The Wellness Compass Podcast

Mental Health: Name It. Claim It. Reframe It.

October is Mental Health Awareness Month, and in this episode of the Wellness Compass Podcast, marriage and family therapists Scott and Holly Stoner offer a simple, three-part way to think and talk about mental health: name it, claim it, and reframe it. Drawing on 40 years of clinical work and their own family experiences, they explore how mental health is something every one of us has, and how it shapes, and is shaped by, the families and relationships we live in.

In this episode:

• We all have mental health. It isn't only a concern for some people. Like physical health, it's one dimension of well-being in the Wellness Compass Model, and it can vary from day to day and season to season.
• Name it. Just as cancer was once unspeakable, mental health is still often talked around with euphemisms. Naming a struggle the way we'd name a migraine or a family history of heart disease normalizes it, eases stigma, and helps others know how to respond. Many clients feel deep relief simply saying, "I think I'm depressed," for the first time.
• Claim it. Owning our story, letting the people close to us know what we're carrying, and tending our mental health proactively. Scott and Holly share personal examples of how claiming a sensitivity keeps us from externalizing it or blaming others.
• Reframe it. Thinking systemically, using the image of a mobile: stress anywhere in a family shows up in its individual members. Understanding this takes the blame off, gives hope, and helps us see the bigger picture, like why a recent move or a loved one's diagnosis might leave us feeling out of sorts.
• Our agency. We rarely choose the state of our mental health, but we always choose our response, including whether to be vulnerable, ask for support, or step back from commitments.
• A Wizard of Oz lesson. Healing came for the Wizard only when he was finally willing to name, claim, and reframe what he'd been hiding.

For reflection:

• Is there something about your own mental health you've been hesitant to name?
• Is there someone in your family you'd like to talk with a little more openly?
• Is there something you'd like to share with a loved one?

How's your family? Season 4's theme is "How's the Family?" We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, and topic ideas. Email us at [email protected], or reach us individually at [email protected] and [email protected].

Find all episodes and the companion column, published every other week, at wellnesscompass.org. Join us again in two weeks.

Sep 18, 2026

Holly and Scott Stoner return from their summer break to launch a new season of the Wellness Compass Podcast built around a single recurring question: "How's the Family?" For the year ahead, the husband-and-wife team of marriage and family therapists will focus every episode on family wellness across all ages, stages, and configurations. In this premiere, they explain why they chose the theme, share how nearly 50 years of marriage and decades of clinical practice have shaped their own family, and introduce this episode's framing idea: family as our first, lifelong school.

• Welcome back & the new season theme. After a summer off (spent, in part, on their own well-being), Holly and Scott announce this year's focus: family wellness in every configuration, across the full life cycle — not just parenting.
• Why "How's the Family?" The question tested universally well because everyone already asks some version of it, and few things affect our own well-being more than the state of our family relationships.
• Why Holly loves this work. Families often arrive carrying unspoken history — old wounds, unresolved grief, things that happened but were never talked about. Every family has its own unique "culture," and helping them reconcile is, as Holly puts it, a sacred honor.
• Family as our first school. Timed to back-to-school season, Scott introduces the episode's central metaphor: family is the first school we attend, we don't choose our "teachers," and unlike traditional school, we never graduate — we're lifelong learners.
• Holly's evolving roles. From child to teenager to young wife, mother, and now grandmother, Holly reflects on her current growing edge: learning to let go as her adult children build lives (and marriages) of their own, and adjusting to becoming an elder in the family after losing both of their parents in recent years.
• The "multiple marriages" bit. A favorite line from their retreat days: every long marriage is really a series of marriages — pre-kids, raising kids, empty nest, mid-life, and now the post-parental-loss years. The relationship keeps evolving, and that's the point.
• Scott on grandparenting without a model. Scott grew up without any grandfathers (both of his grandfathers died at 40) and is now, 13 years into being a grandfather himself, "making it up as he goes" — including adjusting as his grandson approaches the teenage years.
• The core skill for family wellness. Humility, openness to learning, and flexibility — because change in family relationships is the norm. Closing thought: "Change is inevitable. Growth is optional."

