By Donald Ardell
Over the course of many years, I’ve noticed that people have similar questions about the nature of wellness. For a major gathering of 500 or so spa leaders from around the world in Marrakech next month, I put together a list of questions frequently asked to spark interest and discussion for a joint presentation I’m giving with Dr. John Travis, founder of the Wellness Resource Center and a pioneer in the movement. I thought it might be of interest to list a few of these questions.
Question 1: What is your briefest possible definition of REAL wellness?
Well, if I had to offer a wellness definition that fit the 140 character “Tweet” standard, my answer would be: A positive lifestyle designed for superb fitness that embraces critical thinking, exuberance, joy, meaning & freedoms physical and mental.
Question 2: Did you and Dr. John Travis, Dr. Halbert Dunn and others often mentioned as “founders” start from scratch with the wellness idea?
Certainly not. A philosopher named Karl Popper said: We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or un-indebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.
I recognize and embrace the wisdom of Karl Popper. Nothing about the wellness movement started from scratch, free of the past. All wellness promoters are indebted to innovators too numerous to mention, many of whom we can’t even identify.
However, depending upon your view of what wellness is, a good number of key individuals, events and institutions can and should be recognized. However, please be aware that everyone who studies and promotes the wellness concept has his/her own ideas as to what’s most important about it. This includes Dr. Travis and myself. We have many different notions about what matters most for enhanced quality of life and human happiness. However, our different perspectives are
complementary, for the most part.
Therefore, while we would agree on the seminal roles of many pioneers of the wellness idea, including of course Halbert L. Dunn, M.D. who coined and described the phrase high level wellness, we would (and have in books and articles) also identified a few different contributors who deserve recognition.
Question 3: Where do you see wellness going in 20 years?
Where REAL wellness goes (the only kind of wellness worth our best efforts to advance at all) depends almost entirely on larger global issues over which we have, as individuals, almost no influence (though, of course, collectively, it’s all in our hands).
Question 4: How can spas help develop wellness?
Certain kinds of spas (those with sufficient size, resources and leadership) can advance REAL wellness and, in time, guide the industry to a dramatically more significant role in advancing the health and quality of life standards of populations. The business of spas, no matter what other services they offer, should be the promotion of human happiness and positive mental well being.