Teddy health

This week at youth group I lead a post-holiday reflective exercise where they drew their past few weeks as a teddy bear.

Each part of the body represented a segment of life and, depending on how healthy the body part looked, matched how they felt the part of their life was going.

The head represented the intellect. Is your grey matter being stimulated by what you are studying, watching and reading?

One arm represented the physical well being. Are you fit? Are you exercising? Are you getting enough sleep? How is your diet?

The other arm represented the emotions. How have you been feeling? Appropriately happy or sad?

Your torso was representative of relationships. How are things between you and others? Friends? Enemies? Family? Your partner/spouse?

One leg represented vocational welfare. How are things at work or school? Are you stressed? Are you taking time off to do things that you enjoy? Are you giving enough time in your life to hobbies?

The last limb represented the environmental health. Are you aware of your connectedness to the planet around you? To you recycle? Compost? Care about environmental issues?

Finally, there is a space for the spiritual health over the heart of the bear. In the relationship between you and God, how strong is it? Are you maintaining the spiritual disciplines of regular prayer, bible reading and church attendance? Are you following what God is trying to teach you or resisting?