wellness

Mending Wall: Knowing When to Maintain and Tear Down

Don Grier

Have you ever wondered how seemingly unrelated events can converge to shape a blog’s topic? This week’s blog is a perfect example. It all started with a small group discussion I led, coincidentally on the same topic we’re exploring today. Then, one of my favorite poems was read on my second favorite podcast.  Lastly, a personal experience of mine, missing a blog post due to neglecting some of the suggestions in this blog, added to the mix.  How are these events all connected?  They all revolve around the concept of Boundaries when to establish them, and when to dismantle them for the sake of wellness.  So, let’s delve into this topic with the poem from The Daily Poem.

The poem is The Mending Wall.  It is my favorite poem by Robert Frost, although I have a lot of others, perhaps more well-known poems such as The Road Not Taken (ha another idea for a blog on wellness, but let’s save it for another time).  This poem is best known for saying, “Good fences, make good neighbors.”    However, as Shawn Johnson in The Daily Poem correctly points out, the poem is not about the need to continually build a wall around yourself to be a good neighbor.  Sometimes, walls do not make good neighbors, nor do they make you change well.  Other times, you need to construct a boundary to care for yourself or respect others.   Here is an excerpt from the poem that provides more context.

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

I will be mischievous here as the poem suggests and question the thought that fences or, in our context, boundaries always make better neighbors.  Sometimes, to change well and improve, you need to break down a wall to engage with people.  Let me give you an example straight out of the poem.  Sometimes, it is essential to break out of your echo chamber and engage with someone who does not think exactly like you or is different than you.  You may learn something from them, expand your horizons, and grow.  Also, what is there to be afraid of?  As the poem suggests, why fear engaging with the apple tree if you are more inclined to be a pine tree?  Surely, they are not going to eat your pine cones!

One thing I am good at is breaking through boundaries. I love the diversity of opinions and ideas. That is why I went to one of the most conservative institutions for my undergraduate degree and a liberal one for my Graduate degree. I cherish my friends and teachers in both.

Another reason it may be essential to break down boundaries is when you are lonely or feeling depressed.  I know this from personal experience.  I went into a depression after losing my second parent and only my friends and colleagues helped to pull me out.  But it took a bit. 

Let’s pull in the other two events I mentioned at the start and a bit more of the poem.  The last part of the poem excerpt says: 

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.

There are indeed times when you should build a boundary.  We discussed this topic in the small group I facilitated the other week.  We should respect and understand other people’s boundaries when we think breaking through would offend.  Some boundaries are obvious.  You should not get into someone’s personal space unless invited into it.  Some are less so.  Here is an example, and one was brought up in the small session.  Some people need quiet time to reflect.  As a loud and energetic person, something you may have noticed from this podcast, there are times that I am a bit too loud for some quieter people (like my spouse). 

Besides respecting other people’s boundaries, you must also respect and inform others of your own boundaries.  I am notoriously bad at this, so I did not prepare a blog last week.  I lapsed into an old pattern that I thought I had cracked the code when I had made my change for the better in balancing work and other commitments.  I have recently added another work assignment to my portfolio. Instead of blocking off the time to do my podcast and blogging, which brings me such joy, I got overly engaged in other commitments.  At one time, when I was working 16-hour days, I was the poster child of what not to do in boundaries.  Heck, I pulled over the side of the road to power up and fix a code problem when en route to visit my wife and our new son the day after he was born.  I was equally not great with the work-life boundaries of others.  I could work anyone into the ground before I realized who really wants or needs to be worked into the ground.  People get less productive and get burned out.

I apologize for not honoring our weekly appointment to post a blog last week. So, until next week, know when to set up boundaries and when not to, and Change Well. The podcast version of this blog with additional commentary is on our podcast site.

Harness Four Powerful Wellness Concepts To Be Fully Engaged

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Our recent podcast and blog series on the body and soul connection recalled two books.  I am reading He Leadeth Me by Father Walter Ciszek now, and one that helped spur me on during my initial efforts to change well is The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.  Both books discuss the importance of practicing engagement in all directions and four wellness concepts.  Let’s see what that looks like.

