Five Pillars Of Wellness for Addiction Recovery

The most damaging myth about recovery is that it is mainly about stopping something. We believe it is about building something: a life where you can handle stress, emotions, relationships, and uncertainty without reaching for old patterns. That is why I sat down with Melissa, our Director of Wellness, to unpack the Five Pillars of Wellness that shape the daily rhythm of Valiant: physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual wellness. This framework is not fluffy or abstract. It is a simple way to rebuild your relationship with yourself from the inside out, one week at a time. 

We also dig into a phrase we are starting to use more intentionally: experiential healing. Hiking, breathwork, sound baths, cold water, yoga, and longer off-grid “experiential immersions” are not rewards or distractions. They are designed spaces where defenses drop, trust grows, and deeper work can finally surface. Melissa shares why nature and somatic practices can unlock breakthroughs that do not always happen in a chair, and how we build in real processing so the experience turns into insight and change. 

You will hear exactly how we make wellness practical through a weekly five pillars check-in, where each person chooses one small, specific, achievable goal per pillar. We talk about accountability, reducing overwhelm, and how this same tool can strengthen relationships through a couples version that improves communication and shared habits. Melissa also previews a powerful theme on non-attachment, including an exercise that makes emotional baggage literal and shows the cost of clinging too tightly. 

Grab the free Five Pillars of Wellness guide with reflection questions and weekly check-ins at ValiantLiving.com/episode66, and if this helps you, subscribe, share it with someone you love, and leave a review so more people can find real tools for lasting recovery.

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, you don’t have to face it alone.

Valiant Living helps men and their families move from crisis to stability through clinically driven care, community, and hope.

Learn more about our programs at www.valiantliving.com
or call us confidentially at (720) 796-6885 to speak with someone who can help.

Transcript

Welcome And The Wellness Framework

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, hey everybody, welcome back to the Valiant Living Podcast. I'm Drew Powell. I'm a recovery advocate here at Valiant, an alumnus of the program myself. And today's conversation is what I've been looking forward to because if you've been around Valiant for any amount of time, you know of Melissa, you also know of our wellness program, which is really one of the kind of shining stars of what we do here at Valiant. And today we get to talk about the five pillars of wellness spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and social. And it's the framework behind so much of what happens here because we really believe that recovery was never just about stopping a behavior, it's about building a life where all of you gets healthy. And really, there's no one better to walk us through that than Melissa herself. She's the director of wellness. She's actually the one that created this framework for us. She leads the wellness programming, and our clients really experience a wellness component every single day. It's integrated into every part of our programming. And not only that, but Melissa really lives this stuff. Also, we created a resource for you that you can get for free at dietliving.com slash episode 66. And we've unpacked really the five-pillar framework for you, and there's also some worksheets that we use, and we just want to give that to you for free. Alright, let's jump in with Melissa. Well, I get to sit down with my good friend Melissa, although we're in different parts of the world and have a conversation on. I was gonna say wellness, but you just right before we hit record, you gave me a new term that I love. Can we start there?

SPEAKER_03 1:39

Let's start there.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

I'm so grateful for you to give some time. I know you've got a lot of stuff going on there at Valiant today. And but I did want to highlight our our wellness program and the and the great work that that you're doing. And we're we're putting this out there. We have a resource that we're creating around a framework that you've built called the Five Pillars of Wellness and how we integrate that into our programming. Um, but let's start with your new term. Drop us on it's not it's not a new term, but we're starting to incorporate this into our language because I think it better describes what we actually do. Tell us about

