Hello everyone and welcome to New Sky Coaching! I was debating topics for this first blog and thinking about all the different things that come up when we talk about wellness. I’ve spent over twenty years learning, teaching and living wellness, so I thought it would be worthwhile to lay out some of the things I’ve found over the years.
1. Wellness and Health are not the same thing.
Many people use the words “wellness” and “health” interchangeably. To me, “health” is about being, and “wellness” is about feeling. You probably know someone – or maybe you are someone – who spent months or years visiting doctors, describing symptoms, going through medical tests, only to be told that there was nothing wrong with him or her. They were given a clean bill of health. However, their symptoms weren’t resolved. They didn’t feel right. They didn’t feel well.
Health is about your body and/or your mind being within certain parameters that the medical community has deemed to be appropriate. That’s important. We need to know when to diagnose someone with diabetes or high blood pressure or depression or any other of the tons of various conditions that can affect us. Results of medical tests can only tell us so much, though.
Wellness is about how you feel. Do you feel sluggish in the morning when the alarm goes off or do you feel ready to face the day? How do you feel when you face your daily challenges – coworkers, clients, family, friends, traffic? Do the foods you eat give you a quick energy boost or do they provide long-lasting energy? Do you rely on caffeine, alcohol or nicotine to get you through the day? Are you able to find time for healthy activity, hobbies and self-care? How do you feel in the evenings? Are you ready for bed and fall asleep easily or are you wound up and unable to sleep? Answers to all of these questions, and more, drive our sense of wellness, regardless of our state of health.
I love the definition of “health” as defined by the World Health Organization – “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” It clearly indicates that true health incorporates well-being on a variety of levels and that just not being sick (according to medical guidelines) isn’t good enough.
2. Wellness is not linear.
You don’t follow a wellness path like directions on Google Maps. It’s not as though you start at exercise, turn left at healthy diet, follow self-care for ten miles and you arrive at your wellness destination and stay there forever.
Wellness is more complicated than that because life is more complicated than that. You can be in a great place, wellness-wise, for months or years. Then things happen – maybe you have a baby, get a divorce or have an injury. Maybe you get a fantastic new job with a huge pay raise, but you’re travelling so much that it’s hard to eat right and work out. Or your mom or dad has a fall and you become the caregiver. Maybe there’s a global pandemic that upends your world and your gym is closed and you’re terrified to go grocery shopping. (That would never happen, right?)
Life is hard. Good things happen, bad things happen, we’re up, we’re down – but we go on living. Wellness is like that too. There’s good days and bad days, but instead of using the bad days as an excuse to turn off the map and drive around willy-nilly, we take a deep breath, put the empty wine bottle and ice cream carton in the recycling, put the gym bag in the car, and start again. Sometimes you need a wellness coach to help you find a new path.
Which brings us to #3.
3. Wellness is a practice.
Wellness is work, baby! Ever notice that doctors practice medicine and attorneys practice law? Yogis call what they do their yoga practice. Why? Because there’s always more to learn, always new ways to grow and develop. A cardiologist doesn’t learn everything there is to know right now about the heart and then stop learning forever. Next week, next month, next year – there will be new studies, new medicines, new procedures. You’re never perfect, you’re never done.
We practice wellness too. Remember when we were all eating margarine because it was better for us than butter? Or not eating eggs because they were so bad for us? Whoops! New information teaches us how to modify our practices. As Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Read articles. Take a fitness class you’ve never tried before. Pick out the craziest-looking vegetable at the farmers’ market and look up a recipe for it. If you can’t run any longer, walk or dance instead. Try avocado toast. Learn. Adapt. Take a leap of faith. It’s the only way we grow.
I’d love to hear your comments. Thanks for being with me on this wellness journey.
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