Maintaining “WELLNESS” and Regaining “WELLNESS”
Wellness is such a huge subject and one that I have personally studied for many years. I am sure it will be my ongoing passion for many years to come into my retirement. In fact I don’t actually envisage a “retirement” as such; this is it, following my passion to help as many people live in wellness as possible, passing on my knowledge and realisations and increased awareness about this subject until the day I finally leave this mortal coil! I expect to continually update this website as I learn more.
It wasn’t until I became seriously ill for the first time that I began to think about wellness, or rather at the time my lack of it, and how uncomfortable an experience it was! I had pneumonia in my late 20s. Looking back, I now see and understand so clearly what had happened and what had contributed to my illness, however at the time I just felt a victim of circumstance and very unlucky. “Why me?” I remember thinking and feeling.
Six months it took for me to recover after collapsing on Christmas Day after making lunch for my in-laws. I lost the New Year that year and seem to remember ‘coming to’ towards the middle of the first week of January. I remember it was the first time I was ever sacked from a job because I had been ill for so long. Once recovered, I continued to work back up to the pace I had been working at before I became ill and continued in a very stressful career for many more years, paying little heed as to why I had become ill in the first place; I was just glad to be better and be able to continue as before.
It’s interesting how we take wellness for granted until we experience being unwell!
I used to see wellness very simply: it was about getting regular exercise and being physically fit and healthy (even if I was exhausted before going to the gym!), eating regular meals and eating plenty of fruit and veg rather than snatching a sandwich from a garage while on the move (which I did most days!). Then to get ill was about bad luck or too many late nights, or it was a virus going around or whatever, but mostly it wasn’t in my control!
It’s about the biggest subject there is! It’s about a total connection between our mind and our body. It’s about how we think and feel and about what we believe and value. Above all it’s about “BALANCE”, and how we achieve it in every area of our life. It’s also about happiness, fulfilment and the understanding of the effect our wellness, or lack of it, has on everything and everyone around us. It doesn’t get much bigger or more important than that!
My experience to date helping clients to both maintain wellness and return to it has taught me that unfortunately it can often seem easier to help someone return to wellness as opposed to maintaining wellness!
Why would this be so? It’s simple really: most clients feel and think it is very self-indulgent to book appointments for a continuous self-development and life improving NLP coaching process. Why would you do that when there is nothing wrong, or when the issue of anxiety, excessive stress, poor sleep experience, migraine headache, etc that you initially made an appointment for has gone and been sorted, possibly during a couple of appointments?
This attitude we often have to mostly spending money on our quality of life in relation to purchasing material items or buying expensive holidays (which often result in an additionally stressful experience, especially when our expectation is so high before we go, with often a year’s build-up to the holiday and how it will fulfil all our needs for the next year or so) rather than spending it on our own self-development.
We frequently miss the point and often don’t consider that ideally we want to enjoy every moment of our life to the full, rather than put our life on hold for a few special events throughout the year.
Wellness is about just that: growing towards achieving such balance in our life that we enjoy every minute of it! When we begin to achieve such a state of enjoyment, fulfilment and satisfaction, we no longer rely on that one holiday, or our birthday or Christmas break or our new purchases for our moments of pleasure because we are experiencing ongoing fulfilment all the time.
As soon as we begin to look at and evaluate the current state of balance in our lives and realise the total mind/body connection that exists, we can begin to change our life experience in such a positive and powerful way. When we begin to feel and experience this reality, and our friends and loved ones comment on the positive changes taking place for us, we begin to understand how our state of mind/body wellness affects everything and everyone around us. How could that possibly be self-indulgent? To my mind it’s essential for our growth and continued life improvement. Success both personally and in our relationships with others, and our happiness and overall enjoyment is about our level of wellness!
A very wise lady (one of my wonderful tutors) once said to me, “You can have absolutely the life you want or you can have the excuse for not having it.”
We really do have all the tools we need internally to create the positive changes we need in our lives; it can just be easier when we have a therapist with a great toolkit to help guide us in the direction we have chosen. If that is to maintain wellness or to regain wellness, I can help you to achieve both, as long as it’s what you have decided you want!
I’m always happy to discuss your needs before you make an appointment, so please don’t hesitate to contact me.
www.myrainlife.com/
