A Wellness Journey
As I mentioned in my last blog post, I want to focus this journey on my health and well-being. This means making sure my actions are intentional and involve the six elements of health: emotional, intellectual, physical, social, spiritual, and environmental. To be clear, I won’t talk about all of these equally on the blog.
For instance, environmental health is about having a safe place to thrive. Luckily, I have been blessed and always felt safe and secure in a home. However, I share a dwelling, and as I promised from the start, I will only share my life with my family and friends when they allow it. This means I will rarely share about my environment, and when I do, it will be in a general way.
The same goes for spiritual health. Spiritual health can mean connecting through shared experiences with others, but it can also mean finding purpose in life or having a religious faith. I can truthfully say that I grew up in a spiritual, faith-based home. I find comfort in that, but I also openly admit that faith and religion are very personal things. They can cause disagreements, much like politics, and everyone experiences them differently, even for people who grew up in the same house. This means that my faith is mine and it is for me alone. Although I might occasionally share connected experiences here, I will rarely, if ever, share more than that.
Skip It
Since I brought it up, politics will never be shared here. NEVER! I am not trying to change what you think or believe. I only want to share my thoughts and ideas, and none of those ideas will be about politics. Like religion, our politics are built on our experiences, and I am not here to tell you how to look at those experiences or how they should affect you. I am here to share the random thoughts that run through my head, maybe the occasional recipe, and any other general craziness. Politics will not be showcased, I have too many other things to think about 😀
Let’s Focus on Health
The areas of health I will focus on sharing are my emotional, intellectual, physical, and social health, with my family and friends’ permission, of course.
Emotional
For my emotional health, I will focus on managing stress, staying positive, and learning better ways to express my emotions. With my neurodivergent brain, this is difficult for me. I tend to keep too much inside, which I realized after I was laid off. All that free time messes with the brain. It certainly tested my ability to deal with countless new emotions. I have always been a happy-go-lucky person. Life hands you challenges, you deal with them, and carry on. I rarely focus on things I can’t change, which is why the layoff was such a unique experience for me, but it helped me grow into a better, more complete person.
Intellectual
Having good intellectual health means we keep learning and expanding our knowledge. I know writing this blog will help keep me active and give me the mental stimulation I need. I have also been taking on other challenges, including substitute teaching. Nothing will humble you faster than teaching a 5th-grade math lesson and realizing you have forgotten all the math skills you learned. And children, they keep you on your toes with their “kid logic.” There’s never a dull moment. If there is one part of my health that I feel good about, it’s this one.
Physical
For my physical health, I am working on the basics: being more physically active, eating more nourishing foods while still enjoying food that brings me joy, and trying (though often failing) to get enough sleep. I have already started many exciting things in this area. I have much more to share and will take time to explain in a future post.
Social
Finally, my social health. I hope this blog helps me build relationships and community. I have an amazing family and a fantastic core group of friends. As an introverted extrovert, I know that seems impossible (I have a feeling that some of you are like me and know what I mean), but I hope this journey lets me create even more connections. I love being with people, but if the crowd is too big, I will fade into the background. That’s who I am, and I have always embraced it. The best part about blogging is that it’s the perfect way for someone like me to make connections.
Starting an Evolution
So this blog post is the official start to my wellness evolution. I want to use this space to share my random musings and also invest in myself and my well-being. It will be an exercise in taking charge of how I view the world and how I let it affect me. I am reminding myself that I can’t control others, only myself, and how I react to others. This blog is my my chance to become a better person and to leave the world a better place. I hope to challenge myself in various ways, do things that bring me joy, build new relationships, strengthen the ones I have, and make a little more room for myself.
