How To Increase Your Well-Being With Yoga, Meditation, & Reiki

This article is very sobering: It says fewer than 1/10 workers in the U.S. have holistic well-being, while close to 50% have poor well-being.

As a mind-body wellness practitioner, this gives me pause.

Being sick all the time isn't how to be the architect of your own destiny. It's not spiritual to be sick, tired, and broke. I've been there. It takes daily work to ensure I won't go there again. No backsliding allowed! 👏

According to the article, there are 5 spaces used to score well-being:

1. Career
2. Social
3. Financial
4. Physical
5. Community

These areas are going to change throughout our lives, which is why well-being takes effort and a holistic lifestyle change. It's not just a one-and-done achievement.

I offer a complimentary Wheel of Balance exercise to help you assess your own mind-body wellness in more than merely 5 areas.

The Wheel of Balance gives you a pie chart to fill out in order to give you insight into which areas of your life are healthy and which need work. While the above article scores on only 5 areas of life, my Wheel of Balance goes further. But feel free to create a more personalized chart if needed by crossing out what I have and inserting your own, tailored areas.

⭐️ After you do the Wheel of Balance Exercise, scroll through the ideas below to help spark fuel to work toward better well-being in your areas of career, social financial, physical, and community.

How to Find Career Well-Being

As someone who has made no fewer than 8 career pivots, I know the frustration of finding oneself in a career that no longer serves you. That's OK; it's called growth. The days of staying at one job for life are long gone.

There are more career disruptions than ever today with changing market forces and the advent of AI. So how to find career balance?

The first step is self-awareness. Most of us have picked jobs or careers that didn't suit us at one time or another.

What raises self-awareness?

You guessed it—meditation, yoga, and Reiki. If you're on a spiritual path, you're probably leading with heart and aching to fulfill your purpose. The more you get to know yourself, the better life choices you'll make. In yoga, we call this Svadhyaya, or self-study.

How To Increase Social Well-Being

At a time when the world is more divided than ever, how can one connect deeply and profoundly to others? Everywhere we turn, TikTok psychology tells us everyone is a toxic narcissist. The news reports on danger and divisiveness to get ad dollars. (I know; I was once a TV news producer).

Where do we go to find nurturing relationships and maybe even like minds?

Does it matter as much that we "find a place" or "find the people," or does it matter that we become someone others love to connect with?

What energy are we bringing to the spaces we are in? What community are we creating? Are we as kind to the cashier as we are to our relatives (and vice versa?) Do we speak up when we see others taking unethical actions?

Again, the answer is to work on ourselves for the self is the only thing one has the power to change. We can't change others or the world. But we can make our own little corner of it more peaceful and hospitable.

Taking this back to my Wheel of Balance exercise above, look at your relationships. Are they fulfilling? Have you outgrown them, making this an area that needs care and forward movement to make new friends?

Are you self-regulating in order to keep calm in emotionally charged family situations?

Do you know what helps you self-regulate? You guessed it—yoga, meditation, and Reiki.

How to Find Financial Well-Being

First, I'm not a financial advisor. But I've had my share of financial downfalls that all could be traced to subconscious conditioning around self-worth. I wish I could say I manifested good fortune, but the truth is that financial well-being takes hard work and discipline.

In short, I've learned to want less which does not equate to wanting to be poor or "settling" by any means. Today, I live a decluttered and essential life full of only what I love. There's no room for excess.

This, in itself, is energy work.

Of course, I'm a Reiki Master, so everything is energy!

When you start to see "money" through the lens of what it really is—energy—you waste less of it. You live intentionally. You conserve your time and energy just as you would your "money."

I lived that nasty, downtrodden, "will I ever get ahead" life. I rode the bus, paid late rent, and walked to the grocery store (and back, carrying grocery bags). I've also partied like a rock star with rock stars, eaten fine meals, and stayed in great hotels.

The happy spot, for me, is somewhere in the middle.

The true wealth, for me, is health. It's spirituality. But if you have health, you have everything. Begin with the basics if your finances are out of whack because that is where self-worth begins.

How To Find Physical Health or Energetic Well-Being

This is a tough one. I've been there, held back by physical and emotional exhaustion a time or two in life. There's no quick fix and I'm not a doctor. The article defines this as "the energy to get things done."

I hear friends say more and more that they don't have this and that there's more to get done than there is energy.

One way to combat this is to take things off your plate. Another way is to increase health. I don't think you'll go wrong by doing both.

This brings me to the self-care I've preached for 9 years: Take care of yourself FIRST. Eat well. Get regular checkups. Take time for rest and self-care. Stop wearing yourself down. Say 'no' to people. (Especially with the busy holiday season coming up).

Stamina is important. Being able to stay well through winter is important. I spent years getting sick every few weeks. No one cared. I was worn down. Colleagues snickered. My doctor wrongly claimed it was mental health. (He's thankfully no longer practicing medicine).

Finally, I had a breakthrough due to being too sick to even walk. That lame doctor finally sent me to a pulmonologist; I had asthma! No wonder I was sick constantly!

I would have never gotten there if I hadn't taken things of my plate in order to stop being addicted to busy. Busy is a drug. I prioritized my health and fought for it. When you do this, your life changes.

Now, I'm well 95% of the time. With proper care, I can do what I want to do. Always fight for yourself, even when you're weak—especially when weak. Once I took care of my body's basic physical needs, everything began to get better.

Yoga and exercise give me energy. If all you do is sit, you're going to stagnate and get depressed. If you want to live well, stay in motion. This is my simple rule. Always keep moving! Never stagnate.

How To Find Community Well-Being

Here's another tough one for me. I've moved around in my life so I know different places offer different amenities. Different places serve different needs throughout our lives.

When we're young, big cities seem amazing. We want to go out, dance, build a career, and so on. Then, we start a family and want playgrounds and a lawn.

You get the idea: We want a place to call home, where we fit. We want a place that suits our needs.

Sometimes, our course changes and we need a new place. Or life happens and our community weakens. We may need a new spiritual home or a job sends us somewhere new.

Can we find fulfillment in life no matter where we are in whichever season of life we are in? It's certainly possible!

I've often asked if I could find a healthier (for me) place than Wichita, KS. This year, I decided the answer is 'yes!' I want better healthcare and fewer allergies. But also, my needs changed. My work no longer ties me to a physical location, giving me the power of choice.

At one time, Wichita was an amazing answer to losing my big city commute and enjoying a slower pace of life. Now, it no longer serves me. And that's OK!

A coach (like me) can help you get in touch with the answers within you about what career to choose to find fulfillment, where to live to find your personal land of opportunity, and how to clear old issues. I empower you to begin to trust yourself if you're not there yet. If you're already there, I help facilitate your next leap forward so you can do it in the most fun/least anxious way possible.