7 dimensions of wellness

Do you want to create a life on your own terms? Make your dreams come true and achieve your goals? Overcome challenges and obstacles, develop and live in the moment and enjoy your well-being? The secret of living by your own rules is to focus your attention on yourself and maintain simplicity and balance in the 7 dimensions of wellness.

In the previous post, I wrote about where to start the organization process, where I mentioned three basic elements that we need to take care of first. It just so happens that these three components (nutritious food, adequate sleep, and physical activity) come from one of the seven wellness dimensions - physical wellness. In this article, I will share with you my experience and ideas on how I care for my well-being and wellness every day.

Simple does not mean easy

Since you found my blog and you are interested in the subject of mindfulness and personal development, you are probably familiar with the concept of the 7 dimensions of wellness. If not, I will introduce you to that idea in a few words. Briefly, it is about maintaining balance in the following 7 areas of life: physical, emotional, spiritual, professional, intellectual, environmental, social, and occupational. Everything to enjoy your well-being. Sounds banal, but believe me, it's one of the most difficult tasks I've had and I have been dealing with since I organized my life.

How do I maintain the balance between these spaces every day?

I create a wellness list!

For each dimension, I have listed activities that have a positive impact on my life. Moreover, these tasks simultaneously eliminate the negative effects of my bad habits. In that way I created seven lists, each of which is responsible for a different dimension. Every day I pick up one task from each list and I take an action early in the morning. There are days when I manage to complete several tasks from one list. In a word - the more the better. However, to satisfy the basic needs for well-being, it is recommended to do 3 to 5 tasks each day. To achieve this, I have created my own wellness tracker to help me monitor my progress. You can download it here.

Let's get to the heart of my description of the 7 dimensions of wellness

Physical wellness

The first dimension is physical wellness. The point is to focus on the 3 most important pillars that will allow our body to function effectively. They include everything related to physical activity, sleep, and healthy eating. Below are some examples of tasks that I try to perform as part of the first discussed dimension.

• Morning stretching

• 10,000 steps

• A sugar-free day

• Gluten-free, diary-free meal

• Training

• Go to bed at the scheduled time

• Wake up at the scheduled time

Emotional wellness

Emotional wellness is about expressing and communicating our feelings to ourselves and our environment. This space relates to the power of positive thinking and focusing on the here and now. My priority is to stop worrying about everything and train my ability to clearly communicate and express my feelings. A few simple tasks from my list.

• Keeping a Gratitude journal in the morning and evening

• Get rid of catastrophic thoughts

• Use the brain dump method (throwing out all the thoughts on paper)

• Keeping a journal

• Therapy

• Talk to relative or friend about my feelings

Intellectual Wellness

The intellectual dimension is about continuous development, expanding knowledge, improving already existed skills, and gaining new ones. Challenging your intellect, broadening your horizons in various fields of knowledge. Some of my examples on improving my intellectual well-being.

• Read for 1 hour

• Read "Intellectual Devotional" daily

• Finish a book to a Blinklist

• Take part in an online course

• View the documentary

• Listen to the podcast

• Have an intellectual discussion

• Redo new topic from French

Occupational wellness - professional

We spend most of our lives working and sleeping. A job that doesn't give you satisfaction is like sleeping on an uncomfortable bed and waking up every morning with a backache. After some time, the pain will get so bad that it becomes unbearable to the moment that you would start avoiding sleeping in bed at all. For work to be satisfactory, it should interact with your values ​​and complement your desires and goals. It means that

while doing our work, we should feel comfortable, willing to develop and improve our skills. The key to success in this dimension is - in short - to replace every "must" with "I want". If the very thought that we MUST go about our responsibilities comes with an immediate drop in mood, a headache, sighs, shrugs, and rolling eyes, maybe is it time to think about a change?

Let me privatize this topic for a moment.

Since I gave birth to Leo and returned to work (12 weeks after giving birth) I have noticed all the above-mentioned symptoms. In this situation, I decided to ask myself why is it that a job that I'm quite good at causes so many negative reactions? The answer to this question was clear to me at the critical moment. For many months, I downplayed my health problems, which began to appear in various parts of my body, until my body simply refused to cooperate with me. This was the moment when the physical activity that formed the basis and foundation of my work turned into the greatest nightmare accompanied by unimaginable pain. I am aware that with the current condition of my health, I am not able to physically cope with my duties. The only thing left for me to do is to develop an emergency plan of action ( that is what I called planning. Soon I will share with you plenty of articles about planning ) in a situation where I will not be able to do what I do now or my work will not meet the standards I have set.

In writing this article, my fate is at stake but so far my occupational wellness is aimed at MAMA DE LUX

• Instagram post-publication

• Publish a blog post

• Reach out 3 people from the industry

• Commenting and discussing with people in the industry

• Sharing someone else's posts (but only valuable ones)

• Writing for an hour non-stop

• Writing in the early morning

Spiritual wellness

Spiritual wellness is about reflecting on the meaning of your existence, asking existential questions, meditation, prayer, communing with nature. All these activities result in a deeper dialogue with oneself. I decided to devote the first weeks of the new year to focus on mindfulness and a more intentional life. My three keywords are a focus, slow down, and reflection. A tool that I use to grow in this space is meditation. I also reach for philosophical literature to find questions that will make me reflect more deeply on my values ​​and goals.

• Meditation

• Keeping a meditation journal Reading

• "Stoicism for every day of the year" by Stephen Hanselman, Plan Holiday

• Reading philosophical texts (Stoicism, Essentialism, Existentialism)

Environmental wellness

In my practice of environmental wellness, I focused on the space around me, i.e. my home, or rather on transforming my environment into a more minimalist one. It is about getting rid of things (although in fact, it is worth starting by stopping buying new ones first). Every time I want to buy something, I ask myself if the item will bring something valuable to my life and if I really need it. I am very strict in answering these questions, although it must be admitted that I am tempted by some temptations that mean that things do not always go according to plan. Too bad, after all, we are only human and we all have failures.

• Evening cleaning session max. 15 min.

• Getting rid of a few things from home every day

• A day without shopping

• Dispose of plastic

• Walk

Social wellness

Decluttering space is also about getting rid of interpersonal clutter. Here I want to focus on maintaining relationships with my family, which unfortunately I do not see every day, and on nurturing friendships. It also means withdrawing from relationships that drain my energy. For such people, this year I decided not to find space in my life.

• Conversation with parents

• Weekly check with loved ones

• Meetings with friends (virtual) T

• o speak to someone I haven't had contact with for a long time

• unfollow people on social media

• A date with her fiancé

Personally, to the 7 classic dimensions, I added the eighth one - finance, but I'll tell you about it another time.

How I use my system?

I keep all my assignments in a notebook by my bed. Every morning and evening I remember which items I should put on the calendar for the next day, and I track my progress in my wellness tracker. If you want to see my mind mapping version, check out my Instagram. I would love to look at yours too - just tag me (@_mamadelux__) in your instastories or post.

Recently, Instagram has been my favorite channel of communication with you, which is why I will send you to my account more and more often. Before the week is over, you will also find out what I have prepared for you, i.e. what topics I plan to cover in the next posts. You can be sure that these will be issues related to the effective organization of everyday life.

Thank you for your attention!

See you next time,

MDL