About Us
Less Stress More Purpose
At Duck Pond Lotus we offer evidence-based wellness and personal-growth services that may guide you to lower the impact of stressors in your life, help you to navigate challenges, and help you find a positive path forward with your goals. Through mindfulness-based stress reduction practices, life coaching, and wellness resources, our skilled and experienced providers are ready to work with you with a large variety of tools and practices that cultivate greater
well-being and help you reach your goals.
Our Story
Duck Pond Lotus is a dream come true for Kelly Haught, Joella Audia Peirce, and Josh Olinger. Kelly and Joella have been best friends and providing counseling and education services for people of all walks of life for over 30 years. They are now taking their expertise and experience in a new direction with Kelly as a life coach and Joella as a wellness resource. Growing up, Josh has always considered both Joella and Kelly to be his heroes and has now aspired to help others in his own way, as a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher.
Together they have created Duck Pond Lotus, an organization that offers evidence-based courses, tools, guidance, and practices to help you lower the impacts of stressors in your life, navigate challenges, and reach your professional and educational goals and aspirations.
The name "Duck Pond Lotus" was chosen because Joella lives beside a beautiful duck pond that often brings peace, joy, and inspiration to those who visit. Lotus is part of the name because it is both a symbol of wellness and peace, and the Yellow Lotus (or American Lotus) is also a native flower in the
Appalachian Mountains where Joella, Kelly, and Josh have all lived their lives.
Meet The Team
Kelly Haught
Life Coach
Kelly Haught is a co-founder and the Life Coach at Duck Pond Lotus. Kelly is a Certified Life Coach. For 20+ years she has worked as a Licensed Professional Counselor with individuals struggling with depressed and anxious moods, stress management needs, diversity related difficulties, unhealthy coping strategies, and negative self-perceptions. She understands that You are the expert on YOU and as a life coach, she is here to assist you with recognizing your goals, developing an action plan to fulfill them, and meeting your potential. She has the experience and expertise to provide you with motivation, unconditional positive regard, and the support needed to achieve your goals and create change.
Joella Audia Peirce
Wellness Resource
Joella Audia Peirce is a co-founder and the Wellness Resource with Duck Pond Lotus. Joella has a master's degree in community counseling and a master's degree in curriculum and instruction. For 40+ years Joella has worked as a community mental health counselor and as an educator. At Duck Pond Lotus Joella can assist you in determining what stress-reduction and wellness resources are available and what programs might be useful to you. With extensive experience in assisting people with managing stress, she has a wide variety of resources and a long list of referrals she can offer you on your stress-management and wellness journey.
Joshua Olinger
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Teacher
Josh Olinger is a co-founder and the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher for Duck Pond Lotus. Josh is a Qualified Level 1 MBSR Teacher (qualified through Brown University) as well as a Certified Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Practitioner (a graduate of Dr. David Treleaven's Advanced Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness course). He has a master's degree in public policy from George Mason University and a bachelor's degree in human services from Old Dominion University. He has 7+ years of experience practicing MBSR and 15+ years of experience developing and directing wellness and community-building programs. He has also been studying the Buddhist foundations of mindfulness and Buddhist meditation practices for 2.5 years at the Buddha Meditation Center of Greater Washington DC. His combination of secular evidence-based mindfulness teacher training and studies in historic traditional mindfulness, guide him to teach mindfulness from a perspective of deep understanding and respect to the practices.
At Duck Pond Lotus he offers courses on evidence-based and scientifically-researched MBSR practices like meditation, gentle yoga, mindful stress response, mindful communication, mindful eating, and more. MBSR courses offer participants tools and techniques that they can use on their own to help reduce the impact of stressors in life, navigate challenges, and feel a sense of inner-peace.
Josh credits routine deep meditation practice for teaching him how to navigate and make it through intense grief, anxiety, and depression after the tremendous loss of his love who passed away in 2023, Ty "Tony" Sing (pictured with Josh).