Exploring a New Paradigm of Self-Expansion and Total Well-being.

This morning I woke up knowing that I needed to write my weekly post on Instagram about wellness. It’s “Wellness Wednesday,” I thought, but this early in the morning I had no idea what I was going to talk about with my audience. It was time for some Nespresso coffee first.

What is wellness anyway, I asked myself. Maybe I should start here, I thought.

We are living in extraordinary, evolutionary times where humans are becoming awake to a new reality of life, myself included. There is a wide-open door to evolution, expansion of self, and a new space of wellness intimately known by ancient mystics, gurus, and philosophers.

So, let’s talk about this.

As my mind and body gradually awakened, my thoughts went into a self-inquiry about what had changed about wellness over the decades of my youth. My memory took me down a timeline of jumping jacks with Jack LaLanne, running marathons with Kenneth Cooper, to aerobic dancing with Jane Fonda! Then came yoga. And omg, the diet world? Let’s leave that for another time.

Even though I’ve lived a lifetime of being healthy, strong, and vital as a competitive athlete, coach, and wellness guru, I enjoyed the thought of questioning what ideal wellness could look like today.

Is it a state of being, and if so, what would that state look like? How do you define that state? Who would we be if we were optimally healthy, actively embracing total wellness and our fullest potential every day? To me, it would sound like “Conscious Wellness.”

My curiosity into this topic awakened the idea that there was definitely more to the journey of unveiling the true essence of wellness, and I was going to keep on exploring these ideas.

My beliefs about wellness include making choices that honor who you are in a loving way; it’s about upgrading with every choice and decision we make toward the positive. It’s beyond the food we eat. It’s everything we consume from what we watch, to what we read, and the people we hang around with.

I often hear people talking about their plans to become healthier, especially when setting goals for the new year. Over the last 30 years, I’ve been asked the same questions from people all over the world about how they can lose 20 pounds, become sexy and tone, fitter, and stronger or less achy in their joints. We live in a world where humans, at least in their minds, strive to feel better and healthier, but they don’t really want to do the work.

Nonetheless, I imagine that there are as many definitions of wellness as there are people in the world. For some humans, they’ve told me that it means eating healthier, to others it might mean that they are not sick. And then there are others where wellness might mean the act of taking good care of oneself as often as possible.

“Conscious Wellness, the new term I’ve given to ‘wellness of being’ in the modern age, is about all the choices we make each and every day.”

Seeking a true definition of wellness, I walked over to the big blue book—the large dictionary in our home that I received as a college graduation gift from my parents. It mostly sits on the dusty shelf, unused, with the exception of a peek into it now and again.

Here’s what Webster said:

“Wellness: it is the state of being in good health, especially as an actively pursued goal.”

That’s what I thought it might say because back in the 80s that was cool. We were all striving to reach an optimal level of health and wellness through power foods, pumping it up with Arnie and fitness choices that ran the gamut.

Today, however, many humans are seeking and searching for deeper meaning and fulfillment, and this includes addressing all aspects of self, no longer just the physical. And to me this makes sense. Our mind, body, and spirit are all connected, so why would we want to exclude any of these parts?

The wave of hearts awakening today is often referred to as a spiritual awakening or a soul-searching journey of conscious awareness. There are signs everywhere that people are becoming “awake” to a new reality, and they are seeing life from a deeper, conscious, spiritual perspective.

On a personal note, the last four years of my life have been steeped in a spiritual awakening; my experience has been pretty mind-bending and grueling walking this journey. Joseph Campbell describes it well in The Hero’s Journey. And believe me, my path included all parts of me—a most wild awakening journey of my soul.

So beyond the concept of how to be healthy in the 80s, I believe there is a multitude of aspects to our own personal wellness to consider today. We are now just becoming awake to these universal ideas.

Being healthy and vital extends beyond just the physical aspect of our bodies. It now encompasses nurturing a healthy, conscious mind, developing emotional and mental well-being, and embracing spirituality.

Now, let’s revisit the initial question that crossed my mind this morning:

Who would I become if I were perfectly healthy, thriving, and wholeheartedly embracing love, life, and wellness every day?

I’m not sure. This long and winding path to attaining Conscious Wellness is not an easy road, but I can share with you from my heart that my personal spiritual awakening experience was all about love and it was and is totally worth it. (It is still ongoing.)

So while writing this article, I noted my own process of growth and awakening and I jotted it all down. It includes four domains and nine categories that would make up a new paradigm for “wellness of being.”

Putting these ideas and concepts into practice truly nourished and empowered me while providing all that I needed to complete the circle of love, happiness, and freedom. And, of course, a new model for wellness of being.

Ahhh, let’s take a breath together, shall we? Inhale…exhale.

In order to be transformed and transcend all that is, we must be willing to cross the river of change, every day. When we awaken, we are initiated into a new way of being and living.

We can discover a newfound sense of freedom, love, happiness, strength, and more love along the way. With a new perspective, a fresh healthy way of thinking and processing along with a renewed approach to the meaning of life, our purpose, and our gifts can be fulfilled.

And the fun part? You never know where you’ll end up.