The Wellness Compass Podcast

Celebrating Assist Leaders

"We rise by lifting others." Robert Ingersoll

Caitlin Clark is one of the reasons the University of Iowa women's basketball team will be in the NCAA Final Four this weekend. What we admire most about her is not that she is a prolific scorer, although she is number three in the nation in that category, but instead that she is the assist leader for all collegiate women players this year.

An assist, in basketball and other sports, is the act of making a pass to another player who then scores. The player making the assist often gives up a chance to score herself to allow her teammate (who she thinks has a better shot) to score. Assist leaders are unselfish, which is why we celebrate and admire Caitlin Clark. We also want to give a shout-out to Marquis Nowell of Kansas State, who broke the single-game assist record in the men's NCAA basketball tournament this year. Excellent work, you two!

Alas, this is a column about health and wellness, not basketball, but you might already have guessed the connection to wellness in our focus on assists. In our work as therapists, we have been honored to meet countless assist leaders—people who make the decision every day to support the well-being of others. Some of these people are family members who care for loved ones, some are people who help in some way in their communities, and some help others when they are at work, and the list goes on. These people, who often don't get the recognition they deserve, are the real stars of the game of life.

On our Wellness Compass podcast this week, Scott talked about another related crucial aspect of well-being, and that is that of knowing when to ask for assistance ourselves. We all need the assistance of others to be our best, and knowing when to ask for help is critical to our health and wellness.

So here's to all the assist leaders in our lives. May we celebrate them, and may we be inspired to imitate them.

Making It Personal:

Who do you know right now that could benefit from your assistance? How specifically might you offer that assistance this week? Is there some help or assistance you need right now, and who could you reach out to ask for "an assist?"?

Detaching From the Outcome

We carefully filled out the NCAA Men's and Women's basketball tournament brackets last week, both hoping for the best. We just checked our brackets, and out of the 20,056,273 entries submitted to ESPN, Scott is currently in 18,984,367th place. Holly's situation is only slightly better. While our ability to predict the future is clearly lacking, here's one prediction we are confident making. Neither one of us is going to win the ESPN bracket challenge.

Do you know the odds of picking a perfect bracket involving 68 teams? 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808. That number is so large we had to look it up to know how to say it. If you're wondering too, it's nine quintillion, two hundred twenty-three quadrillion, three hundred seventy-two trillion, thirty-six billion, eight hundred fifty-four million, seven hundred seventy-five thousand, eight hundred eight.

We can learn at least two wellness lessons from engaging in this annual rite of prognostication. The first is humility. We may like to think we either know or can predict what will happen in our lives with some degree of certainty. But clearly, when our 'brackets are busted,' we are once again reminded that there are always surprises and upsets outside of our control.

The second lesson is the value of nurturing the ability to detach from the outcome. Detaching from the outcome involves doing things wholeheartedly, while at the same time knowing and being ok with the fact that we can't control the outcome. It does not mean that we don't care about what happens. It means that we don't become so anxious or fixed on the end result that we try to either force a conclusion or, are so determined to have things be a certain way that we fail to bring our best selves to the experience.

Imagine, for example, that you are so worried about someone you care about that you try to control or strongly influence their behavior. In such a situation, you will likely unintentionally radiate distrust and anxiety and thus hurt the relationship as the other person then experiences your words or actions as unsupportive. Now imagine that instead, you show up as the most loving and kind person you can be. You share your love and concern and then detach from the outcome of their choices or behaviors. With this mindset, you are more likely to strengthen the relationship, and be experienced as an ally by the other person.

Here's one more example of how detaching from the outcome can be helpful. Imagine you have a job interview or a presentation that you are giving. You are so anxious about getting affirmation or getting the job that you come across as insecure and maybe even pushy. What if, instead of focusing your energy only on the result, you focus on being fully prepared and sharing the best of who you are and what you know? The paradox is that when we often stop worrying about or forcing outcomes, we may find that the desired results are more likely to occur.

Basketball teams, as seen in the exciting ongoing tournaments, are never in complete control of the outcomes of their games. However, they are in control of their preparation, commitment, willingness to work as a team, attitude, and bringing their best efforts to each game.

An excellent three-point shot percentage for college players is making 35% of the shots taken, which means that at least two-thirds of the shots are missed. That could be a third lesson for us. Like the men and women we watch playing in the tournaments, we still want to keep taking our best shots in life, understanding that missing many of our shots is a given.

