The Five Steps to Wellness
Physical
Your physical well-being is central to life itself. Not eating or drinking causes death somewhere along the line – what is the status of your nutritional health? Further, your body has other needs that, when satisfied, allow us to achieve and maintain optimum health and well-being (Kelly, 1999). Your heart desires that you be healthy and physically fit! An exercise plan including stretching, aerobics, and weight training fulfills a need that upgrades all other aspects of your life including optimistic perceptions about physical health. Another dimension of your physical health is sleep and relaxation. Although physical health is not the biggest predictor of overall wellness, it gives you the base for other energies!
Social
Social effectiveness is one of two dimensions that holds the highest predictive weight for overall wellness (Russell-Chapin & Ivey, 2004). A good social dimension means a balance of giving and receiving; of speaking and listening; of being alone and being together; balance is realized by resolving tensions or extending love and caring to other people and other living beings including the rest of the universe. Although the people with whom we live and work maintain an air of having it together, just like us they all carry deep wounds from previous experiences that lead to actions difficult to understand; we see our own faults mirrored in irritation with others.
Your social network of friends and family can increase your perception of having and providing support of self and others. We are social beings and relationship brings out the best in us. In our modern society many relationships (and people) fall apart because they cannot thrive under the pressures of schedules. Relationships need a level of priority to produce carefree timelessness (Kelly, 1999)! Learn to waste time with people you love. Be with them as though it will be the last moment you will have in their presence.
Spiritual
It is in the area of spirituality that we come to understand most fully our other legitimate needs, gaining the insight to live a life that enriches upholds, and protects our well-being in each of these areas. A healthy spiritual life is associated with better physical and psychological health outcomes and overall well-being. When paired with social wellness it predicts quality of life. Kelly (1999) says that our spiritual needs are the most difficult to define; they change as we move into different phases of our own personal spiritual journey. Searching your heart for answers to the questions posed by life experiences, discovering your truest desires, come to you with silence and solitude – the most basic and unchanging spiritual needs.
Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher and mathematician who lived from 580 – 500 B.C. wrote, “Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.” It would be an honor to assist as you let go of the past, patiently wait for the future, and live with an intense passion for life in the joy of the here and now. Spiritual health brings focus, perspective, continuity, and vitality to your life.
Emotional
Happiness, sadness, joy, anger, gladness… all parts of the human experience that take practice and skill to feel and to express to others. Failure to do so leads to emotional starvation which distorts in our character possibly resulting in radical mood swings, general lethargy, rage, bitterness, and resentment (Kelly, 1999). A principle centeredness with an internal locus of control generates positive self-esteem and a positive regard for who you are, elements vital to your well-being, your need to be loved and accepted. The more deeply balanced we are within ourselves, the more sensitive, objective, empathetically attuned we can be with others, helping them to move toward more emotional balance themselves.
Saying too much or too little to the wrong person leaves you feeling frustrated and violated. Cultivating a trust relationship with a person who will respect our feelings and reverence our struggle with circumstances sustains us with a spirit of compassion, encouragement, and honesty. It may be a spouse, a healthcare professional, a spiritual guide, friend, family member, priest or pastor. Of course when those people are not available, it is still preferable and necessary to first take the situation and feelings into silence and solitude passing it on to a Greater Presence.
Intellectual
We are born with intellectual desire; it is natural and abundant in us all. If through a bitter or brutal experience the shock buried that natural desire, be assured that it can be rediscovered! We have the capacity to think, decide, reason, imagine, and dream. What we think about has a tremendous influence on the reality of our lives. Are you merely replaying old thoughts?
The electrical activity in your brain yearns for a balance between the left and right brain, a shift from ordinary, distracted, turbulent mental activity to a more coherent, powerfully balanced state (Levey & Levey, 1998). Gathering more brain power, greater concentration, mastery of attention, greater mental stability, enhanced tolerance for ambiguity, greater creativity, flexibility, and graceful fluidity of brain function calls for discipline in mental or spiritual realms – an investment in personal development. It would be a privilege to support you to develop a new story, increasing your life satisfaction.