• "Few things affect our own well-being more — the quality of our own lives more — than the well-being and the quality and the state of our family." — Scott
• "Families hold so much... frequently without really talking about it and working through things. But they always seem to want to reconcile." — Holly
• "In the school of family life, we don't ever graduate, nor should we. We are lifelong learners." — Scott
• "I'm still learning how to let go... You'd think that maybe by now I'd have it." — Holly
• "Change is inevitable. Growth is optional." — Scott

Holly and Scott close with a version of this season's core question:

• How are you a student right now? What lessons are you having the opportunity to learn within your family, or within a family relationship?
• Where are you the teacher right now? Where do you have opportunities to teach and influence others in your family?

Holly and Scott Stoner are marriage and family therapists who have been married 49 years and have three adult children, two grandchildren, and three in-laws. Together they co-host the Wellness Compass Podcast, drawing on decades of clinical experience working with families of every configuration.

Have a family story, question, or challenge you'd like Holly and Scott to address on the podcast? Send it in — anonymity and identifying details are always protected.

• Holly: [email protected]
• Scott: [email protected]

This podcast and its companion column release every other week. Next episode in two weeks — same question: How's the family?

THIS SUMMER

In honor of this being our last column of the season — we will be taking the summer off to rest and renew — we would like to share one of our favorite poems with you. We hope this will inspire you as it has us.

If you prefer to listen to this poem read by the author herself, click HERE.

"The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean — the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down

— who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention,

how to fall down into the grass,

how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed,

how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

We find the specificity of Mary Oliver's attention to this grasshopper inspiring. It seems to us an invitation to ask, "what will we pay attention to this summer?"

Specifically, how will we pay attention to the moments when we are working in the garden, the sunsets we will see, the smell of flowers we will breathe in, the taste of fresh produce from our farmers markets, the beauty of starlit skies, a possible round of golf on a warm sunny day, the moments when we get to chase fireflies with children or play with them in the swimming pool, watching children running freely through the sprinkler, a marshmallow toasted over a campfire, or the walks we will enjoy on a summer evening?

The ample pleasures of summer invite us to pay attention, to fall down into the grass, to be idle and blessed, and to stroll through the fields.

If the question Mary Oliver ends her poem with seems too immense, perhaps we can whittle it down to this:

What is it you plan to do with this wild and precious summer?

Best to you during the magical time of summer. May you enjoy its splendors. And we will see you again right after Labor Day.

Warmly, Holly and Scott Stoner

This podcast is a companion to our Wellness Compass column. What follows is the text of the column we emailed out this week on this same topic:

"Baseball is too slow for me—I prefer sports like basketball with its constant action and scoring" is a comment we overheard at our grandson's Little League game this week. Because it wasn't said directly to us, we didn't have the opportunity to respond with all the ways we love the slow pace of baseball. We'd like to share those with you now, and because this is a wellness column, we can't resist the opportunity to reflect on what the slowness of baseball has to teach us.

First on the list would have probably been that we love the game just because it is slow. Even with the advent of the pitch clock and a few other changes to speed up the game for our impatient culture, the game still has a refreshing pace that allows you to savor each pitch, each at bat, and each play in the field. The pace allows you to pause long enough to wonder, "Should they bring the infield in?" or "Is this a good time to hit and run?" or "Should the outfield be playing this batter to pull?" or "The pitcher has thrown three consecutive four-seam fastballs—so is it time to throw a circle change?"

The opinion that baseball is too slow has been voiced more frequently over the last few decades. Perhaps a different way to frame that perception is that life by contrast has increasingly sped up and maybe even become too fast.

Baseball is a celebration of slowness. It resonates with the slow food movement and the increased interest in slow travel. Within medicine there is even a new movement called slow medicine, which is pushing back on the limitations of the five to seven minute office visits.

