Wellness: A New Map of Service

hard-line traditional health care administrator, team, or facility on the benefits of incorporating wellnessprocesses into present delivery systems!It would appear that if you are going to trust that a wellness map can in fact lead you to higherstates of feeling good, you must have a deeper conceptual appreciation for the map in the first place.You see, the wellness map is your world of wellness. It is your lifestyle and your environment. It isyour wisdom toward fitness, nutrition, stress, the environment, and self-responsibility. And it is thesefive determinants integrating with your roles in family, vocation, leisure, education, community, andspirituality. So, what moves you along in your personal world of wellness? I will attempt to answer thatquestion in this chapter.In this chapter you will become acquainted with some key conceptual vehicles with which toexplore wellness within yourself and others. First, you will obtain a good working knowledge of what Icall a "wellness cosmology." Next, you will become familiar with what I believe to be a critical conceptwithin wellness, that of regeneration. Lastly, you will learn what self-care is and how it acts as the"hands on" process for taking the wellness map into one's own responsibility. So, let's begin ourjourney.A WELLNESS COSMOLOGYIt cannot be understated: Wellness care strives to integrate the person's consciousness ofbodymindspirit as a whole being evolving in a positive direction. Perhaps the best image to keep inmind is that of a continuum where illness, worseness and premature death are on one end, and highlevel, vibrant wellness is on the other. This duality of consciousness often pervades people's notions ofhealth/wellness on one hand and illness/death on the other. Therefore, it is accurate to represent thesebodymindspirit states as bipolar axials of a general wellness cosmology. A cosmology, in its simplestdescription, is a way of looking at life or any of its aspects. In a wellness cosmology we are afforded awindow through which to view our client's (as well as our own) state of bodymindspirit and the directionit appears to be going. In a sense, at any moment in time, we should be able to determine if a person ismoving toward a illness/worseness preoccupation (which would be toward the left polar axis of ourcosmology) or toward a wellness preoccupation (which would be toward the right on the axis).