I am going to start first with He Leadeth Me.   If you have the Hallow application, which I spoke about in the previous podcast on Body and Soul routine combos, there is a 40-day Lenten discussion using excerpts from the book.  The book is a memoir of Father Walter Ciszek and his survival in a Soviet prison and later a Siberian Gulag after being falsely accused of crimes.  The book is a powerful spiritual testament to surviving the harshest conditions if you trust God and have a purpose beyond yourself.  It also showed how the stress of the prison camp and Gulag helped Father Ciszek become more spiritually alive.  It is a fantastic book for many reasons, and I recommend it to anyone, even if they are not Christian.    But the point I want to focus on today is Father Ciszek’s quote on the connection between body and soul and the impact each has on the other.  Also, how the stress that he previously put on his body conditioned him physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually to deal with his over twenty years in captivity. Here are two pertinent excerpts from the book that will ever remain etched in my mind and heart:

“During my early years in religious life, I had even tried to outdo the legends of the saints in fastings and penances of every sort. But I did it, not so much to punish the body or attain perfection as to prove to the world and to myself how tough I was. Yet it was only now, when each day ended with exhaustion and the body cried out for every extra minute of rest, every little respite from work, every extra crumb of food, that i really came to appreciate the marvelous gift of life god had given man in the resources of the human body. The intimacy that exists between soul and body is a marvel of creation and a mystery of human existence.”

“The mysterious interplay of body and soul is an essential characteristic of our human nature. If the body is sick or sore, tired or hungry or otherwise distressed, it affects the spirit, affects our judgment, changes our personality. So slight a thing as a headache can affect our relations with those around us. It is through the body that we express and experience love and kindness and comfort. We excuse our snappish, petty, ill-mannered conduct to one another on the grounds that the body is having a bad day. We are constantly, day in and day out, hour after hour, under the influence of these mysterious workings of soul on body and body on soul.”

                He Leadeth Me by Walter J. Ciszek with Daniel L. Flaherty, 99

Father Ciszek points out that he could not have kept his soul and emotions intact if he had not trained himself physically.  He also discusses in the book how his spiritual well-being and purpose helped him to drive on even when it appeared physically impossible.

The Power of Full Engagement

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in The Power of Full Engagement make a similar connection, albeit from a secular viewpoint.  This book was instrumental in starting my wellness journey, and I have referenced some of its four wellness concepts in developing my practice.  The fundamental premise is to become a fully engaged, effective person and leader, you should focus on managing energy rather than time.  The second key idea is that there are four dimensions of energy, the capacity of which you need to increase and manage to be fully engaged and high-performing.  These are:

  1. Physical energy, which focuses on the quantity of energy;
  2. Emotional energy, which defines the quality of energy (for example, compare  the impact of negative talk to positive affirmation on your well-being);
  3. Mental energy, which defines the direction of energy (focused versus distracted);
  4. Spiritual energy, which defines the power and impact of the energy (energy and effort not aligned with spiritual being and vision is wasted)

The third of the wellness concepts is the best way to build up energy in all four quadrants is to train like an athlete with intervals of stress and rest.  If there is too much stress and insufficient rest in any quadrant, you become tired and disheartened.  Alternatively, too much rest without the stress of a challenge leads to complacency and, in extreme cases, sloth. 

The last of these wellness concepts is that the most fundamental energy source is physical; the most significant that guides our vision and purpose is spiritual.  The underlying capacity of our physical energy impacts all other quadrants.  When we are tired, unhealthy, and hyped up on too many all-nighters of pizza and soda, we are often cranky and short with others.  Lack of sleep impacts our ability to focus on our work, and we become distracted. 

On the other hand, without stores of spiritual energy, we can dissipate our energy on the wrong things and forego the purpose for which we were put on this earth.  To refer back to our initial quote from Father Ciszek, if you do not have the physical capacity, you will not have the energy to be led to your ultimate purpose. And if you do not have the spiritual backbone and purpose for living, you will be led in the wrong direction.

I highly recommend that you take the time to read both books.  I cannot underestimate the impact that both have had on my life.  My blogs and podcasts focus on how I used the wellness concepts of these books to change my life.  If you have not had the time, check out Episode 2, which covers techniques in all four energy quadrants, Episode 4, Waking Up to Your Why about the spiritual component, and Episode 7, THINK Yourself to a New You, for ideas on Emotional and Mental Energy.  The podcasts each have links to the associated blogs for a deeper dive into wellness concepts.  In conclusion, let me close by paraphrasing St Francis De Sales.  Within every period of desolation lies the seeds of consolation.  The opposite is also true.  To best build our capacity in all four quadrants of our humanity – physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual – we must learn how to harness the ebb and flow of stress and relaxation to become fully engaged, fully human, and to change well!

