What's your 'five-a-day'?

I set the group that gathered for the Joy Club last week some 'homework'. What was it? To discover their wellbeing 'five-a-day'.Now, we've all heard of the 'five-a-day' concept – at least you will have if you've lived in the UK in the past few years. It's a simple and popular device that the powers that be have been using to get us to eat more of the things that will keep us healthy: so a handful of dried mango pieces is, say, one of your five-a-day, where a salad - full of freshly sprouted mung beans (one point), tomatoes (another point) and lettuce (one point) might be three. The idea is that if you take care to accumulate five of your five-a-day in any one day you'll stand a chance of maintaining a good state of physical health long-term.Well, I was thinking, it's all very well eating things to preserve a state of physical equilibrium, but what about looking at what creates a balanced state of emotional and spiritual wellbeing... a state of joy?I kicked off the Club with a 'straw poll' to find out levels of subjective wellbeing, using a favourite metaphor of mine: the 'joy tank'... the idea being that when our joy (or wellbeing) tank is full, at 80 per cent and beyond, everything 'flows' in our lives and we experience daily 'miracles' and synchronicities as a matter of course (at least in my experience). This often comes as a function of us living a life that is true to who we are - and when we reach this state we generally don't have to do much to maintain it (other than continue to live a life that is true to our essential nature, that is!)When the levels on our joy tank drop much below 30 or 40 per cent, however - thankfully the members of our little group didn't fall into this category - it's much more difficult to maintain our energy and sense of wellbeing - and we need more than a jump-start to get us going. It's then that concepts like the wellbeing 'five-a-day' come in handy.... if you know what you need to do to make yourself feel good, what 'makes your heart sing' (in our group it was the quality of 'connection' - with other people and, interestingly, with Nature, that came out top, though it could be anything from hearing birdsong at dawn to smiling at a stranger... ) you can go some way to filling up your wellbeing battery - and keeping it topped up - yourself.So what are your wellbeing 'five-a-day'? I'd love to know.An introduction to the Joy Club runs 6-7pm on Thursday May 17th at Transition Guildford offices, 2-3 Eastgate Court, Guildford. Bring a friend!