Episode 5: Recalculating Our Routes

(Click on the player above to listen to this episode)

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." Lao Tzu

This episode will expand your understanding of vocation and how vocation is an essential comment of mental health and wellness.

We took a road trip and because we had some extra time and were in no hurry to get to our destination, we turned to Google maps to help us chart some less traveled and more scenic routes. Several times we made changes to our route on the fly, or we missed a turn we were supposed to make, and each of these times we received a friendly message that the app was “recalculating our route.”

We have come across several stories recently that talk about “the great resignation” in America’s workforce. The articles describe how many people have resigned their jobs during the pandemic. While there are a variety of reasons that people are leaving their jobs, one clear theme is that people are choosing not to return to the kind of pace or balance or unsatisfactory working conditions that they had before the pandemic. One subgroup with the larger population that is not going back to their jobs is older workers who have chose to retire rather than return to their previous employment. And of course, many have lost their jobs and have no choice but to find a new direction for their work.

All of this has me thinking that this time of “the great resignation” is really a time of “the great recalculation.” Many of us are recalculation our routes, some by choice, some by necessity. As awful as the pandemic has been, perhaps one benefit that has come from it is that it has given many people the opportunity to rethink what parts of their lives they wish to return to and which parts they do not want to go back to again.

I love that the Google voice is always so calm and patient when I miss a turn. There is never a hint of judgment or criticism. Perhaps we can all keep that in mind as a model for our own inner voice as we find ourselves making changes in our lives. May we be as calm and patient with ourselves when it comes to recalculating the routes, routines, and relationships in our lives that have been dramatically changed the last year and a half.

Episode 4: Watering our Spirituality's Root Systems

(Click on the player above to listen to this episode)

Spirituality is like the roots of a tree; the deeper the roots, the stronger the tree. 
 Spirituality is a part of all of our lives, whether we consciously are aware of it and nurture it within ourselves, or not. We are spiritual beings. As the author and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote, "We are not human beings having spiritual experiences; we are spiritual beings having human experiences."   


Practicing a religious faith is one way to express and ground one's spirituality, but spirituality transcends any one religion. Some have referred to spirituality as a deep underground river that gives us strength and sustenance, and acknowledge that there are many ways, many wells, to tap into that river. 


Staying with the idea of spirituality being underground and often out of view, I have always liked the image that our spirituality is like the root system of a tree. The roots of a tree are what ground a tree, what helps the tree to stand upright. The roots are also what bring nourishment to the tree. In order for a tree to grow taller or broader, it must simultaneously grow deeper and broader roots. And we are also learning that the roots of a tree spread out and interact with the roots of other trees, even drawing strength from nearby trees in times of distress.  


Just as with the roots of a tree, our spirituality needs to be watered and deepened regularly over our whole life. Spirituality helps us define our core values and purpose, and begin to be developed in childhood. These values are especially important in the first half of life as we are then in the midst of making important decisions that build the foundation for our life. In the second half of life, our spirituality additionally helps us deal with aging, loss, and letting go. It helps us to make peace with what has been, what is, and what will be. Just as with trees deep roots can help sustain us through rainy and stormy days. 


In this week's Wellness Compass podcast, Holly and Scott talk about two traditional practices for deepening one's spirituality. The first is meditation or prayer. Every religious tradition has both corporate and individual practices of prayer. Meditation and mindfulness practices are also important to millions of people who don't necessarily define themselves as being part of a religious faith yet very much benefit from this soulful practice.   


The other practice we talk about in this episode is gratitude. A regular gratitude practice, of taking time each morning or evening to note what you are grateful for that day, can help deepen one’s sense of the spiritual aspect of life. Research has shown that a regular gratitude practice has positive benefits for one's mental health, with some studies even suggesting that it has a positive effect on one's brain. 
 In whatever ways you express and tend to your spiritual root system, the benefits of doing so are immense. This is why we include spirituality as one of the eight dimensions of wellness in our Wellness Compass of Well-Being. And while all eight dimensions are essential, spirituality is perhaps, for many, the one that grounds and guides all the others. 

  
 Making It Personal: The questions below are offered to help you reflect on how you might apply the content of this week's column to your own life. You might write your responses to them in a journal, discuss them with someone else or in a group, or simply take a few moments to reflect on your responses. 


What comes to mind when you think of spirituality as being like the root system of a tree?

Are you satisfied with how aligned your current life choices are with your core values and spirituality?

How do you water your spiritual life now?

Might you want to try a regular gratitude or meditation/prayer practice (if you are not already doing so)?

Episode 3: Enhancing The Quality of Our Relationships

(Click on the player above to listen to this episode)

Few things affect the quality of our lives than the quality of our relationships. All of us attended a "school of relationships" where we learned certain relationships skills and patterns. If those serve us well, our relationships will benefit. If they don't, the good news is we can always learn new relationships skills if we are humble and open to learning and willing to put the work in to create new patterns.

In this episode, Scott and Holly teach one specific relationship skill known as "the soft start-up." This is in contrast to "the harsh start-up" and the kind of start-up we use to start a conversation will highly affect how that conversation unfolds. Once again, they offer three "Making It Personal" questions/prompts to help you put into practice what you have learned from this episode.

Episode 2: Increasing Resilience Through Compassion

(Click on the player above to listen to this episode)

“Resilience is based on compassion for ourselves as well as compassion for others.”― Sharon Salzberg. This quote introduces the topic of this show which is about how "the seeds of resilience can only take root in the soil of compassion."

Resilience is defined here not so much as "bouncing back," but as "bouncing forward" because sometimes there is no going back, no bouncing back. When loss happens, when our "normal" is disrupted in profound ways, there is no going back to "normal." There is only going forward as we slowly create a new normal.

Holly Hughes Stoner joins Scott on this episode and talks about how the Wellness Compass Model for Well-Being can help us think about and respond to stress in a holistic way. Stress Resilience is one of the 8 areas of wellness in the Compass and this show talks about how all eight areas are interconnected, each affecting the other.  

The show concludes with three "Making It Personal" questions that invite the listener to apply what they have heard to their own life.  

Episode 1: What if the Hokey Pokey is What it's All About?

(Click on the player above to listen to this episode)

This is the premiere episode of the Wellness Compass Podcast.  Scott introduces the podcast and the larger Wellness Compass Initiative. He also introduces the concept of whole-person wellness and what it means to put "your whole self in."

Scott also plays his guitar and then used it as a metaphor to learn about whole-person wellness.  He intentionally makes one string on the guitar out of tune, and then lets the listener hear how cringe-worthy that sounds. The metaphor is that our lives are always going in and out of tune. That's not a problem. The problem is when we don't or when we refuse to hear that our lives are out of tune and thus are unwilling or unable to make the changes necessary to get them back in tune.

This podcast, along with the overall Wellness Compass Initiative is all about providing the resources and support to both hear when our lives are out of tune and then figure out the steps necessary to get our lives back on key. Together, let's support one another as we dance and sing on this lifelong journey of wellness.