How to properly engage in your overall wellness

By: Quinn Menier, BS,CCM,QIDP,CLC

Burned out, stressed, overwhelmed, feeling unbalanced, and just feeling “meh.” It happens to the best of us. The world is changing quickly and you are just trying to keep up. Everything you are doing doesn’t seem to be enough. Have you heard the term “wellness”? I am sure you are shaking your head yes. Why else would I be on this blog and reading this? Well, do you know the definition of wellness? If not, that’s okay. Often when we hear about wellness we think of it as being physically healthy. This is true but there is more to it.

There are essentially quite a few moving parts that make up wellness as a whole. Think of it as a pie. In this pie, you have cut it into slices and each slice represents a different area of your whole being. Here are the slices; physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, and environmental.

One thing that many get wrong is, that wellness has to be intentional. Set out to be proactive in managing and engaging yourself in the 6 key areas of wellness. To do this; taking the slices of pie as an example, when you are nourishing your physical wellness, this is done through healthy eating, exercise, healthy sleep habits, mindfulness, and so on. Speaking of healthy sleep habits, sleep contributes to your overall mental wellness as well. When you actively pursue a healthy habit of sleep hygiene, you can nourish your mental health along with your physical body. A healthy mind contributes to creativity, cognitive functioning, judgment, and problem-solving skills.

Emotional wellness is proactively being aware of your feelings and understanding the feelings of others around you. This of course is a generalized definition and personalized to those who are seeking emotional wellness. This leads me to spiritual wellness, which is also personal. Everyone may not have the same beliefs and this is okay. Spirituality is about searching for and holding meanings that prove true to you and your soul. Some have a belief in a higher power who is their guide whereas others have a name for this power. Whether it be God or the universe, you are still actively seeking and searching for a meaning of life’s purpose, guidance and healthily listening to your intuition. Spiritual wellness can accompany environmental and social wellness as well.

When being in tune with your social wellness, you are among others, cultivating relationships and engaging in meaningful activities that bring joy and a sense of belonging to your fully formed wellness pie. This leaves us with a slice of environmental wellness. Your environment contributes to every area of your life. The people, the spaces we occupy, the jobs we hold, the cleanliness, and all physical surroundings contribute to our environmental wellness. Thinking of this in a tangible sense, if our homes and physical spaces are full of clutter, then our minds feel cluttered and out of sync.

Now that you know the definition of wellness, how will you apply it to your lifestyle? I invite you to create a circle on a piece of paper, and cut the circle making it into a pie, with each slice properly labeled; physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, and environmental. Now brainstorm all of the ways you are proactively and actively feeding your whole being with each slice. It’s okay if you can’t come up with several ways. This tells us that you need fulfillment in these key areas and have some work to do. The general idea of wellness is bringing all of the slices together to create a whole. You deserve to be whole. You deserve to be well.

About the author;

Quinn Menier is a Life Purpose Coach at Mastering Life Coaching who loves to share stories and provide tips and strategies to create the life you love and deserve.