Christine Gautreaux  0:01

Hello, hello. Hello my friend.

Shannon M.  0:04

Hello Beautiful. How are you doing? Hi, I’m good. How are you? Good. Happy to be here. Happy to be here. I was. I think we should just jump right in right we’re talking about usually we don’t say this but as a trigger warning before we just jump into this story Okay, talking about mental and emotional well being. And how’s that a shallow glow photo shoot yesterday y’all had the police called on me being black on white man stairs is what I was thinking about titling the book. Okay. But it was the whole situation. And some people don’t walk out of those situations literally. Like, this is not me being dramatic. So, so happy.

Christine Gautreaux  0:48

Mature. Well, thank you. Yeah. And just to give clarity, because I know the background, this situation, you were invited to this location. Of course, you had permission to be there and taking pictures. And some random white guy decides that

Shannon M.  1:08

he’s gonna pass time. Yes. Yeah, yep. So for me it was.

Christine Gautreaux  1:14

So taking pictures while Black was

Shannon M.  1:17

there we go taking pictures while black, let’s say running business while black, let’s say circulating dollars in the economy, while black. But the beautiful thing was there for che loco. Right. And that’s literally what we’re talking about. In one hand, the bodies are not valued, and in the other hand, were very well taken care of on a daily basis, despite somebody else’s opinion about it. So that’s what Shayla was about. So any day, the way I live my life that Shannon Mitchell is on the news, she was author, a co host, I’m doing all these things to live my purpose. And that’s why I tried to do that every day. So yes to what we’re going to talk about today and how to maintain the wellness and everything that we’re

Christine Gautreaux  2:02

in the midst of chaos and isms. Let’s do this.

Shannon M.  2:09

Okay, leggings, welcome to our podcast. I am Shannon Mitchell, a black female, millennial entrepreneur, the founder of shallow glow, a handmade shea butter company. I am a champion for your self care, business care and intentional wellness.

Christine Gautreaux  2:25

And I am Christine Gautreaux, a white social justice advocate and international speaker, coach and published author who helps you upgrade yourself in community care.

Shannon M.  2:36

Yes. And together, we are women connected in wisdom, a podcast grounded in the eight dimensions of wellness. Welcome, welcome to our show.

Christine Gautreaux  2:45

Yeah, and we like to get together every week for intentional conversations about how to be wise in business relationships and wellness. How do we do this?

Shannon M.  2:56

In reality, you know, like, we were talking about the book earlier, the book that we’re working on, and wanting to really give the listeners and the readers practical information. You know, a lot of times I felt like, it makes sense, you know, we might leave out the details that are embarrassing, or the details that we might have to take a little more time to explain even you know, for somebody to really understand the story. But I love that we get to share stories and resources and really give all the details. So we’ll know how to really get from A to B, when we’re putting that wisdom in the action. We’re not missing a step because part of the story was left out. You know,

Christine Gautreaux  3:32

I love that because I think that often we live in a culture that people think they should know things, right. They think that everybody else knows or they think like, how do you do that? But if we don’t ask if we don’t have the conversations, if we don’t share our stories, how do people know? Right? I mean, you can Google stuff in the internet, but sometimes Yeah.

Shannon M.  3:59

And it’s so interesting that you say that because for me, it comes from an okay, so I mentioned this one one day when I was on the show with you ladies. And so you know, the chapter has changed. So I’m not a liar. It was included. But I did take it out the whole journey of how far I feel like I’ve come in the list of things I know to do to take care of myself. Right. So yeah, that’s what we’re talking about. So let’s jump into the definition. Today. Like I said, we’re talking about mental and emotional well being right. So to be specific, it is about being intentional and aware of all of our feelings, and includes having the capacity and tools to handle and express these emotions in a healthy manner. And the ability to learn and grow from experience. emotional well being encouraged encourages autonomy, and useful decision making skills and striving toward good mental health. So for me this week, is a little different, you know, with a lot of things. I think I do a great job at being okay and And we talked about it, I’m sure before on live when my mentor, my late mentor invited me to her studio, we were recording something for Black History Month. And the guy behind the cameras trying to pull it out. He’s like, pull out some sadness, we need you to be a little more sad. And I realized sadness was missing. I said, where is it, I don’t even know how to access it. And there are plenty of things in my life. Somebody be like, I would be sad. They’re, they’re there and be able to call on it. But because I try to process and then deal with and continue forward it. I felt like it made it so that I couldn’t connect to it. You know. So me being connected to my emotions and where I am mentally is something I’ve been really intentional about knowing where I’m at and being able to articulate.

