Wellness - The Best You Challenge
Has anyone else noticed that as soon as life gets busy, all sense of wellness gets chucked out the window? It's almost like we've forgetten how to look after ourselves, like 'take care of yourself' is in a constant fluctuating state on our priorities list and somehow always ends up at the bottom. Well I'm telling you right now to move it to the top and staple it down.
A couple of months ago I was sick and tired of feeling ill. Not being able to do the things I enjoy because my body and mind were constantly trying to replenish and recover everything I was giving out. Thats why I decided that for the remainder of the year my main goal would be Wellness. Wellness is commonly linked with wellbeing, fitness and other health catagories of a similar nature. It's our capacity to flourish in all areas of our lives. This includes:
Physical
Emotional
Social
Psycological
Spiritual
Financial
Occupational
&
Environmental
So, I set out to create a challenge. A CHALLENGE! Yes, when I first imagined what the rest of my year would look like I imagined something similar to the ridiculousness that was the 75 hard challenge which became a TikTok sensation in early 2021. I knew before I started that that just wouldn't be attainable for me. I would fail and FAST.
Instead of setting myself up for failure I mind-mapped my way to the idea of The Best You Challenge. Whilst I had some specific goals in mind such as 30mins of any exercise per day, better skincare, an improved mental state and environmental wellness, I didn't want to set hard targets which my brain would push away and resent after a couple of days.
Wellness won't be acheieved if you go at it like your trying to climb everest in a day. There is a reason why theres different camps to get to the top. Sometimes people don't make it and have to try again. Sometimes an avalance strikes and it's safer to come back another time. AND Sometimes people get lost and need help. Nobodys journey or experience with mountain climbing will look or feel alike and that's exactly the same with wellness. We all fail occasionally, we all make mistakes, we all need help every now and then and once in a while things happen in our lives that are completely out of our control and throw us off course.
Over the next remaining months of 2022 my plan will be to focus on four of the eight types of wellness. During september I have been and will continue to focus on physical wellness. Things like sleep, the amount I'm active, my relationship with food, personal hygiene and a daily, renewing routine.These are all things I can build positive habits around in order to feel better physically and take back control of my body and life.
I know that with the learning difficulties I posess, my life will often involve struggles that I'm not able to control and life will therefore never be easy, the same as everyone else. My goal with this challenge isn't to have perfect wellness, I don't believe that would be achieveable for anyone. What I would like to get out of this is a sense of peace, to know that what I am doing for myself is enough in the everyday, so that when I do have meltdowns, bad anxiety days or low days I still have a structure and something which feels familliar and catches me to then lift me back up.
At the end of each month I will review the different things I tried, what worked best for me and what I didn't enjoy so much. Come back to see how I got on and what has impacted me the most. You might find that you want to go on your own journey to wellness and what that might look like in your context.
See you soon! Em x