Enhance Wellness in the New Year
Enhancing Wellness in the New Year:
Welcome and I am so thankful you paused in the searching to stop by and read a few words. Your time, energy and attention are valuable resources so let’s get to it and steward them WELL. I love to hear a good story, with all of the twists and turns, full of emotions and close calls, and relationship dynamics and of course we hope for the happy ending (most of the time). You too? If so, I wish I could show you the Lifetime movie version of my story, you would be on the edge of your seat, with all the snacks, yelling at the screen “oh no girl, that won’t end WELL!” And you would be right….for part of the story.
My restoration and wellness story is a journey over twenty years in the making and includes:
spiritual hurts/wounds/disappointments
loss of relationships, roles, opportunities, homes, income, security
overcoming addictive thinking and behaviors
ongoing battles with insecurities, comparison and body image issues.
For many of those years, my physical health was excellent, I was training daily in the gym, strong, fit, disciplined, but let me pose this question:
Was I actually WELL?
The answer depends on how you define WELL: We have two options:
Worldly wellness: most often defined as the absence of disease or the ability to function optimally
Biblical Wellness: achieving shalom (peace, wholeness, completeness) in a personal relationship with God, then self and others.
Let me tell you my friends, during those years, my body was functioning, however I was not WELL in the holistic definition addressed in Scripture, words spoken by Jesus:
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30
Three key components to Enhancing Wellness:
Spiritual Wellness and Wholeness: We were created for intimate relationship with God through Jesus and we are internally wired to seek connection with God. His love for us is perfect, complete and those affections cannot be shared with another person and/or thing. The world will attempt to compete for our attention and affections, and spiritual wellness and wholeness apart from God is impossible.
Mental and Emotional Health and Wellness: The mind is powerful and the relationship between our thoughts and emotions is automatic and requires intentional training, much like we train a muscle in the gym:
a.) time: life situations and circumstances present opportunities for our thinking to be self-focused rather than rooted in the truth of Scripture, PAUSE, identify the thought, phrase, word and determine if it aligns with the heart and word of God.
b) under tension: I think we can all agree stress/tension is part of our everyday lives, our flesh will desire to avoid rather than lean into the tension to listen to our thoughts and feelings to determine the healthy actions/behaviors in response to a situation/relationship.
c) repetition: the key to forming a new thought/habit/behavior is repetition and often speaking aloud the new thought has power to form new neuro-pathways in the brain.
Physical Wellness and Stewardship: Since the age of 13, I struggled with body image issues and disordered eating and for most of my adult life fitness and health have been idols in my life. Yes, Idols, why? Because they were the focus of my thinking, my goals, desires, my fears and even my identity.
In the fall of 2025, during a period of reflection, the Lord revealed this to me with the reminder of stewardship. Scripture describes our bodies as “temples” where the living God has taken up residence, in the lives of believers in Jesus. Therefore stewardship of our bodies and health is a spiritual act of worship rather than another item to check off the to-do list.
Personal reflection: Taking the first step creates momentum and movement, what is one step you can take today toward enhancing wellness?