8 Pillars of Wellbeing
The concept of “well-being” can be described as a holistic approach to health. There are 8 dimensions to well-being, which include physical, spiritual, emotional mental, intellectual, environmental, social, occupational, and financial. Everyone defines these a bit differently, and practices self-care in each of these areas using different methods. We all have parts of our well-being that are stronger than others, and breaking down our analysis into these 8 pillars helps us to pinpoint areas that need improvement.
For this staff piece, we asked members of Mentality to answer 2 questions:
What is one pillar you do well and what do you do? How do you practice this pillar?
What is one pillar you want to improve upon? How will you do this?
Strengths
I take care of my mental and emotional health by taking time to become encapsulated in my own space. Writing in my journal helps me reflect on the day's events and the impact they had on me. -Molly Efros
Environmental — I take pride in tending to my physical environment, purposefully surrounding myself with things, scents, and sounds I find beautiful. I find physical beauty in my environment directly and positively impacts my personal wellbeing! -Alaina Schallwig
Physical - I am prioritizing and making more of an effort to take care of myself physically; I'll be running my first 5K in a few weeks! -Sydney Kim
I feel like my strongest pillar is social because I always take time out of my day to hang out with friends and ask how they are doing. This also plays in to emotional/mental because if I am ever feeling sad or upset I always ask my friends if they want to go out to eat or buy cookie dough to make cookies together and just relax. -Ashley Bond
Financial; I put 80% of money I make into my savings account and leave it there, the other 20% I put in my checking account and allow myself to use occasionally (usually on bubble tea). -Jennie Wang
I'm pretty good with the mental/emotional health pillar, I think. I'm good at taking stock of what exactly is distressing me at a given time and taking steps to fix it. Usually this involves a lot of lists and deadlines, but it's a good way to get myself motivated for what I need to do, and to actually be able to see it and write it down is helpful so that way it's not just a nebulous worry in my mind. - Diane
Spiritual - When feeling mentally burnt out, prioritizing my relationships with family helps me recharge and stay grounded. -Suzanne Irani
In the past few months I have been doing particularly well with the social pillar. I've been making a conscious effort to say "yes" more, and have found that the more I put myself out there, the easier it gets. I've also found a solid group of friends that help me to be the best version of myself. - Kaylina Savela
Improvements
Mental/Emotional – I struggle with taking mental health days and taking time for myself to reset. I could work on making sure to set aside that time for myself when I need it, as opposed to trying to push through all of the time. - Sydney Kim
I can definitely improve upon my mental/emotional pillar. I'm great at recognizing my emotions and pinning them down, but I can definitely improve upon taking the right steps to improve my mental health in the moment (especially in terms of self-care and self-compassion). -Emily Hein
Social; instead of doing homework all the time in my room and avoiding my friends, I will reserve one day of the week to forget about school, work, and my future worries and simply be present with my friends. - Jennie Wang
I want to do better at the occupational aspect. Because I'm currently being supported financially by my parents, the occupational aspect isn't as pressing to me, so I don't feel as much of a need to do it, even if I'd like to, which leads to me letting deadlines slip by and then feeling guilty about that. I want to be able to treat it more like something that I have to do, so that way I actually get around to applying for a position and can feel better about having more of my own agency. - Diane
Emotional Mental - I would like to work on being kinder to myself through allowing for mistakes and encouraging growth from them. -Suzanne Irani
I am working on improving my financial pillar by trying to put money into savings each time I receive a paycheck. - Liz Hoornstra
