I recently had a month-long travel sabbatical in the USA with my family. This trip, though planned ages ago, came at the most appropriate time when I’d just lost a job due to the business’ closure. It was a time of loss of financial stability, a safe space for my own practice and community. I was grieving. And yet, I kept turning up for my practice for myself, continued my way of life and continued putting my learnings and teaching into practice. This month-long trip came as a break, a time to immerse myself in nature, family, and a time to breathe and be. It became one of the most special months of life with not only coping with the loss I felt, but also learning from it. It brought me much closer to a concept that I’ve always believed in and practice – True Wellness.

What is True Wellness?

True wellness is a holistic concept about integrating healthy habits into our daily lives and making conscious choices that support our overall well-being. It goes beyond the mere absence of illness or disease and involves a sense of complete harmony within oneself and with the surrounding environment. And so, true wellness is an on-going process of self-awareness, personal growth and making conscious choices that lead to a balanced and fulfilling life every single day.

A Yogi’s Understanding of True Wellness

Most times, we strive to live in healthier bodies free of disease. We include daily routines and habits that help us on that path. Yet, diseases occur, injuries happen – at times doing the very thing we do to keep fit – and often, our routines are thrown out of whack. To top it all off, our external environments, things that we just cannot control, can get in the way of our routines and our overall health. The weather can rain down on our plans, we might lose a job that we love, we might have to become a loved-ones’ care-giver or we might have to face a time of a pandemic. At least one of these circumstances raises a loud voice in our heads, “Been there, done that”, no?

If you’re on your path to true wellness, if (and when) you’re met with an occurrence that does throw you off, you will be able to consciously reel yourself back in to your own self. This doesn’t mean that these circumstances will leave you unperturbed. Instead, true wellness gives you the tools to acknowledge your turmoil, express it and innately know what you need to land back to your own state of oneness. For my fellow yogis, this could be a great moment to touch on and reconnect to the Ashtanga yoga philosophy, the 8 limbs of yoga – perhaps tools as a 7-step guide to attain the 8^th stage and the very goal of yoga – Samadhi (infinite oneness).  

Paths to True Wellness

As a holistic concept, true wellness comprises the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being of an individual as well as social and environmental factors. You can visualise True Wellness as a flower with 7 blossoming and over-lapping petals;

1. Physical Health: This includes your routine physical activity, diet, hydration, and sleep. I’d go a step further to include regular medical and health check ups in this as well. Physical health forms the foundation of overall wellness. What we do and eat physically impacts how we feel and function on a day-to-day basis.
   
2. Mental Health: This can involve practices such as mindfulness, meditation, and seeking therapy when needed. These can help in harnessing a positive mental state and managing stress effectively consistently.
   
3. Emotional Health: Emotional health is about accessing, understanding, and expressing feelings appropriately, fostering resilience, and developing healthy relationships. I think it also includes recognising unhealthy relationships and developing tools to either improve them or walk away from them.
   
4. Spiritual Health: Spiritual wellness involves having a sense of purpose and meaning in life. It can be achieved through various means such as religious practices, meditation, spending time in nature, or engaging in activities that align with one’s innate values and core beliefs. Afterall, we all need something to believe in.
   
5. Social Health: Healthy social relationships are crucial for overall well-being. This includes maintaining supportive and fulfilling relationships with family, friends, and the community. Social wellness involves effective communication, empathy, quality and quantity time with others, community (sangha), and a sense of belonging.
   
6. Environmental Health: True wellness includes the impact of the environment on one’s health. This includes living and working in a clean and safe environment (saucha), minimizing exposure to harmful substances, and contributing to environmental sustainability and protection. The environment you live, work, and breathe in make a huge difference on your overall health. The health of your environment is good for you and, your responsibility.
   
7. Intellectual Health: Continual learning and intellectual growth are important aspects of overall wellness. This involves engaging in activities that challenge the mind, such as reading, learning new skills, exploring and staying curious and creative. This might even include situations to step out of your comfort zone, confronting fears and continually immersing yourself in self-study (swadhyaya).

The beauty here is to acknowledge how with changes – personal, seasonal or environmental – all the above might change. As a simplistic example, if you’re used to exercising outside, you might take on more indoor exercises during winter time or if you were eating more raw foods and salads during summer, you’d change to warming foods and drinks in winter. Your body will give you signals to make these changes. With true wellness and yoga journey, comes an innate ability to tune in to your own frequency better and Listen to what you need.

Some sources used in my research on True Wellness:

World Health Organisation (WHO), defination of True Wellness

National Wellness Institute (NWI), six-dimensional model of wellness

American Journal of Health Promotion

The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner

Wellness Coaching for Lasting Lifestyle Change by Michael Arloski