Owning Your Wellness

Wellness has become such a hot topic, a word that seems to be overused but not always thoroughly explained. It has also become a trillion dollar industry, with consumer corporations selling wellness as essential oils, $100 yoga pants, meditation retreats, spa packages, and increasingly expensive organic eating options. Of course, all of these things are part of wellness, and people (including myself) value and appreciate them. But they aren’t the whole story. You don’t have to go to yoga three times a week or have healing crystals scattered around your home or be a loyal follower of Gwyneth Paltrow and her Goop empire to experience wellness. These can absolutely contribute to your wellness, but there are so many other aspects. I am by no means an expert on this topic, but I believe wellness is a deeply personal concept, and it’s up to you to decide what wellness means in your life.   

Most of the reading I’ve done on wellness has led me to believe that there really is not one way to define it. Dictionaries define wellness as the quality or state of being in good health, especially as an actively sought goal, and the quality or state of being healthy in body and mind. This is a good starting point to understand what wellness means in a general sense. But wellness is difficult to define because everyone has a different idea of what it means to be well. I think health is an easier concept to grasp because it is more science based, but wellness is up for interpretation depending on your values, beliefs, and feelings about your body, mind, and soul. I believe it’s important for everyone to consider, discover, and own their idea of what wellness means in their lives in order to nurture their well-being.

I recently read a Time magazine article (“How Well Are You, Really?” by Jeffrey Kluger) that separated wellness into six areas: emotional, social, spiritual, physical, intellectual, and environmental. I really like this approach because it shows just how holistic and multi-faceted the idea of wellness is. It also indicates that everything you feel on the inside is connected to everything happening around you on the outside. In my opinion, the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual areas are more connected to inner wellness, whereas the social, physical, and environmental have more to do with outer wellness. The emotional aspect is your mental health, the spiritual has to do with faith and creating meaning in your life, and intellectual is the concept of challenging and working your brain. The social area is your relationships with others, physical refers to your physical health, and environmental has to do with your surroundings. All six of these areas matter to everyone’s overall wellness, but because wellness is a personal concept, each person may value the areas differently.

I see the importance of all of these areas to my wellness, but I value the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual areas the most. I’ve realized that when these aspects of my wellness aren’t doing so great, my overall wellbeing suffers more than when the physical, social, and environmental areas aren’t doing well. Once I made this discovery about myself, I decided that for me, wellness starts from within. I need to feel good on the inside to even think about improving how I feel on the outside. If I don’t get to the gym as much as I want to, or my social life dwindles, or I feel like my environment isn’t exactly what I want it to be, I can still feel okay. I may feel a little off balance or unwell, but I’m still able to go through my daily life without too many problems. But when I struggle with my mental health, or don’t do things that stimulate my brain, or lose my sense of wonder and meaning in life, nothing feels okay. I start to feel low and depressed and unwilling to face each day. So for me, in order to feel well, I need to pay close attention to my inner self first in order to improve on my outer self.

Wellness to me is all about taking control of your health and wellbeing in all aspects. It’s about finding contentment and balance and satisfaction with your life. It’s about doing things that bring you joy. I don’t always eat super healthy, I don’t have perfect habits, and I am not always an active participant in everything that the wellness industry sells us. But I know what works for me, what makes me feel at peace and happy and well.

I’m not calling myself an expert on wellness, and I know I can learn so much more about it. But a lot of the topics I want to write about and stories I want to share have a lot to do with wellness and all its aspects, and I think it’s an important concept to consider and make space for in life.

I know what wellness means to me, but maybe it means something different to you. I think it’s sort of beautiful that wellness can be so individualized and nuanced and unique. Wellness starts with you; your mind, your beliefs, and your values. Then you can decide what it means to be well.

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