Chris Weldon
Indianapolis Indiana
Chris Weldon strives to help your organization "understand the meaning" of interpersonal communication dynamics. Chris is an experienced, self-care advocate who spent 12 years in professional ministry before suffering the effects of burnout.
Using the methodology of the Twelve Steps in intensive therapy over four months, his recovery from depression and anxiety led him to discover that the majority of his decisions in life had been directly influenced by codependence and being the “family hero” in a dysfunctional family system.
“I never laughed so hard, and felt someone understood me so well,” he said, as he described the first codependent joke he had ever heard. “They said, ‘What do you call a codependent who says “no” and doesn’t feel guilty? [Answer:] Healthy.’”
He said he laughed so hard he almost fell down.
“Learning I was a recovering codependent was a hinge moment for me in my recovery and self-awareness. It was then that I began to truly value self-care, especially for people whose job it is to care for others. I quickly realized there is nothing selfish about self-care.”
Chris focuses on these main points of self-care when working with and presenting to groups:
- communicating with one’s inner-child
- becoming aware of the four 4 major feeling categories (joy, anger, sadness, fear)
- tapping into the reasons for those feelings and allowing oneself to feel them, without necessarily acting on them in the moment
- setting healthy boundaries
- incorporating the Twelve Steps into one’s self-care
- participating in some form of accountability group or meeting
- meditating
- breathing
- empowering the senses
- purging shame
- finding humor
- exercising
Avoiding overly technical language in his presentations, Chris’ extensive public speaking experience has given him the ability to break complicated ideas into “layman’s terms”.
Why does he do so? “So many people are so used to hearing technical language in all they do. I want to make it easy for them to hear and understand. That way they’re more likely to believe, accept and act on making self-care an essential part of their lives.”