Making It Personal:

What helps you detach from the outcome when you are anxious?

Can you think of a time when you were able to let go of trying to force something you wanted, and it ended up ultimately helping you or someone else? Is there an outcome that you are pushing for right now that could benefit from you loosening your grip?

A Wee Bit of Irish Wit and Wisdom

In honor of this week's column being sent on St. Patrick's Day, we are celebrating the wisdom of Ireland. The Irish are known for their pithy words of wisdom, which we believe are relevant to this column's wellness focus. In no particular order, here are several of our favorite Irish sayings. Read them carefully and see which ones resonate with you.

May you have the hindsight to know where you've been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far or too fast.

You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your parents were.

When you are unsure of the way, walk slowly.

Two people shorten the road.

Count your joys more than your woes, count your friends instead of your foes.

A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures.

It's easy to halve the potato where there's love.

A little fire that warms is better than a big fire that burns.

Your feet will bring you where your heart is.

You'll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind.

It's easy to halve the potato where there's love.

A little fire that warms is better than a big fire that burns.

Don't be breaking your shin on a stool that's not in your way.

May the hinges of your friendships never grow rusty.

The best things in life are the people we love, the places we have been, and the memories we have made along the way.

It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.

We invite you to share your favorite Irish saying or blessing with us by replying to this email or posting on our Wellness Compass Facebook page.

This week's Wellness Compass podcast expands on several of these Irish sayings, applying the wisdom they provide to our well-being. You can listen to the podcast HERE.

Making It Personal:

1. Which of these Irish sayings speaks to you the most?
2. Considering the saying you chose, is there something you can do this week to live into its wisdom?
3. Is there another piece of Irish wisdom, or perhaps wisdom from your own culture, that also speaks to you about well-being?

Changing Your Perspective, Changes Your Experience by D. Scott and Holly Hughes Stoner

Years ago, when I (Holly) was in high school and college, I was lucky enough to take several drawing classes, some with still lifes or inanimate objects and others with live models. I learned a lot in those classes and only some of what I learned had to do with actually capturing what I saw on paper. I learned other lessons then that have helped me in life over the years.

I learned then to look very closely and to seriously study what I was seeing. Was what I was seeing really what was there, or was my vantage point skewed in some way? I learned to look for variations in light and dark, shapes and colors, and how they intersected and faded into one another. We learned that our perspective made a huge difference and that seeing anything from a different point of view made the subject look very different from what we had first seen, yet it was still correct.

We were encouraged to move about the room, getting closer and further away, standing up on a chair or crouching down low, always observing what was before us, but from a different angle. All of this was an attempt to teach us that different perspectives would yield different views and that the ability to view things from multiple perspectives would yield a better and more in-depth understanding of the subject before us.

As marriage and family therapists, we also know about the importance of multiple perspectives. For example, imagine a teen and parent are locked in a conflict where each can only see the critical behavior of the other, both feeling that this conflict can only get better when the other changes their behavior. A breakthrough occurs when, for example, the teen can share that they are hurting because of some significant challenge they are facing, so underneath their angry, argumentative behavior, they are hiding sadness and vulnerability. Once this is shared, the parent softens, and their whole perspective changes. The parent then reveals that underneath their anger and judgment is really a feeling of concern and worry. Healing and reconciliation occur in the relationship when they share their unexpressed feelings, making it possible to gradually shift their perspectives.

One trait that significantly aids us in our ability to expand our perspective on a matter is curiosity. Don't just take our word on this. The next time you find yourself entertaining a negative judgment about someone's behavior or position on a matter, try suspending that judgment long enough to be curious. Ask questions to understand more about what the person is thinking or feeling. Try looking at what is occurring from their point of view. Remain open to other ways to understand what is happening. This very openness will often strengthen the relationship, even if, in the end, you still agree to see things differently..

We have all likely had the experience of forming a quick judgment about someone and their behavior. And then, later, once we learned more of their story, we came to see them differently. Our ability to suspend judgment and remain curious expands our perspective, and our experience of them changes.

In this time of polarized perspectives, both in the world and even in relationships, inviting us to consider multiple perspectives is indeed a road less traveled. But it is one that we repeatedly have found to be beneficial, whether in drawing and art, or in our relationships with others.

"Clutter is not just the stuff on your floor.

It's anything that stands between you

and the life you want to be living."

