Comprehensive Education
In order to achieve optimal health and wellness, individuals must be empowered with knowledge and information about their own body, mind, emotional and spiritual selves throughout their entire lifespan. Comprehensive education includes a brief knowledge set of the topic easily understood at the 4th grade level, indicators of thriving, indicators of warning or decline, ability to assess and establish one’s own “normal”, ability to evaluate and provide self-care, and when to seek intervention services. Education should be age appropriate, focused on self-empowerment and experiential. Comprehensive Whole Person-Centered Education (CWPCE) should be presented in seven (7) manageable components which include:
- Whole-Person Lens
- Key Elements of Life
- Physical and Physiological Self
- Sense of Self, Personal Esteem, Dignity & Worth
- Environment, Input & Surroundings
- Relationship, Love & Belonging
- Thriving: Optimal Health & Wellness
Whole Person Lens
CWPCE should identify four (4) main part of human beings, which include the body (physical self), mind (cognitive and behavioral self), spiritual self and the emotional self, identifying each one as interconnected.
Body
The body should be described as that which provides human beings with a physical vessel for mobility and experiencing life.
Mind
The mind should be described as that which enables human beings to process information, make predictions and decisions and utilize their body to act upon them.
Spirit
The spiritual self should be described as the non-physical essence of oneself that provides or includes a sense of spirituality and/or connection to other life, the planet, and the universe beyond.
Emotional Self
The emotional self should be described as a component of the body, mind and spirit that allows human beings to feel and experience emotions, as well as to feel and process connection with themselves and others.
Key Elements of Life
CWPCE should identify the six (6) key elements of life, which include:
Hope
The ability to feel and process the concept of “hope”.
Air
The ability to freely breathe clean air.
Water
The ability to receive and maintain hydration.
Nutrition
The intake of necessary calories and nutrients.
Sleep
Adequate rest to allow for on-going rejuvenation.
Activity
Movement and interaction with stimulus.
Physical and Physiological Self
CWPCE should identify how the key elements of life are made possible by the body’s fifteen (15) primary systems, and should include comprehensive education for each:
- Brain
- Circulator System
- Digestive System (including teeth)
- Endocrine System
- Energetic and Electromagnetic Systems (including Aura, Chakras, etc.)
- Exocrine System
- Fascial System
- Immune and Lymphatic System
- Integumentary System
- Muscular System
- Nervous System
- Renal/Urinary System
- Reproductive and Sexual System
- Respiratory System
- Skeletal System
Sense of Self, Personal Esteem, Dignity & Worth
CWPCE must also recognize the ability to form to achieve positive, healthy and cooperative outcomes and relationships is influenced by an individual’s own understanding and sense of self. In addition, a poor sense of self can result in the inability to make healthy decisions, ultimately resulting in lower or poor functioning body, mind or spirit. To address this, CWPCE includes education focused on empowering individuals to:
- Develop a clear understanding of personal values, beliefs, boundaries, and strengths
- Be secure in one’s individual rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the ability to participate fully in one’s community
- Achieve occupational fulfilment, and a sense of purpose and ability to contribute to the community in ways that are meaningful and fulfilling to oneself
- Achieve self-affirmation and healthy, encouraging self-talk
- Able to express oneself completely, fully and honestly
- Able to assert and feel one’s own inherent dignity and self-worth
- Able to understand one’s own body, mind, spirit and emotional self, and how to listen and respond as needed
- Able to explore what works for best for oneself to more fully understand self and community; Able to explore, adopt and customize a variety of moral frameworks, such as religions, human designs, etc
Environment, Input & Surroundings
The ability to experience hope, breathe freely, access optimal hydration and nutrition, and to achieve optimal sleep and activity are directly impacted by key environmental factors, input and surroundings. The absence or opposite of these trigger stress and survival responses in the body and mind, which can lead to long-term chronic physical, mental and emotional damage. CWPCE should include information about the importance of:
- Shelter
- Feeling of Safety
- Ability to obtain resources, exchange goods, and to participate in commerce
- Access to complete and accurate information
- Healthy routines
- Access to positive energy
- Ability to experience new events, input and opportunities
- Nature
- Mobility and transportation options
- Sense of Justice
- Comfort
- Pursuit of happiness, or the ability to explore, identify and do that which brings joy
Relationship, Love & Belonging
CWPCE should also convey human beings are innately oriented to cooperating with other human beings to achieve common goals starting from the moment of birth. Human relationships play a role in meeting physical needs, as well as influencing positive environmental factors. CWPCE should include information and tools for to empower an individual’s:
- Ability to communicate effectively and assertively
- Access to understanding and developing cultural awareness and traditions
- Sense of spirituality and or connection to other life, the planet, and the universe beyond
- Ability to give and receive love and affection
- Ability to affirm self and others
- Sexual fulfillment
- Achievement of shared goals
- Assistance with developing one’s own identity
- Ability to form intellectual, spiritual, physical or emotional bonds
Thriving: Optimal Health & Wellness
Finally, CWPCE should identify the ability to easily identify holistic optimal health and wellness. The Whole Person-Centered Optimal Health & Wellness approach recognizes the preceding components of human beings are interrelated. A damaged self-esteem can impact a person’s decision-making processes and circulatory system, and vice versa. CWPCE should recognize optimal health and wellness is achieved when:
- The body is able to achieve and maintain its greatest mobility capacity, free from aches, pains and physical discomfort or chronic illness
- The mind is able to process fully and clearly, and is able to make decisions in the best interest of self and others
- The (spirit) consistently able to achieve a state of happiness, inner peace, and fulfillment and is able to maintain connection between oneself (body, mind and soul) and others, free from external substances
- As a component of body, mind and spirit, the emotional self allows human beings to feel and experience emotions, as well as to feel and process connection with themselves and others.
Comprehensive Education Factors
CWPCE also recognizes that comprehensive education requires at least six (6) factors:
- A brief description of the component (I.E. describing nutrition or the skeletal system)
- Indicators of thriving that explain how an individual would know things are working as they should
- Indicators of warning or decline that explain how and when a person might need to pay greater attention to a certain area of the body, mind, spirit or emotional self
- Information about conducting a self-evaluation and providing self-care
- Information about when to seek intervention from outside services, and what those services might be
- Referrals to additional information and tools
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