The Wellness Compass Podcast

"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, plie...

Acceptance and Change 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 th...

When "I'm Fine" Might Mean Something Else 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. Whe...

Standing in Love 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...

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 rep...

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...

Your Life's Calling   (Download our new free Adult Wellness Compass Note book HERE ).  We remember going to a funeral many years ago where it was said about the person (his name was Robert) whose life was being remembered, "I think his calling in life was to be a good friend because he was truly a dear friend to everyone who knew him." The idea of being a good friend as a "calling in life" has alw...

We teach children how to measure and how to weigh. We fail to teach them how to revere, how to sense wonder and awe. — Harold S. Kushner   Spirituality, Awe, and Wellness   The word "awesome" has become so ubiquitous that it has nearly lost its meaning. Originally it referred to being "profoundly reverential," something that inspired deep wonder and mystery. Today it has simply come to mean someth...

Changing From the Inside Out Have   you ever said, "yes" to doing something for the wrong reason? Maybe it was peer pressure, or thinking you should say "yes," or because you didn't want to disappoint someone, or even that you didn't really think through your decision before responding. In our experience, this is what happens with many people who make New Year's resolutions. They say, "yes" to mak...

A Conspiracy of Love Last week we wrote about lessons we learned from attending a holiday concert performed by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and their chorus. This week, we attended a very different kind of holiday concert. This one was performed by our grandson and his third-grade classmates, and it, too, was spectacular in its own innocent way. It's hard to say who was smiling more at the con...

Tuning Our Instruments First We could have titled this podcast "Three Lessons We Learned From Attending a Holiday Pops Concert" as we had the joy of attending such a concert with some dear friends this past weekend. Here are a few lessons we took from the show that might be helpful reminders to all of us during this holiday season. Tune your instrument first.  When the concertmaster (principal vio...

Self-Compassion and Grief Holidays are a natural time for reminiscing, a time when we fondly remember people and traditions that are no longer a part of our lives. And it is only natural to feel both the joy and sadness of such memories. When we listen closely to others this time of year, it is not uncommon to hear at least a story about a loss they are experiencing and feeling. We might also know...

Self-Care and the Holidays: Less is More In 1907 a young architect by the name of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was working on a building design for his mentor Peter Behrens. When he presented several different designs to his mentor, Behrens's advice was to remember that, when designing a building, many times, "less is more." The messages we receive during this holiday season are just the opposite. The...

Let Gratefulness Overflow Into Blessings This week's column's title comes from one of my favorite videos. We have shared it in this column before, as it speaks so eloquently about the true meaning of Thanksgiving.  The video, which focuses on nature, beauty, and gratitude, brings the stunning photography of Louie Schwartzberg together with the spoken words of Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl...

Grateful Living Grateful living is a beautiful prescription for how to live one's life. It is also the name of a nonprofit organization that we recommend you learn more about, a timely recommendation in this month where we focus on being thankful. Grateful Living's mission statement, which you can find on their website  www.grateful.org  is worth reading slowly: "Grateful Living is a global nonpro...

Lessons Learned From Walking a Corn Maze Have you ever been so stubbornly sure that you were right that you had difficulty changing your mind, even when you gained new information and it was clear that you were mistaken? Even when the rest of the people in your group gave you feedback that you were off track? This was my (Scott's) experience as I walked a corn maze with part of my extended family...

OF PERMANENCE AND CHANGE Fall has arrived in all its glory in the upper midwest. In addition to the stunning colors of the changing leaves, there are many reasons to love this season, including apple picking, corn mazes, playoff baseball, carving pumpkins, baking pies, and wearing your favorite sweater. One additional reason we love fall is that it is a time when we find ourselves turning inward,...

Mindset Matters Carol Dweck, a research psychologist at Stanford University, is well known for her work on exploring the differences between fixed and growth mindsets. Our column and podcast from last week focused on the power of the word yet, which was a simple way to understand the more complex concepts that this psychologist writes about. "I can't constructively express my feelings when I am up...

The Power of Yet Sometimes a small, three-letter word can make all the difference. To understand what we mean, note the difference between these two sentences. "I am discouraged because I don't know how to figure this out."  "I am discouraged because I don't know how to figure this out yet."  The only difference   is the word "yet." Adding this critical word opens up possibility and hope. The firs...

In this episode, Holly and Scott Stoner talk about how as marriage and family therapists and wellness coaches, the changes they often help people may seem quite ordinary, but in the end they often turn out to make an extraordinary difference.   Recently we were made aware of some wise advice from author William Martin shared for parents. Martin reminds us to celebrate the ordinary moments of life,...

Replacing Judgment with Curiosity We love hearing from our readers (and listeners of our podcast), so we were delighted to hear from many of you this week. Last week we wrote about the importance of listening to our inner teacher, and several readers wrote back sharing a similar challenge. They wrote about how when they pause long enough to listen to what their inner teacher might be saying to the...

Listening to Your Inner Teacher Welcome back to the second season of our Wellness Compass Column and Podcast. We follow the school year schedule, and so this is the first column of our second season. We look forward to connecting with you weekly throughout the school year after taking the summer off. We are renewed and are excited to be back together with you, as we all seek to navigate our lives...

 " Gardening is therapy for me" is a comment we have heard more than once this spring, not just from avid gardeners, but from people just now getting into gardening as well. Many people first discovered the joy of gardening during time spent at home during the pandemic, and most have stayed with it. One study, in fact, reports that 18 million new people started gardening during the pandemic.  We a...