Wellness Wednesday: A Review

Happy Wellness Wednesday! It's been a little over a month since I last posted anything, so today will be all about reviewing and refreshing our memories before I continue to post again next week.

Wellness is not the absence of the negative, but the presence of the positive that indicates health and wellness. Let me repeat myself again, because this is crucial to understand! Wellness is the presence of positive components in life! These components don't just naturally happen; they take hard, intentional work! 


This is what the Wheel of Wellness looks like:

Source

There are 5 main life tasks that are broken down into 17 components of wellness! I've discussed the first two life tasks already, and you can catch up on any of those posts here. 

Right now I'm in the middle of discussing the 3rd Life Task, which is Work & Leisure. I'm currently still discussing the "work" subtask, specifically discussing having healthy boundaries in the work environment. To read the latest post on this, click here.

Something to think about this week: What things make work a healthy place for you? What thinks make work an unhealthy place for you?

Now it's your turn to share!
When you think about being healthy at work, what do you think about? What sorts of things make work an unhealthy place? 

How To Survive A Break Up {Part 4}

"People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what is bitter and move on."

-Bill Cosby

When going through a break up, it's easy to feel helpless, like there's nothing you can do but be a victim to grief and sadness. While the sadness will still be there, there are still a number of things that you can choose to do to keep yourself healthy and not make the grief worse then it already is.

Here are a few more tips for surviving a break up in a healthy way:

• Love yourself. Focus on loving and taking care of yourself in the best way possible. This sort of combines engaging in self care behaviors, engaging in fun behaviors, and focusing on the positives in yourself, and it is very important. 
• Try as best as possible to forgive yourself and the other person. Sometimes things happen in relationships that cause it to fall apart. If you were the cause of the problems, do your best to not beat yourself up, but instead learn from what happened and forgive yourself. If it was the other person, holding onto bitterness will just keep you trapped in a prison of negativity. Try to embrace forgiveness as best as you can.
• Challenge & Change the cognitive distortions that can easily creep into our every day thoughts. These types of thoughts are not only irrational, but also negative and will lead to more anxiety and depression instead of allowing you to heal. Try to ensure that your thoughts are as rational as possible (click here for some helpful hints for doing this)
• Give yourself permission to take the time that you need. Grieving a relationship can take a large range of time to "get over", from a month or two to several months. Don't beat yourself up when you don't feel happy and back to normal as quickly as you might feel is appropriate. Grief takes time, so give yourself permission to grieve fully and heal in a healthy manner. 

In case you've missed any of the other posts in this series, here they are:
How To Help A Friend Through A Breakup {Part 1}
How to Help A Friend Through A Breakup {Part 2}
How To Help A Friend Through A Breakup {Part 3}
How To Survive A Breakup {Part 1}
How To Survive A Breakup {Part 2}
How To Survive A Breakup {Part 3}

Now it's your turn!

What makes loving ourselves so difficult (in good times and in bad)? 

Thankfulness Project Monday

"Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value in your life."

-Christiane Northrup

I vanished for awhile without any warning, but I'm back now, and am hoping to have a little more time to blog. Things have been pretty busy in my life right now, and blogging was a quick and easy thing to cut out. What better way to come back to the blog than by re-focusing again on the things that I'm thankful for at the moment:

• The chance to focus on things that I'm grateful for. I almost feel like I'm cheating by putting this on the list, but I am thankful for a designated time in my week to focus on things in my life. I still maintain that this is a healthy and important habit for each of us to maintain. 
• Sunshine! While some springs have been pretty gray in these parts, it has been nice and sunny this spring, and I'm loving it!
• Longer days! I absolutely love that it is still light when I leave work now. It's a little bit of a drag in the winter to leave work when it's already pitch dark out, so I'm definitely taking advantage of the longer hours of daylight. Longer days also means more people outside playing and laughing, which is also nice. In the winter I feel like people hurry inside quickly, and things are too quiet around me. 
• Iced tea & lemonade drinks. Delicious! I tend to not drink this mixture too much in the winter because I spend most of the time drinking hot drinks. I just recently whipped this drink back out again, and am enjoying having "warm weather" drinks again!
• Flowers. Although I'm not a big fan of the pollen (hello itchy eyes and stuffed nose!), I love seeing all the flowers when I'm out on walks or driving back and forth to work. It definitely adds a cheerful tone to life, and I can't help but smile. It's the little things, right? 

Now it's our turn!

What are you feeling thankful for today? In what ways are you enjoying the longer hours of daylight?