You are all things. Denying, rejecting, judging or hiding from any aspect of your total being creates pain and results in a lack of wholeness.
Joy Page
MOST PEOPLE ARE THINKING ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING WRONG.
The popular opinion is that if you have mental, mood, or emotional troubles, focus on the mind. This kind of thinking is flawed, overly simplistic, and incomplete.
The human brain likes to compartmentalize things. We do it all the time without noticing. We have:
- Work-life; Home-life, Personal life; and our love life
- Healthy days; and cheat days
- Work friends; Real friends; Best friends; Family friends; and FB friends
And similarly, we also talk about wellbeing in this way:
- Physical health, Mental health, and Spiritual health
HUMAN BEINGS DON’T FUNCTION IN THESE ARTIFICIAL BOXES
We function as a whole.
What we do to our bodies impacts our moods, and what we think and feel impacts what we do. And what we do impacts our sense of connection, purpose, and meaning.
We are one holistic system that runs as one beautiful unit. This means that our total wellbeing includes how we care for our body, mind, and spirit. In fact, healing the mind can heal the body, and nurturing the body can improve one’s mental health.
WELLBEING IS THE COMING TOGETHER OF THE MIND, BODY, AND SPIRIT
To use a rough analogy – how well a car rides is the coming together of all of its different parts – the engine, the brakes, the handling, the seats, the stereo, etc. If the engine stalls at every light, we would say the car doesn’t ride well, even if all the other parts are top-notch. Or if the engine is perfect, but the seats are tattered and scratches your skin, again, we would say it’s not a great ride.
Just like the car, we also function as a whole and compartmentalizing isn’t meaningful.
WELLBEING IS BEING WHOLE
The opposite of wholeness is fracture, separation, and disconnection.
Trauma and stress experts including Dr. Peter Levine and Dr. Gabor Maté define trauma as disconnection. Disconnection with ourselves, others, and the spirit.
This means that trauma and stress impacts our ability to experience wholeness. When we’re fractured, separated, and disconnected, we feel unwell, unease, and for some experience disease.
HOW TO START YOUR WHOLENESS JOURNEY
If you care about your wellbeing – start to integrate all of the different parts of you to create more wholeness in your life.
Begin by asking questions like:
- In what ways do I compartmentalize different parts of my life?
- Do what I do to my body benefit my mind and spirit?
- Do my thoughts create a good environment for my body and spirit?
- Do what I feed my spirit inspires my thoughts and energize my body?
Are you at ease? Find out with this quiz.
