Posts – Page 5 – Deepening Our Journey

Physical Wellness

December 30, 2022

When clients begin their Total Wellness program with me, I always have them choose which area they want to begin with. Of the 10 areas, physical wellness is the hands-down favorite starting place. They are often surprised by—and ironically resistant to—my explanation that we are probably going to need to significantly adjust and expand their understanding of physical wellness. This new understanding frequently runs counter to all of the messages and marketing bombarding them every day. Sometimes it may even mean being less focused on the physical—or some aspect of

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Mental Wellness

December 4, 2022

I didn’t plan mental wellness as the topic for my December post, but Christmastime certainly seems appropriate given it’s potential to be a transformational gift to oneself! This area is for me one of the most interesting aspects of my wellness model for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that it concerns one of the most complex and fascinating parts of the human body: our brain! The brain can be likened to a muscle that needs to be stretched, massaged, exercised, and challenged on a regular basis

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Emotional Wellness

November 6, 2022

In my experience, emotional wellness is among the least chosen starting points when people begin a total wellness program. However, along with spiritual wellness, it is one of the most fundamental areas and a very effective starting place. No matter what other area of wellness you point to, I can almost always show how functioning there impacts your emotional well-being and vice versa. When working on improving emotional wellness, I often use the concept of emotional intelligence, which was popularized in Daniel Goleman’s excellent book, Emotional Intelligence. He describes emotional

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Spiritual Wellness

October 1, 2022

If you read last month’s post, you might remember I referred to spirituality as the first element of my Total Wellness model. Over the course of teaching and practicing the model for many years, I eventually came to understand it as foundational and the “Godly glue” that binds our wellness journey together. If you don’t feel the same, that’s perfectly okay. In fact, some people might not connect to the word “spirituality” at all. One of the most amazing gifts this blog has held for me is the diversity of

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Total Wellness, A Program You Can Live With

September 2, 2022

I really appreciate all of you who have signed up to receive my blog each month. A special thanks to those of you who take the time to share your reflections and in some cases make suggestions. One suggestion that keeps coming up again and again from people who have attended one of my wellness workshops or for whom I was privileged to serve as a wellness coach is that I do a series of blog posts on my Total Wellness model. I actually began developing this program over 30

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We Rise By Lifting Others

August 2, 2022

I was driving north on Route 61 and just before the Schuylkill River, a billboard on my right caught my eye. “We Rise By Lifting Others.” I did a double-take. Had I actually read that correctly? I had to turn around to check, and sure enough, there it was—in huge letters! With so many negative messages showing up on everything from toxic cell phone and social media memes to aggressive front-yard signs and snarky bumper stickers, it was certainly a much-appreciated change of pace. Appropriate, too! I was actually on

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Time Well Spent

July 7, 2022

In the last few years, I’ve become increasingly conscious that my days here are finite. As we age it seems that this gift of time seems to slip through our fingers more quickly each day. Consequently, I am becoming more and more cautious, selective, and to some degree selfish as to where I am willing to invest it. I carefully plan my schedule so I can concentrate on the things that are really important to me, especially spending time with my family and friends. Not long ago, I had another

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Yet Another Lesson in Slowing Down

May 30, 2022

I spend a lot of time observing the amazing variety of flora and fauna from my back patio. I feel close to God while experiencing nature, and I often see something in the way an animal or even a plant will behave that I can apply to my own life. Recently I had occasion to take a lesson from my own responses to some of my backyard neighbors. For several years a pair of my feathered friends had been building a nest on top of our ceiling light on the

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A Visit to Hospice University

April 28, 2022

Rita and I had just arrived at our “new digs” in an over 55 community (we obviously had to fudge our ages) in central Florida. The condo we rented was beautiful, well-furnished, and overlooked a lake. The owners live there periodically so it had just about everything we needed. One thing it didn’t have was a coffee brewer. Since I try to avoid single-use plastics as much as possible, I decided to look for a used coffee maker so we didn’t need to use Keurig in the condo. Besides, it

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