“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” Mark Twain.
September and October whirled by as I keynoted wellness conferences and provided training in wellness coaching in Brazil and the Azores Islands (part of Portugal, 900 miles out in the Atlantic!). Once again I was struck by how we human beings are more similar than different, how our needs and our challenges to be well are all basically the same. From the high-rise apartments of Sao Paulo to the coast of Portugal I saw that life is all about relationships, taking in energy through breath, food and more, and giving it out, even though it all takes on many different appearances.
It is fascinating how we all have the same needs and figure out such variations on how to get them met. Yet, helping people to improve their lifestyles, through a process like wellness coaching, seems to transcend many of the details. Despite what a person is eating, their metabolism still works the same way all over the world over. The challenge, as always, is about becoming conscious of what you are eating, how often, how much, and all the patterns of thought and environmental influences that affect the behavior of eating. My job is easy. I train a “local person” to coach others in the same culture. They know the cultural norms, traditions, taboos, influences and opportunities that their client faces far better than I do. I can teach the wellness coaching student the behavioral change skills, but they can relate to the challenges their own clients face because they are closer to the experience of that person.
What’s exciting is to see the interest, curiosity and enthusiasm about wellness coaching worldwide. At The 10th Annual Congress of The Brazilian Association for Quality of Life, my keynote was very well received, and my pre-conference two-day training on wellness coaching attracted a surprisingly huge crowd! People not only from Brazil, but also Argentina and Chile grabbed the opportunity to learn more about ways to help people succeed at lasting lifestyle improvement.
In The Azores, at The International Congress of Sport and Physical Activity of Angra do Heroismo, I enjoyed not only our wonderful hosts, and the participants, but also getting to know some of the other speakers who came from Portugal,
Finland, and the U.K. Sharing meals together we found much common ground as we all work to bring wellness forward in the world.
In countries outside the United States the usual argument for "wellness" being about holding down healthcare costs gets little attention. The fact is that other countries do a much better job of helping their citizens and their corporations by operating healthcare systems that shoulder more of the cost burden at the federal level. The argument becomes more about productivity, quality of life, reducing turnover and absenteeism, increasing presenteeism, etc. Of course, for the individual, wellness is seldom about cost-savings (even though that can be huge). It is about quality of life, and that is something everyone, everywhere wants…and, what we all basically want, once again, is the same thing. The process of being healthy comes down to the same basics as well. Whether we are body surfing in Rio, cross-country skiing in Minnesota, or hiking in Colorado, we all need to be more active. You know, traffic produces stress everywhere, though one might argue that Sao Paulo traffic is in a high-stress league of it’s own. Jobs have been downsized and dumb-sized all over the world producing more stress-related disorders and ill health. Finding, preparing and consuming food that is clean, fresh and healthy is a challenge no matter what the cuisine. Finding meaning and purpose is a universal human quest. It is tempting in hard economic times to pull back and think only of the immediate task at hand, yet it is exactly those times to raise our gaze to the horizon and reach out. We are indeed, all in this together and together we can do so much more together than we can alone.
Ways to stay in touch with Worldwide Wellness:
- Follow Dr. Arloski’s blog “Wellness Wisdom and Wanderings” http://realbalancewellness.wordpress.com/.
- Become a “fan” of Real Balance Global Wellness Services on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Real-Balance-Global-Wellness-Services-llc/297219504575
- Read: “Wellness Organizations Worldwide” a report by Don Ardell for The National Wellness Institute. http://www.nationalwellness.org/pdf_files/WM-International.pdf
- Connect in through The International Directory of Wellness Professionals. http://idwellness.org/
- Connect in at “International Wellness Day” at The National Wellness conference. Here is the link that was about the 2010 event. http://www.nationalwellness.org/index.php?id_tier=90&id_c=229
- Simply travel more.
By Michael Arloski, Ph.D., PCC
