Spirituality and Wellness
Lloyd Den Boer
Vibrant Living
If you have young children in your life , you know how transparent their moods can be . Travelling hallways as an elementary school principal , now and then I would meet a Grade 1 student on his or her way back to class from a washroom . Some students acknowledged me shyly , but the ones who did not were often more interesting . Too absorbed to notice , these students dashed past me , eager to rejoin their class . Stocking feet prancing , washed hands still wet and waving , they moved as quickly as they dared , sometimes finishing with a standing slide at their classroom door . Then , composing themselves to portray the calm that would please their teacher , they stepped into their classroom . As for me , I expanded with delight as I watched . A child eager to return to class is a precious thing ; a child animated by joyful vitality is a pleasure to behold .
Adults can experience this sense of vitality , this feeling of vibrancy too . At times , we lose ourselves to a sense of joy during ordinary experiences , whether being in the presence of people we love , immersing ourselves in the outdoors , or concentrating on a treasured task . Nevertheless , most of us agree with the poet Wordsworth that some of our capacity for spontaneous , childlike vitality falls away as we advance into adulthood . More seriously , some of us experience bouts of sadness and lethargy which feel like joy ’ s opposite . Sometimes the circumstances that foster lethargy accumulate as , growing older , we sense that our powers and opportunities are narrowing . Moreover , after more than a year of pandemic
life , who could deny that pent-up desire for a more vibrant living has only grown ?
Recommendations for more vibrant living abound . Most of them enlarge our feeling of being full of energy and life by improving our ordinary life patterns . We can choose to promote our physical health through rest and exercise . We can manage the stressors in our lives , avoiding the burden of feeling overwhelmed . We can reach out to others , expanding rather than contracting the pleasure that social contacts provide . We can plan , experiencing a greater sense of control over the aspects of our lives that are ours to shape . We can adapt our negative thought patterns , learning to accept change , see bigger pictures , and interpret our own behaviour and the behaviour of others in more balanced ways .
These recommendations , and more besides , will improve our wellness and build a foundation for vibrant life . We should take them seriously . On the other hand , are they sufficient to produce an adult version of the vitality we see in children ? Most of these recommendations focus our attention on ourselves . We are advised to notice and assess
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