Wilhelmina Mer (@willaminaaaa) is the writer and editor of BESO Magazine, an exploration of material culture across Toronto, Paris, and Mexico City. She publishes the blog, FEELS GOOD.
#115: Wilhelmina Mer
Leo / Montréal, Québec
What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?
Never complaining and never explaining. Health feels like having patience, a clear conscience, a lack of tension, and the ability to listen to my body and intuition above all. I used to really obsess over my health, go down endless research rabbit holes, spiral if I went out of the bounds of my latest protocol, etc. It was so, so boring of me. Slim to nothing is worth being so hard on ourselves. I definitely find a great deal of freedom in commitment and discipline, but I’m at my best when giving myself grace. I’m at my best when I’m giving others grace, too.
When I bought nicotine gum for the first time, I was something like 19. I must have overshared with the pharmacist because he gave me this note that says, “Don't judge yourself,” which I've kept to this day. Recently my energy healer canceled our upcoming session, saying, “We don’t need to meet anymore; your energy is good again. What did you do?” I told him I got back into enjoying myself again — ice cream and cigarettes, on this occasion.
Learning how to follow desire in such a way as to not later suffer for it has become a profound source of healthfulness in my life. Consequently, the healthier I am spiritually and otherwise, the less I desire what is not meant for me.
How would you describe your current lifestyle?
I’m having a good time. Presently, I'm on my way to hang out by the pool with my laptop and my best friend in town from New York; both of us are working on the weekend. Feels like I’m always on the clock, but it works since running a magazine and writing my blog entails doing much of what I’ve always been doing in terms of tending to my interests. Something good happens for the magazine every time I leave the house, so it all balances out in some way or the other. I recently published an interview with the architects of Paris’s first preventive health clinic, Zoī Vendome, for BESO. I met them at a dinner party in Mexico City.
I’ve never known how to not stay busy. I’ll close my eyes to meditate and end up composing short stories in my head, for example. So, the blog has been a great outlet for me. It’s helped me to process my life in a way that I’ve found to be very meaningful.
I started blogging because I wanted a way to hold onto everything at a time when my life was moving super fast. That was towards the end of a very long and transient era in my life, traveling nonstop, living between Mexico City and Paris, also working a full-time tech job in New York. Now I’m back in Canada recovering from the raging adrenal fatigue earned by that stint. I love being home, doing Canadian things, reading and writing on the lake. It feels good to be reconnecting with my body in the place that I’m from. It’s a homecoming in more than one sense.
The best sleeping pill I’ve ever had is a red light panel and my internet modem off.
How do you start and end your days?
I keep voice memos of my dreams, take NDT, spray rosewater all over, then feel it out. Some mornings it's lemon water and tinctures; others it’s a baseball cap, hot girl walk, and cold brew to my face kind of day. I’ll sometimes need literally four hours to daydream before I begin my work day, others I’ve opened my laptop before fully opening my eyes. I’m lucky cause I naturally wake up at 5, which is what allows for such variability. Unless, of course, I’ve been out til 5.
I recently learned it's a good idea to light candles in the evening, then blow them all out right before bed. It's a primal way to signal to your brain that it’s time to turn off for the night. The best sleeping pill I’ve ever had is a red light panel and my internet modem off. I wind down and fall asleep to this playlist every night.
Can you recall a moment when you became more aware of your health, or your relationship to it changed?
I’ve been preoccupied with my health since I was a child, which is a mystery since I wasn’t raised to be. In middle school I’d drag my dad to the health store and make him wait in the car while I talked supplements with the staff so I wouldn’t have to watch him rolling his eyes at me. He still will put his face in his hands at the dinner table when I get on the topic of whatever esoteric health thing I'm into that week: birch sap, daily acupuncture, bloodletting, Bionergetics, Katonah yoga, etc. My doctor always laughs because I already know my vitals before I’ve stepped into their office.
My theory is that the obsession skipped a couple of generations, as William Osler, the father of modern medicine, is my 3x paternal great-granduncle. He was into what we now call “energy,” something that’s brushed off by most practitioners of Western medicine. While not espousing it as scientific, he wrote about faith healing, a topic that eventually crossed over with my other interests. For a time, I saw a faith healer who could cure acute symptoms from a distance on the spot.
I’ve dabbled in a lot over the years, but am learning to respect my own intuition and my own body as my greatest teacher. I have strong 6th house placements in my chart.