Christine Gautreaux  5:44

Right, especially when crazy stuff happens. My being profiled, and yeah, like, yeah,

Shannon M.  5:52

and how do you handled that in a healthy manner? You know, so this past week, I just finished my salary manager training for the second time in two months. Okay, we’re talking about mental wellness and occupational wellness, okay, staying sane in the midst of everything. And what was I going to say, Lord, let’s see the capacity. Oh, and so my general manager was reminding me about my connectedness to my emotions. And I was thinking about us and thinking about manifestation Mondays, she said that your superpower is, you know, where you’re soft, and where you’re vulnerable. And you’re this inspiring person that you’re out in the world, you know, that’s where your superpower is. And she reminded me of the importance again, to stay connected to my emotions. That’s the part that stood out for me. So when were being in this very hostile situation, it was hostile situation with this guy following us through the building on the phone with the police. I’m listening to my tone. Right in it sounded like it did the night before. When I’m managing the kitchen. Everybody’s crazy. And you have to be the, okay, do this, do this, do this. We’re going to keep going, what do you need? I got you no problem. And I’m like, Am I okay, right now, because it sounds like I’m disassociated. But I’m trying not to escalate the situation, trying to stay aware of what’s going on, and still handle it in a healthy way. So I don’t create something else. Because this person is trying to act a certain way.

Christine Gautreaux  7:19

I don’t hear that you were disassociated at all, I hear that you are emotionally regulated.

Shannon M.  7:24

And that’s an extra, you know, we, we look for a balance, quote unquote, balance for those who are listening to the audio, but that it I just tried to check myself, you know, but I appreciate your perspective, because that’s what I felt like it was, I feel like we’re okay, I’ve checked on everybody. And I think she did a great job.

Christine Gautreaux  7:42

I’m currently going through this trauma certification course. And we were just talking about this, right? That when we get when we get into a fight flight or or flee mode, which could have easily gotten in that situation, fight or flight. Yeah. And then you’re hyper, like you’re hyper vigilant and you’re hyper, but then your emotions are out of whack. And you’re you’re feeling like, your blood pressure might change. You might all those things like you’re dysregulated completely understandable in a situation like that. Right? What it sounds like, to me what you’re describing, as you were emotionally regulated, you were taking a deep breath, you were being present in the situation, what is going on? How can I keep myself safe? And these other people say a team, what your team? What is it? What are our next steps? Right? Yeah, so

Shannon M.  8:30

So when we talk about like PTSD and things like that, I think that that is the difference between how do I say it? That is how we’re resilient. That’s what we’re talking about today, you know, emotional resilience. And so if you say that I found this article from Psychology Today that was talking about 81% of African Americans deal with racial trauma, things like that. Right. But then it suggests that less than I think it was less than 10%. If I’m correct, I’m looking at the percentage right now. Yes, 9.1 prevalence rate of PTSD. So again, with a psychology degree, I love research, I’m all about the numbers and making sure that it’s accurate for 81%, to deal with it and 9.1% to say that they deal with PTSD. PTSD is a very serious category to be in, right, there’s certain criteria that have to be met. I wouldn’t say that is this low. I think that might be just, you know, more research that needs to be done or whatever, would make that number more accurate, and maybe it is accurate based on the headcount that they had in their research group. But what I think is that it’s not as high as 81%. I would also say that you know, because we are used to hearing about these stories, so it’s given us the space to think about how I want it to turn out I know I don’t want to turn out a shooting him or him shooting us or the police shooting us So how do I make that not happen like a George Zimmerman situation? Let me instead do X, Y, and Z. And I feel like that helped me not be as traumatized as I could have been had it gone a different way.

Christine Gautreaux  10:12

Right? Well, I’m also curious about the date on that one, too, because I know there’s a lot new, there’s a lot of new research coming out about racial trauma, and the effects of racial trauma. And if they’re separating it out between post traumatic stress and racial trauma, or if they’re putting it under post traumatic stress caused by racial trauma, this

Shannon M.  10:33

important question, right? Yes. And the article is from September 6 2015. And as a rule, I think I usually like to keep it within the last four years, especially after COVID. And a lot of stuff has happened. So more research is going on in different areas. Thank you for that point.

