Lessons for Living       
Weekly Lesson: "The Nurturing Wheel"

What do you do to keep yourself growing and developing in life?

What do you do that helps you stay vital and alive? How do you nurture yourself? To nurture means to nourish, to feed, or to aid in growth and development. How do you nourish yourself? How are you helping yourself to grow?

Here is a simple test to help you see how well you are doing and to discover what you may be neglecting. It is a Nurturing Wheel and is simply a circle divided into six equal pie-shaped segments. You can easily draw one for yourself. Each segment represents one important area of life development along with questions to consider. The areas are:

• The Body – How often do you exercise? What is your diet like?
• The Mind – How do you intellectually stimulate yourself? What have you recently learned that is new?
• The Emotions - How well do you recognize your feelings? What do you do with them? How easily do you express them?
• Leisure – Do you have fun and how often do you have it?
• Creativity – How do you express your imagination and originality? What is this like for you?
• Spirituality – What gives your life meaning? What helps you get through the tough times?

With the Nurturing Wheel, use a pencil to shade in each segment according to the extent to which you are fulfilling that area in your life. You start at the center and shade outward towards the rim of the wheel. The more you are doing for yourself the further the shading goes. Be sure to fill in each segment.

When you finish, look at your Wheel, and it will show where you are investing your energy and what is being neglected. Wheels are meant to roll. Will yours roll or is it too flat on one side? Any flattened areas need your attention. Look to see what you are you neglecting. How can you nurture that part of your life? What do you need to be doing that you are not? The goal of the Nurturing Wheel is to have it nicely rounded so that the journey through life will not be so bumpy. A rounded wheel indicates that you are taking care of all the essentials of life and that you can nurture yourself well.

If you can nurture yourself, you will also know how to nurture others. Taking good care of yourself makes life go better.

©2000 Daniel H. Johnston. All Rights Reserved.

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