2011philippines

Incontro Romano

Manila, Philippines edition

February 26, 2011

Final Poster Presentation

Theme "LIFE STYLE, TRUE WELL BEING"

Special Guest Speaker, Dr. Edna Monzon

who spoke about the "Reproductive Health" Bill and its potential harmful effects on family, woman, and the Filipino nation in general...

Paper entitled

SPIRITUAL WELLNESS AND POSITIVE BEHAVIOR

“Wellness is a multidimensional state of being describing the existence of positive health in an individual as exemplified by quality of life and a sense of well being. The various aspects of wellness are: 1.Emotional Wellness, 2.Intellectual Wellness, 3.Physical Wellness, 4.Environmental Wellness, 5.Social Wellness, 6.Occupational Wellness, and 7.Spiritual Wellness.

The environment affects the seven aspects of life. It is true that it is hard to feel good if you are in a place that is so messy and disorganized. Caring for our homes and other personal environment also help to maintain a sense of personal care (Corbin, Welk and Corbin, 2005). This study focuses on spiritual wellness.

An important aid in well-being, especially in spiritual wellness, is the practice of human virtues, which are “firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfection of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith” ( Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. No.1804). Spirituality is unique to each human individual. As rational creatures, our mind seeks to understand the why and how of our life (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. No.2705). We are usually helped by books and our meditation upon them. To meditate on what we read helps us to make it our own by confronting it with ourselves (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. No. 2706).We can see that spiritual wellness, which is the focus of our presentation, is very much connected to human virtues, specifically studiousness, prayerfulness and a cheerful disposition.

On our poster, you find a cheerful student who is studious and prayerful at the same time. Spiritual well-being gives importance to the values and virtues, which will guide us in achieving our goals. A person of virtuous character, an ethical person, regularly and consistently exhibits the character traits in conduct, in compliance with the associated principles calling for honest, fair, reliable trustworthy commitment to others (Paine, 1991). The cheerful and hardworking individual in addition never forgets to help her parents in the household chores and never fails to fulfill her obligations towards God, that is, to build a deep, intimate and lasting relationship with Him.

Thus, our cheerful student is on her on way to becoming a successful scientist: because of the self-mastery and joy that the human virtues facilitate in leading a morally good life (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. No.1804). Our hardworking and cheerful student is expected to be successful in her professional life.

Paper entitled

‘’WELL BEING ANALOGOUS TO SOLAR SYSTEM’’

Based on the talk of Dr. Salve Olalia (Keynote Speaker, launch of Incontro Romano 2011 Philippines), there are various dimensions of wellness, with wellness defined as a state of being well in body, mind and spirit. They are the physical, intellectual/mental, emotional, cultural, social, occupational and spiritual. 

The idea that comes to our mind is to make a poster that portrays the solar system using the nine aspects. As you can see, we place the spiritual aspect as the center of our solar system to represent the sun with other eight aspects as the planets. In the solar system, every planet is receiving light from the sun and all planets are in their proper positions: if only one of these planets will misalign from its orbit, the rest of the planets will be affected. Much more if the sun will have a problem. If something covers the light from the sun, it will have large effect on these planets. Just like in our life. If we do not allow ourselves to be enlightened and guided by our spiritual life we will be having a hard time living the other aspects as well. 

However, if we put the spiritual wellness as the center of our life we will have the ability to manage life and take care of the other aspects. In addition, how does spiritual wellness help in every aspect? 

In the social aspect, it will help us easily get along with others because the more we are with other people the more we develop ourselves as human beings. 

In the physical aspect, it will help us not to think of things that can have bad effects on our body. Instead we will think of something that will help us to have good health such as exercise, sports, eating well and proper diet. 

In the intellectual sphere, it well help us to develop our intellectual capacity, to distinguish between what is good and what is bad: we will not think of something that might harm other people. 

As to the environmental aspect, spiritual wellness will help us to be caring, to love nature, and it will give us the desire to preserve and maintain the beauty of our surroundings. 

In the financial sphere, whether we are financially well or not we would be happy as long as we are spiritually well. We will also have the means to help others financially. 

In our emotions, we may encounter difficulties with these, but if we have good spiritual life, we will have the power to control them until we get through with those problems. 

Culturally speaking, through our being joyful as part of our culture as Filipinos, we can smile and laugh easily in spite of difficulties. We can also adapt easily anywhere we go: this is because of our spiritual life. 

Lastly, in the occupational sphere, the importance of all other dimensions contributes to having a good occupation and because of our good spirit we will learn how to love our job and how to be more honest in doing it that will lead us to success.

These are some of many examples that can be given regarding the spiritual aspect: spiritual wellness helps the other aspects of well-being that each and everyone of us needs. It gives light that will serve as our guide in our daily life. A light that will help us to know if we are walking in the right path or not.

Therefore, wellness --being well in body, mind and spirit-- really depends greatly on spiritual wellness.