March 1, 2010 in Wellness by empoweringwellness

Understanding Wellness – The Keys to Illness and Health Lie Beneath the Surface

Dr. John Travis, who created the “Wellness Inventory,” identified 3 critical components to overall wellness. Today, I’d like to talk about the second of these components:

Illness and health is only the tip of an iceberg. To understand their causes, you must look below the surface.

You may find it interesting to know that 90 percent of an iceberg is submerged, below the water. Only about 10 percent of the iceberg is actually visible. When we consider that state of your wellness, icebergs are a perfect metaphor.

Why is that? Because regardless of whether you are ill or healthy, your current state of health is just like the tip of the iceberg. It’s just the apparent part, the part that shows. You can treat what is apparent on the surface – chipping away at a condition that is unwanted, but unless you deal with the 90 percent that resides below the surface, the condition will continue to rise back up.

If we begin to look below the surface, the first level we encounter is the lifestyle / behavioral level. That level consists of your diet / nutrition, how much exercise you do, how well you manage stress, and other lifestyle factors such as smoking, drinking, drugs, etc.

The next level down is the cultural / psychological / motivational level. This is the level that tells us why we do what we do, why we make the choices we do, and why we live the lifestyle we have chosen for ourselves. Understanding our motivations can help us understand the “payoff” we might get from being overweight, why we smoke, or other destructive lifestyle choices. At this level, we can also learn how popular culture affects us – smoking is seen as being “cool,” or being excessively thin is seen as “attractive.” Important keys and understandings about why we follow lifestyles that we know are destructive reside at this level.

The spiritual / being / meaning level resides one level down. There are no clear boundaries to this level as it includes the mystical and mysterious, plus everything that we hold in our unconscious mind. This is the level where we grapple issues such as our reason for being, finding meaning in our life, and understanding our place in the universe. The way we address questions like this permeate all the layers above. Ultimately, this realm determines whether the tip of the iceberg, representing your state of health is one of disease or one of wellness.

And taking a look at what lies beneath the surface, exploring all of these realms begin to give us true insight into the why’s of our own personal health and wellness.

If you’re interesting in bringing more wellness into your life, take The Wellness Inventory.