Speaking of medicine, Scott tried something very counter-cultural (and counter-intuitive for him) this week. He had a doctor's appointment and his doctor was running late so he had a half hour to himself in the waiting room. Because he was thinking about this concept of patience and slowing down, he resisted getting his phone out and checking the news or his email or …. last night's box scores. He sat for a full thirty minutes without reaching for his phone. He took some deep breaths and practiced some mindfulness meditation. When he returned home he was embarrassed to report that this was not easy for him to do. Like the woman we overheard at our grandson's baseball game, he, too, sometimes craves action and stimulation.

Life has its own series of waiting rooms. Waiting for clarity on a difficult issue. Waiting for a loved one to find their way. Waiting for healing. Waiting for peace. We long for progress and some kind of action that will bring quick resolution. When we can't just scroll ahead we are invited to enter into the wisdom of slowness and the practice of patience.

Three thousand years ago the author of the book of Ecclesiastes gave us this hopeful wisdom, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."

May we find the grace to trust the season we are in and to patiently embrace the waiting and unfolding, even when we wish things would move a little faster.

And may we watch a few games of baseball to remind us of the benefits of slowing down.

Sharing Awe: What 19,000 Likes Can Teach Us About Supporting One Another's Mental Health

Hosted by Holly Hughes Stoner, LMFT & Scott Stoner, LMFT

Something unexpected happened after Holly and Scott's last column and podcast about the Artemis II astronauts — a quote about the view of Earth from space, and how it reveals no borders, no divisions, only our shared humanity, went viral on Facebook with nearly 20,000 likes and almost 7,000 shares. In this episode, Holly and Scott reflect on what that overwhelming response reveals about what people are truly hungry for: awe, wonder, and a sense of connection. They explore the science of awe and how cultivating it can meaningfully strengthen our mental health.

The Power of Awe The viral response to their post was a powerful reminder of how starved many people are for good news and experiences of unity. Research confirms that experiences of awe calm our nervous systems, help us think more clearly, and have a measurable positive impact on mental health.

The Science Behind Awe Holly and Scott highlight the work of Dr. Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and author of Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, who has identified eight key sources of awe in everyday human experience.

1. Moral Beauty — Witnessing acts of courage, kindness, or perseverance in others
2. Collective Effervescence — The shared energy of a group moving, worshipping, dancing, or celebrating together
3. Nature — Immersion in the natural world and its "wild awe"
4. Music — Experiencing or creating music collectively
5. Visual Design — Encountering great art, architecture, or sacred geometry
6. Spirituality and Religion — Mystical experiences, prayer, communal worship, transcendence
7. Life and Death — The thin, liminal places of birth, dying, and transition
8. Epiphany — Realizing you are part of something far larger than yourself

What could you do this week to enhance your own sense of awe? Consider revisiting a past moment that moved you deeply, or intentionally placing yourself somewhere — or with someone — that opens you to wonder. Even a simple gratitude practice, especially when shared with another person, can be a doorway into awe.

A core principle of the Wellness Compass Initiative: whatever we pay attention to is what will grow. This episode invites us to ask — what are we amplifying? On social media and in daily life, are we spreading wonder and connection, or discord and division? This isn't about toxic positivity; it's about intentionally choosing where we direct our energy and attention.

Wellness Circles are a free, six-week small group experience designed to cultivate awareness, intention, and well-being — a perfect real-life space to experience awe and gratitude with others.

• Tuesday, May 4 at 1:00 PM
• Wednesday, May 5 at 5:15 PM

To sign up, visit wellnesscompass.org and click the green bar at the top of the homepage, or email Holly directly at [email protected].

• 🌐 Website: wellnesscompass.org
• 📧 General contact: [email protected]
• 📧 Holly: [email protected]

Go forth and be awesome — discover awe, experience awe, and share it. May you be safe, may you be healthy, may you be happy.