Christine Gautreaux  10:49

Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, we talked about this before the show how, especially research in black communities is underfunded, and under reported. And I was just seeing recently, an article come out about COVID, about how the, the monitors the sensors for the oxygen, were not working correctly, for people with melanated scan, especially the darker the skin, the less and so they weren’t getting the treatment they needed, because the sensor is built is probably tested and built mostly on white skinned bodies. And that makes sense. You know, it’s these things that we wonder about disparity in healthcare, we wonder about the systems that are set up, and it can be and simple is not the right word, because it’s not simple because the system was set up this way. But it can be the matter of it wasn’t tested on enough people that had donated skin, right? That’s not simple, because we have to ask the question of why and why did that happen? But then it causes this whole domino effect of health and wellness, and more black people dying, or dark skinned folks dying because they didn’t get the adequate treatment and care.

Shannon M.  12:01

Absolutely. And that’s what we talk about, you know, self and community care if one person this is affected by one person, it’s not just that person is their family and their their even their work environment, the team is thrown off, and it it ripples in so many different ways. And in generations. You know, I don’t want to give too much away, but I was reading our book this week. And, okay, and I love the stories of the different generations. You know, we’re not just talking about moms, we’re talking about grandmas too. And for my specific story, me and my best friend, Maya. So you know, one of my goals is to be a grandma one day, okay, I want to do cartwheels and somersaults, rock climbing and stuff with my grandma.

Christine Gautreaux  12:42

What do you want to be called?

Shannon M.  12:44

I don’t know. Yeah, we were talking earlier before our friend. But first, let’s get to the parenthood. Okay, you’re out. Right.

Christine Gautreaux  12:53

Some people know those things from four years old. Right?

Shannon M.  12:56

I try not to over plan it, you know, and I’m glad that I didn’t. Because before I plan the name for my children, I plan the name for my books. So we’re

Christine Gautreaux  13:06

talking to right now.

Shannon M.  13:07

Yeah, sir. Certain things are off the list is really generous. Yep. It’s really in the end. I’m intentional about that, for my mental and emotional wellness. You know, for example, when my dad was sick, he’s going through chemo and surgery. I didn’t ask a lot of questions. And it really surprised me. I’m like, she’s so quiet. Y’all know, I talk a lot, you know, and I showed me like, I’m so scared. I’m just gonna wait to see what happens. I’m just gonna be okay every day and like, pray to God that this man survives. Like, really? You know? So yeah.

Christine Gautreaux  13:43

So that’s a really good thing to notice. Right? It’s a good thing to notice that where you’re at react differently in different situations. And in that moment, you need to be still in quiet because you were scared, right?

Shannon M.  13:56

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and specifically, because at that time, my dad was married to my second stepmom. Right. I’m in ninth grade. So my question was, if he passes away, do I stay here? And if she gets remarried, what do I call him? Is he like my stepdad? You know, where am I adopted into the family? And then or, like, do I go on foster care? Like what I said, I would rather not have to worry about any of that. I would rather he just be okay. Right. So when we talk about resilience, and the steps that we’re gonna go into, like, these are so important. And again, I think it helps me stay centered. It helps me stay. It helps me maintain my wellness and the different dimensions because again, if what I’ve started doing sometimes if I really am not, okay, like I just mentioned, Linda, my late mentor, she passed away. I took two days off, would love to have taken more. But if I take a mental health day, every thought every time I felt like I need to, I might not work a lot, you know, so we got to work on the rest zilliant seed level and what it looks like in a healthy way, not minimizing anything or not giving it the space that it deserves, but how do we process it? And what does that look like?

Christine Gautreaux  15:12

All right? Well, and you know, I’m a firm believer that there are skills that we can and muscles that we can build around us that, that the way that dominant culture teaches us that, oh, it should look like this or should look like that is it’s a yesI. And there’s parts of that, that we can use for self care. But when we’re talking about true resiliency, when we’re talking about self care skills, we’re talking about totally different things. So do you want to jump into this conversation? Of course, for our regular listeners today, y’all we it’s gonna be Shannon tonight, because we were, we were talking about emotional and mental wellness. And we were talking about what’s going on in the world. And we realized we haven’t had this full in depth conversation. And so we wanted to have it with y’all today about the five skills of self care. So coming to you, for those of y’all that are watching, I’m holding up the Stillpoint book. And for those of y’all that are listening, this is coming to you from the book Stillpoint, a self care playbook for caregivers to find ease and time to breathe and reclaim joy. And this is a book that I co wrote with my friend and colleague Sheila K. Collins, Dr. Collins, I was honored to be askin on this project. And so it’s my joy to talk about it today. Because it’s also like my purpose and my passion. Because before the pandemic y’all 57 million Americans were identifying as caregivers, that and most of them unpaid. Like, these are the folks that are working. They’re taking care of children, they’re taking care of elders, some of them are sandwich generations taking care of both a lot of them identify as women. And they’re, it’s a dangerous profession. They’re dying in higher numbers, because they’re not taking care of themselves. So we wrote this book, we updated this book, I was called into the project to update this book with statistics and looking at somatic ways that we can address self care. What are the tools and techniques we can have in our toolbox? Is times like these, like these chaotic times we’re in.