Experiential Healing And Why Nature Works

SPEAKER_00 2:15

it.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Yeah, I think I think it definitely better defines what we do within the realm of wellness. And uh we use the word experiential often here. So when we look at the when we look at the context of the week or the month, and we talk about what wellness looks like Monday through Sunday, every Thursday and Saturday we have something called experiential, experiential day. And as I was mulling over what you and I were gonna talk about today and how to really describe the Svive Pillars approach, um, why it's so important, how it works um within the context of treatment of valiant. I was thinking about experientials and what happens when we go on those experientials, healing happens, a deeper, a different kind of healing, if you will. I've experienced some of the most powerful breakthroughs that these um men have shown um in, and they don't necessarily happen sitting in a therapy chair or in a group room or you know, on in the van. All of those places are really powerful places for connection. But so many times these breakthroughs happen when we're on trails, when somebody's waist deep in cold water, um, in the sweat lodge, in a sound bath. So the experientials I want to start kind of referring to them as experiential healing.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah, that's beautiful. It just isn't. Go ahead. No, I was gonna say it better defines what you're actually doing. That's what I love.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Yeah, I think so too, right? Because we don't we don't just take everyone to a trailhead and go for a hike and then come back and hop in the van and come home. We build in process time, deep process time. Um, whether it's around a topic that was introduced on Monday, something, uh, a theme that I'm working on with the clients for the week, there's process time that happens and there's deep, there's that's an opportunity for that deeper connection. And there's just something about being in nature that allows us to feel less inhibited and less guarded and more free, if you will. Like that's what I've discovered. Um look, you know me, uh I'm a I'm a nature wilderness junkie at heart. Uh that's where that's where I get um that's my medicine. And um, today I'm in my office and kind of made sure you could see the tree in the background. The things that really bring me bring me peace and contentment throughout my day is just looking outside and and seeing what nature's offering us. But and that's not for everyone, you know, there are plenty of people that don't like to be dirty, they don't like to get their hands dirty or their sneakers dirty, if we will. Um but over time with repetition and look, a lot of this is about trust. You and I have talked about that so many times. When I'm leading an experiential healing exercise, it has to be really, I think the the foundation has to be trust. You know, do they trust me to bring them to this specific destination? Do they trust me to be outside of maybe literally outside of a comfort zone, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:03

So, what I've noticed is it's it's it's what allows us to go deeper into the therapeutic work. And because I'll just speak from my experience, you know, say you're doing therapy Monday through Wednesday all day long, you know, the way our therapy works, if you're in PHP, you're gonna be in therapy from you know most of the day, nine to two, then you're gonna have that's group, then you're gonna be in individual and you've got all these other sessions, and you might, you know, might get over to Club Greenwood to get a workout in to decompress a little bit. But by the time Wednesday, Thursday comes along, you've been doing a lot of group work, individual therapy. It doesn't surprise me that on Thursday, when we we go into these experiential healing settings, that's when a lot of stuff starts bubbling up that starts coming out, like your get out. And and that was my experience. A lot of the great work that was done was done on a hike or while we're fly fishing or while we're doing something, and it just gives the emotional weight, kind of time to breathe, space to breathe, space to process. You do a brilliant job of creating space for the guys to talk and process. And of course, we have one another to bounce things off of. And that's why I wanted to I wanted to ask you about even how we start the

Trust And Processing Outside The Room

SPEAKER_00 7:22

program. So what I love is wellness is not like this add-on, oh, this is a cool, like fun element. Like it's it's woven into the fabric of our programming. It's core to what we do. It's not an it's not just like a side add-on thing. Can you talk a little bit about that? So when a when a guy comes into our program, we introduce them to these concepts, this five pillars of wellness, right from the get-go as a part of their their process here.

