A friend asked me to participate in an artistic discussion group based on the theme of wellness. (no laughing, decent artist I may not yet be but I can always dream...)
Affirmation Monday
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My first instinct was to start laughing hysterically. I am far from physically well. I have severe Rheumatoid Arthritis (among other things) and I am a relatively young wife and mother with sons who are seven and ten. My life is full of medication and doctors visits.
After a few cups of tea, dabbing the tears of laughter from my eyes and some inner reflection. I asked myself what wellness meant to me. I have decided that for me, wellness was not being well in body but trying to attain "wellness of the mind."
I believe that wellness is a state of mind. You have to constantly hold onto it with both hands like a balloon in a strong wind. If you lose focus for even a moment it can leave you. If you have "wellness" then your life is in balance. A feng shui of the spirit if you will.
While the body may defy you, let you down and age you before your time a wellness of mind can keep you young at heart. My own personal motto is "create and keep your heart young." Now I admit that we can not all be Miss Mary Sunshine all of the time. I have days that leave me wondering if getting out of bed is even worth it but I truly believe that you can place a positive spin on almost anything.
The path to wellness, for me, is to live life in the moment. I can obsess and be neurotic about almost anything (that is just my personality) but what does that get me? I am stressed, obsessed and neurotic. Its difficult to appreciate the small gifts life has to hold when you do that.
For example. I had company coming for the week-end. It was Friday afternoon and I still had four loads of laundry to complete, fold and put away. My body was in pain and my mood was turning cloudy. My instinct was to start ordering everyone around and yell when they did not move at the speed I though necessary. I stopped myself cold, fortunately, standing in front of the washing machine as I emptied the pockets of my sons jeans. In one I found a bunch of dandelions. In the other I found a matchbox car, a rock, a fair amount of beauty bark and a small jeweled heart tied on a cotton thread. I could have thrown all those things into the ever growing junk basket (minus the beauty bark) on the top of my washer but instead I took them all in my hand and interrupted my sons. They were sorting socks by rolling them into balls and shooting them onto the dining room table. If I had not slowed down I would have missed two very important pieces of information. First, my older son picked me flowers but since I was on the phone he didn't want to interrupt me and then had forgotten when I yelled at him as he streaked pass to change his dirty pants. Second, my youngest had earned a trip to the prize box at school after showing compassion (trying to make an upset child at school feel better) and picked a necklace for mom because he thought it would look beautiful on me. Good manners and Good deeds were almost missed. I almost missed the chance to be proud of my children. Needless to say I got the message and spent the next ten minutes shooting "hoops" in the living room. Ten minutes didn't make or break me. My children were the happier for it and so was I. I allowed myself the time to stay in balance and have "wellness" of the mind.
On days that I can barely walk I use it to snuggle on the couch and read stories to my children. When my hands hurt so bad I cant even cook, I sit on the bar stool and give cooking lessons to my sons and revel at culinary discovery in the eyes of a child. On evenings when I am simply to tired to do anything I put on music, turn out the lights plug in a small strobe light and my children dance and "party" the evening away. They go to bed happy and exhausted. And when I have to cancel plans at their expense because of my health they get a "mom owes us one" card to use the next time I am feeling better. It's not perfect but it works for us and we are always thinking up new ways of dealing with the challenges that life throws at us.
Life is what you make it. I may have challenges but all that means is that I have to be more creative to find wellness. No one suffers from creativity.
It's never to late to learn and see life through new eyes. Every day can be an adventure. Look around you and find joy in the small things. Small gifts like dandelions and necklaces. Live life to the fullest and practice balance in every thing that you do and wellness will naturally come to you. Just don't forget to hang on to it.