Shannon M.  17:35

So can we go more into what is somatic? I love when I read the book, you ladies differentiating the really logical way that we’re taught to think you know, as an honor student, great edit. Okay, Kumari, and college, even with all these jobs and everything, so learning something to, to fit into a certain expectation to get a great I’m very good at. So the somatic part was really interesting to me.

Christine Gautreaux  18:04

Right? So when we talk about Cymatics, we’re talking about the body, we’re talking about that things start in the physical things start with our bodies, this human experience is all about being in this body and being here and being present. And often, especially in you know, United States culture, often what we value and especially when we’re talking about work, and things like that is from the head up, the neck up, right? We’re valuing the intelligence, we’re valuing the brain, we’re, we’re not talking about the whole system and the whole body. And as we know, we got to write if we have our health, if we don’t have all the dimensions of wellness, we’re not able to function in work and other places. So I would also say, Shannon, one of the things I want to talk about to start is, you know, what is self care? Like, when we, you know, for years, people talk about self care, and they equate it with being selfish and in that’s, I think we’re getting away from that and 2022 but I think there if you know the true definition of what it is and is not so you up for that?

Shannon M.  19:11

Absolutely. Is it on? Let me see if I can pull it up. I don’t have that give me I was actually

Christine Gautreaux  19:16

just gonna read it if you’re good for it. Yeah, I was gonna say I was gonna start with what it’s not right. self care is not continuing to educate and train ourselves to withstand more stress in order to take on more stress. We all know people who insist on staying in unhealthy jobs or relationships, while asking for help in order to tolerate more abuse more gracefully. self care is not putting ourselves through frequent reoccurring cycles of overwork, followed by crashing to recover. This Rhythm of full speed of head, followed by total collapse is damaging to all dimensions of ourselves. So the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Shannon M.  20:05

Right? Absolutely. Yeah.

Christine Gautreaux  20:07

And unfortunately, our culture like wants those things to have, like, so it’s kind of countercultural to be like, Oh, wait, that’s not what we’re talking about here. Right. So what is self care? Self Care is tuning in recognizing earlier and earlier, the subtle physical signs of potential difficulties. caring people become good at reading other people’s body language, such as clenched jaw, stooped shoulders, and sad eyes, and I know is like a manager of people, you’re very good at that, too. Thanks. Self care means tuning into ourselves, and learning how to read our own body language. So then you take that you’re tuning in, and then what self care is, it’s about tending. It’s about being actively involved. When we’re taking care of other people, when we’re managing other people, right? Whether we’re a caregiver, a private professional, whether we’re a manager in any job supervising a team, it has the potential to take on other people’s tension and stress, right. But when we tend to ourselves with self care, we perfect the art of not taking on other people’s tension. Or if it does happen to sneak in, and we do take it on, by tending to ourselves, we learn to let go of it quickly, so that we’re free to experience a life of balance and vitality. So it’s about recognizing it, and noticing it in our bodies, and then having the tools and skills to let it go. And that’s what helps build resilience, right? Because I think we’ve all been there where we’ve had a bad day at work. Yeah, somebody said something about us that we took on other people’s tension and stress. And then we woke up in the middle of the night thinking about it, right? Oh, I should have said that. Or, Oh, I wish I wouldn’t have done that. Or oh, you know. And also, or we take it really personal, right? We think, Oh, I’m not a good at this, or I’m not good at that. And I think that’s part of it is, is how do we have the skills? How do we build up the skills of self care and resilience? So we’re not waking up at two o’clock in the morning?

Shannon M.  22:22

Yeah, that’s not fun. Thinking about they’re still rented space in your head thinking about this other person who is wherever they are. And I’ll never find out what they were doing when I was thinking about it. Right? Yeah.

