Wellness and Connection – Well being doesn’t have to “cost the earth.”

I like having a little lull in my obligations.  It gives me time to get to my reading and listening – taking time to learn and hear what others have to say about the things I’m most interested in. 

So this morning I’ve listened to a couple of TED blogs – “Ideas worth Spreading”.  It is a brilliant web site on which you could spend days enjoying taped talks from conferences about “ideas worth spreading”.

The first one I’m just going to post here so you can go and listen for your self… it’ll take you a little over 15 minutes and I believe it’ll get you thinking about your own wellness and how it doesn’t have to “cost the earth” for the world to be happy.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index.html

 And then ironically once I get you thinking, I’m going to ask you to return to your body and check in on your wellness factor that way.  Nic Marks touches on “The 5 Ways to Well Being” and 4/5 of them are directly connected to our connection to ourselves and to others and how we interact in the world.  In fact, even the 5th which is about lifelong learning is really physical if you think about it… Ensler suggests that story telling really helps us absord learning into our bodies.  And so I offer this quote from Eve Ensler – whose TED blog I also watched and I invite you to turn your attention to your own well being and how you are relating to the world.  (If you’re curious – go ahead and search Eve Ensler in the search engine at the TED site.)

“Stories are the way that we transmit information where it goes into our bodies.  I think the world is very much in our bodies.  It’s a body world.  The species really exists in the body.  And I think there’s a real significance in us attaching our bodies to our heads.  That that separation has created a divide that is often separating purpose from intent.  And the connection between body and head often brings those things [purpose and intent] into union.”

I also happen to think that our physical connection to the world – when really mindful – helps us practice this union between purpose and intent.  Our physical learning, growth and change reflect that same growth in our intellect and spirit.  The body is our tangible connection to the abstract.  Yoga, for example, can employ all 5 ways to well being: connection (breath); action (strength and stretch movements), taking notice (mindful movement), learning (new ways to move your body and find comfort) and giving (we offer our practice to a specific intention).  I encourage you to explore other ways in which you can combine all 5!

Here’s to finding ways to practice joining our intent and our purpose as we live our lives in happy and healthy ways.  What we do for ourselves, we do for the world and vice versa.

Be well and peaceful,

zan

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