Wellness is a state of being that goes beyond the absence of disease. True well-being involves achieving your unique human potential.
After your basic needs are met (air, water, food, shelter) you can begin to nourish the six dimensions of health: physical, emotional, cognitive, social, spiritual, and environmental to create a sense of wholeness.
Below are some suggestions that help to nourish the six dimensions of health. The nature of well–being is holistic, which means that doing one activity for, say, your health—such as going for a walk along the river—is also good for other aspects of your health, such as, say, your emotional, cognitive, and spiritual health.
As New York based holistic wellness practitioner Soken at Bodhi Heart says, “Spending time in nature is a great stress management technique. It can help reduce stress hormones, lower blood pressure, and improve your overall mood. There’s something about being outdoors that just makes you feel better. Maybe it’s the fresh air or the sound of the wind. Whatever it is, spending time outdoors can help to reduce stress and improve your well-being.”
Inspiration is Optimism
This week we’re focusing on how to renew your life with optimism.
Designing your life with optimism is to believe in a better future and think expansively about what is possible for yourself.
The Pleasant Life is what Martin Seligman, American psychologist and founder of the Positive Psychology movement says is what most Americans and the world believes is happiness. A Pleasant Life is realized when you savor and enjoy the basic pleasures of companionship, natural environment, and bodily needs.
But sometimes the world sucks.
Therefore you can practice “flexible optimism,” a term Seligman uses to describe the choice to go through life with optimism while being aware of the negativity in the world.
Staying optimistic will help you achieve more meaningful paths to happiness, such as the Good Life and the Meaningful Life.
Seligman says The Good Life is when you use your unique strengths to achieve more flow in work, life, love, friendship, and leisure. And the Meaningful Life is when you use your unique talents in service of something greater than yourself.
Try the fun exercises designed by Seligman, to help you create space within in order to reframe dysfunctional beliefs about yourself and others. By practicing flexible optimism, you can bring a sense of enjoyment and play to your life. These free exercises will help you integrate more optimism into your own design practice.
One design practice is to pick a shape such as a circle and go around your house and Sutton Place looking for 50 examples of that shape and photographing it. You can also describe in words the positive sights, smells, and sounds that you’ve never noticed before.
Try doing these practices regularly to notice how your way of seeing or feeling can shift your perspective.
With all of the bad, scary news going on in the world these design practices help expand your vision of what is possible for yourself and others.
Give it a try and let me know.
Designing a better future is a moral obligation. Here’s how to start (Fast Company)
Cultivating Awe
Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, proves that experiencing awe—watching a beautiful sunset, listening to moving music, witnessing a master at their craft—leads to self-transcendence and feelings of spiritual connection.
On the weekends I try to take two walks every day and enjoy sitting in Sutton Place near the water. Researchers have found that people who spend at least two hours outdoors in green spaces every week have better mental and physical health than those who don’t.
You can start with a walk in Sutton Place. Enjoy the budding trees and the movement of the leaves and even planting seeds in a container.
One of the treasures of Sutton Place are the five parks. Take 15 minutes from your day to experience awe. This practice is designed to help you create a framework for your mind so you can turn an ordinary walk into a gift filled with inspiring moments of delightful surprises.
When you are finished you can enjoy breakfast near the river listening to the sound of water.
How to Cultivate Awe with a Walking Meditation (Greater Good Science Center)
Doing Relationships Right in Sutton Place
The change of season bring with it a sense of optimism and life renewal.
I always feel as though the trees and flowers support my life and encourage creating a life I love. Not only a life that I love, but also one that I can share with someone else.
Regardless of your current relationship status and view on love, enjoy watching this video on the timeless discussion of love.
Why do we love? A philosophical enquiry (Aeon)
The Art of Togetherness
After connecting with your environment and contemplating love you can enjoy the rest of your day sharing your renewed sense of well-being with someone else.
The MOMA currently has on exhibit, Matisse The Red Studio (through September 10 with timed tickets; 11 West 53rd Street) that brings together Matisse’s groundbreaking painting:
The Red Studio (1911), that displays the artist's painting studio in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux with six other paintings that include Le Luxe II (1907-08), Corsica, The Old Mill (1898) and other objects such as sculptures and ceramics that were recently discovered. Enjoy the vivid colors and shapes continuing your sense of awe with art.
Henri Matisse's The Red Studio: The Journey of a Painting (MoMA YouTube)
After seeing the Matisse exhibit you can escape the crowds at the museum and take a leisurely walk to Abaita (145 East 49th Street; (646) 808-5518), a Kosher Mediterranean restaurant that serves wood-fired pizza. Unwind and enjoy the atmosphere while you discuss the day’s activities.
The Light of Mindfulness
If you want to continue the fun, take a 25-minute walk to Shakespeare and Co, (939 Lexington Avenue; (212) 772-3400), to read Creator and contemplative cartoonist, Grant Snider’s light-hearted take on Mindfulness. The part children's book and poem, The Art of Living: Reflections on Mindfulness and the Overexamined Life, contemplates everything from the clarity of sky, water, and a moment of morning light to optimism and the meaning of life.
The Art of Living: The Contemplative Cartoonist Grant Snider’s Illustrated Love Letter Noticing and Manifesto for Self-Liberation from Striving (The Marnginalian)