Emotional Health and Wellness: What is it and How to Assess it?
What is it exactly?
Just like we have physical health, we also have emotional health! The more you compare the two, the easier it will be for you to assess your own wellness level. For instance, on a day to day basis, if you have lots of aches and pains which make it difficult to get certain tasks done, you would probably not consider yourself in the best of health. You might not consider yourself in bad health per se, but you would easily be able to identify that you have room for improvement.
Now imagine these aches and pains are because you recently had an injury. That little bit of context changes how you see your wellness. Sure, you would see that it is a problem, but you would know it is temporary if you handle the injury properly. Changing the context of why you have the aches and pains makes a lot of difference. Imagine that the aches and pains are from an undiagnosed condition. You went to the doctor 6 months ago but they were not sure what it is. You would be concerned! If you were 60+ though, you might be less concerned as these sorts of problems are more normalized. That context also changes how you would assess your wellness.
What does this mean for emotional wellness?
It means that we cannot assess our wellness by pain alone, or even daily functioning alone. If you are crying every day, that seems concerning. However, if someone close to you passed a month prior, that behavior is fairly normal and even healthy. A behavior a minute ago that seemed to be a cause of concern, now potentially is a sign of good emotional health! Often times though, people take their pain and their problems with functioning out of context. They have the camera zoomed in, when they need to start off at first with the whole shot! The amount of pain you have does not equal how healthy you are. If anything, pain can be a sign of someone well regulated. Being shut off and not experiencing feelings is more often cause for concern (though feeling numb temporarily is also a normal reaction to trauma).
How do I assess my own wellness?
Ask yourself a few questions!
Do you feel content with how you feel on a day to day basis?
Are you able to identify how you are feeling regularly?
Have you experienced any major positive or negative changes recently?
What is the quality of your close relationships right now?
What type of self care are you engaging in?
What is bringing you joy?
These are just a few starting questions to help yourself self assess emotional wellness. There is no perfect way to do it, because wellness is not a specific concern or diagnosis. Wellness is about where you are on the spectrum of health and how to continue to take care of yourself emotionally.
Of course, if you notice that something is off, you are not feeling like yourself, or you are going through an adjustment, it is ok to seek help! You do not need to be in crisis or struggling to get through each day to seek treatment. Therapy is about working on yourself no matter where you are in your journey. Therapy is like working out to stay physically healthy!
If you have questions about starting treatment, reach out to me and set up a call. OR watch out for my next wellness article by hitting subscribe!