Christine Gautreaux  22:36

Well, and my husband and I often have that conversation about that we’re giving that person a lot of energy. Right? What could we be doing instead?

Shannon M.  22:46

Absolutely. And that’s why it’s so important for and we’re going to talk about the steps, so important for me to talk about it, right? Whether it’s me writing it out. And sometimes we talk about attention spans, and let’s be honest, sometimes somebody might not have the attention span for you to go through all the details. If you still have to get it out. Write it out, you know, yesterday, I call it the seals, it seals been on the show, she helps people with their racism workout, you know, I just want to make sure I have the right perspective. And that helped me in our conversation helped me to continue to process it in a healthy way.

Christine Gautreaux  23:20

Oh, you know what that is? That’s number three that we’re going to talk about. That’s partnership power, my

Shannon M.  23:23

friend is and I have burners, yes, right? Yes.

Christine Gautreaux  23:27

Well, write it out. You can dance it out. I did to him. Right? Yes. What did we when we take that when something chaotic or stressful happens, right? There’s some skills we can go through or steps we can go through. And we talked about that in the book a lot like different modalities or different things to try. Because not everybody works. Not everything works for everybody, right? Everybody VOD, why, right? Because we all come from different places, different backgrounds, different ages. So something that works for me may not work for you. It may, but we shouldn’t assume that it does.

Shannon M.  24:05

And it doesn’t have to be. We talk about collaboration versus competition, right? It’s not Christine told me to do this. It’s not working. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You know, it’s, well, that doesn’t work. You know, it doesn’t work for me and what I have going on, or maybe even the season that I am in my life, you know, just like for example, we have been doing the podcast and doing great at putting up everything on social media, right. And I realized that me doing social media, for my business. The way I did it for the podcast was not the same. You have a different technology setup than I had, you know what I mean? So maybe what’s easy for Christina do on her computers. It’s not easy for me to do at work when I’m on my phone or maybe not at work, but when I’m doing my social media, how I’ve been used to doing it on my phone, you know, and that’s okay, because we’re in two different positions with everything that we have going on and it’s not a danger on me. It’s not a ding on you. is just that that’s the reality of the situation. So what do I need? And how can I still get there? Right.

Christine Gautreaux  25:07

And you just gave a great illustration and a great point, Shannon, of the first skill of self care, right? The first skill of self care is sorting and separating what belongs to us from what belongs to others. Right? So you just, you just illustrated that beautifully, like it wasn’t about it was like, this is where I’m at, this is where you’re at. And this is how this is how we do things. Right. The same can be said for emotional stuff, right? We were talking about work and crazy stuff happening at work. Is your supervising people being able to sort and separate? Is this yours? Is this theirs? Is is ours together? And which pieces do I need to address or not address? Right?

Shannon M.  25:50

Absolutely. And that helps me, when I think about it, it goes with the list of lies that I wrote about my life where I talk about that a lot. And in that season, when I was sorting and separating my life, thinking about where things came from, and figuring out who I want it to be close to, and things like that. That’s what I was doing. And I realized that some stuff I was holding on was not mine. And I had those conversations, you know, I had the new conversations with the people close to me, talk to my best friend, like, hey, I really need to grow in this area. If if you’re gonna you know, if you’re gonna grow, then we can be best friends, we can go together. And if not, I love you no matter what, and we might have to not be as close. That’s a difficult conversation I had with a close friend of 20 years, you know, and we talk about friendships in the book too. But to be able to sort and separate, and that that she was the person that I had heavier conversations with, because we’re great, which is why we’re best friends. And it’s been so long. But some of the other conversations were heavier, you know, and thankfully, they turned out great. And even in a situation if you feel like it might not, I think that it still benefits you and helps with my personal boundaries and teaching people how I want to be treated to have those conversations and just roll the dice. And if they receive it, they receive it. And if not, then we know where we stand.

Christine Gautreaux  27:10

Right. But I think the first part is that sorting and separating it out. So you know, where you’re coming from? And what are your boundaries? And what do you need? And, and can make those I statements, you know,

Shannon M.  27:21

and those change, and they change, you know, like you talk about people popping up at the house, we don’t have people pop up that the house, you know, so it’s just differences. And before maybe it would have been more welcoming, you know, but just with the details and everything, the decision is different. And that’s okay.

