Wellness Journalism: What do you mean?

Stalking the citizens of UCSD at random, I ask one, simple question:

What is the meaning of life?

My investigation begins at the food co-op. Three people behind the counter discussing tofu scramble look at me curiously as I approach the register empty-handed, then even more curiously as I begin my line of inquiry. The first girl says blankly, “I don’t know.” The second elaborates, “There may be an answer, but I don’t know it.” The third replies, “Forge your own destiny. Your essence preceeds your destiny, rather than proceeds it.” I think this means that my essence blazes the trail ahead—it is not the fumes that trail behind (thank goodness!).

Thus fed, I wander toward the radio station where another group of three is seated outside upon a weathered couch. When I mention that I am blogging on the subject of Spiritual Wellness, they look self-consciously at their cigarettes. “Self-improvement,” says one, perhaps for good measure. “Relationships amongst each other,” says the next. “I’m going to improve on that,” says the third, with a triumphant grin. “Inter-connectivity.”

Now I’m on a roll. From the bookstore, to the coffee shop, to the benches, I collect responses: To make a difference as long as you’re here. Fulfilling your goals. To find the thing that is most challenging. Everything changes, and we have to do the best we can. It’s about ‘the end.’ To try and leave the world a little better than you found it. Do something useful. The struggle. Family, support, and love. To find something I love to do. To enjoy being human with all the senses, to take in the world around us. Work, work, work, and then die. Being happy. To stay distracted for long enough, and intensely enough, to avoid noticing all the bad in life. To enjoy yourself. The pursuit of knowledge. It doesn’t matter—if you gotta look, you won’t find it. Follow your passion. Love.

At the Mandeville coffee cart, I ambush a table of people in deep conversation. After a bit of smirking, they answer in round-robin fashion. “I’m not that old,” is followed by “Forty-two” (This particular number has come up twice, a reference to something I have not read or seen. Maybe you get it). Another man searches through his mental annex for the proper translation, but, unable to find it, writes into my notebook in German: “Geglückte beziehuugen zu auderen meuschen haben.” This means “Having successful relationships with other people that are meaningful and fulfilling,” in a nuance more satisfying than can be rendered in English.

I approach two older gentleman seated around a laptop, mainly because one of them has green hair. “That’s an unanswerable question,” answers the first. Then comes the one in green: “Whereas that might be an interesting question, there are other interesting questions that are more easily answered, and I would rather think about those.” Touché.

I believe that my research boils down to one ingredient. The meaning of life is the one you give to it. Make it count.

Wellness Journalism: You Are Worth It.

Our culture places different values on certain strengths/dimensions of wellness. Sometimes this breeds imbalance.

Take Physical Wellness for example. Diet and exercise are top industries in the nation, sometimes exaggerated to the point of obsession: we make ourselves sick over the perfect body, sexuality, ability to perform. If a person is in excellent physical condition, a “specimen” of sorts, s/he is automatically considered to be a good point of reference. S/he may be a highly-paid athlete, the one at the gym giving pointers, or the reason a marriage ends in divorce.

We also glorify on Financial Wellness, which we talked about last month (see: November, 2009). Profit is the key factor in the making of big decisions as we follow the money trail. Poverty is associated with failure, while people go broke buying expensive purses in order to appear successful.

Values=that which we hold most dear to the core of our being.

Spiritual Wellness, I’m sorry to say, is often overlooked. Perhaps because we live in a culture where spirituality has been associated with religion and divided into tiny pieces. As such it can be difficult to put together—and in fact, we each have to do it for ourselves.

Spiritual Wellness doesn’t garner the same automatic appreciation that other dimensions do.
You have a hot body? Great!
You have money? Great!
You have spirituality? What kind?
Generic Spiritual Wellness doesn’t carry the egotistical appeal that our society rewards and there is a lot of scrutiny and suspicion. ‘Spiritual folk’ are held to a higher, less realistic standard. Not everybody signs up to be Jesus, or Bono, or The Dalai Lama!

Every dimension of wellness holds a unique value.

Evaluate the way we spend our energy on a daily basis: we are often consumed by some physical or material endeavor. How good we look. How much cool stuff we have. I want to suggest a re-evaluation. What type of investment yields the highest return?

Spirituality, however you resonate with it, may very well have the highest rate of appreciation over time. This is because The Human Spirit is responsible for the greatest treasure in the galaxy…LOVE.

Spirit is the magic mortar with which we build our best lives. It is the Soul-ar Power that generates the energy which we then invest into our valuables: self, family, friends.

Empirical evidence in the form of war, disease, poverty, corruption, and environmental destruction shows that society has not yet learned to give Spiritual Wellness the attention it deserves. I like to think we are witnessing an evolution on this front. We are realizing that the human spirit holds the power to heal the world, and with love we can forgive our differences.

Believe it.

Wellness Journalism: Take Five!

Stew on this.
The components of reality can be divided into two categories:

External Forces- That which is happening around you; school, work, household, afternoon traffic, children, relationships, economy.

Internal Forces- That which is happening within you; thoughts, beliefs, emotions, feelings, drives, dreams.

Spiritual wellness dwells at the center. It is the nucleus. Yet we live in a stimulating world where external forces can seem to have absolute power over state of being.

Meditation and Reflection generate Self-Awareness, an internal connection that keeps you on track and tuned-in to who you are. Awareness means listening in and keeping tabs on your internal environment. It means keeping your Internal Forces running at maximum efficiency, so that you are most effective in all aspects of life. Talk about self-sustainability!

It used to be that meditation and reflection were practices associated with people who live on mountains. This is silly. Isn’t it already peaceful and calm on mountains? Meditation is what we city-dwellers need...peace of mind amidst a world in panic!