Peter Walsh

Cleaning Out Our Junk Drawers

We spent an hour this past weekend cleaning out the junk drawer in our kitchen. Here's a partial list of what we found: rubber bands, paper clips, AA batteries, matches, wire, string, ribbon, mouse traps, tape, a screwdriver, pliers, picture hanging hooks, screws, post-it notes, birthday candles, duct tape, furniture foot pads, glitter, wood glue, super glue, pencils, a coaster, receipts, a camera battery, a Swiss army knife, a tape measure, padlocks, markers, miscellaneous keys, a watch band, old chargers, shoe laces, and an old pair of earbuds.

Many recent books and blogs have been written recently about the joy of decluttering and organizing. We experienced a small taste of that joy by cleaning out our junk drawer—not that the actual process of decluttering was all that fun, but the satisfaction we got from finishing our project was well worth it.

Clutter and cleaning come in other forms, too. With the first day of spring less than three weeks from now, many of us may be considering doing a little spring cleaning. Perhaps it's also an excellent time to take a look at any emotional clutter that has accumulated in ourselves and our relationships. Just as we can easily stuff junk into a drawer because we don't have time to deal with it, we also can stuff emotions away, thinking that at "some time" in the future, we will deal with them. Maybe that "some time" is now for us, so taking time to clean out some hurt, anger, resentment, unexpressed feelings, or needs might benefit our well-being and/or help an important relationship in our lives. Who knows what else we might find in boht our physical and our "emotional" junk drawers and how good it might feel to clean some things out?

Interestingly, the word "clutter" shares the same root as the word "clot." And with spring arriving soon, it might be a good idea for all of us to take a little time to remove not just the physical, but also emotional clutter that may be blocking or limiting our lives right now.

Making It Personal:

1. Do you regularly declutter your physical spaces or wait until you absolutely "have to?"
2. Is there some physical decluttering you would like to do this spring? What exactly is that?
3. How about some emotional clutter? If so, what's one small step you can take regarding decluttering that area of your life?

The simple and profound words from the opening of the Serenity Prayer (found in the quote box above) resonate as deeply for people today as when they were written in 1943 by Reinhold Niebuhr. While the words are simple and profound, living them is much more challenging. This is especially true when an unplanned change or loss occurs, or when there is something in our lives that we worry about but can do little, if anything, about it. At such times, we may wonder what it means to find serenity.

The prayer points out that there are three crucial steps to finding serenity:

• Acceptance

• Changing what we can change

• Having the wisdom to know the difference.

As marriage and family therapists, we often have the honor of talking with people struggling with some sort of concern. Typically, when a person is worried about someone or something, they put their energy into trying to change the other person or the situation. When we are in a similar situation, it is easy to think that we can't find serenity until or unless something in our life changes. If this is the only way we can frame the situation, then our serenity becomes dependent on factors we can't control. It is helpful to remember that we can both work for change in a relationship or situation and focus on managing our own worry or reactivity.

It is worth remembering that the only person we can change or control in a relationship or situation is ourselves.

While the Serenity Prayer was not written for Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovery groups, it has been widely adopted by them. People in recovery know a thing or two about things they cannot change and the things they can.

May we all be reminded once again of the wisdom of this prayer to help us find serenity and wisdom in the midst of life's challenges.

Making It Personal:

1. Are you dealing with something painful that is beyond your control right now?

2. If you are, what helps you to find serenity and acceptance?

3. Is there a challenge you are having in a relationship or situation that could benefit from you having the courage to change?

(Today's column on the wellness area of "Stress Resilience" is the seventh in an eight-part series that will explore the eight areas of wellness that are part of the Wellness Compass Model for Well-Being.)

There are times when a person either isn't aware of what they are feeling, or has no interest in letting you know what they are experiencing. At such a time, if you ask that person what or how they are feeling, a response you might get is, "I'm FINE!" It's a shorthand way of saying they want privacy or to be left alone with their feelings and thoughts.

When any of us hears a person emphatically stating that they are "FINE," we can probably assume that their "FINE" stands for an acronym: Feelings In Need of Expression. Most likely, they have something going on in their life that involves emotions they are not ready or able to share. We often remind people that our emotions are not good or bad, right or wrong. They simply are. How we handle our feelings, though, can be something that promotes our well-being or not.

One of the hallmarks of emotional wellness is the capacity to both be aware of and express the full range of our emotions—not telling ourselves that we are fine, even when we are not. There is so much we can learn about ourselves and others when we become fully comfortable with our emotions and the energy we feel within us. This is the wisdom of the photo quote above, "Our emotions don't create problems; they contain the exact genius we need to solve them."

