The idea of Integration involves bringing separate things together to make one whole thing. Creation is about forming something new from constituent materials. But Transforming is the culmination of planning and effort. In regards to my life, this includes bringing various aspects of my life together to create the life I want to live and become that man I want to become. Self-improvement has been an interest of mine for twenty years, and I’ve tried various methods of improving my life in that time. But often I have found my self organizing my life using some form of the following areas: Spiritual, Physical, Creative, Social, Emotional, Financial, Intellectual.
Spiritual
I’m a religious man. I won’t go into details, but I am a Christian and I go to worship every Sunday. I actively participate in my congregation. But there are plenty of aspects of my spirituality that I want to improve. I want to match my actions to my beliefs.
For example, I have a difficult time studying the scriptures, but I know it is something that is good and that I want to do. I believe studying has various benefits, including filling my mind and my thoughts with good and virtuous principles, providing personal revelation and insight from the Holy Spirit, and bringing my life and my will more in line with God’s.
Physical
My motives for maintaining and developing physical health are manifold, but have included religious, social, and emotional reasons. Physical health greatly impacts all other aspect of my life. I have a kidney transplant, which means I have to take certain care of myself to keep the kidney functioning and myself alive.
The primary religious reason is that I believe my body is sacred, not evil. It is a temple, and I do not want to desecrate a temple. I do my best to avoid alcohol, illegal drugs, coffee, and similarly addictive substances. That said, sugar is probably my biggest weakness when it comes to diet. Unfortunately, I can pretty easily identify when something uses alternative sweeteners, and my tongue hates the taste of them.
Social reasons for physical health include wanting to appear attractive for a potential partner and wanting to be able to participate with friends in various activities like hiking, going to the gym, and playing pick-up games of whatever game.
For me, the primary emotional benefit of physical health is that the activities are often meditative to some extent. They help me get into a flow, stabilize my thoughts and emotions, and stay centered. I find that lifting and stretching improve mindfulness and body-to-brain connection.
Creative
I have so many projects, as can be seen in my post cataloging them. all the other ideas in this list could have the word “health” placed after them and still make sense, but nobody really talks about maintaining one’s “creative health”. And it could easily be bundled with Intellectual. But I want to keep it as a separate aspect of my life on this blog because I have such a strong focus on it.
My creative life has been rich since childhood, when I would let my imagination run wild while playing with friends. I got really into reading as a child, thanks to my grandmother, and continued to be a veracious reader through my teen years.
Video games entered my life more prominently when I was about eight or nine and have remained since, becoming a source of inspiration, but also a huge waste of time.
Creativity is important to me because it helps me feel like I’m participating in life, not just watching it. It brings a sense of joy and purpose that can be applied to other aspects of my life.
Social
I have often struggled with being social. As a kid I had a difficult time making friends. That hasn’t changed much as I’ve grown. I worked in retail and customer service for over ten years, so I can put on the mask of social interaction when needed, and even do fairly well at it, but it is not my forte and not something I generally seek.
But I want to improve my life, and that requires learning social skills, growing my network, and seeking opportunities to reach out to others. I’ve heard that connection is the cure to addiction. I can admit that I have and have had various addictions in my life, so connecting with others is vital for my emotional and mental health.
Recently I have been more active in my new congregation, trying to meet new people and putting myself out there enough that people remember my name, even if I sometimes don’t remember theirs. I can say that my outlook in life has been improving over the past few weeks, and one contributing factor is my effort to be more social.
Emotional
This is a tough one. Being a man, I often felt the social pressure to suppress emotions growing up. That didn’t work out well. I’d be fine until I wasn’t, and when I wasn’t, it was often rage or anger that took control. That led to a few very embarrassing moments throughout my younger years, and even as recently as earlier this year.
On the other side of this, I’d often shut people out of my life. I still tend to avoid difficult situations, rather than let anxiety take hold.
With the help of therapy and maturity, I’ve improved over the years. I’ve faced plenty of difficult situations and had to address my avoidance and my anger, as well as a few other deeply negative emotions like envy, enmity, resentment, fear, and lust.
I probably won’t write often about my emotional health on this blog, as that tends to be private. But as I engage with life and try to improve all aspects of my being, emotional health will follow right along with the rest.
Financial
My late teens and early twenties were a time when I worked part time in retail and therefore did not make a lot of money. I didn’t attend college for a couple of years after graduation due to health issues. Finally, those health issues were mostly addressed by the time I turned twenty-four, but by then I felt about six years behind my peers.
That time in my life has impacted every aspect, but especially my financial state. It wasn’t until age twenty-five that I finally got a full-time position, but it was still in retail, and I wasn’t making good money.
After getting fired from my job, which of course was its own trial, I found a different job in a customer support center and I realized then just how little I had been making at my previous job. When that company closed during Covid and I found another job a few months later, I realized again how little I had been making.
I won’t go into details on this blog about my financial state. But it wasn’t until the past few years that I finally started getting my finances in order, trying to save for retirement, and saving up for major expenses.
That means that, instead of being just six years behind, I feel like I’m about fifteen years behind my peers. Honestly, it is an immense weight on my mind most days, and probably one of the biggest contributors to my stress levels.
Intellectual
What do I mean by “intellectual health”? I believe that we should always be learning, because learning is progress and if we stop progressing, we fall behind. I haven’t always followed that council, but that’s just one more reason for this blog.
One of my goals with intellectual health includes a desire to spark curiosity in my soul once more, just like I had growing up when I would stay up late reading books and encyclopedias. I absorbed knowledge and I loved it, but ever since the health issues I mentioned earlier, it has been more difficult to learn and love learning.
I want to get back to the mindset of constantly wanting to learn. That is a major reason why I’m blogging about my creative projects and the skills I’m learning while working on them. I want to learn and keep myself accountable to continue doing so.
Mental
I wasn’t going to include this category originally because it ties in with so many others. But my menthol health is not in a good place. It is much better than it was about a year ago, and I can see that improvement, but I know I have far to go before I get back to what I would consider a “healthy” level of mental health.
Physical health issues and years of addictive behavior have worn away my neuroplasticity, and now I’m working hard to restore it. Things I’m doing now that I wasn’t doing consistently at the start of this year include: attending therapy once a week, watching my diet, going to the gym about two to three times a week, praying, writing, listening to music, creating music, going on walks, and socializing.
And I can see the difference. I am happier, have more motivation, have a clearer vision of the future, and harbor free negative emotions.
It’s all relative, of course. My hope is that my mental health will continue to improve in the coming months and years as I stay on this path to living the life I always imagined.
-Zed