Living With Love And Gratitude Brings Wellness In My Life

Dancing Elephants Book Project: Health and Wellness. Group 2

My story of how I try to achieve wellness in life. I am grateful that I am happy and I have an existence. This is directly related to the lesson that I learned on wellness and how I have experienced it in my life.

My lessons on wellness

To my mind wellness is a state where my physical and mental being are in sync with each other and I am happy and contented.

I learned from my own experiences in life that wellness is always associated with the way you think and the way you act.

You have a choice in life to be happy or to be sad. If you are happy, you will make others happy. So how should I be happy? I reflected on this.

One day I went complaining to myself and to anyone who would listen. My family saw me banging doors and asked what was the reason for this behavior pattern.

I was young and in college and I was angry because somebody had borrowed my notes and not returned them.

Another friend broke her commitment about going out for an entertainment program with me and now my day was spoiled. I went on to complain about small issues.

Today I realize that there were so many complaints . . . and they were so trivial but I learned a good lesson to look after my mind and physical being.

I was admonished and asked to reflect and think about what mistakes I had made rather than unnecessarily getting angry.

I took the advice and then became calm and composed. Instead of complaining so much I decided to take an alternate course of action. I came to the conclusion that if my acquaintance had not returned the things she had borrowed she would probably not return them.

I thought to myself that I should find an alternative to the things I had lost because I gave them away maybe in good faith but of my free will — and no one could be blamed but myself.

The lessons I learned on that day:

Lesson 1 Always reflect on your mistakes and move forward from there. Do not stop. Take alternate action.

Remember do not lend things easily if they are so useful and you do not know the credentials of the person. Be careful next time.

Also if your friend spoiled your day by not turning up go make a program with another friend and move out or spend the day with someone else.

Lesson 2 Be grateful that you have a well-functioning body and a good mind to think about.

If you are well and can think properly you can make alternate plans always.Wellness should be your priority in life. Wellness is the balance of the physical and mental being of a person.

How to achieve wellness?

After learning a lesson by reflecting I set about my experiments into working towards it in my life. One thing that was very clear to me is that the mind says it all. The mind has to be positive and always in a state of calm happiness.

I am often asked: How can one always be happy? The truth is I never fake my happiness. I have faced many challenges in life and each time I have overcome them by calm and peaceful happiness. It is a state of my inner being and I have acquired this over the years through the following actions in my life.

I practice wellness with six simple steps in my daily life.

#1. Daily practice of yoga

The practice of yoga has to a great extent brought my physical sense in sync with my inner self and brought peace. It is not that I am not angry at times or I am not stressed but I seek a balance through deep breathing. I reflect, calm down and then act. I never act in anger. In a calm state, the action usually turns out well. The anger for anger or retaliation is a sure sign of unhappiness or two metals striking each other with an ugly sound.

#2.Living in gratitude

Every morning when I wake up and at night when I sleep I say a short gratitude prayer. This I have always done since I was a young girl. I am in gratitude for the food I eat, the good things that I have, and I am surrounded by the beauty of nature.

#3. Spreading love

I try my best to spread love through reciprocity and friendliness. I usually try to cooperate as much as I can and when things just don’t move forward and there is no other way only then I decide to withdraw because I feel there is no use in continuing. My efforts are always to be ready to help my loved ones and try not to be judgemental.

#4. Not to be judgemental

I want to narrate a story. In my college, there was a student of very small stature. She was a dwarf and everyone made fun of her. She became an expert in IT and was sought after by many It companies and did very well in life. She even married and did not think of her deformities.

One should never make fun of people. It only makes you feel unhappy. it is important to give space to people and see them happy. Their happiness is infectious and makes you feel happy too.

#5. The choice to be happy

You always have a choice to be happy or wallow in sorrow over small complaints. This choice I made as I learned a lesson from my mother.

My mother told me a joke which someone had told her. I laughed! My mother repeated the joke and I laughed even more and then we laughed together.

She said that you can laugh a lot or be miserable all the time by complaining all the time. You decide! Do you want wellness in your life with your mind being happy and rested or do you want to wallow in unhappiness? I took the choice of staying happy always. When there is stress, I calm my inner being and my inner self is happy again.

#6. A walk in nature

I love my walks alone or with friends. I learn a lot from nature. The freshness of the day, the beauty of the morning, the rising sun, the birds, trees, flowers, the sun, moon, and stars. I do not know how many things in nature I should count which give me happiness and a feeling of wellness. It brings about relaxation to the mind and body and gives a feeling of happiness leading towards wellness.

The takeaways

• Gratitude makes you joyful: Always realize the value of what we have in life. Gratitude makes us joyful and positive. My mother used to say be in gratitude that you get good clean, fresh hot food and all the wonderful things in life. Do not take things for granted.
• Welcome forgiveness in your heart: To enjoy a feeling of wellness you have to welcome forgiveness in your heart. Cleanse yourself of all the bitterness. I concentrate within and feel the divine presence.
• Yoga and nature walk: Since wellbeing consists of physical and mental balance yoga and nature walks help a lot in keeping them in balance and feeling more relaxed. Taking time off from our daily routine helps to achieve wellness.

Conclusion

No human being is perfect. We can only aspire to do things the best we can to have wellness and health in our lives. Many times health is not in our hands as ailments come our way.

Living with gratitude, spreading love , welcoming forgiveness in our hearts and relaxing through physical activity in nature are sure signs of keeping us well.

A positive outlook helps to keep away a lot of problems. I am not an expert or a perfect human being. I keep on experimenting with myself to achieve wellness in my life to whatever extent possible. There are a lot of things beyond our control. We can do little about it.

My favorite quote is

”Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.” Emory Austin

(source)

Tagging the honorable editors Lady Dr. Gabriella Korosi, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Sharing Randomly

©Dr. Preeti Singh, 2022.

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