The Week in Wellness – Creating a Wellness Philosophy

As I was struggling to figure out what to write about today (because it’s been another crappy week in terms of my personal wellness – thank you arthritis flare and seasonal allergies) and searching for resources, I came across two that seem to be promising – or at least give me some direction to head in, unlike one I read that just said, “Take the next right step.” Well. Duh. I think by this point in our lives most of us know what the next right step is, and we wouldn’t be where we are if we were taking the next right step. I sorta felt like the author of that blog post needed to write something and just banged that out. Not that I haven’t been guilty of the same in the past. *sigh*

At any rate. A personal wellness program. And how to go about setting one up. This post from 338.4.Her has some questions for going about establishing a personal wellness philosophy. They advocate answering the following questions:

If you don’t have a PWP, before we begin creating one, ask yourself (and answer) a few questions:

1. Where are you in your personal wellness journey?

Well. To be honest, I’m not at all where I want to be. Essentially I am not exercising at all. (it pains me to put that out there in black and white) I am not eating healthfully either. During the week I’m managing one meal a day. In the morning I’m too nauseated from my meds and at lunch my students are too out-of-control for me to eat too. I grab something when I first get home and that becomes it for the day. I am usually meditating during the week. I don’t do it in the morning, which I keep reading is the recommendation. I do it at night to let go of the day. The last two weeks I haven’t been writing in the mornings; I’ve been too exhausted. Literally one morning last week I was up trying to write, managed to get a paragraph done and realized that I was writing with one-eye closed. I’m pretty sure this is due to seasonal allergy overwhelm, but it concerns me because I’d gotten into a pretty good rhythm. 

All of that to say that I guess I really don’t have a plan.

2. Where do you want to be?

I think that one is kind of obvious. I’d like to be in a place where I feel healthy and strong, not like most of my life is running on fumes.

3. How do you want to get there?

The way I picture it, it looks something like this:

• I get up early enough to write for half an hour and meditate for 10-15 minutes to get the day started off on the right foot. 
• That is followed up by a healthful breakfast and my medication and supplements. 
• Water throughout the day and a healthful lunch that provides me with the fuel and energy to get myself out and exercising when I get home from work. In a perfect world, that would happen with Sweet Husband when he gets off work because we’d be working in the same general geographic location. 
• After that exercise, I’d come home to cook a healthful dinner and wind up the evening by updating blog posts, spending time with Sweet Husband and the puppies.
• Before bed, there would be meditation, medication, and supplements.

 

So that’s what I want my days to look like. The question is – how do I get them to look like that? The next right step, right? *insert eye roll here* Yes, I know. It is that easy.

The next set of questions from the above post include

List 5 things that you need in your life to feel well

1. Time to write
2. Rest
3. Time with Sweet Husband
4. Sunshine
5. Exercise

What is your personal wellness philosophy.

Now see – slightly unfair. You jump from asking me where I am and what I need to writing my philosophy. There’s a ton of steps that have been left out in between. *sigh* (perhaps this is just me whining) I guess I’ll give it my best shot though. 

My personal wellness philosophy revolves around balanced movement, healthful whole food, nurturing, supportive relationships, and time to pursue creative interests and mindfulness.

Are you living your philosophy? If yes keep IT UP! If no, what are your struggle areas?

Nope. Not at all living my personal wellness philosophy. My struggle areas appear to be everything except the nurturing, supportive relationship. I think I’m generally OK in the creative interests and mindfulness, but lately, I’m not doing so hot with it. 

How much time can you dedicate to your personal wellness each day?

There’s the rub, isn’t it? I *could* devote a ton of time to it. I don’t have children. I get off work around 3:00. I’m usually home by 4:00. I try to be in bed by 10:00, but it’s more like 11:00 very night. That’s a whole huge chunk of time. What exactly is it that I’m doing instead of working on my wellness? Some work for my job, but not nearly enough. Some surfing the web looking for things to write about. Some photo editing. Some writing in fits and starts. Some playing Candy Crush. I usually take a nap when I get home, and it usually takes me a good hour to decompress after I leave work. (I know, I know – there’s 2 hours RIGHT THERE)

So, I suppose I can say that I can devote at least 2 hours a day to my personal wellness (when you factor in the half hour of writing that’s supposed to happen in the mornings and the 15 minutes of meditation that happens before bed, that leaves an hour and 15 minutes to exercise or meal plan or something)

Who is your personal support system that you can share your wellness goals with?

That’s easy: Sweet Husband. Whatever I want to do, he supports me 100%. He may not join me in it, but he is my biggest and best cheerleader. Then, of course, there are all of you here. 

What is your personal wellness budget?

It’s pretty small. Working out of town and the expense of gas to get back and forth, as well as the other factors in our budget means that a gym membership isn’t really something that’s in our budget, and to be honest, I’m not much of a gym person. I much prefer to be outside. I’m already paying $10/month for a subscription to Adobe for editing software that I’m not using yet (one of my goals for this year), and while I think I could definitely find some money in the budget for other things, I’m not sure that I want to make investments in things I don’t necessarily know I need. However. I think I could make smarter investments in healthier food – do food prep on the weekends for both Sweet Husband and myself so that we both have healthy options for lunches and dinners (and possibly even breakfasts) during the week. That’s an expense that I think would work out even for us in the end. 

Are there any specific areas where you find yourself getting stuck when changing your lifestyle habits?

The biggest one is finding (or more accurately, utilizing) the time that I have available to me. I know that I waste a lot of time when I could be creating a life that is more closely aligned with what I say I want it to be. And healthy eating. That’s another big one. Those are difficult land mines for me to negotiate. 

What are 5 things you can do to overcome your sticky areas from number 7?

1. Change into work-out clothes at work so that I don’t even see the bed calling me for a nap when I get home. (I have planning last period of the day and have to stay a half hour after the end of the day. I could easily change still remain professional during the working day)
2. Use my Pomodoro app to set boundaries for the internet suckage (and the Candy Crushage).
3. Make meal-planning a priority and spend time with Sweet Husband on the weekends not only planning what we will have during the week but also preparing it (as an added benefit, I can see that being somewhat of a sickly sweet awwwww factor – even though we’re 80 miles apart, we’re having the same lunch. Or dinner).
4. Reward myself for each wellness activity – not sure yet what that reward would be. Thought about creating an unpleasant consequence for not doing what I need to do, but I know me and one, that doesn’t work for me and two, I don’t want to create negativity around this whole thing.
5. Try to combine wellness activities – going for a walk with creative pursuits (like photography).

I was going to share the other wellness/happiness resource I found, but I think what I’m going to do is save that for next week as this has been long enough already.

How do you go about getting yourself together and on-track?