Inside: Essential parenting questions we must all ask to elevate our family’s well-being, and elevate our family’s wellness. Introducing a model of five facets to well-being: spiritual wellness, soul journey wellness, environment wellness, emotional wellness/thought-mental wellness, and physical wellness, including a parenting resource – A free downloadable list of 147 guiding wellness questions.
Instruction
Parenting and motherhood are a journey.
Either we say YES to all of its invitations, or we bury our heads in the ground like an ostrich (they actually don’t do that, but it is a saying). It is always a choice. Are we willing to say yes to our children’s invitation, or are we choosing not to…?
I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s not. But the choice of burying our heads in the sand encourages our children, who look up to us, and learn from us how to manage the noise, to do the same.
In this article, I wish to suggest a model of five facets to the wellness of families. I know there are other models, some with more and some with fewer elements. Here, I share with you the facets of healing that come up most often with my clients.
Facets of healing, not layers of healing.
We tend to see the world and healing in layers. When we choose a model of layers, we indicate that some aspects have more weight, are more important, or are necessary for the following layers to be stacked upon them.
My experience with healing, and especially since the healing I can mediate is at the soul and spiritual levels, has taught me that while we can’t be here without our physical vehicle, deep healing often occurs following healing in these soul and spiritual facets. Physical improvements, which are often seen as the foundational and more important layer, can improve from an intervention at the energetic layer.
Thus, here, I choose to focus on facets.
Different families, different needs.
As families, we each have our journey. Some of us came with a genetic inheritance that invites us to focus on our physical healing. This includes nutrition, exercise, and sometimes also conventional medical interventions. Other families walk with healthier and stronger bodies that carry them through this lifetime and the missions they came to accomplish.
Some families carry a tendency for specific mood types, often affected by the physical body—a genetic tendency to produce more or less of particular neurotransmitters or hormones. Some dance a healthy emotional balance, or some the opposite, as patterns of behaviors are often handed down from previous generations, if not by genetics, then as behavioral or energetic patterns of coping.
Our environment is a significant player in our health. As with other facets, it, too, may be a minor facet for one family, and a significant one for another.
Soul journey themes are also more salient in some families, while others carve their life paths more in the here and now. Soul journey themes offer deep healing. Often, one tries working things out in so many layers—behavioral, habitual, environmental, emotional, and physical—but the wanted, wished for change comes only after offering resolution to the source of whatever one is trying to cure.
What is your definition of wellness?
Measures offered by others should not determine your family’s wellness and how healthy it is. We each carry a perception of what health is and the elements that create a healthy family.
These perceptions are based on how we choose to walk life and who we are. Often, they are based on how you perceive other families. Your childhood experiences. Maybe a somewhat partial perception of your best friend’s family, where you spent much of your childhood, not knowing their secret struggles.
Hence, before continuing to some guiding questions, try to conceptualize for yourself:
What is family wellness?
What characterizes a healthy family?
Family wellness requires us to seek healing in all facets of being.
Questions to ask about the wellness of your family: Five facets
Spiritual facet of wellness
- Do you walk with a clear belief system?
- Do your children know what your belief system is?
- What guides your parenting choices and decisions?
- Do you trust your parenting intuition? Do you act according to these inner knowings?
Soul journey facet of wellness
- Are you walking with awareness of elements of your soul journey? Why did you make specific choices? Why does your life unfold as it does?
- Do you walk with an acceptance that your children, just like you, have their journey to walk? And further, that it is their journey to walk (not yours)?
- What actions do you take as a parent to honor your journey and the soul journey of your children?
- How do you heal soul issues, the energetic and/or ancestral heritage from your family lines?
Environmental facet of wellness
- Is your home environment supportive of your needs?
- Is your home environment supportive of your child’s needs?
- What types of other people do you have around you?
- Is your social/work environment positive and empowering?
- Is your children’s social/school environment positive and empowering?
Emotional/Thought facet of wellness
- Do you allow yourself to experience a range of emotions?
- Is it ok for your child to experience a range of emotions?
- Do you or your children get stuck on negative emotions? Do you have the tools to bring yourself back to balance and center?
- Do you tend to self-talk in negative ways, like self-criticism? Do your children? How can you change these patterns?
Physical facet of wellness
- Do you and your children get enough fluids? Water/fruits/vegetables?
- Are your eating habits healthy? Are your children offered healthy nutritional food?
- Do you provide your body with the amount of physical activity it needs? Do your children get the amount of physical activity that they need?
- Do you take care of your physical needs? From blood tests to a session with your holistic health provider?
Thought awakening wellness questions
Sometimes, we need a compass to help us focus on where we should be active. Taking care of the wellness and health of our family is a full-time job. And when there are more significant challenges, then even more so.
I have learned that merely bringing the needed questions to our awareness already invites a shift.
Our awareness to needed questions offers (a) a clear list highlighting to where we each need to bring our attention and (b) offers us a way to start. Start by acting on the challenges, one step at a time.
Spiritual: Ask yourself what you believe in, and if you listen and act according to your parenting intuition; this will increase the chances that the next time you have a gut feeling about something regarding your family, or your children, you’ll listen to it more attentively.
Soul: Ask yourself about your respect and acceptance of your children’s soul’s journey; this will open a door for you to become aware of the invitation they present and their needs.
Environment: Notice the next time you are someplace that is not good for you, or your children. Possibly, there won’t be another such visit, or you will try to change the situation so that it will support you and empower your children.
Emotional/Thought: Start with bringing awareness to your critical self-talk, and then try to stop it, by repeating one positive word for as long as needed, singing out loud, or any other technique that works for you.
Physical: Add more fruit and vegetables; this is always a good start.
A list of 147 useful questions to ask about your family’s wellness.
A while ago, before writing this post, I opened a file and just started to list all the questions that came to me.
It ended up as a list of 147 questions to ask about your family’s wellness!
Actually, there are more than 147, because there are also general questions about the possible changes you can make that are not numbered.
