What is your Wellness Handicap?

Someone asked me the other day when I had started in the wellness industry.  I thought about that and I laughed.  Well, I guess it started in the 60’s and 70’s growing up in a home with no pop, potato chips, or processed foods.   My mother cooked the old fashion way with foods that she bought from the perimeter of the grocery store ( processed foods are in the middle, you know) and she also cooked dinner every day.  We ate at 5:30pm sharp which is when my Dad came home from work and we all ate together!  We visited our grandparents every weekend, we had sitters so my parents could go out dancing, we had chores to do, and we were dragged to Mass every Sunday.    

My parents valued family, friendships, recreation, and spiritual growth.  Of course, these values have helped to shape who I am and helped me to strive for balance in my life but I now realize that the greatest gift that my parents may have given me were ways to manage and nourish my mental and emotional health which may have further implications on my physical health than the lack of junk food in our house.     

Wellness used to be defined as the absence of disease.  We now know that is not true since many diseases can be incubating for years in the body before actual symptoms appear.  Many times when we hear the term “wellness,” we tend to think of it in terms of what we can do for our physical bodies.  We are focused on our weight, exercise, healthy eating habits, etc.  All of these are certainly important but “total wellness” is really how well our life force is flowing through ALL of our subtle energy bodies as well as our physical body.  We can’t be physically healthy if our energy fields are clogged with anger, fear, resentment, guilt, and grief.  I think we can all relate to each of these emotions and provide vivid personal examples.  I know I can!  A book that I recently read and highly recommend is Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping.   It helps to explain the powerful connection between our emotions and our physical health and there are suggestions and methods for addressing and dealing with these emotions that affect our health.  In his book, Tipping asserts that up to 80% of cancers are the result of repressed emotions and that depression always precedes cancer.  According to Caroline Myss’s tapes, Why People Don’t Heal, she discusses how the majority of our life force energy is focused on hurts and experiences of the past or worry and planning for the future.  This leaves very little life force energy left to focus on the present which is where all healing occurs.  Sometimes, it takes a major crisis to force us to focus on the “now,” doesn’t it?  Eckert Tolle’s The Power of Now is another wonderful book to stay focused on the present which helps us to stay healthy and balanced. 

My parents took life one day at a time and taught us to value each day and to accept life as it is since there was a purpose to everything even if we did not understand it.  We grew up with a strong sense of family and appreciation for what we had.  Both my parents are gone now but I value them and what they taught me more now than I ever have.  I feel their presence all the time and know that they are still providing guidance.  Heck, they probably helped me write this article!