SPEAKER_03 7:50

Yeah, that's something that we're very, very passionate about for sure, because um, you know, anyone could go and take a yoga class once a week or once in a while, or be guided in a meditation. Um, I think one of the biggest misconceptions about recovery, um, it's that it's that's just about stopping a behavior, right? And what I've noticed in my experience, recovery is really about rebuilding um this relationship with self. So, you know, the relationship that we have with ourselves from the inside out. So we look at, you know, what fuels us on a physical level? Why is it so important to move the body, to literally move the body, right? Um we we do walk and talk exercises, excuse me, once in a while. And just getting up in that first sunlight in the morning and getting getting folks out, moving and then doing some light stretching, um, tapping into that that physical nature. I think a lot of times recovery shoves that down, or excuse me, um, you know, I think a lot of times um that gets shoved down when folks are in active use. So it's like movement is key, movement is key. And then, you know, looking beyond that, why is connection so important? So one of the one of the five realms of wellness is the social realm. Again, what happens when we're in active addiction, we're isolating. What's the opposite of that? It's connection, it's community, it's beginning to trust again so we can open up to others and share about our our lived experiences and our fears and our traumas and all the things that have, you know, maybe been pulling us down in life.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Uh yeah. And then, you know, then we get into the spirit, the spiritual realm. And spirituality to me, it's not it's not religion. It's it can be, certainly it can be. But I think, you know, spiritual wellness is it's about that connection to nature, to your purpose, to your values, um, something that's bigger than our than our egos, something that's bigger than our fears. Um, I think a lot of people rediscover that when they start to heal. And that's a really, really important component to all of this. Oftentimes somebody might, you know, come back from a hike. When we do more challenging hikes, you know, we don't, I don't want to say we we don't go easy, but I I want these guys to really feel that that outer strength, the power of their legs, you know, the ability to take those deep breaths and challenge their lungs on some of these steeper climbs that we do. And um, yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people come back and say, something shifted in me today, or something shifted in me yesterday. And that's that's a beautiful thing. And I say, people, don't don't dismiss that, right? Don't try to figure it out necessarily right away, but also don't dismiss it. Look at it.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Feel into that.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

So it's interesting because as you were talking, I was just thinking, let's so this morning, as we're recording this, this is on a Monday, and I woke up this morning just I was lacking some motivation. And oh yeah. And one of the tools that I've learned from you and from going through the program is sometimes it's helpful when I'm when I'm in my head to really get into my body, right? And so, of course, my default this morning was I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna scroll on my phone, just doing a bunch of things that weren't actually helpful to help me get through kind of this funk that I was in. And it just hit me. I was like, man, I'm gonna go out and just go on a walk. And I took a nice like 30, 45 minute walk. And by the time I was home, I was good, took showers, good to go for the day. But it's a great example. It sounds really simple. It's a great example that before I was in recovery, before I that's a tool that I learned from Valiant, I wouldn't have done that. I mean, I would have just stayed in kind of that funky Monday blues mood. You might say, well, Drew, how does that play into addiction? Well, it's exactly what you just said. It's like if I would have stayed disconnected, because that's what eventually that's what leads to addiction, is like I'm not connected to myself, to what's going on, to my feelings. But during the walk, I was present, I was able to name things I was grateful for, all those things. And that's what leads me actually into recovery, into connection. And that's what these tools help us with. So list them off for us real quick. So there's five of them. Um, and you mentioned a couple.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

You talked about by the way, before we list them, way to go. Because that's that's the whole that's the whole idea. When when someone walks out of this program, yeah, you want them to walk out obviously sober, but I want them to leave with a toolbox for living life, for living a connected, connected, purposeful, meaningless, meaningful, whatever it is, but for living life. Right. Um, so you know, you were able to go back into that toolbox and recognize a walk this morning will be great. And you brought gratitude into that walk. So now you're not only moving, but you're opening up your heart and recognizing, you know, the small and probably big things in your life that you're grateful for, which ultimately research shows gratitude practices help us establish a deeper sense of peace and stay in that peace. So despite all this chaos, it's going to arise around us every day. Finding moments to be grateful throughout your day allows it, just allows us to stay more connected to what I, you know, what I call my personal peace. I don't care what happens. Yeah, I'm gonna, you know, yeah, we get activated. Other emotions, negative emotions will arise. We're human beings. But ultimately, you know, at the end of the day, can you stay? What's it gonna take to stay in that in that calmer, more peaceful state? Maybe it's walking away from an ar a conversation, maybe it's you know, taking that walk. But yeah, good for you. Okay, come back to it. I'm just I'm proud of you. I'm really happy that you can do that.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Well, thank you for saying that. Uh it means a lot. And yeah, and I will say, even as I say it, it feels small, but I I really feel like recovery is one in those small moments, daily moments where you you choose connection over something else. Even if it's not like, oh, I'm acting out in a major way, but it's like those the my alumni brothers who are in recovery, who are staying true to the recovery, they're winning the battle with little choices every single day to focus on connection. It's not some huge, elaborate deal. It it's the walks, it's the working out, it's the eating right, it's the going to meetings, it's the you know, going to therapy, it's all the little things that we have that we use. And so, yeah, it's it's it mat the small things matter in recovery. But I didn't mean to interrupt you. Go go ahead with your your your five pillars.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Yeah, I know, and I'm glad we're talking about this the small things, because you you listed off um a handful of things, and all together that can be some in

