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Author: Erin Faulkner

A Journey to Wellness

I recently learned about the 8 Dimensions of Wellness. Before I dive into these, I first want to define what “wellness” means. Wellness is the “act of practicing healthy habits on a daily basis to attain better physical and mental health outcomes.1” For many people, wellness is associated with physical health, but not necessarily with mental health. I know that was true for me for much of my life. By taking stock of different areas of my life and consciously making a plan for how to improve these various aspects, I can increase my quality of life. I am just starting this journey myself and have a ways to go, but I believe with guidance from these dimensions, I can make some improvements in myself.

Forgiving Ourselves

Go to your local bookstore or search on Amazon and you will find books to teach you just about anything. There are even books about parenting. The difference between a book about cooking and a book about parenting is that cooking is, for the most part, predictable and routine. If you have the skills and follow the recipe, you will most likely get good results.

Acceptance

When I was 4 years old, I got my first pair of hearing aids. For the next 7 years, I hated them. Everything was just so loud. I would take them out often and several times, with my mother, have to dig them out of garbage cans because I accidentally threw them away. We moved to Helena, MT when I was 10 years old. My new audiologist realized that my hearing aids had never been set correctly for me. Finally, I could hear comfortably.