Feature Story
Wellness Through
Mind, Body, and Spirit
Exploring, Mental Fitness, Tai Chi, and Bufo
by Clayton Stallings, The EVOLUTION Magazine
This summer, I have been trying to break out of my comfort zone in an attempt to further my health and wellness journey in Mind, Body, and Spirit. For this issue, I’ ve decided to share some of those experiences with you. It was difficult for me to categorize them respectively because all three experiences really overlap into Mind, Body, and Spirit.
Mind
Mind you, I was hesitant to give advice on any of these matters, because there are some days when it feels like I’ m barely holding it together. I know I am not alone there, and I suppose being vulnerable is the best way to step out of my comfort zone. This month will be exactly two years since I began my journey of not letting alcohol run my life. Honestly, I thought when I first started that if I made it this far, things would have gotten way easier by now. Oh boy, was I wrong!
In fact, just after typing that last sentence, I was overcome with emotion and had to stop writing and meditate. Thirty minutes later, I realized this is not entirely true, but it is definitely how I felt when I typed it. Meditation allows me to process my feelings and then take a step back from them to acknowledge their origin. They are coming from a younger me as a two-year-old in processing emotions without alcohol abuse. experience I had when I was younger. The EMC2 festival was filled with energy workers, shamans, and holistic teachers offering workshops during the day for three days, as well as conscious music performances at night. Going to it was one of the best decisions I made this summer, because it not only allowed me to heal from old wounds, but it also allowed me to see how many people that are out there on similar journeys, or who may have been where I am at now before they grew into spiritual leaders.
After the three-day festival was over, I felt like I had made leaps and bounds forward in my healing journey, so much so that I would end up taking another leap of faith in my road to recovery by trusting a few festival attendees that I had never met before, guide me through a completely new to me psychedelic spiritual experience. I’ ll share that experience later.
Body
The biggest inspiration I experienced this summer, when it came to trying new experiences for the health of my body, was a free
The truth is that I have gotten way better at processing my emotions through meditation and focused breathing work, but it is still so staggering to me the number of times I find myself needing to do it— Every Day.
Isolation can be a double-edged sword. You need it if you are doing inner work while going through healing and transformation, but it’ s almost just as important to find like-minded people who are on a similar journey. Overthinking and drowning in your own emotions can cut you down just as fast as the inner work builds you up. Seeing other people go through a similar experience allows you to be more graceful with your own emotions.
I never thought I would be able to step out of my comfort zone and attend a camping music festival this summer called EMC2( Earth Medicine Collective Consciousness) because of a horrible festival
Tai Chi class at the Westport Public Library in KC. It was actually my third time trying a beginner’ s Tai Chi class, but the first two were last year, and all three were with different instructors, class locations offering them, and different styles of Tai Chi.
The first person I met was the instructor, Tom Presnell, a 75-yearold Vietnam veteran, and suddenly my source of inspiration. I’ ve
28 August 2025