Recovery As Rebuilding Self Relationship

SPEAKER_03 15:17

some cases overwhelming, depending on, you know, maybe where somebody is in their recovery. Somebody new in recovery might look at that list of things and be like, whoa, like where do I even start? Um but so the way I've designed, we've designed the five pillars of wellness, we make it a it obviously is integrated throughout everyone's treatment plan, but there are five areas. So physical wellness, mental, emotional, social, spiritual. Okay. And what we what I try to do, what I do every week with these guys is I I start every Monday with um a 75-minute process group where they have a sheet that they fill out and I say to them, in each realm of wellness, one small, basic, achievable goal for this week. And so as time goes on, they can kind of look back and say, you know, spiritually, my intention last week was to pray more often. And I say, be more specific, pray more often, pray each day, pray throughout each day, go go to church on Sunday, like be as specific as you can, but still keep it tight, keep it small. And so then we can kind of look back and see where there was progress or maybe where something fell off, and you want to come back to it. Because I think that's a really big piece of this. We're overwhelmed, most of us, you know, information, information overload and all these expectations that um we place on ourselves and that others place on us, all the different roles that we have in our lives. So this exercise is not I always I always start off by saying it's not intended to make your life more complicated, it's intended to simplify your life and to keep you on target for this week. Even if it's just for today, you know, you can kind of look at that. These guys come back with some amazing, amazing goals. They put a lot of thought into it. Um, and then I'll do check-ins with them. I see them every day, but I'll do check-ins like when we do our walk on Wednesdays. Hey, how's XYZ goal coming along for you? Um, you know, where and then I encourage them to talk to one another about it, hold each other accountable. You know, if your goal is to get into the gym three times this week um and increase, increase your your your you know, your your cardio workout, whatever it is,

