Finding Your Perfect Wave: Th Role of Meaning in Health and Well-Being
Finding Your Perfect Wave: Th Role of Meaning in Health and Well-Being
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Issue Date
2013
Authors
Ferracci, Nancy
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Abstract
Meaning is a significant component of an individual's life and contributes to a person's health and well-being. Anytime a person is intently engaged in an activity that they are enjoying and in which they are deeply concentrated and experiencing a positive psychological state of well-being, then that person finds that activity meaningful. The Holistic Surfing: Finding Your Perfect Wave (FYPW) health education model is based on identifying, cultivating, and pursuing meaning as a component of health and well-being in a person's life. In this model, a person defines meaning for herself or himself. Each time a person chooses an activity that they identify as meaningful, that person has chosen their perfect wave in that moment. The FYPW model is salutogenic in that it focuses on a positive aspect of a person's life instead of Western medicine's traditionally negative slant, or focus, toward disease statistics, cautionary guidelines, and preventive measures. The model is holistic in that it considers the whole person, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It is health-promoting and recognizes that people exist along a health-illness continuum at all times and that salutary resources, a uniquely defined sense of meaning for a person, and a person's ability to live a meaningful life according to their definition of meaning, can and will help a person move toward the health end of the continuum. Happiness awareness education, flow theory education, identifying and pursuing meaningful livelihood, self-awareness, trying new things, and innovating are all significant components in my model. A health education model that promotes personal meaningfulness as a valid measure of health and well-being affirms the intrinsic worth and value of each person's definition of meaningfulness.