More recently with the adrenal fatigue situation, I went through extensive testing to figure out what was going on with me, including a thyroid ultrasound. Seeing inside of my body like that was a humbling experience, having spent my entire life fixated on its outer appearance, extracting the most I could from it and my time on earth (traveling and working like a maniac, sometimes doing 2x hot pilates classes a day, etc). I still remember how touched the radiographer was to see how moved I was by the experience. For the first time, I saw my body as something to really love, take care of, and show gratitude for. I saw it as a gift to be able to simply inhabit my body. I definitely cried. I’ve had many moments with my health, but that one really put me in my place.
Do you have a spiritual practice?
As it stands, connecting with, listening to, and showing gratitude to my body are all synonymous with connecting to my spirituality. I believe that the better I take care of myself, the better the universe will take care of me. I pray often, look up to the sky to ask for what I need, also for what I want. I look up at the sky and say thank you several times a day. I thank my body several times a day as well. I think that a loving, gracious, and generous person is the most spiritually evolved person.
What’s your relationship to self-healing?
I’ve always approached my health on a psychosomatic level. Any health issue I’ve ever encountered has felt symbolic. I’ve also noticed that complaining about a symptom, for example, allows for it to persevere. Same with explaining. An ex gave me great advice once: you don’t have to tell anyone anything.
My maternal side is very into energy, so I was raised to understand the power of intention, as well as my own part in my healing. Any time I’d say, “I’m so stupid,” for example, my mom would be horrified, telling me, “Never, under any circumstances, say anything negative about yourself. Words have power.” She was very adamant about this. It’s probably why I’m into language and writing, and why I find precision so important.
My cousin owns an energy healing center in Indonesia, where I’ve spent a lot of time over the years. Hypnotherapy is an example of self-healing that I love, because it requires blind faith in the healing power of your own, yet entirely mysterious, subconscious mind for it to work. It requires professional intervention, as well as trust and openness to the intervention. I couldn’t do it alone, but the work largely depends on me and the ability of the practitioner to gain my trust.
Do you work with any practitioners, texts, or modalities on a regular basis?
I’ve been seeing my acupuncturist in Toronto for over ten years, and my Bioenergetic-Ayurvedic healer for six months. She’s treating the adrenal fatigue and has me on a Vata pacification protocol, which has me feeling better than ever. My acupuncturist can cure heartbreak, overthinking, sciatica, anything, honestly. I once even finessed a thigh gap.
I consult my maternal side of the family’s Russian energy healer over Zoom and my French hypnotherapist as needed. I have my cards read twice a year in Indonesia. My doctor in Toronto feels like a second mother to me. I love my endocrinologist in Montreal. I love my Botox girl Oksana, too, also a second mother even though we can’t communicate because of our language barrier — yet she gives me a perfect ‘tox every time. Probably also psychic. I find a relaxed, Botoxed face has a sort of waterfall effect on the rest of my body and my mood.
When do you feel the most nourished?
When someone shows me something beautiful. When I'm indulged in my love language (gifts, affection). Writing. Getting paid. Whenever I shift into an expansive mood, by choice or by accident.
How do you reset?
I love reading my book in the sauna. Going to the movies alone. If I’m there, a temazcal ceremony in Mexico. A long night out at Silencio in Paris. Anywhere that I can go full Airplane Mode. I’m known to take a couple months off to be completely alone in small towns in the Mexican countryside.
Do you have a favorite meal?
Surf and turf, my death row meal. It would include the lobster pasta from Joe Beef in Montreal, since I'm gluten-free and it’s my last day on earth. Otherwise, I’m a vegetable-oriented person. I love cooking and I love dining out. I could eat oysters every day. I love French and Mexican food. My favorite restaurant in the world is Contramar in Mexico City. At home it’s purple yams, figs, cherries, cottage cheese, maple syrup, coconut cream, grass-fed butter, dates, steak...
What advice would you give your younger self?
The more you give to your gifts, the more they will give to you. You deserve to either ask for or invest inordinate amounts of time, money, and effort into developing your talents.
What advice would you give to the person reading this?
Life will surprise you, if you let it.
What would you like to see or create more of in the world?
Accountability, benevolence, and silliness.
yay🧑🏼🩰🦢🦋
so authentic & real, couldn’t have asked for a better morning read 🤍🕊️