The Five Pillars Defined

SPEAKER_03 17:45

challenge each other, check in and say, hey, how's that going for you? Do you want an accountability partner in it? Um emotionally, are you opening up more? Is there, you know, is there something that might be going on at home that you're trying to work through with your spouse or with your children? And how are you communicating that from your heart? Like how are you really looking at those emotions that you and your therapist are diving and digging deeper into? And how is that translating into the way you're communicating with you know with others and your relationships? So all of it's really interconnected. Yeah, and I think it gives people good roadmap. It gives it gives these guys um something to work with. I've I extended it more recently, this five pillars check-in. I I created one for couples. We had a client whose um whose wife was really, really alongside him throughout this process back home. She was seeing a therapist, uh, she was going to recovery type meetings, she was listening to pot podcasts, reading books, like really trying to understand the why uh with regard to her husband's addiction. And as a result, you know, the she was very willing to learn is what I'm trying to say. So as a result, when it came time for him to discharge from our program, they were continually coming closer and closer together throughout this process, which was really beautiful to watch that unfold because that's not always the case. Um, but we talked, I I wanted her to understand what I had been working with him on in regards to this wellness component. And she was very interested. And I said, let me see if I can put something together for the two of you. So now they're working on that together. So they sit down on Sundays. What are our goals for the week individually? What do what are my non-negotiables? What do I have to do to maintain this sort of this sense of balance in my physical realm of wellness? What do I need to maintain some balance spiritually? What I need then translates to what we can do together and what we need. So it just kind of opens up the communication. It just kind of gives us a different way to talk to each other in our relationship. It kind of makes things more real and and perhaps tangible. They're there what we need goal uh one week was we need to start prioritizing after dinner or evening walks. So simple. But hopefully over time, if if they remain consistent with that, they'll discover something new about their relationship. Maybe it'll maybe it'll strengthen their relationship in a way that it seems so simple, right? But um, it's awesome. Never know.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Well, you've taken it from philosophical into practical, which is what I I really appreciate about it. Because it's now it's like, okay, here's the thought around it. And we're gonna, again, we're gonna give out you've given us permission to kind of give out a resource about the five pillars where we go a little bit more in depth and kind of just give this out to free to for free to anybody who wants it. And thank you for doing that. So that'll that'll be connected to this. But it really takes it from, okay, here's the five pillars of understanding it to now how do we integrate this into our lives? Obviously, we start doing it as a part of the program at Valiant, but then it's something that we actually take with us and we do whether it's as a couple individually. I mean, there's so many different ways of of implementing this practically. I'm I'm curious though, around are there any misconceptions that come to your mind when it comes to the five pillars or wellness, or when someone hears experiential healing or wellness, is there any sometimes it's helpful for me to define something by what it's not? So it helps me get a clearer picture of it.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

Um anything that comes to mind around misconceptions around wellness one of the things that's that's come come up maybe maybe more recently in this. Well, I won't say more recently. It's come it's come up a few times. Look, our experientials are incredible. I think I'm I'm biased. But I mean in the wintertime we do ski trips once or twice a month. In the summertime, we do camping trips. I try to do those every six to seven weeks or so. And I think sometimes if you're if your family member, if your wife, in our in in our case, was Valiant, if your wife hears, oh, he's going on a three or four-day camping trip, there's sometimes I think misconceptions around what that looks like. And it's not up to me to share the details of of what we do on camping trips, because I think that's sacred space for a person who's healing. Um, and so they can certainly share that when they return home if if if they deem it necessary and appropriate. But what I want to share is, and and we've actually reframed the way we say that, it's no longer camping trips, they're experiential immersions. Because we're literally taking these guys out for three and four days into again, nature. Most of the time it's nature, all of the time, I guess, and we're immersing them by there, there's there's a whole plan before we go, right? It's very, very, very well thought out. And we're diving deep, we're diving into emotions, we're diving into trauma, we're dry diving into healing. There's a there's a therapist, at least one therapist, that's on all of these trips. So if an individual hits hits a hard roadblock, they can step out and go for an individual walk with that therapist. Um, so there's there's a lot of healing that occurs on those experiential immersions. It allows us an opportunity to just kind of get off the grid, get away from all the tech, get away from all the day-to-day, um, if you will, right? There's there's a lot to be said for the structure that we provide day-to-day in this environment, but there's also a lot to be said for this unstructured healing that happens when we're away. So I think around misconceptions, that might be something uh that I think it looks fun. In fact, we we had a new therapist recently start, and she said, Oh, I heard you're the wellness director. You do all the fun things.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

You're like, if you only knew. Yes, and um there's there's I laugh because I've been on these, I've been on these experientials where they are very fun, but uh they get very real. I mean, they're they get intense too, because a lot of stuff comes up. And I I I think that's why I wanted to ask you that, because I I I think it makes sense to me as to why someone who maybe their husband or son or someone goes to treatment to rehab and all of a sudden they see, oh, they're they're on Pike's Peak, or they're doing this or that and the other. And the the first thought might be, well, what what is going on? Especially if there's if people are dealing with their own trauma and hurt and you know, all those kind of things. I'm also speaking from my experience, you know, now in hindsight, um Jamie has a great understanding of why we do what we do and what we do, and knows how why that was so pivotal to my my therapy, my recovery, all that kind of stuff. I think early on she may have thought, well, I'm a little confused as to why he's doing

