The Traits of Wellbeing

Wellbeing and mindfulness are two of the hottest topics in the world these days. First of all let’s take a moment to specify what exactly they mean. Wellbeing basically amounts to health and happiness, leaning a little more towards the nonphysical aspect than the physical—though it’s difficult to focus on the nonphysical if you’re in chronic pain. Mindfulness is currently one of the most popular paths to get that wellbeing. Some of the people with prominent mindfulness practices that go back thousands of years made headlines recently where they came out publicly to say that many of our current popular processes don’t work. To paraphrase, they said that many of these processes take out and repackage the active ingredients from this complex, wholistic practice, but the trouble is it doesn’t really end up working.

I interned with a world-renowned therapist once who had a “miracle cure” that he used with almost every one of his clients. He would give each of them a rubber band to wear around their wrist (you can probably tell where this is going), and would tell them to snap themselves hard with it whenever they thought about whatever it was they were trying not to think about. It actually worked well for about two out of three people, but the problem was that nearly all of them relapsed after a few weeks or months. And mindfulness is in many ways not much different from the affirmations that were so popular twenty years ago—until they were revealed to often do more harm than good. You distract yourself from the problem for a few minutes, but as Big Daddy said in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, “It’s always there in the morning.”

Let’s see if we can do better. The most basic predictor of wellness is peace—peace of mind, peace of body, and peace of spirit. I find this is really what most people want when they say they want other things, and if you have peace then you’re usually alright no matter what. A lot of people try to take a shortcut to peace, but in the end, they only really end up shorting their results. So let’s examine what it takes to get there.

Dr. Thomas Paras conducted the world’s largest longitudinal study on people who live to be over 100. What he found was that in addition to long life, those people tended to have much more peace than the average person. The only real common thread they found in these people is that they didn’t worry. Peace of mind and spirit seemed to lead to peace—and therefore health—of body.

Second, there was the Harvard Grant study, the largest and most expensive study ever conducted on the human condition. It spanned 75 years, thousands of subjects from all walks of life, and millions of dollars. But when the conclusion of that study was finally published, they were able to sum up everything they had learned in just five words: happiness equals love, full stop. Also from Harvard University we have Dr. Dan Gilbert, who conducted his own studies on the university campus and wrote in his wonderful book, Stumbling Into Happiness, that “Expectations are a happiness killer.”

So we have two positives to pursue (don’t worry and commit to a life of love) and one big bear trap (expectations of future circumstances). Put them all together, and I believe you’ve got a pretty good recipe for peace. Commit to a life of love in the present moment, give up what you can’t control, and you will naturally find yourself worrying less and less, experiencing peace more and more. So there’s the “what.” The “how” is the tools I’ve spent my career developing to heal the underlying memories of fear, anger unforgiveness, and regret, enabling you to commit the life you’ve always wanted. If you haven’t tried them already, our best one is free—now and forever—so click here to give it a try!

Have a blessed, wonderful day!

Alex Loyd