When Wellness Feels Like a Performance

Here’s готовий текст англійською для публікації:

Hi, it’s Lily. 🌼

Inside Body Art · First Week
This first week of Inside Body Art has felt like a mini vernissage inside my body: as if I opened the door to a studio where my heart, lungs, gut, and nerves suddenly wanted to speak in their own voices. Over these days, I’ve noticed I look at everyday moments differently: a cup of coffee is no longer just “energy” but a scene where the heart is holding three espressos; evening scrolling is not just a habit but fireworks of neurons no one is turning off; a day without a walk feels like a greenhouse‑lung where the air hasn’t moved in a long time.

Trends and the “ordinary” body
Images are born somewhere between emails, news, and other people’s posts: when I see trends like “art as medicine,” “analog rest from screens,” “the body as a health map,” I keep thinking: okay, but where is the ordinary woman in all of this, the one who just wants to get some sleep and stop living on anxiety and coffee? Between posts, I read about how art is more and more often named as a separate pillar of health alongside sleep, movement, food, and nature, and I like to imagine that our organs also get their own small art therapy there.

Triggers and nervous system boundaries
There is also a slightly triggering part of this week: whenever I see yet another “perfect” 15‑step morning ritual in my feed, or a “healthy” day with no coffee, no sugar, no fatigue, something inside me flinches. Because the truth is, my nervous system is learning not perfection but boundaries: saying “no” to one more trend promising to rebuild you in seven days, and saying “yes” to one real gesture instead — a glass of water next to the coffee, ten minutes without the phone, one more inhale instead of one more video. It’s a small protest against turning health into another performance.

The body as a gallery, not a project
This week I’ve felt my mood shift when I look at the body not as a “fix‑me project” but as an inner gallery where every organ has the right to get tired, be angry, ask for a break, and still remain beautiful. And I really want you to see in yourself not a “broken mechanism” but a living painting that responds to the world — sometimes too strongly, but always honestly.

Finish the sentence in the comments: “This week I noticed for the first time that my body…”
I’ll collect these small phrases as a separate exhibition — a gallery of living bodies that are learning to speak, not just to “hold it together.” 🌿

Lily Marigold