We are not born knowing how to handle our emotions; a fact any parent of a young child or even a teen knows all too well. Over time, we learn ways to manage our feelings from our primary caretakers and the socialization we get from the culture around us. If we are fortunate to have had good teachers, we have a better chance of knowing how to handle our emotions well. If we did not, the good news is we can always learn new and more effective ways to manage and grow our emotional well-being.

We also remind people that there is a clear correlation between how comfortable we are with our own emotions and our level of comfort with the emotions of others. For example, suppose a person is uncomfortable feeling and expressing their own feelings of sadness or loss. In that case, it is improbable that they will be able to be empathetic and present to others when they need to express feelings of sadness.

When working with clients, people often report that they are comfortable expressing some emotions while they struggle to express other feelings. Some say they can feel and express anger, but sadness and vulnerability are difficult for them. Others say the opposite—they are comfortable expressing sadness, but not anger. Some report that they rarely or never heard the words "I love you" as a child, so they now have difficulty verbally expressing those feelings today. And still, others learned to say "I'm FINE" rather than express their strong emotions.

As we said, we can always learn new ways to enhance our awareness and capacity to express our emotions. When it comes to handling emotions, we are all life-long learners. Some form of mindfulness in which we merely observe our emotions without judgment, trying to learn from what they are saying to us, may help in this area. Even journaling regularly about our emotions may help us get better in touch with them, which can, in turn, enhance our ability to share them with others.

Sometimes it isn't the right time to express our emotions, and so a response of "I'm FINE" can be appropriate. But if that is the only response we know and the only tool we have in our emotional toolkit, we will be wise to expand our learning. Feelings do need to be examined, honored, and expressed so that we can be more positively connected with ourselves and others.

Making It Personal:

1. Is there a particular emotion that is challenging for you to express?

2. Is there a specific emotion that makes you uncomfortable when expressed by others?

3. Do you see a connection between your two answers to these questions?

As Valentine's Day approaches, the topic of love will, of course, be the center of attention, with a primary focus on the feelings associated with love. Thought will be given to how to create the feeling of love, sustain it, and rekindle the feeling if it begins to fade.

We are taking a little different approach. We are not going to focus on the feelings of love on Valentine's Day, but instead, we will focus on some thoughts about love. These thoughts apply to all expressions of love--the love of a spouse, a partner, a child, a parent or other family member, and/or a friend.

The first thought about love we'd like to offer is that love is as much a decision as it is a feeling. Feelings in any relationship ebb and flow. Emotions, like moods, can take on a cycle of their own and can seldom be trusted as an accurate measure of the strength of a relationship. For this reason, it's wise to recognize that love is not only a matter of the heart, but is also very much an act of the will. An exhausted parent, for example, who lovingly cares for a sick child, or a person who becomes a caregiver to a loved one is most likely making a decision to be loving, even while their feelings of love may ebb and flow.

Imagine there is an unresolved conflict between two people who care about each other. This conflict, in this example, has created strain in the relationship, even to the point where they hardly speak to each other anymore. Now imagine one person, uncomfortable with this, decides to reach out to the other person and begin a process of healing and reconciliation. They likely are making that decision hoping it will lead to a restored feeling of closeness and connection. They are deciding to act in a loving way, even if the feeling of love is not currently present.

When the topic of love is considered, the focus is often on the feelings associated with falling in love. Popular culture often focuses on and celebrates the "falling in love" stage of a relationship. If a person knew nothing else about love except what the media portrays, one would think that falling in love was what love must be like all the time. Anyone who has been in a long-term relationship, of course, knows differently. The head over heals rush of falling in love is as powerful and wonderful as it is transitory.

So given that falling in love is such a small phase of any relationship, we would like to reflect on the importance of what comes after falling in love, which is learning to stand in love. Standing in love is an extension of the idea that love is not just a feeling but also a decision. Regardless of what we may or may not be feeling, we can make daily decisions to stand in love in any relationship.

The quote above from poet Mary Oliver captures this with an economy of words. She reminds us to breathe in all the feelings that come and go in relationships and then to choose to breathe love out into our relationships and the world at large.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. May we all decide to renew our commitment to standing in love with the people who matter most in our lives.

