Linking Spheres to Attain Mutual Wellness

          As part of an exploratory committee for the University, I have recently began studying the 7 spheres of wellness, in an effort to encourage participation in various wellness-related programs on campus.  Due to the addition of an 8th sphere (financial wellness) to the common scheme by our group, I thought of a new opportunity to encourage individuals to interact with, and to contribute to their community.
 
The benefits of following the 7 spheres of wellness are intuitive, cumulative, and contagious.  Each sphere (emotional wellness, intellectual wellness, environmental wellness, spiritual wellness, physical wellness, social wellness, and occupational wellness) addresses a distinct aspect of one's life that can cause stress, may require expertise of some kind to get under control, and is important to control to achieve general well-being.  It was not difficult for our group to decide that financial wellness was an important additional topic to address, as many people experience stress or confusion when trying to tackle their finances.  Thus, our group added financial wellness as the 8th sphere to tackle, which will likely consist - at least at first - of individual consultations and follow-ups with experienced financial planners.
 
It was in the development of this new idea that I recognized the overlap between financial wellness and social wellness.  Social wellness can be interpreted as prioritizing, to a certain extent, contributing to the common welfare of one's community over one's own self. 
 
Although individuals' time contributions to their community is incredibly important (more important than financial contributions? There's probably a case to be made for both), allocation of one's time for their community likely fits either solely under the social wellness sphere or in the overlap between the social wellness sphere and the occupational wellness sphere, as a person must have sufficient work-life balance to have the freedom to donate their time to their community, for example volunteering at a charity event.

In much the same way that someone needs to have free time in order to donate their time, however, they also need to have disposable income in order to donate their money.  Someone must simultaneously plan their finances on a monthly basis, allocate a certain, relatively nonburdensome amount of money to give to charity/their community/a local organization, and then they must be disciplined enough to stick to their budget.  In this way, a person can take control of their finances while improving their social wellness.  This can be achieved through the support and expertise offered in financial wellness programs.

Although in depth interpretations of what each sphere means and how we can collectively work on improving our wellnesses can seem boring, overly theoretical, and too optimistic, the underlying ideas are, again, intuitive.

In order to be universally "well" every person will likely have to achieve some level of emotional, intellectual, environmental, financial, spiritual (broadly speaking, not pigeon-holed into the practice of any specific religion, per se), physical, social, and occupational wellness.  In this situation, as I have just outlined, it is important to incorporate one's charitable contributions in their financial planning.  Surely everyone wants to give back, but only those who have saved enough (time or money) can.

Be well.