Most of us are familiar with a simple framework for wellbeing: mind-body-spirit or mind-body-soul or physical-mental-spiritual. It’s familiar, easy to remember, and tidy.

But it’s incomplete.

This isn’t because it’s wrong. It’s because it leaves out much of what actually shapes our lives.

If true wellbeing were contained within just those three buckets, we would not see so many people doing “all the right things” and still feeling depleted, disconnected, or stuck. We meditate, we exercise, we try to think positively, and yet something still feels off or unresolved.

That’s because wellbeing is not a single practice, or even a small set of practices. It’s multi-dimensional. It’s systemic, and it actually includes areas of life we don’t always label as “wellness.”

For example, where does financial wellbeing live in the mind/body/spirit model? And yet money is one of the biggest sources of stress in modern life. Chronic financial dysfunction creates pressure that affects sleep, mental clarity, relationships, emotional regulation, and physical health.

Another example is our environment. If you live or work in a space that feels chaotic, unsafe, or draining, that environmental dysfunction bleeds into your nervous system, your mood, your energy, and your ability to focus or rest.

When we reduce wellbeing to too few dimensions, we unintentionally blind ourselves to many of the forces shaping our vitality, happiness, and sense of aliveness.

Over time, I’ve come to see wellbeing as something far more expansive.

Not just how we think or how we move, but:

• How we relate to ourselves, others, and the world

• How we earn and spend

• How we learn and create

• How we belong and connect within our communities

• How we experience pleasure and purpose

• How we move our energy, not just our muscles

• How we live inside our spaces

This broader view doesn’t make wellbeing more complicated for the sake of it. It makes it more accurate to reality, and ultimately more actionable.

Once we name the dimensions that influence our lives, we gain the ability to work with them consciously instead of being shaped by them unconsciously.

I’ve been immersed in wellness practices for pretty much all of my life, long before I ever used the words “wellness” or “wellbeing.” It’s something I’m deeply passionate about.

I’ve worked with powerful and talented healers, trainers, practitioners, and other experts around the world across many disciplines.

I’ve helped build and guide businesses and practices focused on health and vitality.

I’ve spent time working inside the very broken conventional U.S. healthcare system, observing that only a narrow slice of one dimension or system is ever really addressed, often only once something has gone wrong.

And more recently, I’ve developed, from scratch, my own multi-modal wellness practice, drawing from many of the most impactful practices I’ve experienced myself.

I’ve seen so many angles of this world, and across all of it, one thing has become clear: no single modality holds the whole answer. In fact, no three or five or seven do either because we are made up of much more than that.

Furthermore, the most powerful shifts happen when these different dimensions intersect. When physical vitality supports mental clarity. When emotional expression frees up energy. When environment, relationships, purpose, and pleasure are all allowed to matter.

This perspective isn’t theory. It’s about lived experience and what is rooted in all of us.

Over the next 12 days, I’ll be exploring 12 distinct dimensions of wellbeing, each with a short, clear focus:

• Environmental (Harmony)

• Relational (Connection)

• Spiritual (Inspiration)

• Intellectual (Learning)

• Financial (Stability)

• Sexual (Life Force)

• Energetic (Flow)

• Vocational (Contribution)

• Social (Belonging)

• Physical (Vitality)

• Emotional (Expression)

• Mental (Clarity)

Each day, I’ll take a deeper look at what that dimension actually means in real life, how it tends to show up when it’s supported, and how it shows up when it’s neglected. I’ll share general best practices, personal reflections, and examples of tools, methodologies, or practitioners that I have found to work within that dimension for me.

I also believe wellbeing doesn’t have to be heavy to be meaningful, so I’m embracing the spirit of the season and tying each dimension to a symbolic “gift” from the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas song. This is a way for me to express my own creative energy, bringing rhythm, familiarity, and a bit of play into the conversation.

These dimensions are not independent and disconnected from each other.

They overlap. They influence each other. They amplify each other.

What makes this approach powerful isn’t focusing on all twelve at once. It’s recognizing which dimensions need attention, and how combining them in thoughtful, multi-modal ways can unlock real change.

This exploration into both a broader and more specific view of wellness is about seeing yourself, your life, and your wellbeing more clearly.

Tomorrow, we begin with the first “gift”: A partridge in a pear tree, a symbol for the environment that holds everything else.