Wellness Compass Podcast — Show Notes

Episode: What Artemis II Can Teach Us About Mental Health

About This Episode

Scott and Holly Stoner, licensed marriage and family therapists and co-founders of the Wellness Compass Initiative, reflect on the Artemis II moon voyage and draw out four wellness lessons for our everyday lives. Recorded the night before the crew's scheduled return to Earth, this episode connects the wonder of outer space exploration to the inner work of mental health and well-being.

In This Episode

1. There Is Power in Expanding Our Perspective The Artemis II astronauts witnessed an "earthrise" from the moon — and it changed how they saw everything. Scott and Holly reflect on how this mirrors a core wellness practice: recognizing that other people see the same situations we do, but from entirely different vantage points. Rather than assuming someone is wrong, stubborn, or uninformed, we can get curious about how things look from where they're standing. One astronaut said it beautifully: "When we're up here, we don't see borders. We don't see religious lines. We don't see political boundaries. All we see is Earth. And you can see that we are way more alike than we are different."

2. If You Want to Go Far, Go Together A proverb reminds us: if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. The four astronauts brought diverse skills and perspectives, and their success depended on their interconnection — plus the enormous team of scientists and engineers supporting them from Earth. As Scott and Holly often say: wellness begins with we. Building and strengthening our crew helps all of us go farther.

3. There Is a Time for Autopilot and a Time for Taking the Controls NASA required every crew member to practice manually flying the spacecraft — just in case autopilot failed. In life, transitions and disruptions (a health diagnosis, job loss, relationship change, or a global pandemic) can knock us off autopilot and require us to fly with greater intentionality. Scott and Holly share how COVID did exactly that for them personally, leading them to reshape their entire approach to delivering their work. Change is hard, but building our "change muscles" helps us respond rather than simply react.

4. Growth Requires Moving Out of Comfort Zones Could there be a more dramatic example of leaving your comfort zone than flying to the moon? When the crew lost contact with Earth for 41 minutes on the far side of the moon, they had to rely on each other and themselves completely. All growth — personal, relational, professional — requires stepping out of what is comfortable and familiar. The key is doing it with awareness, intention, and a supportive team.

Mentioned in This Episode

• Artemis II moon voyage (April 2025)
• The Wellness Compass Model of Well-Being
• Wellness Circles — six-week small group wellness program
• New coaching and in-service offerings for nonprofit leaders and providers

Resources & Links

• Website: wellnesscompass.org
• Coaching and in-services for leaders and providers: wellnesscompass.org/coaching
• Wellness Circles — new groups forming in mid-May; sign up at wellnesscompass.org
• Email: [email protected]

Closing Thought "May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be safe — and may you continue to build your crew, strengthen your crew, move out of your comfort zones, and expand your perspective."

New episodes every two weeks.

What follows is the Wellness Compass Column that was send out today and based on the same topic as this podcast episode:

Only Love Can Do That

Theo of Golden by Allan Levi is the book I (Holly) am currently reading and loving. Only three quarters of the way through it, the main character Theo and his story has really captivated me as he is everything I'd like to be: curious about others, a good listener to everyone, generous, and non-judgmental.

I've been telling Scott about it all week, sharing many of the stories about Theo's loving kindness and how I find it to be an antidote for much of the suffering that is happening in the world.

Like Theo, we believe that love, kindness, and compassion are the most powerful and most essential forces in the world. We find it important to state this, especially at a time when fear and violence are a constant presence.

We talk in our Wellness Compass resources about how there are many compasses that compete to guide our lives. The compasses of the dominant culture are strong, as are the compasses of our upbringings. Choosing spiritual values, as Theo does—like love, kindness, and compassion—to be what guides us toward True North is an intentional choice any of us can make, no matter what other forces may tempt us to follow them instead.

As psychotherapists, we know firsthand the destruction that violence and hatred cause. Having worked with countless clients who have experienced the mind- and soul-crushing effects of violence and hatred, our hearts have been broken more times than we can count. At the same time, being witnesses to the healing power of love and compassion in the lives of people who have suffered has time and time again reminded us that love and compassion are indeed stronger than violence and hatred.

