Information from this section is drawn from the IIC’s Pathway to Wellness Course, Touchstone 3 “Seeking Direction”
While attending post-secondary, it is important to maintain a healthy lifestyle and balance of your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. This section will explain what balance means in terms of Indigenous ways of knowing and how it can help you manage and find balance in your life.
What is wellness?
Maintaining good mental health involves balancing the demands of life, managing stress, and maintaining a positive outlook. Good mental health is more than just the absence of mental illness; it involves having a positive state of mind, resilience, and the ability to cope with life’s challenges.
According to the Thunderbird Partner Foundation (2020):
Wellness from an Indigenous perspective is a whole and healthy person expressed through a sense of balance of spirit, emotion, mind and body. Central to wellness is belief in one’s connection to language, land, beings of Creation, and ancestry, supported by a caring family and environment. (p. 4).
The diagram below outlines what wellness looks like in a circular form. The circle is considered a sacred symbol within many First Nations teachings. The concept of wholeness and everything on Mother Earth being interconnected is illustrated through the circle (Thunderbird Partner Foundation, 2020, p. 7).
“Indigenous Wellness Framework” Thunderbird Partnership Foundation
