Circle of Life: Your Wellness Web
‘Discover where you stand in your wellbeing and how to infuse joy and satisfaction into your life.’
I believe January is the month of welcoming the new year, 2023 and setting our intentions for an exciting year ahead. Instead of rushing thru your thoughts and dreams at the end of a year, know that you are never late to take your time and to start manifesting your dreams in the new year ahead.
Sometimes you might feel like you are lost in a maze and not sure where to start. For a life that you feel happy about and ready to jump out of bed everyday to welcome it, there is a tool we use in ‘health and wellness coaching’ called ‘Circle of Life’ I would like to share it with you, please take your time with it, savour it and enjoy it with a cup of tea, coffee or wine – and dream forward, write your thoughts down for the new year a head.
The intention of ‘Circle of Life’ is to guide you to create a balanced lifestyle that you feel healthy and happy about. It is based on the well-being of your whole being – a Holistic Health approach.
Whole well-being – Holistic health can be defined as experiencing optimal physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. At its core, it is self-care. It is recognising where you stand today, what your mind, body and soul needs; and taking action to meet those needs. It requires making conscious choices that help you function optimally and thrive across different areas of your life.
There are two important notes to keep in mind:
- Your well-being, your health & wellness is an on-going journey. Taking small and sustainable steps will allow you to make choices that support your long-term goals. It also makes it easier to adapt your approach as you and your circumstances change over time. It is the journey that needs to delight you.
- Your well-being is ‘Bio-individual’ meaning that everyone has unique needs at different times in their lives. What works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. While there are healthy basics that support many people, feeling healthy and happy looks and means different for every person. Our unique circumstances and needs change over time. Therefore it is important to adapt your approaches and make sure you work on your own individual ‘Circle of Life’ to create what is most beneficial to your needs right now.
So, How does ‘Circle of Life’ work? In my coaching sessions, I share the below Circle of Life with the advisees, this is a chart developed by Institute of Integrative Health and Medicine that outlines the most important areas of a persons’ overall well-being.
There are 12 areas identified known and scientifically proven to define and improve your health and happiness. Let’s do the exercise together to start your wellness planning.
Here is the Circle of Life chart that shows the 12 areas and the steps for doing the exercise.
The Circle of Life
1) Print the chart and place a dot on the line that indicate your level of satisfaction in each area. Imagine the center is ‘0’ indicating dissatisfaction, and the outside circle is ‘10’ indicating satisfaction. Place a dot on where you believe you stand, closer to the center 2 or 3 or closer to the outside circle 8 or 9? For example if you are happy with your social life and it is abundant, place a dot on the line somewhere toward the outside circle, possibly indicating 7,8 or 9. Write your number next to the dot.
2) Connect the dots to see your circle of life. (see example below)
3) Identify the imbalances in your chart. Write down what you can do to increase your satisfaction in each area by 2 or 3 points. For example if you gave a 5 for an area, think about what steps you can take to make it a 7 or 8. Do not try to go more than 3 points up like from 5 to 10, as it can feel overwhelming. If it is already 8 or 9, surely you can work on making it a 10.
4) The aim is to increase your overall health and happiness, your satisfaction from life in a balance. The Circle of Life will help you understand where you stand, where you would like to grow, what you can do to get to your ideal stage and which areas you can spend more time and energy to the ‘ideal’ and create balance.
Two questions I get the most is about Spirituality and Relationships. Please note that ‘Spirituality’ is not necessarily related to religion or your belief to it. It can be about faith but it is more about believing a higher purpose. This can be your purpose in life, or a universal power that you have belief in. For relationships, you can also divide that area into 2 or 3 categories and name them ‘partner/spouse, family or friends’ and place a dot individually for each of the category.
Remember to enjoy and make sure to set intentions and goals with as much focus, detail and attainable steps as possible towards living your dream lifestyle.
The Circle of Life is one of the tools, I share with my clients to identify their mission and goals, and to define a wellness plan for living a happier and healthier lifestyle. If you are interested, please feel free to contact me at selin@sunshineliving.co.uk
Have an amazing 2023
Love, Selin