Seven Habit Stacks to Heal Your Body and Restore Your Soul

Don Grier

This is the second of a two-part blog series focusing on practices that nurture the body and soul.  The first blog of the series, Five Restorative Practices to Heal Your Body and Soul, covered five powerful practices that can help you promote your soul and, in turn, improve your health and disposition.   This blog will cover how to stack in sequence or, better yet,  run body and soul habit combinations in parallel for a double whammy. You can also hear both blogs with additional info in podcast form by subscribing to the Change Well podcast, available at our website link here or on Spotify or Apple Podcast

The concept of habit stacking, as introduced in Atomic Habits, helps to establish beneficial habits more quickly. Here is a simple example. You need to take medication each day, which is an established habit. However, you also want to institute the beneficial habit of drinking sixty-four ounces of water. A way to develop the new habit is to place a water bottle next to your pill container. Presto! Now, you have a ready-made container with the right amount of water next to your pill box. You need to wash down the pills and, in so doing, start drinking the water you need for the day!

I used this habit stacking idea to benefit significantly during my weight loss journey of losing 150+ pounds in under a year.  My physical transformation recovered my body, but my soul was still suffering. I was still sometimes a curmudgeon, and my peace of mind, though better, could still get rattled. So, I decided to piggyback some new soul habits with some of my firmly established body habits.  I will provide examples of my body and soul habit stacks and scrums, more on that term later, that relate to my faith practice – Roman Catholicism.  However, I will try briefly suggesting how these may be adapted based on my research. 

The first stack that I tried was what I called the Texas Three Step.  I had already established the Texas Two Step method during my weight loss journey.  Each Saturday morning, I would get up at 6:00 and work out for an hour and a half before attending my WW meeting.  Good for the body! 

Two years ago, my parish established Saturday morning prayers (called Lauds in the Liturgy of the Hours) combined with Adoration on Saturday in the early morning. This led to my new and improved Texas three-step Saturday ritual. I now get up on Saturday at 5 AM and exercise to get as close to my weight target as possible. I then went to my Church and prayed for an hour to clear the weight off my soul. After praying (and sometimes Mass), I head to my WW meeting to share wellness ideas with my friends, now at the 9:30 WW Meeting. In one fell swoop, I shed weight on body, soul, and shared fellowship to start the weekend right!

I next created a daily body and soul stack.  It was similar to the first stack but less formal without group activities.  I had established an exercise habit that followed my morning water and medication discussed earlier.  I decided to add a prayer meditation after working out and subsequently stretching.  This worked well initially.  I got my heart rate up with exercise, then began slowing it down with stretching, and lastly, I established a contemplative prayer.  The exercise helped my prayer focus, and the prayer helped me slow down and heal my body.  However, I ran into a problem with time management.  I skipped exercises if I had a late night the night before. Or if I thought I had enough but limited time, I rushed both.   I began to put back on some weight because I prioritized the spiritual aspect.  I had to do something to bring them together.  That is when I came up with the idea of body and soul scrums while listening to a book on product management!

Scrum is likely known to rugby fans and software developers but may not be as well known to others.  Scrum in software development focuses, among other things, on parallel activities.  The origin of Scrum as a framework goes back to an article in the Harvard Business Review in 1986. “The New New Product Development Game” by Takeuchi and Nonaka described how first-class products are developed in cross-functional teams with an ‘all-simultaneous approach.’ 

Therefore, a body and soul scrum is when you simultaneously execute body and soul habits.  What is an example? I will use one of the oldest ones, perfect for the beginning of Christian Lent and practiced by many faiths, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Taoism – Fasting and prayer!

Intermittent fasting is now all the rage for weight loss. Still, before my Silicon Valley colleagues adapted it to shed pounds, fasting was used by saints and spiritual leaders to deny themselves and develop spiritually.  It is the ultimate body and soul scrum, cleansing the body and healing the soul.  Today, on Ash Wednesday, I fast as part of my religion.  But also practice fasting more regularly to detoxify the body and soul.  I have put a link in the show notes to an article from the NIH on religious fasting. 

Besides fasting and prayer, I have developed other body and soul habit scrums I use weekly.  They help me manage my time while packing a one-two holistic punch of well-being. 

