A Compass For Building Compassion Resilience

CORAL OWEN: Hey there. Thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I’m Coral, my co-host Jessica is here today as well. We’re going to be wrapping up our three part series on compassion resilience by introducing you today to the Compassion Model for Wellness. And Jessica’s gonna be sharing a practice with us.

Hey Jess, how are you?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Hi, Coral. I’m doing pretty good. I’m so happy to be here with you today after that brief hiatus. I’ve had some personal shakeups since you were last here that have really forced me to ask myself every day, whether it’s related to, you know, the production of even this podcast – forced me to ask myself every day what is essential.

I remember attending these incredible sessions during the pandemic with people from all over the world, where the facilitators would open each session with a story. Usually it was a story from their life from even that day. And a big open question and the one that stuck with me the most was, [00:01:00] “What is essential?” And I’ve used it since, during times of crisis and in my group process and strategic planning work.

It’s a question that simultaneously kind of cuts through all the noise, and is open enough to invite possibility. So it kept coming to mind during the last couple of months. So I just trusted my instinct and started to lean on it a little bit. And I really have found that it’s actually a pretty good productivity tool. And I know you and I love to talk productivity. It’s really kind of my version of just keep swimming, just find the one thing, what’s essential right now. Keep going, keep going. But the primary benefit has been that just focusing on what’s essential right now, has increased a sense of ease when I’ve really needed it the most.

CORAL OWEN: I love that so much, Jessica, and I, similarly to you probably, I do a, a reflection each morning just as I’m, you know, I’m a bit old school setting my, [00:02:00] paper to-do list and, outlining my schedule. And one of the spaces in the journal that I use, a planning journal is, just a guiding thought or a mantra for the day.

And oftentimes I have a bucket in my brain and the one that I need most that day will hit me. And very frequently it is, “Only the essential,” is the guiding mantra. And that’s been coming up a lot lately. Just, but I love totally what you’re getting out of just distilling, what are the absolute need todos for the day.

And it can really just kind of ease the mental clutter and chaos that sometimes comes with just being a human and living life. So thanks so much for sharing that. We would also love to hear what’s inspiring all of you, our listeners. So please share with us by clicking the “send us a text message” link at the top of the description of this episode.

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All right. Let’s learn more about using the Compass Model for Wellness, for building compassion resilience. Jessica, can you tell us a little bit more about the practice you’ll be sharing today and also why you chose it?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. Again, this is from the Rogers Behavioral Health Compassion Resilience Toolkit that you can find at compassionresiliencetoolkit.org. They have three different toolkits in one. One is for schools and school staff. One is for professionals in the health and human services sector, and one is for parents and caregivers.

I participated in a multi-week training on this a few years ago to facilitate support circles. [00:04:00] I chose this particular practice as a way to introduce the Compass Model of Wellness, which is based on the work of Dr. Scott and Holly Stoner of Samaritan Family Wellness Center, which happens to be near my hometown.

So you know, wanted to give them some credit. I’ve spoken about other models like the eight Dimensions of Wellness from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and Total Force Fitness. These are all excellent models for building our resilience as professionals and leaders, and frankly, for using with our clients as well and the people that we work with.

But what I specifically like about the Compass model of wellness is the ease of remembering the different sectors, because there are only four. And they are heart, mind, spirit, and strength. And each sector is broken down into two additional areas. But I still like the ease of remembering heart, mind, spirit, and strength.

Mind includes the areas of work and organization. [00:05:00]

Strength includes the areas of stress, resilience, and care for body.

Spirit includes the areas of core values and rest in play.

And heart includes the areas of relationships and emotions.

The other reason I wanted to choose this practice is that it builds on what we’ve already talked about on compassion resilience by using the sectors of the compass model for wellness as a guide to assess our fatigue and our resilience within each sector. It’s such a simple reflection, but also really powerful and eye-opening when you notice those areas you’re feeling fatigue, and you identify what you can do about it.

CORAL OWEN: I am so intrigued. So let’s get started. Jessica, can you walk us through how to use this?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: To start with, if possible, it’s not necessary, but if possible, I recommend using the worksheet that we provided a link to in the show notes. For the moment though, as you’re listening, you can just [00:06:00] consider the four, I’m gonna call it the four “directions” of the Compass Model of Wellness.

And as I go over each one, consider whether you would rank your resilience in each as low, medium, or high, right? So think about are you feeling like your resilience here is really good? So then you would rank it as high or, do you feel like your resilience in that area is not doing so good, so you’d rank it as low. And of course you can always go with medium as well.

Okay, so heart, which refers to resilience in relationships and emotions.

Spirit refers to our resilience around living our core values and our engagement and recreational activities that we love, which is also called rest in play in the Compass Model.

Strength, refers to our stress, resilience, and how we care for our bodies.

And mind [00:07:00] is about doing meaningful work and even organization. It includes organization such as managing our time, money, and priorities.

So next, now that you have a little bit of a sense of how you feel about your resilience in each of those areas, reflect on which section of the wellness compass you feel most fatigued in. Is it heart, spirit, strength or mind? You would’ve rated your resilience as low. What resources do you reach out to when you’re feeling fatigued in this area? And maybe for some of us, more importantly, what resources can you reach out to that maybe you haven’t done so yet?

And then finally reflect on which section of the wellness compass you feel the most resilient. Was it heart, spirit, strength or mind that you rated high? How do you maintain your resilience in this area? And almost more [00:08:00] importantly, how might you teach others about maintaining their resilience in this area? Think about some of your colleagues. How might you help share what you know and what has worked for you.

So use this information to determine your next action. You might reach out and use a resource in an area of the compass where you’re feeling fatigued, or you might listen for opportunities to share with others how you may maintain resilience in one of these areas.

You can do that right now, in fact, by joining the Practicing Connection community on LinkedIn and creating a post that shares how you maintain resiliency in one of the areas of the compass.

CORAL OWEN: I would love to hear from our listeners about their takeaways and their areas of high resilience and how they, you know, maintain and nurture those areas. It might also be a great opportunity to reach out and see what other tools folks might be using in the areas where we might all need a little bit of a boost.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah.

CORAL OWEN: Yeah. Jessica, thank you so much. And I find [00:09:00] myself just reflecting, as you know, you’re talking through, on some areas of opportunity in my own life. So I’m excited to dig into this practice myself after this episode is wrapped. So thank you so much for sharing that.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, you’re welcome. I love the opportunity to use some of these tools that I learned about, and got trained on using, so this is great for me too.

CORAL OWEN: Well, that is it for this episode. Thank you all so much for joining us. If you enjoyed today’s episode, click the share button in your podcast app to share it with a friend. We will be back next week with an exciting new episode, and until then, keep practicing.

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, U. S. Department of Defense, under award number 2023-48770-41333.