Making It Personal

1. What do you think about the idea that love is as much a decision as a feeling?

2. Can you think of a time when you decided to express love, even if you weren't necessarily feeling it at the time?

3. Is there someone you would like to practice standing in love with right now? What could you do about that this week?

   (Today's column on the wellness area of "Healthy Relationships" is the Fifth in an eight-part series that will explore the eight areas of wellness that are part of the Wellness Compass Model for Well-Being.)

Celebrating Playfulness

Imagine you have just met someone who recently moved to the United States from another part of the world, and this person has never heard of Groundhog Day, so they ask you to explain it. You begin by telling them about a little town in Pennsylvania called Punxsutawney, hoping they don't ask you how to spell it. You explain that a groundhog named Phil lives there and is reported to be immortal, now having lived 137 years.

You continue with how every year on February 2nd, Punxsutawney Phil is placed inside a simulated stump in front of a large, cheering crowd. And the moment everyone waits for is when this rodent, a cousin to the squirrel, emerges from his "stump." It is then that we find out if he sees his shadow or not. If he does, it means six more weeks of winter; if he does not, spring is just around the corner. Every news outlet has something to say about the events in Punxsutawney on Groundhog Day, and never does a groundhog receive so much attention on social media.

By this point, you and your friend are probably having a good laugh about how cold weather can get to all of us sooner or later. You both realize how winter can even make a country of otherwise rational people celebrate a winter festival centered around a groundhog predicting the weather. The point of this fun celebration is just that--it is silly for sure and gives us all a chance to be playful.

When our kids were little, we, like many parents do, used to love reading silly stories to them. The more outlandish the story, the better. When we didn't have a good book to read, we were delighted to make stories up, spinning very elaborate yarns about a fictional family called the Langerts and their crazy adventures. These stories were just as silly as the stories we heard about a groundhog this week and were just as much fun. Groundhog Day is proof that we never outgrow our love of silly stories.

There are many, many serious things going on in the world today. There is a time to be very serious about life, and most of us do "serious" pretty well. What's more challenging for many of us is remembering to make time for play and silliness.

Punxsutawney Phil made his prediction this week, and so we would like to make one of our own. If we don't make time for playfulness in our lives, we predict there may be more weeks of gray clouds ahead. However, if you can make some time for fun in your life, we predict a new spring in your step will be just around the corner.

Making It Personal:

When was the last time you did or enjoyed something playful or fun?

When was the last time you let your imagination run wild?

What's something you could do this week that would be playful?

Loving Every Body

It's about that time of year when the resolve that felt so strong at the beginning of the new year begins to fade. One reason may be that the resolution to change was not rooted in self-love, but instead in self-doubt or self-criticism.

As the quote above states so clearly, there are those who profit by creating self-doubt, with subtle and not-so-subtle messages that we are not okay as we are. If only we had more of this, less of that, looked more like this, achieved more of that, possessed more of this, or experienced more of that, maybe then, or even only then, could we be truly content.

We ground everything we offer in our Wellness Compass initiative in self-love. So, for example, if and when a person wants to make a change, we first help them to make sure that their desire to change comes from a source of positive motivation, not from a place of self-criticism, self-doubt, or because someone else thinks they need to change.

The most common New Year's resolutions each year relate to how we care for our bodies and our physical well-being. This area of wellness is often filled with shame and self-criticism. Social media and the messages of our popular culture can create a sense of self-doubt.

Here's a little exercise to try. If someone asked you, "What do you really like about your body," how easily could you answer, and how long would your list be? Compare that to your response if someone instead asked, "What do you currently not like about your body?" For many of us, the answers to the second question come much easier, while we have to think much harder about our responses to the first question. Another simple exercise is this: When you look in the mirror, what are the first thoughts that come to mind? These questions are meant to help us be more aware of our inner voices and what they are saying to us about how we feel about our bodies.

If you made a resolution related to the care for your body and are struggling to stay with it, take a moment to examine your motivation. And if you want to start over again, perhaps you can start by simply resolving to fully love your body as it is. If you start with that, then your body can let you know if or when there is something it would like to be different. It's similar to how we care for a good friend. We don't ever use shame or doubt to get them to change. But if there is a change they want to make, we are quick to offer our love and support to help them make that change. Perhaps we can provide that same kind of approach to ourselves.

Making It Personal

1. How did you respond to the questions about what you like about your body vs. what you don't like? Which was easier for you to answer?
2. Can you think of a time when you decided to change how you cared for your physical well-being from a motive of loving self-care? If so, what did you learn from that experience?