Wellness • Reflection • Faith
Making Life
Worth Living Well
Join me, a fellow life traveller on the journey to health and wellness. Within these pages, I hope to inspire, encourage and enlighten you on the path to physical, emotional and spiritual wholeness.
A thoughtful approach to living well
Body,
Mind
& Spirit
Our physical beings comprise of many aspects: what we eat, how we move, how we rest, how we manage the stressors in our lives, how we convey all that to the world around us in the way we look and manage our homes. Some things about our physical beings may be lost. I will never be able to jump and fall like I did as a kid, but I can maximize my stretch movements. Certainly I eat more nutritious foods now than when I was a child and I certainly exercise/move more. I have a better understanding of the impact on my lifestyle decision on my physical being.
Studies have shown that prayer and meditation are key to developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. For some, prayer and meditation to God are their spiritual practices while others have their own form of meditation and reflection. While I am an advocate of prayer and meditation to God (and my comments assume that) you may substitute the suggestions for the theology that you practice. If you do not use a journal I would encourage you to do so. You might want to do a thirty day trial of journaling. Many of the suggestions listed should be written down. For one, the practice of physically writing something seals the words further into our minds and souls. Secondly, it is a record of the snapshot of our feelings, concerns, praises in a specific time frame. Sometimes when we encounter a difficulty and wonder how we will ever get through, a journal with past concerns and issues reminds us that we did get through them.
Three parts of one whole
Body
In embarking on this journey towards wellness, we have to ensure that our vessels, the “containers” which take us there are ready for the task. Many of us take our bodies…
Ideas, resources and suggestions — pick and choose what works best for you.
Mind
You may not want “book” learning but still make a point of learning something new each year, each month, each day. One of the easiest ways to accomplish that is to read.…
Spirit
Studies have shown that prayer and meditation are key to developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. For some, prayer and meditation to God are their spiritual practices while others have their…
The Blog
From the Well of Encouragement
Meet Virginia Ruth
A nurse, a coach,
a writer
Virginia Ruth has been a blogger for over a decade, encouraging and inspiring others to live life well. She brings to her writing her experience as a registered nurse, certified health and wellness coach and wellness program director. Having worked in a multitude of settings- hospital, doctor's office, school nursing, public health, and corporate wellness program development, she has seen first hand the change in health habits and culture and has been instrumental in educating others in living a healthy lifestyle. She has spoken locally and nationally on a variety of health and wellness topics.
As she has developed more of her writing style, she has been drawn to exploring the intersection of faith and our day-to-day lives and how we can live into the abundant life that God desires for us. Her work has appeared in numerous Guideposts publications as well as other devotionals.
Registered nurse Certified health & wellness coach
Wellness program director Writer & speaker
Writing & Publications
Her work in print
Selected books
Too Amazing for Coincidence: God’s Saving Grace
faithful paws: 100 Devotions Inspired by Dogs
Comfort for Caregivers: 100 Devotions to Lift Your Spirit
In God’s Time: True Stories of Transformation and Answered Prayer
Comfort for Caregivers
Heavenly Interventions: Too Amazing for Coincidence
Learning To Heal: Reflections on Nursing School in Poetry and Prose
Winner of the Tillie Olsen Creative Writing award and 1st Prize for Creative Works, American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year, 2019.
“Learning to Heal is the best kind of writing working class studies has to offer: actual workers telling their real-life stories with poetic, authentic, and instructional voices. I laughed, I cried, and I learned a lot as I read. An exceptional view into the inner lives of a too-often overlooked, but crucial,…
“A captivating collection of poems and personal stories, in which the work of nursing and the lives of those who undertake it are given voice. Time collapses—the stories don’t follow a chronological order, but instead we see the parallels between experiences, change in a wider context, and the kind of complex class,…
One ought, Every day at least To hear a little song, Read a good poem, See a fine picture, And, if it were possible, To speak a few reasonable words.
Goethe
Life is worth living, so live it well.