Mental Fitness Minute:What is wellness and treating the whole person such as the mind, body and spirit?

On March 16, a grassroots committee hosted the Worland Mental Fitness Fair at the Worland Community Center.

Members of the panel were Dr. Ralph Louis, psychologist from Oxbow Counseling in Basin; Janae Harman, owner of Family Circle Counseling in Worland; Mary Johnson, CEO of Oxbow Counseling in Worland; and Carol Bell, provisionally licensed therapist at Foundations Counseling in Cody.

The panel answered prepared questions that came from the committee and from similar events in Shell, Greybull and Cowley.

The Northern Wyoming News will be covering the questions on a weekly basis throughout the next several weeks.

What is wellness and treating the whole person such as the mind, body and spirit?

Johnson: Wellness, mental strength, mental capacity, I think it comes down to prepping and seeking supports, and … being aware of our communities and the resources that are there, when we need them; but, also doing some preventative work prior to a crisis and making sure we’re making those connections … that we’re linking to people and purposes and things that give us some meaning and make us feel better at times, and that we have a connection to people when we need to reach out.

Harman: I just think that those all go hand in hand in making us well. I think that we have to nurture whenever there’s physical ailments. Often we have some emotional difficulty, so we need to nurture that physical well being as well. I think of the mental part as, like, we have a purpose in the world and we have goals and we have a direction. So that is vital to us feeling like life is worth living, and spiritual, whatever spiritual means to you to nurture that so that you can feel a sense of meaning and contributes to that sense of meaning. But they all go together. And if we are missing one, we’re missing one of those essential things that help us feel well in the world.

Louis: That’s also where interventions are. So when you have a problem, the intervention can be physical, that can be mental, it can be spiritual, that the interventions can come from many different directions. And so reaching out to a spiritual advisor is not a bad idea. Reaching out to someone who might help you get more physically active is not a bad idea. And reaching out to a therapist to talk through things with you is a good idea.

Next week’s question is how do we get a mental illness?