Running head: WELLNESS 1

Wellness

Rebecca Eckstein

Kaplan University
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Wellness

Everyone has a specific place that they are in with in their lives. Some are going through

things at the moment, and others are having that moment of smooth sailing. Do you think one

has better luck then the other, or is it by chance? I believe a lot of how we live, and what we do

controls the ending of that moment we just went through. After all of the things we have read this

term, how can we not believe there is a bigger picture?

There are questions we can ask ourselves or others to identify our current state of

wellness. Things that can make us better understand who we are, why we are here, and what

group exactly that we fall into. Are we negative, optimistic, are you healthy, do you hold

grudges, have you accomplished everything you set out to do? Life is not as easy as some of

would hope for, but the better part is that nothing worth it comes easy.

So, for my first question I have to ask, do you love yourself? I mean really love

yourself. The choices you have made that have gotten you where you are. Do you appreciate the

roads you have been down, even if it was a dead end? Have you learned a little more about

yourself, through all the wrong turns? Can you appreciate the simplicity of life? Because as we

have all heard before, we have to learn how to love our selves before we can learn to love

another.

Can you forgive people who have done you wrong? Can you really just release

the wrong doings that have been done against you? You realize that not forgiving someone hurts

us a lot more then it hurts them. Better yet, the forgiving process is truly for our own good.

Holding that grudge against that person really may have no affect towards them, but for us to put

out that energy and waist it on something so silly. Let’s also not pretend that we have also done
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something wrong in our lives, and whether we were looking for forgiveness or not, we have

gotten it from more than one source.

Do you give yourself time to disengage? Do you take the time to relax after work,

or on the weekends? Do you ever plan vacations, and allow ourselves to really enjoy them rather

than think about what we should be doing? A lot of people have a hard time with this one. Sure,

they can get away, but relax is a whole new vocabulary that most of us don’t know how to

implement.

Are you content? Most of us are not. The reasoning is because if society isn’t

putting the pressure on us, we probably are ourselves. We accomplish one thing, and never really

sit back and take it all in, appreciate all of the hard work and patience it took us to get here. We

get back to work to accomplish the next thing. Let’s take college for instance. Before anyone of

us will ever be able to enjoy the fact that we have graduated, we will be onto applying for jobs

and working in our industry.

Are you thankful? Do you really appreciate everything you have? Do you thank people

when they think of you, are you thankful for the many blessings you have? We aren’t just talking

about all the extras we get, were talking about the simple everyday things that you have. A warm

bed to sleep in at night, a roof to keep you dry, the food to fill our tummies, the people in our

lives, etc.

Do you allow humor in your life? Do you laugh? Do you make others laugh? When

things get tough do you laugh your way through it, or are you depressed hoping it gets better on

its own? How about when your sick, do you complain a lot, lay around, and hope for a quick

recovery, or are you proactive in your health? A lot of people do not know how to be positive

through a bad situation, all of us struggle with it from time to time.

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Do you serve others? Do you make yourself available for service? Do things for other

people with out requesting anything back from them? Do you do things out of the kindness of

your heart, because you want to? This is huge in life, doing for others takes the focal point off of

us, off of our situations, and puts it on another human being. This can be so beneficial not only to

us, but obviously to the other people involved.

Can you accept your reality? Whether you are having a good or bad day, can you accept

your situation? Are you okay with it? If not, are you doing anything to change it? Are you willing

to work hard for what you want, whether its something people accept or not? We only have one

life, and we have to be the best we can be, we have to have a passion for whatever it is we are

trying to accomplish, or chances are they won’t be accomplished.

Do you Meditate? Do you sit down in your own quietness, in a peaceful room while you

listen to yourself breathing? Thinking about all that crosses your mind, or better yet silencing

your mind as well as your surroundings digging deeper then you ever have before? This can give

us so much peace with in us when the whole world is so loud around us. This can bring us

understanding with in our lives, and help us cope, and even learn our purpose. So many days we

spend trying to deal with life, but just a couple moments can give us more understanding if we

give our minds the opportunity.

Do you have faith? They say, “Faith can move mountains,” do you believe it, (Seaward,

2010)? Do you believe that no matter how bad your situation becomes that there is a bigger

picture for you? Keeping the faith is not always the easiest situation, but having no faith in a

terrible situation, does that get you anywhere better? People often say to me, “if I’m a good

person then why do I have to have faith?” Well, the fact is, having that bigger reason for living is

all that matters. I have faith, and I try to teach that to my daughter. No, I’m not perfect, and I
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don’t expect her to be, but, maybe just maybe this is what keeps us human, moving forward and

not hurting others. The world has made a turn for the worst in a lot of cases, and I can only have

faith that my daughter will be one of the good ones.

I interviewed my boyfriend because one he is always around, and two he’s the most

honest person I know. I asked all of the above questions to him, and through smiles and laughing

at me he was able to pretty much answer everything. Travis is a very positive person, very giving

of his time, and just an all around wonderful guy. It doesn’t surprise me that he was very positive

through this interview.

Travis said he does love him self although he knows he has room to improve things. He

forgives people, but he can hold a grudge, which I have seen in the past. We live on a farm, with

all kinds of animals that need to be cared for, he’s the last one to leave his job, and then he will

come home and work until the sun goes down, he is the hardest person to slow down, and he

realizes he only gives him self a very short amount of time to disengage. Travis says he is

content, he is happy with where he is in life right now, and although sometimes he gets irritated

by things, that goes away.

Travis is thankful, he shows this in many ways to the people around him to thanking God.

Travis has a pretty serious face, but he can laugh with a select few. Travis serves others all the

time, he won’t admit it but I know for a fact that almost daily he will do something for someone

else with no request for anything in return. Travis is happy with his reality, he mentioned he has

gone through some hard times in the past, he was happy before, but he is now. Travis does

meditate by praying, I wouldn’t say he does the traditional meditation or breathing techniques.

He has faith and he shows it through everything he does.

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I believe these findings show that Travis is in an exceptional part if his life. He is happy

with what he is doing, where he’s going and shows it ever way humanly possible. He might need

to tweak some things to be perfection, but he does have balance, and a clear conscious, and a

lovely life to come home too. I think if we can find the best out of every situation, and work

through the hard times with out letting it get us too down, we can’t lose. Travis is such a good

example of this.
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Reference

Seaward, Brian. (2013). Health of the Human Spirit. 2nd Edition. Jones and Bartlett

Seligman, Martin. (2006). Learned Optimism. Vintage Edition

Walsh, Roger. (1999). Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and

Mind. 1st Edition. Turner Publlishing.

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