There are as many ways to meditate as there are people to invent them. Although many basic practices exist, perhaps the most effective meditation for you is one that you discover for yourself. My favorite meditation, it turns out, is writing—which is why I like blogs.

A five minute meditation only takes five minutes.

How much calmer and more focused would you be if you got five-a-day? How many opportunities are lying embedded in your schedule, or crop up out of the blue if you choose to take them? After dinner, during a study break, between classes or meetings, before going out, while waiting in line…

Here are some simple, five-minute exercises you can do to strengthen your Internal Forces:

• Deep breathing
• Listen to music
• Doodle
• Make a list of things you are grateful for
• Sing or dance
• Stretch
• Be aware of your thoughts and release your attachment to anything less than joyful
• Take a walk
• Contract and relax each muscle in your body in succession

Your [problem set] is a direct reflection of your state of consciousness; when you’re clashing with reality, meditation and reflection can help you reevaluate your sense of purpose and bring you back into alignment.

Make some personal space!

Dr. Weil's Head-to-Toe Wellness Guide

Dr. Andrew Weil is a landmark alternative and integrative medicine figure.

His website features an anti-inflammatory food pyramid, podcasts, and wellness guides.

His Head-to-Toe Wellness Guide is an interactive tool for natural, healthy living.

Want to find out how to combat stress? Improve your immune system? Have more energy for your daily activities?

Dr. Weil's guide lists lifestyle, nutrition, and supplement suggestions as well as their purpose and their positive effects on your body.

For increased energy, Dr. Weil makes these nutritional suggestions:

• Eat a variety of fresh, organic fruits and veggies.
• Become a grazer: Eating large meals will trigger an increase in insulin, making you more fatigued. Smaller meals throughout the day will help keep your blood-sugar levels steady.
• Stay hydrated.
• Snack right: Choose snacks that contain some protein, carbs, and beneficial fats. Options include nuts, yogurt, dried fruit, and whole-grain crackers.
• Eat more fiber: Foods rich in fiber help slow the production of insulin, and helps maintain a steady supply of energy.

Organic Christmas Tree Farms

To buy or not to buy a Christmas tree?

Christmas tree farms are sustainable in that when 1 tree is cut,

2 more are planted. Trees help reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Fake trees are considered a viable alternative to real Christmas trees because they can be re-used year after year. Unfortu

nately, they are made of plastic (PVC) and tend to emit increasingly more plastic toxins the older they get.

Another alternative is to buy a living tree and replant it. If you choose this method, be sure that the tree was grown organically; pesticides runoff into water and soil harming plants, animals, and even humans.

Going home for Christmas? Stop by an organic Christmas tree farm!

Here is a list of organic Christmas tree farms throughout California.

Harris Tree Farm, Pollock Pines, CA 95726
Silvertip Tree Farm, North Fork, CA
Skyline Tree Farm, La Honda, CA
Black Road Christmas Tree Farms, Los Gatos, CA
Santa's Treeland, Irvine and Riverside, CA
Clayton Valley Pumpkin Farm and Christmas Trees, Clayton, CA 94517

Wellness Journalism: YOU ARE HERE.

According to LiveWell, Spiritual Wellness includes having a sense of purpose, finding joy in everyday experience, practicing honesty, and seeing beauty in life. Spiritual Wellness comes in every shape and size, unique to each person. It is central to happiness.

Sense of Purpose. That’s the general condition of knowing why you exist, or believing that you exist for a reason. It’s a very disconcerting quality to miss.

Say you walk into a house. The person in the living room looks up at you and asks, “What are you doing here?” If you have a good answer, you’re glad to be asked, and quick to inform. If you have don’t have a good answer, you’re having a very awkward moment.

Sense of Purpose, like economics, operates on a micro and macro scale.

Micro-Purpose: My sense of purpose at this moment involves writing this sentence in correct English. Later it will involve eating dinner and going to sleep. When aligned with my micro-purpose, I am relatively happy, calm, focused, and effective in carrying it out. If, however, my sense of purpose at the moment is in conflict with the reality I am experiencing, I may feel frustrated, angry, or unproductive.

Macro-Purpose: My sense of purpose on the whole involves relating with life in such a way as to make paying taxes and going to the dentist worthwhile. It involves cooking up a lifetime of joy and fulfillment. Macro-purpose is the sum of micro-purpose, but it can also stand on its own. A clear vision of the big picture can guide my little strokes. If I am aligned with my macro-purpose, I am happy, calm, focused, effective. If, on the other hand, my macro-purpose is missing or in conflict with my reality, I may find getting out of bed in the morning difficult, or I may require large amounts of mind-altering substances including white fudge-covered Oreos.

Your Sense of Purpose from moment to moment takes you through the day; your Sense of Purpose from day to day takes you through your life.

NOTE: Sense of Purpose changes over time, is challenged by circumstance, or even vanishes altogether. When the big picture gets blurry, focus on the details. Do the little things to the best of your ability. Really go for that deep clean when you brush your teeth, drive defensively, and drink lots of water. Conversely, when the details have you stumped, consider the big picture. Remember what your overall goals are, what you truly want, and where your heart is.

It’s my little theory that every living human being has a Sense of Purpose imprinted/hard-wired within. I figure if every cell in the body has a function and knows what to do, and the body is made of cells, that by some transitive or associative property or law of physics, everybody has a function. This does not immediately translate to harmonious living, as I have many times run into conflict between my sense of purpose and reality (more on this later). But it does give me the hope that, even on the worst days, my Sense of Purpose can always be recovered.