Opinion: Coronavirus crisis shows it’s time to become well-being centered

A crisis can bring about a systemic change in the way in which we see the world, and ourselves. The time is now to shift our mindsets.

What if, long before this horrible pandemic, we had a well-being centered society, in which we put all of our physical and mental health first? What if we valued mental health and shared the psychology of wellness as a prevention strategy for our children’s well-being? Even now, during a crisis, what if we placed the well-being of every person and family in our society at the center of our crisis management relief bill, with support for mothers and fathers to stay at home with pay and with access to home-based educational resources that continue the learning and social-emotional development of their children?

And here’s the toughest question: What if this well-being focus would have actually prevented this crisis and we would be better able to prevent the next … or at the very least, made us all far more resilient, with far fewer people suffering?

A shift from reaction to prevention

The focus upon treatment and crisis management in our society and health care system needs to shift to prevention. Prevention — which includes early diagnosis, assessments, interventions and outcome measures — more simply put, is doing good things now to prevent bad things from ever happening. My work, which is at the intersection of education and psychology, proactively prevents mental illness by giving people of all ages tools to construct a healthy self, thereby ameliorating any symptoms that may arise due to adverse childhood experiences and outdated psychological mindsets in adulthood.

Well-being refers to your psychological and physical health, where health is not simply the absence of mental or physical illness, but the more positive connotation of how well your life is going. Your well-being is what is good for you! Well-being includes emotional health, vitality and satisfaction, life direction and the ability to make a difference, physical health and energy to function fully, healthy behaviors such as diet and exercise, quality of relationships, financial stability, and living a good life. Even people with pre-existing health issues can strengthen all of these measures of well-being.

Anyone who cares — about children, students, parents, teachers, policy makers, mental health counselors, medical professionals, epidemiologists, and health care policy makers — needs to better understand just how accessible new psychological tools are to not merely address current health issues and concerns but to prevent them in the first place.

From an external to internal focus

We need a new paradigm to live life in our complex world or risk an ever-decreasing quality of life. We need a new lens through which to view our lives that better frees and releases full human potential and allows children, adolescents, young adults and all adults to flourish. Primarily, our thinking or mindset needs to shift from the external to the internal, to what is going on inside our hearts and minds, versus the current focus on external factors, such as: the accumulation of wealth, looking good to others, social status and the exercise of power and domination over others.

People’s health and well-being, and therefore their quality of life, are affected dramatically by lifestyle behaviors which are shaped or formed by their personal beliefs and assumptions about themselves and their place in the world.

Let’s take this time to dream again of a better way of living. From this transformed mindset, there is an abundance of healthy nutritious foods for all people in the U.S. and worldwide. The problems of poor nutrition, pollution, climate change and sustainability of our communities and planet overall will be solved, because in the new paradigm, the internal well-being of each person is the priority. Therefore, we all will naturally want to take care of our environment and each other due to our raised consciousness. We will all be focused upon our own health and well-being because we will realize that it serves us, others in our family, and all in our human family.

We need to envision a transformed system of health and well-being that can support people in gaining self-knowledge for personal potential so they can succeed in all areas of life. Then, we can put into action psychology of well-being methods to help us see and achieve a life of health, happiness and flourishing — for all!