Weekly Goals And Accountability Practice

SPEAKER_00 25:48

that, what he's doing, you know, and all that kind of stuff. And so that's why I'm glad you explained it, because I do think that makes sense. I have empathy for the person who might think, oh, you know, what are they what are they engaging in? But for us, hearing you talk about it, it really helps because it helps with the intention and the purpose behind why we do what we do, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:11

Yeah, no, good. I'm glad I'm glad you asked that question because I do think there are some there are some misconceptions. And again, I you know, I don't say it to to be aloof, but what what happens in on those um more immersive trips and through that ex that experiential healing, that is very personal to each in individual, right? Um, because ultimately what my hope is through this wellness process is that people will will rediscover. We we just did an exercise a few weeks ago. The the man it was called the man I'm becoming. I I hope these guys can really start to heal these old wounds. They're re they're rebuilding, they have an opportunity. They wouldn't be here. Being here is the opportunity. Being in treatment is the opportunity to um to do this deeper work. And um there's a lot of different ways to do deeper work. Look, we live in we live in a state where I was gonna look up this this this statistic for you and and I didn't get a chance to it, but I'm gonna probably guess and say, I mean, it's obviously thousands of trails, right? Right. Um maybe tens of thousands of trails. There's so much there's so much nature to be explored. And there's it's just a different way, it's a different approach to introducing someone to um a way to heal themselves, a way to rediscover themselves and who they are. Like I said, I used the word freedom before. It truly feels freeing to be to be immersed in in these in these environments. So yeah, and even if we're not in nature, you know, even if we're we have um a wonderful housing tech, he's he's that and so much more. Jonathan and he does breath work with our clients a couple of times a week and these beautiful guided meditations. And oftentimes through that more challenging breath work that he guides them in, something comes up for people, right? It's a somatic, it's an unlocking, if you will. We have oftentimes just we we suppress our emotions and we and we push everything down. But when we start to kind of we force our body to kind of get into that anaerobic state or that heightened state of almost um feeling like panicked, but knowing we're safe, a lot of really interesting things can arise. So it doesn't always have to be out in nature. It doesn't always have to be be there.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Right. And and and you bring so much intention to every every time we come together as a group, whether it's a yoga class, whether we're doing Pilates, whether we're doing breath work, or whether we're in nature, you always bring something. There's always a theme, an intention, a conversation. It's never just a, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna go on a walk. I mean, sometimes it's fine, but like most of the time, it's we're gonna go on a walk and here's what I want you to be thinking about. Here's a conversation we're gonna have, or let's take five or ten minutes, let's have a conversation, uh let's walk. And and I'm just so grateful for I think it'd be easy for you just to say, all right, we're gonna go on this hike, but for you to put in the extra effort and intention to say, no, this is what we're gonna work on here, I think that's where the real depth of the work actually happens. You know, and I think some of it would happen naturally because we're in nature and it's beautiful, and that just happens. But the the thematic intention that you bring. I used to joke and be like, she's she is reading my mail every week. This theme, I'm like, how does she know exactly what I needed this week or exactly what I'm dealing with? But you know, I think that's just how it how it works in recovery. It's just like, you know, we our higher power knows what we need when we need it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

I I definitely think that's a huge part of it. Um, it is your willingness to be open to the the words that are shared and the sentiments and the thoughts that are shared. I I think a lot of times people will mention that, like, where do you come up with these themes and these ideas and these things that you want us to focus on week in and week out? Much of that, I believe, comes from three decades of teaching yoga. And and I I I let teacher trainings and I've really I've immersed myself in uh in that in that skill. I've immersed myself in that way of of living, in that way of being. It's really, really important to me. And I and I want to um integrate

