TGIM: What is Wellness?

Welcome back to Thank God It’s Monday! I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend for everyone who got the extra day off. I was fortunate enough to see some very good friends this weekend (and spent the day traveling before a night shift hence why this is a little late tonight). But I’m grateful for having people in my life who make me feel happy to know them and excited for everything they continue to offer the world. We all should strive to engage in more activities and interact with more people who make us feel rejuvenated.

​

This weekend a podcast on the way home had me thinking about the reason I do this newsletter and my overall goal of growing Walsh Wellness. I constantly find confirmation in knowing the goal is to help others improve and learn how to maximize their potential in life. But part of that is defining what wellness really means.

​

Wellness is so overused in the personal development space that it has seemingly lost its value. So I wanted to clarify what I intend when I say wellness and maybe you all can let me know if it seems like the right word at the end of this.
​

Back to good old Merriam to kick us off, wellness is defined as “the quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal.” I’m not all that impressed with this definition so I’ll try to describe what I envision.
​

Wellness to me is the state of feeling good. But not feeling good because you had a piece of chocolate cake or rewatched your favorite movie. Instead, wellness is feeling so deeply good about life because of how you interact with the world.
​

Being content is a tall task in a world filled with instant access to everything. But being content is the goal: it doesn’t leave you longing for things you don’t have. It allows you to value what reality is at any point in time.
​

Wellness takes it a step further. It requires being able to balance the two juxtaposing thoughts of being content with what is and knowing there is always room for improvement. Being able to truly accept these truths is a secret ingredient for happiness. Wellness allows for those two ideas to exist symbiotically.
​

Wellness also entails being happy, but not happy all of the time because we’re humans and we get stressed and life is hard. Wellness allows for those moments of stress and pain and makes room to feel those emotions. It allows for all of the emotions we experience as humans to manifest and not suppress any because we think that’s what a “perfect world” looks like.
​

Wellness is physical as well as emotional. We have to take care of our bodies to truly make the most out of this life. There is an inextricable nature of our being that requires us to push ourselves physically. We don’t all need to be Olympic athletes but we all need to value this body we’re given by moving it. There are few things more frustrating to me than seeing patients who have suffered with unfathomable disease largely in part to not taking care of themselves. It is equally upsetting to see loved ones spending time and money on everything but trying to take care of themselves.
​

You cannot have true wellness without taking care of your body. Our bodies are meant to move and it is essential to our happiness and health to do so.
​

Wellness is so much more than just being healthy. It is a sense of fulfillment and a sense of purpose. People struggle with feeling happy, purposeful, and healthy because they don’t have the discipline it takes to practice self-restraint and say no to things that are only “good” in the short run. But discipline is the trade-off for wellness; a small price to pay for a life well lived.
​

If you found some value in this, please share it with a friend you think would enjoy it! And let me know if you’d like to be added to get TGIM. Or visit https://walshwellness.weebly.com/ for older editions and if you’d like to subscribe.

This week my podcast recommendation is from The Jordan Harbinger Show, “982: Adam Grant-The Science of Tapping into Your Hidden Potential.” You can’t go wrong with Jordan Harbinger and Adam Grant, go give this one a listen.
​

With that, I hope my thoughts at 2am were as coherent as I painted them to be in my internal dialogue. I hope you can all consider what wellness means to you and what area in your life you want to work on starting today to improve that wellness. Let me know what you think!

​

Until next time,

Shannon