What is Wellness?

Are you healthy?  Do you eat food that is good for your body and exercise regularly?  Do you have reciprocal relationships that are nurturing?  Do you meditate or pray to a higher being?  Are you balancing your life optimally – or even adequately?  Does that translate into being “well”?!

In today’s society, wellness engenders a broad array of definitions, encompassing physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual elements.  Popular culture bombards us with warnings to maintain our health, nourish our minds, express our emotions and discover our inner selves.  Such harsh recommendations can quickly promote overwhelm, leaving everyday folks with limited free time feeling unsure as to where to even begin!  

So what is wellness and how do we achieve it without becoming increasingly stressed in the process?   While the perfect formula is unique to each individual, there are several clear principles that may offer universal benefit. 

Wellness actually hinges on self-awareness.  It’s an ability to understand our motivations, our passions, our dreams, our desires and even our disappointments.  True self-awareness expands far beyond psychological implications.  It enables one to live as the fully conscious being that s/he was designed to be.  It implies sensing one’s own energy states.  Are you aware that at times you may be leaking energy?! 

Self-awareness facilitates the ability to bring oneself into balance when provoked and to calm oneself before collapsing from prolonged states of overdrive.  It allows you to indentify personal filters of perception to vulnerabilities, myths and expectations that may inhibit you from governing your life according to the deeper truth at the core of your being. 

If self-awareness is the hinge for wellness, then body consciousness is surely the door.  Nurturing the body with healthy food and exercise are familiar concepts for most people.  Less familiar, but no less significant practices include balancing the body’s energetic and lymphatic systems.  This may entail inducing changes in your physical condition by learning to test and modify your energy states.   To increase wellness, you may need to calm or stimulate energy, strengthen your immune system, entrain cell memory, flush toxins or facilitate healthy digestion of all that’s ingested by the body – including emotions.   Wow!  Are you exhausted already?

Check back in June for tips to get you started on your personal path towards wellness.

*written by Gretchen Koehler, Naam Yoga Therapist and Susan Koehler