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8:22. 9.73 WZBG, Litchfield County’s community radio station. Once a month, we get a visit with the folks from the McCall Behavioral Health Network. Our timing is pretty darn good today. Kelly Scherker is supervisor of supported employment and integrative therapies. That is quite a mouthful. It is. And it’s it’s your work is kind of evolved. You’ve been with McCall now for what about seven years you said. Yeah. So what we’re going to talk about today, and it’s kind of great timing because we’re transitioning from winter to spring, is really all about your wellness and the way in which you’re approaching life.
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And for a lot of us, springtime is a good time to strive toward resetting, you know, to get ourselves in the right place, don’t you think?
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It’s the absolute perfect time. You know, our topic for today is marching into wellness, right? So there’s a really fantastic symbolism of marching to the beat of what makes your soul truly happy. And when we talk about wellness and integrative therapies, it’s all about feeding the mind, body, and spirit.
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So how do you do this? What do you do when it’s winter transitioning into spring? And you just be intentional and take that first step in order to bring wellness into your life and then just keep going.
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Now, being intentional. I want to dwell on that for a minute. In other words, this is not something like, I’m in a bad mood and I got the blues and I’m waiting for it to change. Make a change, right? I mean, be active in that process, right?
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You have to. You have to put one foot in front of the other and think of yourself as a kind, gentle drill sergeant, right? It’s that left, right, left, right, left. And with winter transitioning into spring at this point, though, there’s all of these natural occurrences happening all around us that are going to fuel your ability to be intentional.
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It’s helpful. Yeah, some of those things might be daylight savings time, right? At seven o’clock the other night the sun was still shining. Normally I’m in my PJs ready to call it a day. Instead I was putzing around the house doing stuff and it just it felt good and it motivated me to do even more.
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Now for me, I got to wait a little bit because I’m an early morning guy. I’m up at 430 and I’m not kidding this morning, you know, the sun doesn’t come up until after 7 but we had early light a quarter up. That was good for me, for my soul. It’s like, here comes the light.
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Exactly.
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This is what I need in the early part of my work day. So it’s different for all of us, isn’t it?
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That’s a beautiful point. Yeah, the wellness journey for everyone is so very different. And so the tips that we talk about today, if it doesn’t feed your soul, maybe it’ll inspire you to find the things that truly do. And that’s what this is all about. It’s planting that seed and helping you find your way so that you can bloom beautiful flowers, right, as they’re blooming outside as well.
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Goes all the way back to that original document, the pursuit of happiness. There you go. Yes, and for some of us it might be turning off the news for a few days.
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That’s important.
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It’s your day off.
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And I mean I’m an outdoor guy and when I need to reset, I go outside and I wander around my yard or into the pasture next door or down the end of my driveway and look out across the valley. Nature nourishes my soul. That’s kind of my reset. And like you said, everybody’s got something different.
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For some it might be curling up in your sweats and grabbing a book You know or a cup of tea. That’s what I Know yeah, so I guess find your bliss right you have to you have to be aware
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You have to be mindful and you have to allow yourself to feel those powerful energies manifesting around you You know it’s really important that you focus on your wellness because it’s critical to managing daily stress and unexpected life disruptions that come up. We have to have a healthy wellness plan for ourselves and to some degree consistently do those things so that there’s a supportive foundation when we come up against stressors and interruptions to our daily routine.
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Now there’s two different ways I think of managing wellness. One is to have techniques that are planned and that you engage in consistently so that you have that foundation when things come up. Like you said, reading a book, curling up on the couch with your dog, right? Putting on your favorite Netflix show or Hulu show and watching it so you can get that flow, right? Where you are just in the moment doing something that you enjoy. Maybe it’s spending time with
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family and friends every week or it’s going for a run in the morning or after work or going to a weekly creative arts class, right, where you paint pictures and you’re in the arts and you can just really experience a creative flow within you.
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But…
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You cite… I’m sorry, you cite something here called the wellness wheel. Is that what we’re doing here is a wellness wheel?
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Not yet.
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Not yet?
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We’re going to fall into that in just a second.
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We’re getting there. Okay. It’s an incredible tool that everybody can have access to, which is wonderful. But the other technique that I think we really have to get comfortable with is finding those healthy, adaptable ways that we self-soothe in the moment when we’re up against something that those consistent practices aren’t really helping us with, right? So something that I really suggest and like to use are engaging my senses, right?
