entirely. Like what you were describing is more like rebalancing and adding, redirecting some of the energy we pour into the body toward the parts of us that have been neglected. And thank you for sharing this. And, uh, someone widens their idea of balance, like they start tending their whole self and then stress hits or an old mindset returns and they collapse right back into measuring their worth by the body alone. So, uh, when, when the pool, uh, toward the, like toward the narrow or like physical only definition returns. How do they stay committed to their whole well-being instead of shrinking back into just the parts they can measure?
00:17:49 Mary Rothwell: Well, I think it's tuning into how you're feeling inside. If you're feeling overwhelmed or frustrated or you're getting irritable a lot more, then I think it's building in space for quietness, for some mindfulness because again, we're a full being. So if we're off balance mentally, physically, or emotionally, it's going to affect all the other parts. So if we do have a setback, like you said, a new an old negative mindset or because that does happen, right? We don't it's not linear. We can feel like things are improving and then something will happen, or we might get a little bit lost and sort of forget to focus on those healthy habits. And so when that happens, a lot of times, instead of beating ourselves up, because we'll tend to take some time to, you know, say, I can't believe I'm back here where I feel like I have been before. It's just okay. So this happened and taking some time to be quiet, taking a break, figuring out how to get some distance so that you can recenter, maybe do some meditation, um, again, recommit to slowly getting back to a healthy diet and really just, it's checking in with yourself. And if you need to get help, it's finding a therapist or it's finding a coach or even just talking with a trusted friend.
00:19:16 Shreya: And, uh, in that moment of slipping back, what is the kindest thing a person can remind themselves of?
00:19:25 Mary Rothwell: Oh, that it happens to everybody. I think that especially now because we have social media, we tend to look at everyone else and think, oh, they're doing great. Or if they are struggling, they're sort of that's their platform. So I think it's easy to compare. And you know, the the saying is comparison is the thief of joy, but really it's judging ourselves. So it's okay to look at somebody else and say, oh, that's working for them. Maybe I'll try it. It's different to say, that's not working for me. What's wrong with me? So I think it's really the kindest thing is to just have some, some, some grace and to recognize that everybody gets off track. I mean, it doesn't matter how famous they are or how well known they are it, or even if they're your parent, you know, everybody gets off track. It's part of being human. And so just give yourself the grace and the time to get yourself back on track and recommit to some of those wellness goals that you have.
00:20:36 Shreya: Yeah, I think that is the part I most wanted us to reach because expanding your definition of wellness is not a one time shift. It is something you have to keep choosing every time the culture pulls you back toward the scale and the mirror. Because we are surrounded by messages that equate being well with how body looks and resisting, that takes ongoing practice. And Mary, if someone listening has been physically healthy but quietly unwell inside, what is one thing you most want them to walk away with today?
00:21:13 Mary Rothwell: If they feel like they're physically healthy but they they don't feel like they're okay inside.
00:21:20 Speaker 3: Yes. Okay. Yes.
00:21:23 Mary Rothwell: Um, that, you know, that same sort of, um, commitment to, you know, a certain image, first of all, thinking more in terms of health that if you and a lot, this can be the case for a lot of young people. Your body changes a lot as you get older, but when you're younger it's a little more forgiving. So you can do things like maybe not eat perfectly or not. Always exercise as much as might be healthy and still look okay, but that doesn't mean inside. First of all, you might your gut might not be healthy, but you might look fine. But I think when you are feeling, um, maybe off center or you're feeling like a lot of anxiety or a lot of depression, I think the best thing to do again is to just, um, first of all, you can get that out through movement or through yoga or, you know, very active lifestyle can help you manage depression and anxiety, but tell yourself that it's all part of wellness. So if you're not doing okay emotionally, that is not a failure. It's okay. And it's part of life. And again, I think just sometimes we can't work through that on our own. I think it's easy to find an exercise video on YouTube, but when you find mental health advice on YouTube, half the time it's inaccurate. But it's also a lot more in depth and a lot there's a lot more nuance to trying to, um, feel better emotionally than to find an exercise class or someone on YouTube that can show you how to do exercises to strengthen your body. It's quite different to strengthen your mind and your emotions.
00:23:15 Speaker 3: Yes.
00:23:16 Shreya: Wonderful. And thank you, Mary, for joining and sharing so much information with our audience, because I think this such conversation and insights are very needed in today's world. And if after this conversation, my listeners want to connect with you and want to learn more about you or about your work, then what's the best place to find you?
00:23:38 Mary Rothwell: You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at Mary Rothwell official. You can find me on my website at Mary Rothwell dot net. And if you want to learn more about how nature can help you feel fulfilled, you can start at Mary Rothwell dot net forward slash l l a p quiz that stands for Live Like a Plant Quiz. To help you start to realize that nature can have answers for you so you can find me there.
00:24:06 Speaker 3: Yes.
00:24:06 Shreya: And I will make sure to attach all these details and links below in the show notes, so that the listeners can find them easily and get in touch with you. And thank you so much again, Mary, for this wonderful conversation. Uh, like what stays with me is that the image of a strong body and a starving spirit, because so many people are living exactly that. And I have never had the words for it. And to all my listeners, especially the ones who look well and feel hollow, I want to leave you with this. Your well-being must never. Just about your body. Your loneliness matters. Your sense of meaning matters. Your inner life matters just as much as anything you could ever track or measure. So give some time to that care. Back to the parts of you that have been waiting. This is wellness reimagined. That is where being truly well begins. And we will see you on the next episode. Till then, do not forget to hit the follow button. Subscribe and feel free to share your thoughts because your ears deserve premium content. Thank you.
