Achieving wellness involves balancing at least 12 different areas of your life.

We call them a Circle of Wellness because they all interact with one another.  If you are unbalanced in any one of these areas you are not able to live to your fullest potential of health and wellness.  All 12 require Self Care. No one else can do it for you.

Each week in this opening term we will touch on one of the 12.  After reading that week’s article, you will complete a quiz that verifies you read our ideas, then enter a weekly log that states what positive step you took that’s new, what you did that’s better than before, what the barriers were, and add any personal comments.

        1.  Preparation and commitment

If you want something in life, the more prepared you are, the more likely you are to accomplish it. You may have a particular pursuit that you want to fulfill.  Achieving your own self selected goal is very gratifying. Setting short and long-term goals holds you accountable, motivates you, and sets a clear vision for what you want out of life.  An example of several specific  goals would be eating healthier, getting along better with others, and avoiding arthritis.

        2.  Nutrition

A healthy person typically eats a balanced diet of fruits, whole grains, quality protein and healthy fat while consuming plenty of plain uncontaminated water while avoiding those foods and drinks that are bad for our bodies.    Some say we are what we eat. Eat healthy and be well. Eating junk food and drink sugared soft drinks (and drinking too much alcohol) can lead to weight gain and disease. While we all like our comfort food, being able to eat nutritional foods at least 90% of the time makes for a healthy body.

        3.  Movement

Our bodies were meant to move. During all of humanity’s existence up until now we human beings have had to move about every day to get and prepare our food and to live our daily lives. And then came the automobile, all the conveniences of modern society, and instant communications. Today’s environment makes it difficult to get a move on, but if we don’t, we won’t be healthy. Daily exercise is vital Doing activities with others impacts on your relations as well as your health. And you must have heard a lot about how important exercise is. Unfortunately, long commutes, desk jobs, long working hours, and how tired we feel at the end of a day keeps a lot of us from being as active as we could. But what can we say? If you want to live long and live well, regular physical activity is required.

        4.  Self esteem

How do you feel about yourself? Self valuation is important.. It’s difficult to love anyone else if you don’t love yourself. Self love does not mean an ego trip. It’s an inner sense that you are a good and valued person. Unfortunately, if you have been bullied in your youth (or adult life) that puts an extra burden on feeling positive self esteem. We all like positive feed-back from others, so having good relationswith others is important for self esteem.  We feel good about ourselves when we are of service to others.

        5.  Stress mastery

Being still and contacting Inner Spirit is one way to let stress go.  That doesn’t solve the interpersonal conflict, but it allows you to step back and find some serenity so you can better deal with the conflict itself.  We all face stresses in our lives so learning stress management skills is important to our well being. The more we can find serenity vs. stress in our lives, the healthier we will be. Wellness Online offers a number of different tools for your use. Try them out and use the ones that work for you.

6.  Relations with others

People who feel good about themselves typically have good relations with their family, their spouse or significant other, people they socialize with people they work with, etc. You can learn people skills that build cooperation rather than competition. By the way, people who carry grudges don’t hurt the one they are angry with, they only hurt themselves. Feeling angry affects your body in negative ways. Forgiveness goes a long way towards maintaining good relations with others as well as yourself.

7.  Relations with Spirit

What is your relationship with a quiet, peaceful, loving inner self?  Perhaps you could call it  Higher Consciousness? Some call it God, others have different names. By whatever name Spirit is best contacted by being still and letting thoughts of past or future just drift away. Meditation is one way to contact to Inner Spirit.  Other methods of temporarily reaching the stillness within can also work. The more you feel connected to Higher Consciousness the more likely you are to beemotionally healthy. Believing in and personally knowing your Spirit is great for relieving stress.

8.  Work

Having a job goes a long way towards providing money to pay bills. It’s also necessary for self-esteem because being out of work is highly depressing. Quite often the better your better education, the better your chance for having the kind of job you want. When you get there, having good relations with fellow employees (and especially your boss) goes a long way towards business success.

9.  Finances

To avoid the stresses of owing more than you can pay is where personal money management comes in. Many of us have had problems paying off credit cards, mortgages, and other loans because we have bought what we couldn’t afford. Unfortunately, lenders like credit card companies don’t care whether you can pay until you can’t. What can we say other than everyone needs to learn all they can about having enough to live and to give. The biggest cost we have is buying a house which can really strain our budget if it’s more than we can afford.

10.  Finding joy in your life

Do you remember the old saying “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?” If you want a full life then balance is required. Being a workaholic may (or may not) secure your job or get you a better job, but it plays havoc on your family and social life. Research came up with the surprising answer that those who take vacations are more productive than those who don’t. Who are we to argue with an answer like that?

11.  Relations with the medical system

The health care system is actually a medical care system because medicine does not make us healthy. However spin-doctors (Spin doctors are not MD’s. They are public relations people.) long ago learned to use positive terms for medical treatment. If you do need medical care, become an involved patient who doesn’t consider a doctor an authority figure. Ask questions. Do research. Read about our web site for what you can do for yourself while under a doctor’s care. And, to complete the Circle of Wellness, we ask, do you want to end up with your declining years needing medical treatment? Is that your life’s goal?

