Wellness.....its a word that we hear more about all the time and for the last decade of my life I have been striving to get there. Interesting to note that its only been the last ten years that I have consciously thought about it though. Why didn't it occur to me sooner? My 'wellness' wasn't even on my radar for the first 35 yrs of my life. I guess in my younger years I simply didn't experience anything that was opposite of wellness. But did I really know what wellness felt like. Had I ever felt 'well' in my lifetime? I guess it depends on what the definition of wellness is. The definition I found stated "the quality of being healthy in body and mind, especially as the result of deliberate effort". Well, I know I didn't put any deliberate effort into my feeling well as a youngster or young adult. It simply didn't occur to me. I was busy living a life filled with other things. Wellness was not in my field of vision. As I approached middle age I began to realize that something was off in my being. I was beginning to notice how I felt physically and how that affected the "whole" of me. I started to take notice of my body and mind and also how they live in harmony (or disharmony) with each other. I started to understand how I didn't want to feel and yet that the whole 'wellness' thing seemed to be a huge enigma on my forever horizon. Something brought me to look at alternative health options and I incorporated some of those in my life. Things began to slowly change. In my midlife years now I have begun to look at my health and how it affects my overall wellness. Initially it didn't look all that good and how I felt physically and psychologicaly said it all. I felt like crap. My history is such that I have had periods of unending stress, of which some was in my control and others that were not. I cannot use that as an excuse, but I am living with the legacy of how it affected my body and mind for many years. But, now I can make a change and alter how I feel and respond to life. It sounds so easy, but it is a daunting task because the effort required is huge and I was feeling wasted. I was emotionally drained and physically drained as well. So how does one begin to make change. I took little steps and then would fall back. I would make better decisions only to leave those decisions behind. It was tough. I placed expectations on myself that I couldn't uphold and then I would feel like a failure. As the years of retraining myself passed I fell into a lull. It took a few real health scares to make me stand up at attention and read myself the riot act for the last time. Years of saying and not doing were over. Now was the time and I left behind all regrets. I have always believed that we are a product of our choices, but somehow thought that I could get away with less than optimal ones and still be ok? Wrong.....it all works together. My physical path is now aligning with my psychological path. They cannot thrive independantly. Everything is connected and the dots are now shaping themselves into the 'being' that I am today. I am the designer and have no one to place any blame on. It's all about me. Sounds selfish, but its a good selfish. I sometimes look at it all and hope its not too late, but I quickly let that go because those kind of thoughts will get in the way of a 'healthy' today.
So now each day brings along with it new opportunities to live 'well'. It's all about choices every day. I don't purport to be a saint, but I try to live with choices that are best for me. I have had too many years of self recrmination to not avow a change in that behavior. My wellness is no longer that enigma on the horizon. It is right in front of me every day. It lives inside of me every day. I will still make mistakes, but I will recover more quickly and get myself back on track.
It has been a long journey but it has been worth it. My body and mind are really the only things I can be fully in charge of. So why wouldn't I want to feel well? Anything else would be silly.
It is all about living in the present moment. Not worrying about the past or even tomorrow. Just living well today.
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