Hatred and violence are ever present in our world, there is no doubt. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." That's why we need to continuously choose love, kindness, and compassion as our enduring values both for our own well-being and the well-being of our world.

Self-Compassion and Self-Care

Episode Summary

We hear about self-compassion and self-care so often that the words can start to wash over us — and yet most of us are still much better at offering compassion to others than to ourselves. In this episode, Holly and Scott Stoner explore why these practices are not luxuries or signs of self-indulgence, but the very foundation of sustained wellness, healthy relationships, and genuine care for others. Drawing on their work as marriage and family therapists, their Wellness Compass programs, and a moving story from a high school mental health fair, they make the case that a full cup is what makes giving possible — and that self-compassion is not about lowering the bar, but about meeting yourself with honesty and kindness at the same time.

Key Themes

• Why self-compassion and self-care feel so countercultural — and why they matter more than ever right now
• The difference between self-compassion and toxic positivity — it's honest and kind, not one or the other
• How the inner critic develops, why it sometimes seems to work in the short run, and why it grinds us down over time
• Social media and the trap of "comparing your insides to other people's outsides"
• The Wellness Compass core principle: whatever we pay attention to is what will grow
• Why self-care is not selfish — it's about creating a centered self, not a self-centered one

Story from the Episode

Holly shares a conversation from a high school mental health fair with a young football player who was carrying heavy self-criticism after his team's loss. His story illustrates something universal — the weight we carry when we hold ourselves to a standard that leaves no room for compassion, effort, or grace.

Quote of the Episode

"Self-care is not about being self-centered. It's about creating a centered self." — Scott Stoner

Featured Resource

Kristin Neff — leading researcher, author, and teacher on self-compassion. Her simple, powerful starting point: "Treat yourself as you would treat a good friend." Here's a link to one of her videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11U0h0DPu7k

Upcoming Events

🌀 Wellness Circles — beginning April 7th and 8th, online. A practical, supported space for self-care and community. Learn more at wellnesscompass.org

Making It Personal

1. Is there an area of your life — at work, at home, or out in the world — where you tend to be hardest on yourself? Name it honestly, and then ask: what would it look like to be a little more gentle there?
2. What is one concrete thing you could do — journaling, a conversation, a shift in thinking — to grow more self-compassion in that area?
3. Where in your life could you use a little more self-care right now? What would it mean to fill your cup so you have more to offer yourself and others?

Connect with Holly and Scott

• 📧 Holly: [email protected]
• 📧 Scott: [email protected]
• 📧 Podcast & column: [email protected]
• 🌐 wellnesscompass.org

New episodes release every two weeks. Until then — may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live at ease, and may you deepen your practice of self-care and self-compassion.

Episode #173: The Courage to Reset: Lessons from an Olympic Champion,

Overview

Scott Stoner and Holly Hughes Stoner explore the power of making intentional resets in our lives — drawing inspiration from Olympic figure skater Alyssa Liu, who took two years away from skating at age 16 to prioritize her mental health, then returned to win gold at age 20.

The Inspiring Story of Alyssa Liu

Alyssa Liu's journey offers a compelling model for all of us. At 16, at the height of her competitive career, she stepped away from elite figure skating because the relentless pressure and busyness were taking a toll on her mental health. After two years of rest and renewal, she returned to the sport about a year ago — and what stood out wasn't just her technical skill, but her visible joy and ease on the ice. Her story challenges the assumption that stepping back means giving up.

Her words: "I hope that with all this attention, I can at least raise awareness about mental health in sports and mental health in general... I think my story is pretty cool. So I hope that it inspires other people as well."

Three Key Takeaways from Holly

1. Resting or resetting is not the same as quitting. Pausing something — a commitment, a role, a pace — is not failure. It's wisdom. Whether it's pulling back from a work obligation, a relationship pattern, or a draining routine, stepping back can create the perspective we need to move forward with more intention.

