Wellness can be defined as, "the process and state of a quest for maximum human functioning that involves the body, mind and spirit."

Wellness involves thoroughly exploring and tending to, all the major areas of one's life, including: Physical, emotional, mental, relational, occupational, financial and spiritual.

For a complete assessment of your overall wellness, a good beginning is to rate yourself on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, in each of these categories.  Physical includes nutrition, exercise, sleep, rest and relaxation.  Emotional includes being able to effectively express your feelings and manage your stress.  Mentally includes intellectual stimulation, time management, developing healthy thoughts, decision making and problem solving.

Relational includes the ability to establish and maintain healthy relationships, both personal and professional.  Occupation includes being able to find meaningful and satisfying work.  Financial includes the ability to support one's self financially and plan for retirement and other future oriented financial goals.  Spiritual includes finding meaning and purpose in life, the continual assessment of values and self-exploration.

Self-empowerment can be described as, "the ability to feel whole in and of yourself which is expressed as being confident and in control of one's life."  Self-empowerment can be achieved through increasing your self-esteem and improving your overall wellness.

If you want to more fully develop your state of wellness and self-empowerment, a therapist will work with you to evaluate each of these areas and will then formulate goals.  Once goals are specified, an action plan will be developed to successfully achieve these goals.