  1. Mike and Bike. In these previous blogs, I documented my love of cycling on our companion blog site: Peloton Pandemic Pandemonium, Don’t Stop Believing: A Weight Loss Journey in Three Intervals. My respect and admiration for Father Mike Schmitz are right up there with this love. He was instrumental in my wellness journey, both body and soul. I started listening to his homilies after a Lenten retreat at our parish and would listen to his homilies while using the elliptical training. With the launch of the Bible in the Year podcast, I have taken it to a new level with Mike and Bike. At least three times weekly, I take a 20-minute scenic ride on the Peloton and turn off the sound. I then turn on the daily Bible in the Year podcast and listen to the Lord’s word while circumventing the pathways of Rome, Paris, or the Alps. With each Mike and Bike, I grow in knowing the Lord’s plan for me and building my quads! You can download the Bible in the Year podcast here Bible in a Year if you want to try it.
  2. Marching with Mary. Last May, I participated in a fundraiser to raise money for the mental wellness of veterans and soldiers. The StopSoldierSuicide.org fundraiser called for me to march 50 miles during May while carrying a 50 lbs. ruck. My 60-year-old body does not march fast with 50 lbs. on my back. It was seriously cutting down on my prayer time. I therefore decided to add reciting a silent Rosary while marching. A rosary is a series of prayers and meditations that use a unique prayer bead called a rosary.   As a Catholic, I believe this prayer practice was passed on to us from Mary through St. Dominic.  Other religious practices have prayer beads to recite prayers, chants, and mantras. This Marching with Mary practice allowed me to add over fifty prayers and meditations on each ruck march. In this way, I was not only able to raise money for Veterans, but I could pray for them, too.
  3. Hinge and Hallow. One of the reasons I ambled while marching was weakness in one of my knees. To help with this issue, I use a physical therapy application called Hinge Health. This application has a set of tailor-made exercises to help strengthen my knee. While doing my Hinge exercises, I listen to the Hallow mindfulness application https://hallow.com/. This application is an excellent resource for all Catholics and includes everything from The Daily Miracle meditation to Gregorian Chants to books from doctors of the Church.  I highly recommend it, and you may have seen their ad at the recent Superbowl, but there are other similar applications, such as Calm, that are secular or of a different faith that others can use. This combination helps me fix my knee and my disposition all at the same time!
  4. Exodus for the soul (and body). The last body/soul scrum is the one that launched it all. Two years ago, I participated with a group of men in my church in Exodus 90. This program is a ninety-day spiritual exercise for men based on three pillars: prayer, asceticism, and fraternity. Part of the ascetic practice is daily rigorous exercise, excluding alcohol and sweets, and days of fasting. It also includes daily prayer practice. It gave me the idea for the other four practices previously stated. I highly recommend it for all Catholic Men who need a wake-up call for both body and soul.

I hope these ideas can help you as they help me improve your body and soul.  Whether you practice body and soul habit stacks or scrums, thinking of the

Five More Powerful Guidelines for the Wellness-Led Organization

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We are on the third of four blogs and associated podcasts located at this link – Podcast – discussing the Well-Led guidelines for a successful organization that simultaneously cares for its employees and mission.  You can apply these guidelines to lower risk and increase organizational, program, and project success.

Before discussing Well-Led Guidelines six through ten, let me briefly summarize the previous two blogs.  The first two blogs are located at Three Key Reasons Your Organization Should Be Wellness-Led and Five Essential Guidelines for the Well-Led Organization.

In the first blog, we gave three reasons why support of employee wellness is essential for an organization intent on ensuring sustainable access and lowering risk.  A focus on employee wellness leads to better decision-making, strong camaraderie, a shared sense of purpose, and a reduction in sick days with a corresponding increase in productivity.

In the other blog, we looked at the first five Well-Led Guidelines; all focused on planning with employee health as a critical input.  The first five guidelines were:

  1. Acknowledge that overwork is counterproductive, so plan for downtime in your schedule.  Do not overallocate your people.
  2. Build downtime away from work during the week to allow people to focus on non-work-related tasks.
  3. Incorporate fun and incentives into work.  Indeed, all work and no play makes for a dull existence.
  4. Keep your team energized with healthy and culturally appropriate snacks.
  5. Don’t risk your employees’ health by making them come to the office during a weather or other emergency.

These are just the highlights of the first five Well-Led guidelines. Five Essential Guidelines for the Well-Led Organization has examples of how to do it and anecdotes of what goes wrong if you do not follow the Well-Led guidelines.

Now, let’s jump into Well-Led Guidelines six through ten. 

6. Build civility and respect for the individual in all company processes.   We all know what happens when people do not treat each other civilly.  You have stalemates, animosity, in-action, and resentment.   Just look at the dialogue on Twitter now, X, or our current political impasse. On the other hand, we all know what happens when a team actively listens to one another and allows a voice for the opposite viewpoint.  You make a better decision, avoid group thinking, and build a shared purpose.  But it is not easy.  This does not mean you never need a tiebreaker; that is when authentic leadership emerges.  Or that you always have consensus.  It means that everyone involved understands the reason for the decision and emerges as colleagues who respect but do not necessarily agree.  And perhaps, the opposing viewpoint is turned to when the initial decision does not work.

