My Personal Philosophy on Wellness

Tonight I want to write about my personal philosophy on wellness.  First I must start with what I believe to be the number one most important contributing factor to wellness:  Happiness.

I achieve happiness by simply this:  Doing What Feels Good.  This is not to be confused with doing what feels good in the moment.  Doing What Feels Good has to also feel good when done in front of your Grandma...  This applies to cooking a good meal, making an incredible pie at the peak of the season, choosing a career that makes you feel good about yourself, choosing a mate that makes you really happy not just fills the hole in your heart at the particular moment.  It also helps if he votes and is a productive citizen, or at least that's what my Aunt Moni says.  I digress. 

Looking at each decision you are presented with and asking yourself, what choice is going to make me really happy?  You ask yourself this, make an intentional decision, and poof - you are happy.  Repeat over and over and you approach long term happiness, or maybe even... deep satisfaction.  Deep satisfaction is what allows for inner peace (or that smug/sweet serene smile you see yoga on instructors) but that's a level I'm not yet qualified to expound upon.

All I know is that sleeping well at night is impossible having made choices during the day that didn't make you feel good.  From over-eating to having an affair - both will keep you up at night.

Once you have the Happiness thing working, the other two factors are Food and Exercise.  My philosphy on food is also very simple:  Don't snack between meals and Don't eat sugar unless it's really worth it.  Having three meals causes you to partake in intentional eating... thinking about what you really want, preparing it, and sitting down to enjoy it.  This guideline prevents me from succombing to the urge to help the kids finish their plate and nibble every time anyone else nibbles.  (Don't most of us have a deeply ingrained need to do this??)  But all those snacky calories don't actually provide almost any satisfaction or pleasure, in fact snacking is usually mindless and much less satisfying than arriving hungry to a beautiful meal.

And for the second part... allowing yourself to eat anything awesome is really nice.  Why should you deprive yourself of something truly great?  That just doesn't make sense, plus is conflicts with the Central Happiness Strategy outlined above.  And sometimes when a great foodie opportunity comes along, like a caramel pastry on the street in Costa Rica or an ice cream stand visit on a hot day... these are things that bring great happiness, and great happiness brings great health... even if it does come with some calories.

Again, two bites of incredible sherbert before bed bring great happiness.  A big bowl every night brings quite the opposite.  Everybody knows this, but we ALL forget it.  Ah well.