The Mindsets For Holistic Wellness

The World Health Organization defined health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity. I understand this to mean that wellness incorporates and goes beyond the medical paradigm.

Wellness descriptions include happiness, and prosperity, as well as having high life satisfaction, a sense of meaning or purpose, and an ability to manage negative stress.

In the context of surviving and thriving it implies that you are in a state where your energy reserve is not drained by knee jerk judgements and fragility, instead you allocate energy to drive you towards thriving where you can embrace success and significance.

However, some people compromise their wellness because they have a single-minded approach to success at the expense of many wellness components. I recall a section in a poem that went something like this: They squander their health in search of wealth, they sweat they toil, and they slave. Then they squander their wealth in search of health and only find the grave.

The wellness continuum 

John W. Travis (1972) proposed an Illness–Wellness Continuum. In the middle of the continuum, he positioned surviving. In this neutral state you are seemingly healthy, but your situation is dynamic, and your continued health depends on your moment-by-moment choices.

Thus, wellness is not a static state, and its variability has a strong correlation with taking care of your physical self, using your mind constructively, expressing your emotions effectively, getting creatively involved with those around you, and being aware of the fragility of the environment. It is not so much about where you are on the continuum as it is about the direction in which choices are taking you.

On the right-hand side of the continuum, he places physical, mental, and social wellbeing. In this position you are enjoying the fruits of good health and thriving. On the left side he positions failing and suffering.