A Day (make that a lifetime) of Wellness

Last week the “herself by Morton” team curated a Day Of Wellness at the Westlake Village Inn.  I wish you could have been there.  When you get a group of 30 or 40 women in a room, the amount of life experience and wisdom in that gathering is inspiring.  The conversations were lively and the attendees were engaged throughout the entire day.

As you can see from the copy of the invitation above, our topics covered a broad range of wellness topics.  I’d like to reflect for a moment on some ideas from my own experiences that day. 

We used a beach ball to illustrate the six dimensions of wellness.

A giant beach ball, about 3+ feet across, divided into 6 sections.  Written in large black letters on each of the sections was one word representing one dimension of wellness.  They are: Physical, Mental, Social, Financial, Spiritual and Environmental.  As the ball rotates, you can basically see one dimension at a time.  The other dimensions are there, but they’re kind of out of sight, out of mind.  That doesn’t mean we can or should forget about them, it’s just that our brains tend to focus on one thing at a time. 

One of the challenges on any journey to wellness is figuring out how to balance the amount of time and energy we spend on each area so that we have a balance between them.  If that beach ball had one section that was either over inflated or underinflated, it wouldn’t work right.  If I tried bouncing that ball with one section out of whack, it might just careen out into the ocean never to be seen again, except perhaps by a curious dolphin.

In this blog series, we have focused almost entirely on the physical aspect of wellness.  This is probably the area we see the most between social media, movies, TV, magazines, news broadcasts, … so much of what bombards us on a daily basis is about our physical appearance that it’s easy to think that’s the most important.  It’s not.  It’s the most visual, yes, but it’s not the most important. 

To be truly healthy, we need to be mentally and spiritually healthy.  Try taking time out of each day to write in a journal.  That’s right, an old fashioned paper and pen journal.  If you don’t have one, just comment below and I’ll send you one of the herself journals we gave out as gifts at the Day Of Wellness.  Each morning or in the evening, whichever works best for you, pick a question relating to one dimension of wellness and write for 5 or 10 minutes on that topic.  Below are some suggestions for each wellness dimension.  Do this every day for 30 days and then stop to reflect on what you’ve learned about yourself.

Physical:

            How do I feel when I look in a mirror?

            How’s my energy today?

What’s my fondest memory of food from childhood and how has that impacted my relationship with food today?

Mental:

            Do I feel stress right now?  If yes, where is it and what can I do to let it go?

            When was the last time I felt happy? 

            What can I do to find joy today?

Social:

            When is the last time I had lunch or a chat with my best friend?

            What is the difference between a friend and an acquaintance?

            What’s my favorite social activity and when did I last do that?

Spiritual:

            Did I look in wonder at something in the natural world today?

            Did I feel connected today to something greater than myself?

            Am I hanging on to anger or spite?  What can I do to let it go?

Environmental:

            Did I walk instead of drive somewhere today?

            Did I recycle today?

            Did I improve my environment today?  If not, what can I do tomorrow?

Financial:

What’s my very first memory of money?  How has that influenced my relationship with money?

            What has been my biggest teacher when it comes to money?  What did I learn

If my relationship with money was described in a romance novel, what words would be used?  (healthy, toxic, turbulent, stable, etc.) 

So, here’s the plan.  Monday through Saturday, pick a different dimension of wellness and journal about that dimension.  On Sunday, or whatever your day of rest might be, read what you’ve written and pick one thing you’re going to work on. 

Based on my experience last week, I know I need to plan my next vacation.  I’m contacting a travel agent to help me find a trip to Ireland where I can get some lessons in traditional Irish music and Irish cuisine.  My roots are Irish and I’d like to learn more about my two favorite Irish things –music and food (other than my family, of course).  I find that knowing when my next big vacation will happen helps me enjoy everything else more.  Hopefully I’ll be able to take some long walks in the Irish countryside to offset the increase in calories! 

I hope you enjoy the journal experiment on your own journey to less!