12.  Perseverance

Very few of us are super healthy with a great life style.  Remember having a great life style doesn’t mean you need a lot of money, it means you feel personally rewarded in your life, and you contribute to the well-being of others.   Right now most of us have unhealthy reactions to life’s stresses and strains.  The author used to have the thought “This day deserves a drink.” because it was so unsatisfactory.  Your reactions to days you didn’t like could be to stuff your self with food rather than drink, or avoiding people, or becoming a video game addict, or…..   Making positive changes isn’t easy.  So, the only way you can more towards and to a healthy lifestyle is to stick-to-it.  It isn’t comfortable while you are doing it, but the long term rewards will be highly rewarding.

You don’t have to work on all the above issues at one time.  We gave you 12 topics.  Do pick at least one and then stick-to-it until you succeed.  Then move on to the next issue.

Putting it all together

Having a good life is putting it all together. Yes, the 12 components to what we call the Circle of Wellness is what it is all about.

Do you need to make a lot of money to be happy? Not necessarily. Did you know that while being wealthy eases a lot stresses and strains, it doesn’t lead to true happiness? What can lead to true happiness, a fulfilling life, is making the Circle of Wellness work for you.

When you put it all together you are a blessing to your family (which includes earning enough to live and to give) and having a positive influence on our relations, especially those we are close to.

Take the quiz

Question 1:
Which of the following are included in our Circle of Wellness?

1) To make as much money as we can.
2) To have good relations with family, friends, and associates
3) To have a better job than anyone else
4) To be and feel healthy
 #2 and #4

Question 2:
Preparation and Commitment

1) Preparation means anticipation and planning.
2) Commitment means a willingness to overcome barriers to your chosen goal,
3) The more you are prepared to achieve a goal the more likely you are to succeed.
 4) The more you are aware of barriers you are likely to have to overcome, the more likely you are to succeed.
5) All of the above.

Question 3:
Nutrition…

 1) Eating good nutritious food is important to my well being.
2) If I exercise enough I do not need to be concerned about what I eat.
3) I can eat all the junk food I want and not be concerned with my health.
4) Diet only means losing weight, not what I eat on a daily basis.

Question 4:
Movement…

1) I do not need to exercise if I have a sedentary job.
2) No one has the time to exercise in the environment we live in today.
3) Exercising regularly is important to my well-being.
4) Exercise is a chore and a bore and I can do without it.
 5) I need to find ways to make exercise enjoyable so I will keep it up.
6) #3 and #5

Question 5:
Self acceptance…

1) I need positive feedback from others every day to feel ok about myself.
2) I need to be better than others to feel self esteem.
 3) I feel an inner sense of well being which helps me deal with life issues.
4) If I take care of myself I feel guilty.

Question 6:
Stress mastery…

1) Life is full of stressful situations and stress people and I am at their mercy.
2) I do not need to learn how to handle the stresses in my life.
 3) If I ignore stresses they will all go away.
4) Learning how to handle stress is a skill that is worth learning.

Question 7:
My relations with others:

1) I am still carrying a grudge towards someone who hurt me in the past.
2) I generally get along with people and I am good at making new friends.
3) I get along with my family but I really dislike all my fellow workers.
4) 2 and 3.

Question 8:
Spirituality…

1) I feel an inner sense of connectedness to a HIgher non-physical Inner Consciousness.
2) Only those who go to church (or synagogue or mosque, etc) can have a positive relationship with Higher Consciousness.
3) Feeling connected to Higher Consciousness has no effect on my physical or mental health.
4) 2 and 3.

Question 9:
Finding joy in your life…

1) Taking time to enjoy myself alone or with others is positive for my health.
2) Play is absolutely unimportant.
 3) Being able to balance work and play is important to my well-being.
4) 1 and 3.

Question 10:
Work…

1) It does not matter if I feel that no one at work respects me.
2) It does not matter if I am miserable in my job, if I have one.
 3) Being able to do satisfactory work and have satisfactory relationships with the people at work has a positive impact on my health.
4) Being a workaholic is good for my health.

Question 11:
Finances…

1) It is healthy to have a huge credit card balance that is hard to pay off.
2) Getting into financial trouble is just how life is. I cannot do anything about it.
 3) Spending less than you earn leads to reduced stress and a healthier body.
4) I do not handle money very well, and there is no help for it.
Question 12:
Relations with the medical system…

1) Health care is a term used by the medical profession to make a positive spin on medical treatment.
2) Health care from medical specialists will keep me healthy.
3) When I do need health/medical care I am a passive patient. I do as I am told and believe that medicine will solve any problem I have.
4) Health care means that doctors do their best to keep me healthy because they make more money when I am healthy.

Question 13:
Perseverance…

1)  If there were not barriers to achieving a goal, you would have already succeeded
2)   Anything worth attaining will have challenges along the way
3)  A stick-to-it attitude is necessary for overcoming challenges
4)   Those who give up do not attain a desired goal
5)  All of the above.

 

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