Wellbeing is a hot topic right now. With so many philosophies emerging that address the various parts of our lives, it’s hard to know where to begin. CEO and founder of Paradigm Switch, Neroli Jones has identified four key quadrants that contribute to our wellbeing – Physical, Mental, Purposeful and Emotional. She calls this our Wellbeing Compass.
When our Wellbeing Compass is in balance, we can navigate successfully through the pathway of life’s highs and lows with ease, effortlessly. On the other hand, when it is not balanced, that is when the problems start.
Until now emotional wellbeing has been quite overlooked, with much of what we see in the news focused on mental health. The emotional impact on our lives has traditionally been sidelined or neglected altogether. If mental health is that of the mind, emotional health is that of our feelings and the related aspects of that – our relationships with others and with ourselves.
A few years ago, I was caught in an unexpected downward spiral where my health alerted me to a crisis point before I caught on; apart from addressing the obvious physical imbalance, it turned out that addressing the emotional side of things became my greatest learning curve. You see, I had been in total denial that my body was so unwell. As a high achiever, I thought that I needed to push myself harder to improve my fitness and physical health, and of course, that was the last thing I should have been doing. Had I actually listened to my body and accepted what it was trying so desperately to tell me, the crisis could so easily have been avoided.
My health literally had to break to win my attention, making me angry with my body – how dare it let me down? Once I recognised this feeling of anger, I realised what a negative effect I was perpetuating. Perhaps, I could flip the paradigm and feel love instead?
I began to be kind to myself – baby steps to get my health back on track; I had to make me and my wellbeing my utmost priority. My happy place was outdoors, yet I worked all day in an office and barely saw daylight. Despite feeling indulgent, I went about changing that – more walks before work, lunch breaks outside – wherever I could I found opportunities, it was the small things that simply made me feel good.
We are so programmed to resist anything that makes us feel selfish, self-indulgent, self-obsessed – call it what you will. We are programmed to fit in, to please others first and to face the world looking strong and bullet proof. I guess I received a crash course in humility!
This illuminating journey helped me to navigate my pathway to wellbeing, big breakthroughs and quantum leaps. Learning to love ourselves where we are right now, not where we could be / should be / are expected to be – but right here.
image via pinterest
Emotions are simply feelings with a judgement attached. Once we understand this, the rest falls into place.
Emotional wellbeing is about truth – the truth of now. It’s about acceptance without judgement and it’s about love. More often than not, we feed ourselves a diet of toxic lies. Our relationship with ourselves is the most profoundly complex relationship we will ever navigate and yet we spend most of our time developing or managing relationships with others, outside ourselves.
Emotional wellbeing focuses on your relationship with you, ask yourself regularly – how does this (person, event, conversation, activity – whatever) make me feel? Do I want more of that or less of that? How you feel tells you everything.
You actually do know what you need, you do know what makes you happy, but you do need to invest the time to listen. And, you need to deconstruct some of the bullshit you tell yourself.
A great place to start is to grab some paper and simply start writing. Write a list of things that make you happy, the smaller and simpler the better. Once you start it becomes easier and you will be surprised at how many things you can write on your list. We call this the Love List.
This list can be used every day until it becomes second nature. Track how many of those happy things did you do today and then tomorrow. Doing the things that make you feel good becomes addictive and the best part is, the list develops and grows all the time.
Once you start to feel happier every day, accomplishing a goal, whether it’s physical, mental, emotional or spiritually related– they become so much easier to progress. You begin to gain awareness of what does make you happy, and in contrast, what doesn’t. They create a filter, helping you to feel clearer and stronger about saying no.
We all have the same amount of time – 24 hours in a day, so choose very carefully how you invest your time and how to honour your emotional wellbeing. Your whole body and state of wellness will thank you for it.