Wellness is such a broad topic, and it can seem daunting for so many of us. We are expected to eat healthy, exercise, get enough sleep, practice self-care, regulate our emotions, maintain relationships, make money, expand our knowledge and skills, and find meaning in life. Balancing all of that can be extremely difficult, even for the most organized person.
Christin Collins, the former System Director of Health and Wellness at Lee Health and current JourneyLIFE Mentor, spent a large amount of her career studying and practicing wellness. Christin and her colleagues understood the enormity of wellness and developed a Wellness Wheel to help members of their community in Florida cultivate a healthier lifestyle and achieve health success.
In a conversation with Christin, she explained that one major tenant of Lee Health's Wellness Wheel is "Purpose Driven Living - Your Why." Christin explained that living your purpose is a component of wellness because it helps you define what is important to you and shows you what truly brings joy in your life.
At Step Up, we want to help all members of our community find their "why" and live their fullest potential. To help our entire Step Up community with this and to achieve overall well-being, we have done our best to take learnings from Christin and the SAMHSA's Eight Dimensions of Wellness to find ways that we can work towards and achieve total wellness.
The SAMHSA's Eight Dimensions of Wellness include:
- Environmental
- Emotional
- Financial
- Intellectual
- Occupational
- Physical
- Social
- Spiritual
SAMHSA explains that each dimension of wellness can affect the overall quality of people's lives. If the Eight Dimensions of Wellness feels overwhelming to you, we want you to know that you do not need to feel strong in all areas all the time. Christin explained that when people first learn about wellness, they need resources to support them and get them started on their wellness journeys.
To give the Step Up community these resources and explain the dimensions of well-being, we are hosting a program on February 25th, 2021 called "Prioritizing Yourself: Finding Balance" and creating a resource guide for teens and young womxn to use after the event.
At the event on the 25th, our team will help participants create their own self-care toolkits, so that they have the resources they need to start prioritizing themselves and improving upon each dimension of wellness. As Step Up participants continue to grow their toolkit and practice self-care, they can refer to the resource guide for new ideas.
There are so many benefits of practicing self-care and progressing in each dimension of wellness. As Christin said, the more time we spend taking care of ourselves and working toward our purpose, the more we find out who we truly are.
