Wellness Buckets: Fill them yourself
Better Being Collective
The Mission of the Collective: To share our Strength for the betterment and wellness of the community. As wellness professionals, we collectively strive to create a space of support for the community by sharing our knowledge, our stories of personal development, our dedication, our commitment and our passion for betterment to build a life of wellness that encourages and inspires our community to embrace the journey to becoming more physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually fit.
What is Wellness?
It’s A Choice.
According to the National Wellness Institute, Wellness is defined as a conscious, self-directed and evolving process of achieving full potential. It is multidimensional and holistic, encompassing lifestyle, mental and spiritual well-being, and the environment. It is positive and affirming.
Well-being may be one of my favorite words. The state of being comfortable, healthy, and happy. This is why people hire me. They want to feel comfortable in their bodies, healthy and happy. Free from the discomfort of being overweight and unfit, these are the physical needs. But early in my career as a personal trainer I noticed that merely working on the physical didn’t get the desired results of being healthy and happy, there was always a deeper need that was unmet…
The National Wellness Institute goes on to define The 6 Dimensions of Wellness. Developed by Dr. Bill Hettler, these 6 Dimensions or what I like to refer to as “Wellness Buckets” are interdependent, meaning the balance of our whole being depends of the balance of each bucket.
The 6 Wellness Buckets are:
Physical
Social
Intellectual
Emotional
Occupational
Spiritual
The Better Being Method of Wellbeing takes these buckets into considerations when designing movement programs to offer balance to the individual and bring awareness to areas where we can bring ourselves into our more balanced states of wellbeing. For example, when we have major life stresses in the occupational, social and emotional areas like starting a new business, bigger financial burdens, and sick family members all at once (as life so graciously offers us) most of us can’t realistically set giant physical goals ontop of that mess like training meticulously for an ironman. Somethings going to give under that load and I don’t want it to be in the form of an injury. On a lighter note maybe you just feel less than fulfilled because you haven’t been filling your intellectual bucket, maybe that a bit of an instagram scolling addiction and you can’t remember the last time you picked up a book or studied something new.
Take a moment to take stock of your Wellness Buckets. Are they balanced? Where may you be wanting to place some more attention or where may you have been driving too hard?
Chasing physical goals is very common in our culture, for true wellness and happiness let’s dig a little deeper. Goals come from desires and desires come from unmet needs.
Tony Robbins has defined 6 Core Human needs for Wellness: Health and Happiness and Fulfillment
Certainty (safety, stability, security, comfort, control)
Uncertainty (variety, risk, surrise, adventure, choas)
Significance (meaning, worth, needed)
Love/Connection (communication, unified, approval, intimacy)
Growth (constant emotional, intellectual, and spiritual development)
Contribution (give beyond ourselves, care, serve, protect others)
We meet these universal needs daily with every choice we make. Our choices then become black and white, either we feed our wellness with constructive choices that meet our Core Human needs or we feed ourselves with destructive choices that meet our Core Human needs.
This is the art of Mindfullness, becoming aware that we have the power to make a new choice for or against our wellness to fill our deep core needs, then brining it home we drop these choices into our 1 or some of our 6 Wellness Buckets. Our strengths are were we drop all our best efforts, for me I easily drop all my best efforts into my physical, occupational, intellectual and spriritual buckets…why? Because through movement, nourishment, and my sadhana (my daily spiritual practices) I can meet all my core needs. But that does not mean I’m 100% fulfilled and balanced because my social and emotional buckets could use some LOVE and ATTENTION. So, that is where my attention should go…for optimal Wellbeing.
See….?
I’m sharing so you too can take stock:
How are you meeting your Core Needs?
What Core Need do you perceive you are lacking to be fulfilled?
Which Wellness Buckets are full? Which need to be filled?
and Finally…
What’s 1 choice you can make right now, to meet your own needs, fill your own buckets, and fulfill yourself?
If you need a little help, answer this question….What makes you come ALIVE?
Choose to do that!
Namaste
JESS
“Its important that we share our experience with other people. Your story will heal you and will heal somebody else. When you tell your story, you free yourself and you give other people permission to acknowledge their own story.” Iyanla Vanzant