Emotional Wellness

Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

– Carl Jung

Emotions are powerhouse signals of information (knowledge) that effect overall (mental) health and bodily functions.

Our feelings are the womb of the mind  (emotion, energy) at the center of our being. It is the creative source for intuition (knowing) and the body wisdom. Our emotional nature (feeling) knows infinitely more than the intellect (thinking). For example, if a person had to consciously be aware (conscious) of all functions of the central, nervous, and parasympathetic systems, it would be impossible. Yet, with God (faith), all things are possible. Intuition is cultivated by degree of emotional intelligence.

Only (thinking) of wellness in terms of physical health — nutrition, exercise, weight management is only part of the equation. Wellness is a holistic integration of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being, fueling the body, engaging the mind, and nurturing the spirit (Stoewen, 2017). A striving for health is living life fully‒ a quality of life (lifestyle).

Wellness necessitates self-stewardship of our thinking and feeling, for ourselves and those we care about and who care about us. To ensure high-quality patient and client services, we have an ethical obligation to address our own health and well-being (Stoewen, 2017)). Sufficient self-care prevents us from harming those we serve and ourselves.

Wellness encompasses eight mutually interdependent dimensions: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, vocational, financial, and environmental. Attention must be given to all the dimensions, as neglect of any one dimension, will adversely affect the others, leading to an unhealthy well-being, and quality of life. Progress not perfection is the aim. They must harmonize not balance equally.

The eight dimensions of wellness are useful to understand, cultivate, and balance in our daily practices, until they become positive forming habits. It is a lofty goal, but one step at time, one day at a time, focusing on mental (intellectual thinking), physical, spiritual, social, environmental, financial, vocational, culminating in emotional wellness, as our aim.

What we aim for, with persistence (guidance), we can achieve.

Poor emotional health is a conduit for poor physical health. We must become expert of our emotions or be easily swept away in negative patterns. Thinking and feeling must harmonize.

When perception (awareness) rules the mind, our understanding or will (choice) grabs hold of pain and suffering. This can lead to a victim mentality instead of a victor mentality, which maintains responsibility for its choices.

Motion creates emotions (positive and negative). Physical activity is necessary. Our  physicality does make an impact on your energy (drive). As Nandkar (2020) points out, “once physical stress is produced in your body, you are not able to complete your task because your body is not able to respond or cope with the stress.” (p. 779). A consistent (daily) amount of movement will improve mental and emotional wellness.

It is important to note that minimizing toxins (alcohol, nicotine, sugar) must be a part of a wellness plan. The aim is soundness of mind (body, spirit).

References

Nandkar, R. (2020, June). To study the effect of lockdown on physical, mental and emotional health of common people. International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology, 5(6), 777-785. https://ijisrt.com/assets/upload/files/IJISRT20JUN637.pdf

Stoewen D. L. (2017). Dimensions of wellness: Change your habits, change your life. The Canadian Veterinary Journal = La Revue Veterinaire Canadienne, 58(8), 861–862.