The Aldea Model

By Dra. Daniela Martinez Valenzuela

Aldea’s program is unique because of its innovative model that considers every facet of health and addresses all of the issues that affect our well being. This method allows the women who participate in our programs to experience truly transformative, lasting results. 

What is health? What is well being?

The first goal of health is to prolong your life in order to enjoy it however you’d like and do the things that you want to do. But if you’re not healthy, what then? For many years, we’ve depended solely on medications and doctors to feel better and restore our good health.

During the pandemic, however, people finally started talking about a more holistic approach to health, and we started to recognize the spirit, the mind, and the body as part of our health.

Definition of health

In 1994, the World Health Organization (WHO) came up with a new definition for health, as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

Here we see that the WHO recognizes the social factor as an important facet of wellbeing, but even this definition is somewhat limited. 

Today we find even more factors that affect health. 

The subdimensions of health

• Physical Health

Physical health refers only to the functioning and structure of our body. Observing physical health tells us whether or not the way our body works and the physical appearance of our bodies and their structures are in optimal conditions within certain parameters. 

• Mental Health is divided into 3 parts: 
  • Emotional health: How the body perceives and is affected by everything around us and all the experiences that we have. 
  • Intellectual health: All of the formal and informal information that we’re exposed to. This includes all of the information that you received at home, that you read or saw on television, or that you’ve heard from other people and seen on social media, plus any formal education you’ve received (school, classes, activities, etc.) 
  • Spiritual health: Everything that motivates us, that gives us a reason to live, that helps us find individual peace.
• Social Health – social health is divided into 4 parts:
  • Occupational health: What do you do with your time? Our work affects our health, whether you’re doing a job that you chose but that has a certain amount of risk (using chemicals or having to do certain movements throughout the day that could affect your health), or you have to spend your day doing work that you don’t enjoy. If the latter is true, your negative thoughts have a negative effect on your occupational health. 
  • Financial health: Why does everything related to finances have an affect on our health? On one hand, it affects our mental health because we feel pressure, stress, or frustration. On the other hand, it affects the kind of access we have to certain services, including health services. 
  • Social health: This relates to the society we live in, the people around us, who we grew up with, our families, who we spend time with, who we work with, etc. All of this affects your overall health. 
  • Environmental health: This has to do with everything about the environment that you live in. This includes your house, the places you go, where you spend most of your day, the kind of transportation you use, etc. All of this affects your health. 

What is the most important dimension for our overall health?

Usually, the factor that people focus on the most is the physical part, and that’s what we’re usually hoping to fix or cure when we feel sick or run down. However, we now know that physical health is actually only 15% of our overall health.  

Mental health is the most important because it actually determines 50% of your well-being. Even social health is more important than physical health, determining 35% of your well being. And even though social health is less important than mental health overall, it’s still extremely important.  

Overall health is determined by the social factors we mentioned before. Things like finances, your personal relationships, your job, where you spend your day… All of that will affect your mental health. 

If you don’t have the right resources in order to recover your mental health or give it a positive outlook, this will have an effect on your physical health. 

This is one of the reasons it’s so important to work in order and in a way that respects the three spheres and gives each one its proper importance. 

The importance of harmony for your health

Dr. David Hawkis, American psychiatrist and author of many books, was able to “decipher” the map of consciousness and he published his results in a book called “The Explanation of the Map of Consciousness.” In his book he talks about every single emotion in your body, every single emotion that you feel has a different vibratory sequence. 

Why does all of this matter? Well, now we know that our organs also have certain vibratory frequencies at which they are able to function the best. And we also know that we are programmed to function with nerve impulses that go from our brains to the rest of our body.

If you introduce different vibratory frequencies for a prolonged period of time, you can interrupt your body’s harmony and make it dysfunctional. If you’re vibrating at a negative frequency, this will have negative repercussions in your body.

It’s no coincidence that ancient cultures talk about certain energy points along your spine. Some call them chakras and others call them energetic points, but they’re talking about the same thing: places where these vibrations are concentrated and can manifest certain illnesses at certain levels. 

Maintaining balance 

Everything we’ve talked about up till now is the reason we developed the health model that we’re using for Aldea. This model seeks to find and maintain balance between your physical health, mental health, and social health. The point is not to have absolutely perfect balance, but to work on each one intentionally so that it has a positive impact on the others. 

You can work on your most vulnerable area, strengthen it, and then move on to other areas that aren’t at as much risk, or you can take advantage of your strengths to help balance the other areas. 

This mechanism also benefits from making lifestyle changes. Working on each individual’s personal development, self’esteem, self awareness, and providing access to important resources, can have a deep and lasting benefit on mental and social health, which ultimately affects your physical health. 

So what does all this have to do with domestic violence?

It’s crucial to consider all of the factors that affect overall health in women because when we work to improve these risk factors, we’re actually preventing abuse. 

When a woman is vulnerable and she encounters an abuser, she ends up in the trajectory of violence. In my own research I saw how women became victims when they weren’t able to identify what was going on. 

Later, they start to recognize certain characteristics of abuse in their relationship and that’s when they decide to stop. However, when they decide to put a stop to the problem, they enter into a crisis phase. Everything is a huge crisis, whether it’s social, emotional, economic, etc. After the crisis, she starts to build her life back up little by little. The problem is that 80% of women who leave their abuser end up back in a vulnerable position that puts them at risk, and only 20% manage to invest in themselves and live a full, happy life. 

This is why women make up to 7 attempts before they’re able to actually leave an abusive relationship. 

Empowerment and personal development is the answer

What our program does is to work on all the vulnerabilities of our Aldeanas and turn them into a re-investment in themselves and ultimately prevent domestic violence. Our method follows a logical prioritization based on human necessities and we try to provide the resources that each woman needs in her area. 

A personalized action plan

The psychological aspect of the program, for example, includes 5 emotional coaching sessions. This part is especially important because mental health is the factor that will most directly impact your physical health. 

We work on the different subdimensions of health with different types of interventions designed specifically for each Aldeana based on the answers that we see in the evaluations. 

Once we evaluate you and assess all of your vulnerabilities and strengths, you’ll work with your coach to create a structured personalized action plan. We’ll provide you with the best and most relevant resources for your particular case.. 

This whole program exists to help you become a healthy, independent, safe, and happy woman.

Live the lift you’ve always dreamed about”

We were all born with a pair of wings to fly high, and Aldea wants to help you spread your wings and reach your highest potential. 

If you’d like to be an Aldeana and participate in our program, contact us or fill out our evaluation form directly to start the registration process.