2. Detach your well-being from your achievements. When we're known for something or skilled at it, it can easily become our identity. But who we are is not defined by our output, our titles, or what we produce. Remembering this is itself a kind of reset.

3. Listen to your whispers. Low energy, lack of joy, going through the motions — these are signals worth paying attention to. Alyssa Liu listened to hers. Scott and Holly share their own example: shifting the podcast and column to an every-other-week format to show up with more energy, preparation, and joy for each episode.

What a Reset Might Look Like for You

Resets don't have to be dramatic. They can be small and still be powerful:

• Getting up five minutes earlier for quiet time or meditation
• Turning off the radio on your drive home to breathe and reflect
• Shifting from going through the motions to being more intentionally present with family, friends, or colleagues
• Reframing how you see a person or situation — sometimes the reset happens entirely in how we think

A Note on Hard Seasons

Scott and Holly acknowledge that sometimes we're in the middle of a crisis, grief, or loss — circumstances we can't simply reset our way out of. This conversation isn't about toxic positivity. It's about the smaller, courageous choices we can make to navigate our lives with more awareness and intention.

Resources & Connect

• Website: wellnesscompass.org
• Email Scott: [email protected]
• Email Holly: [email protected]
• Facebook: Wellness Compass page
• Upcoming Wellness Circles: Six-week online Zoom groups begin the first week of April — free to join. Sign up at wellnesscompass.org.

Until we gather again in two weeks — may you be healthy, may you be happy, may you be at ease, and may you know when you are in need of a reset, big or small.

What follows is our Weekly Wellness Column that is always on the same topic as our Weekly Podcast:

Valentine's Day invites us to celebrate love with cards, flowers, and chocolates—gestures that honor the warm feelings we have for the people we care about. Feelings are an important aspect of love, but love is so much more than that. What sustains love through ordinary days, difficult seasons, and genuine hardship?

This week, nineteen Buddhist monks completed a 2,300-mile walk from Texas to Washington, D.C., covering over twenty miles each day for 108 days. Some walked barefoot. Some nights they slept in tents in the midst of freezing weather. Early in their journey, their escort vehicle was struck by a distracted driver, and one monk lost his leg. Rather than responding with anger or litigation, the monks offered compassion and continued their pilgrimage.

Their journey teaches us something essential: love is not primarily a feeling. Love is an embodied practice—a decision we make again and again through our actions.

American scholar and author bell hooks wrote that, "Love is an act of will—namely, both an intention and an action." She insisted that love requires care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust. These aren't emotions that wash over us. They're disciplines we can choose to cultivate, day after difficult day.

This understanding has for centuries appeared across wisdom traditions as well. In the Bible, for example, in 1 Corinthians 13, love is described not as a feeling but as a series of actions: love is patient, love is kind, love does not keep a record of wrongs. These are choices, not sentiments. They require intention and practice.

The monks' walk demonstrates this truth beautifully. When faced with injury and loss, they couldn't rely solely on positive feelings to carry them forward. They instead relied on their commitment to peace—a commitment expressed through every mindful step, every tent pitched in the cold, every encounter with strangers along the highway.

Their example has profound implications for our relationships. When we understand love as practice rather than feeling, we stop waiting for the emotion to show up before we act lovingly. We show up for our partner even when we're frustrated. We offer kindness to our children even when we're exhausted. We extend compassion to ourselves even when we feel unworthy of it.

Love as practice means recognizing that the small, unglamorous choices matter most: listening when we'd rather talk, pausing before reacting, choosing forgiveness over resentment, showing up consistently rather than dramatically. These daily disciplines build the foundation that feelings alone cannot sustain.

So this Valentine's Day, by all means celebrate with flowers and chocolates. But also ask yourself: What loving actions will I practice even when the warm, affectionate feelings aren't always there? How will I embody love even when it costs me something? What am I willing to walk twenty miles a day for?

The monks teach us that love sustained over 2,300 miles isn't about warm feelings. It's about faithful practice. Step by step. Day by day. Choice by choice.

That's the love that endures.