How do you build an organization based on civility and respect for the individual? Believe it or not, I turn to two political figures:  our first president, George Washington, and a hero of mine and favorite Professor, Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. 

When he was 16, George Washington wrote 110 rules of civility to guide his life. Washington wrote down the rules presumably as an exercise in penmanship but later committed them to practice and memory. They helped develop the decorum, civility, and courage that guided Washington through war and the birth of this nation. You can read Washington’s Rules of Civility here. Washington’s Rules

The rules initially composed by French Jesuit priests in 1565 range from the practical to the profound.  Respect and civility toward friend and foe are at the root of the rules.  Rule 1 lays this idea out perfectly with the words:  “Every action done in the company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.”  Many in the public sphere would do well to take this rule to heart!

Most of the rules have applications today.  One of them that I found particularly compelling is Rule 18:  “Read no letters, books, or papers in the company, but when there is a necessity for the doing of it, you must ask leave: come not near the books or writings of another to read them unless desired or give your opinion of them unasked also look not nigh when another is writing a letter.”   What does this mean for our sixth Well-Led Guideline?  When you are in a face-to-face meeting, no laptop or phone use.  If you are remote, put your camera on and be present.  No multi-tasking.

There are many more applicable rules on civility.  We have added a link to my blog on this topic in the blog in the show notes.  Washington Rules of Civility for Today

Many of you who pass through Austin have seen the statue of the airport’s namesake, Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.  Ms. Jordan, who I was fortunate to have as a Professor at LBJ School of Public Affairs, was a towering intellect, the epitome of integrity, and a hero to all Texans. She also encapsulated in one person the power of diversity and the spark and spirit that binds us together.

Ms. Jordan, I, and other students had many engaging debates in the classroom.  These discussions were governed by Ms. Jordan’s rules of Civil Discourse, which I took from her engagement in the discussion. I believe each organization should implement something similar.

  1. She understood all angles of an issue. In particular, she could often articulate the opposing views’ perspective better than they could themselves.
  2.  She would then clarify where she agreed with their perspective to emphasize where there was common ground.
  3. Only then would she respectfully bring up where she differed from the group or person’s perspective with concise arguments based on her view of the facts.

7. Technology to help, not replace people.  This next rule, believe it or not, is related to the one that came before.  Organizations, particularly technology-focused ones,  can show bias toward technology, just as human-focused organizations can show to the person with the loudest bullhorn.   Use technology, particularly AI, in a judicious manner.  AI and other technology should be used to free humans from the mundane and to spark creativity from the launchpad of technology.  Not to replace them entirely but to add more value to the organization. 

8. Celebrate diversity and learn about other cultures. Diversity of opinion and the ability to share ideas across cultures, creeds, generations, and genders is transforming.  Each of us brings to a solution a unique perspective that no one else can replicate.  It is tempered by our experiences, upbringing, and the place we call home.  Each person was put on this earth to fulfill a unique purpose.  A true leader’s mission is to meld the singular talents of each person to gain the best result.  What unites us is undoubtedly more significant than what divides us; what unites us is the spark of humanity in each person! It is also imperative for personal growth to learn from one another and to celebrate differences.

In rule six, we already talked about how civilly listening to diverse opinions brings better decisions and engages all participants when done right.  But it also is essential to allow people to be exposed to other cultures in a non-work environment to build understanding.  One way to do this is to build an event like I did with my team.  Each year, we had a Festival of Lights where team members all over the globe shared their holiday pictures and discussed their festival of lights (Diwali, Christmas, Hanukkah, Bodi Day, Quanza, and many more).  It was not mandatory, but people loved it.  It showed the commonalities and differences of our team in a positive light. 

9. Always plan for training. Not planning for training when taking on a new venture or bringing a new person into the organization can hurt morale and stymie productivity.  In my experience, most people want to expand their capabilities and follow their organization into new ventures.  It is, therefore, crucial to provide well-constructed training so people feel that the organization is vested in them and they are enabled for the task in front of them.  I have seen too many projects go south because the leadership did not take the time to refresh members on crucial training topics or introduce new training for the new venture. 

10. Lead from the bottom. The last rule for this podcast is that you need a mechanism to hear and capture ideas from those doing the work.  The best ideas come from those performing the heavy lifting.  So, develop an incentive system to capture team members’ ideas and offer incentives and recognition when their ideas are used. 

Next week’s blog will examine the guidelines eleven through fifteen. Until then Thrive through Wellness.