Couples Check In And Shared Habits

SPEAKER_03 31:04

integrate that into my life so that I can model that to some degree. Um and I and I hope that doesn't sound self-serving, but it it is a way, it becomes a way of being. And I don't honestly know any other any other way to exist. I used to exist differently. Oh, I existed very differently until I started to pay close attention. Um, you know, we start to bring awareness and pay close attention and open ourselves to the possibility of change. And I say that because one, I think it's just it's it's an innate piece of me, but I'm also just very um curious about concepts and things people share. It's it's it's interesting and it's it keeps this, it keeps this very, very real.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

This week uh we are talking about this concept of non-attachment or or non-grasping, non-possessiveness. Like, what are we clinging to? What do we continually cling to? Um, why are we clinging to these things, whether they're emotions, relationships, um things, material possessions, uh, thoughts around our addiction, thoughts around our trauma. We can we can our mind can play such crazy tricks on us and keep us uh drawn down into those sort of neg negative things, right? So it could be the old stories, the guilt, the shame, the anger, the need to control all the things that we continually hold on to. If if we stop and we ask ourselves, why, why am I not letting that go? Interesting, right? It gets maybe sometimes a little bit scary, the answer to that. But we're we're diving deep into that this week. And um hopefully this podcast comes out after Thursday. But on Thursday, uh when we when we go on on our on our big experiential healing adventure, um our clients will be picking up rocks along the way. And they'll be writing those things on the rocks. Like, what what am I still carrying? And then the rocks go in the backpacks, and then we come to that point where we're gonna stop and we're gonna really, how heavy is that backpack? And we realize how heavy in the literal sense, but also in that figurative sense, how heavy these things become when it's just so simple to get light, just start taking them out. But we have to look at the why. We can't just name them and walk away.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 33:45

There's there's there's attachment. We have attachments, we have healthy attachments and we have unhealthy attachments.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

And every attachment, I believe, has a cost. The tighter we grip, the heavier life becomes. So we'll be just kind of diving in and exploring a little bit more. I don't know how well that theme is gonna go over. We'll we'll see. But um, yeah, we talked about it this morning, and it was the the conversations got beautifully rich and beautifully real.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

So that's awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing you know some of your heart behind this and for all the work that you do around a Valiant for Us. Um, any final words on the five pillars of healing or anything that we left out that you you'd want to leave us with?

SPEAKER_03 34:32

I mean, I think we did a good job covering most of it. It's just uh remembering that regardless of where you are in life, whether you're we're all healing from something, but to be more mindful and to pay attention to these, all these different areas of your life that are calling out for attention and support and treating that, you know, really taking that holistic approach to healing is what's is what's sustainable long term. These are these are easy tools to access. You'll have that uh that document

Misconceptions About Trips And Immersions

SPEAKER_03 35:08

that you're gonna share uh as a part of this this podcast. Yeah, and and I love helping communities create around things like this, around mindfulness exercises. So I'm I'm I'm an open book and I'm always willing to have conversations with folks if they want to go a little bit deeper, have questions and in terms of the how-to.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Awesome. Melissa, thank you so much. I love when you can jump on the podcast. I'm just so grateful for everything that you bring to Valiant. You make wellness feel doable for me instead of just one more thing on the list. So if today's conversation hit home, again, we put together a free guide that goes deeper on all five pillars. It includes reflection questions, weekly check-ins that you can use on your own, you can use with a spouse. Again, it's called the Five Pillars of Wellness, and you can grab it at Valiant Living.com slash episode 66. And if you're listening because someone you love is struggling, or maybe even you are, I want you to hear this. You don't you don't have to figure this out on your own. Our admissions team is at 720-669-1285, or you can visit Valiant Living.com. Um, that call just a conversation, no pressure, just people who get it and want to walk with you. Thanks again for listening to the Valiant Living Podcast, and we'll see you next time.