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So your sight,
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smell, taste, sound, and touch, it helps you feel more comfortable in your body, which is something that anybody in recovery from mental health or addiction is really working on, you know, primarily their objectives are, how do I feel comfortable in my body? How can I get through these triggers and cravings so that I can move forward and not succumb to the disruptions that life presents, right?So just some suggestions might be find something peaceful to look at in nature and
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just gaze away. With this weather, we have ample opportunity to do just that. There are multiple places in Connecticut where there’s waterfalls, right? Like how beautiful is it to go sit on a rock like Southford Falls and look at the water, you know? The water flow makes me, helps me sleep too. And water is really symbolic of like emotional wellness, right? So it’s symbolism.Look it up.
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Find the symbols that really speak to you. You can light an incense or a candle, dab on some essential oil, put on lotion, and just smell those, breathe in those, feel good scents. You can make a cup of herbal tea or coffee, right? Which is definitely my go-to’s but exactly if that’s not your cup of tea right maybe you have a sweet tooth.Yeah chocolate ice cream you can kind of succumb to the
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salty tooth if you want to right or there’s nothing like a big bowl of something really healthy and greeny and leafy right it’s brain food so you know engaging those taste buds is really important. Put on some music, turn it up, have a dance party, sing as loud as you can and just hear those tunes, right? Dance like nobody’s watching. And then one of my personal favorites though is using sensory fidget gadgets to engage your sense of touch. I always seem to have
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Flinkies and crystals in my bag, right? Which is definitely one of my favorites and it just it takes you outside of your body. It really helps shift you from being stuck to feeling unstuck So those are definitely some game changers. I would suggest and to find the ones that work best for you. I tend to drum
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If the music’s on I tend to drum. Do you do air guitar too? I do not. Well I do occasionally but for me I’ve always been percussive. It’s all about the drumming and that’s that’s a way in which I can recharge or refocus.
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I see drumsticks over there too.
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Yeah, exactly. Well, I had a drum kit for years, but it’s still something that helps me get back into that space where I can re-engage and get going. I love it. So, we talked about how quickly this show goes. It sure does.
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And we’ve only got about a minute to kind of wrap up here, because it’s almost 8.30, but taking a look at if there’s a way to really sum up this refresh, this re-approach to wellness as we reach springtime. Let’s do it.
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Lay it on us. All right.
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First off, I encourage everybody to look up the wellness wheel. You can certainly Google it. It has eight quadrants that it assesses so that you can identify which areas of your life you should really prioritize in deciding how to move forward with improving your wellness, right? So there’s that.
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The second is that I just want to highlight a personal story of some clients of ours that we work with. We have a really incredible collaborative relationship with Adventure Recovery. Their premise is that they help individuals strengthen their wellness and recovery by creating a relationship with nature. We have had multiple individuals come to us and give us specific examples of how the coping strategies they learned within those wellness techniques have helped them when they’re by themselves, outside of services, maybe no longer receiving treatment, right?
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And it really just soothes their soul
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and helps them get through those difficult moments. So Adventure Recovery does something called a fire ceremony where they help you learn how to create fire with flint, right? where you can put those things that no longer serve you
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And then there’s a letting go ceremony at a bonfire into the flames and take out something anew. We had a client recently come to us who discharged from a residential facility and he was really struggling, right? With triggers and cravings and whatnot. And he remembered this holistic modality of letting go of something into a fire.
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And he was able to do just that. And it really helped him succeed with maintaining his anxiety, his depression, and abstaining from all substances. So it was a really beautiful, beautiful story. And there’s so many more just like that, you know. But McCall, as an organization, has really focused and embraced this idea of wellness and integrative therapy.
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So currently, we are in the process, and it’s been about a year or so now that we’ve been working on this, to incorporate holistic modalities into all programs across all levels of care, in addition to ensuring that our staff are subjected to this as well, right? So we want to make sure that everybody, no matter what stage of the journey of recovery they’re in, no matter what stage of their career they’re at, that they are being given
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the opportunity to improve their own wellness in whatever way is best for them.
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Use all the tools.
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Exactly. I can’t wait to see where all of this leads and I’m really grateful to be a part of it. Kelly Scherker is supervisor of supported employment and integrative therapies at McCall Behavioral Health Network. Pleasure having you on the show. It’s a pleasure. Thank you, Dale. And I hope you
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Pleasure having you on the show. It’s a pleasure. Thank you, Dale.
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And I hope you continue to find your bliss. I sure will.