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Hello again to all returning readers and welcome to those who are reading for the first time! This is the official blog for Life & Wellness Counseling and Consulting and we are glad that you’re here.
We’ll be looking at Social Health today, one of the 5 Facets of Health that was introduced in an earlier blog post. We will discuss the final facet next week so be sure to check-in with us weekly because life is beautiful!
When we mention the word “social”, most people probably think about going to parties and having a good time, but that’s only a small part of what we’re referring to when we talk about social health. An individual’s social health refers to the ability develop and maintain significant relationships, interact and communicate appropriately with others in public settings, as well as engaging regularly in pleasurable and entertaining activities.
In last week’s blog, we encouraged you to find time for yourself as a way to maintain your spiritual health, well this week we’re doing the opposite. The most important part about social health OTHER PEOPLE … there’s just no way around it.
In this diagram “YOU” represents an individual’s *true self, the person that is reflected by your morals, values, beliefs, and character… this is the person you are when no is around to see or hear you. The “FRIENDS/FAMILY” circle represents the people you love and care about and the people who love and care about you, the people you trust (we don’t assume that everyone has a loving and close-knit family but most people have someone who they consider close enough to be called and or treated like family). People you work with, go to church with, see occasionally in your neighborhood grocer, or just glance at as you pass them by on the street, these are the people represented in the “GENERAL PUBLIC” circle of the diagram. Notice how there are a few areas that overlap, this demonstrates that there are relationships between you and your friends and family, you and the general public, and your friends and family and the general public. Right in the center of all that, the three circles in the diagram converge and that represents what we refer to as social health.
The quality of total wellness is affected by how functional these three circles are together… it is literally impossible to maintain healthy social functioning without balance amongst these three circles.
In order to be at 100% in any given circle, you must take 45% from the other two circles. If you were to draw this diagram to reflect your life, with the percentages representing the amount of interaction, what would it look like for you? Would you have more interactions in the purple circle and none in the blue? Or would all of interactions be in the green circle? So what does it mean if you did?
Diagram I
So what could be concluded about the individual’s social health being depicted in this diagram? And what about this one? Leave your comments below.
Diagram II
Do you remain true to yourself as the people around you change? Do you have a solid network of supportive, dependable people? Do you set and maintain boundaries that protect you and make you feel comfortable? Can you disagree with someone in a public setting without causing a scene? Do you have fun? If you’ve answered “no” to any of these questions, these are signs that you may be socially unhealthy.
Life & Wellness offers 5 ways to improve your spiritual health:
Be engaging
-When you go out, strike up a conversation with someone about what’s going on in your current environment. You can talk about the weather or give a compliment, be open to people.
Invite family or friends over
-Make the space you live in welcoming and accepting. This is also a great way to ensure that you stay routed in morals and values that govern your beliefs and attitudes.
Don’t shy away from conflict
-Disagreeing with people doesn’t have to become aggressive or physical. The more you practice good conflict resolution skills, the better you will be at it, and the more confident you will feel about yourself and your opinions.
Get involved in your community
-A book club, a gym, a crafts class… growing your network of personal and professional supports ensures that you have plenty of support and that you don’t overextend the people you care about.
Go out and have a good time
-It’s perfectly okay to live it up once in a while. Hanging out with friends and having a good time is great way to relax and decompress from the daily challenges of life.
Next week, we will explore the final facet of health – physical health. Our discussion will answer the following questions:
What is physical health?
How to identify your physical health concerns?
How to take care of your physical health?
How does physical health affect the quality of your wellness
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