Christine Gautreaux  27:39

All right. So let’s talk about number two, the second skill of self care. Yeah, letting go and surrendering and learning when and how to do this. Right? Yes, there’s often a lot of things in our lives that we’re not in control of. That we can’t make happen a certain way, you know, but what pieces, anybody that’s been involved in 12 steps, programs, or, really, when we talk about spiritual wellness and have a belief in a higher power, you know, you’ve probably been exposed to this concept of letting go and surrendering that, you know, there are things that we’re not in charge of, it doesn’t mean we don’t take action towards some things. But if we think we are completely in charge of the outcome at all times, that can cause a lot of stress and, and chip away our resiliency when things don’t go away. Yeah, yeah, when a natural disaster occurs when a hard diagnosis comes when a layoff comes. Right?

Shannon M.  28:46

And when in the season that I was reading and studying about surrender, I’ve really learned that I’m glad I don’t have to control everything, you know, if I had to control everything, countries would not wake up I would forget okay. Oh, I forgot about insert random country, you know, and that random to the people that live there, of course, we love everybody, you know, we’re women connected in wisdom. But if I was control of people waking up, forgotten, people will be missing fingerprints, like it will be a whole thing you know, so that you know made it lighter for me, I don’t want to be in control over everything. And then as a business owner now I think about Stacey Abrams book and how she talks about her partnership power and how she wasn’t doing things by herself. And I have the honor to say the same thing you know, I can have an international podcast and know that you know what some of this stuff I can surrender and I can trust that Christina Scott it and I’ll do the other part and then it still works out.

Christine Gautreaux  29:44

Right? Well and that’s perfect lead in to number three, which is my favorite. Well, I like them all but number three is I’m very partial to because number three is building and using partnership power to get help from others. And you know, pretty self-explanatory, but we are women connected in wisdom. And we’re all about building partnership power. But yeah, when I think about people, you know, we think about dominant culture in the West, about individual rugged individualism, like pull yourself up by the bootstraps, right? And that is, that’s not what we’re talking about y’all, because somebody made those boots. So

Shannon M.  30:25

what do you ever really do by ourselves? Like, right?

Christine Gautreaux  30:29

Right? We’re not born by ourselves. Because, you know, our moms are a big part in that.

Shannon M.  30:36

And the dad was in there somewhere. Oh, yes.

Christine Gautreaux  30:42

But you know, this interconnectedness that we have, but that we can be intentional as a skill, we can build this muscle, like, thinking about when we look at what skills do I have? What am I really good at, like affirming the good in yourself, but also recognizing, hey, I may not be as good as that, like, yeah, Shannon is much better at scheduling than I am y’all. Y’all probably know that if you’re listening to us for any time, or, you know, who is the calendar and the schedule are in this in this partnership, that would be shared, right? But finding people that complement who you are, and in your skills and their skills and partnership power and being an I’m a big believer in collaborating and working with people that bring me joy? Yeah. Yeah, that when I get done with a work session with somebody, I am like, like, I’m just filled with joy, like, I am so lucky. Right? Yeah. Because my life I’ve created so many partnerships and patent partnership, how are you using the skill that I get off meetings, like meetings that people will be like, you have a two hour meeting? I’m like, Oh, my gosh, that was awesome. Yes, no, good, right. But it does take it does take skill, and it takes intentionality. You said, go ahead.

Shannon M.  32:07

No, I’m sorry, got finish your thought? No, I think I was. And so when I think about partnership power, especially at the beginning of COVID, what I realized is that I need to key in a little deeper into my strengths and weaknesses, you know, so that I can intentionally build, build my team and know what I’m looking for. Sometimes we build teams, and they’re people that are like us. And because we get along, we think that it’s going to work. But two people working on the same thing, when there’s a list of 500 is only going to last so long. You know, you gave me credit for being a great organizer. And I pride myself on my planner usage, I’ve been doing a great job so we can get all this stuff done. But the way I love how you compliment it is you do this stuff digitally, you know, and what I’ve realized over the past year is and person talking all this stuff is great, you know, digital social media, is it’s a whole nother it’s like being in two worlds, you know, so for me sometimes that can be draining. So I love that, I’ll put it down on the planner, and you will put it into the computer. And together, we’ve made it work, you know. And so that’s that’s how you do it. You know, I know that about myself, I know that being on social media, over a certain amount of time will start having a draining effect on me. So I’m mindful that that boundary. And that’s why I collaborate with the different people that I do for the different projects that we work on together. Right.

Christine Gautreaux  33:29

Yeah. And I mean, that goes it is an intentionality around it. And it’s a skill. Because if you were raised to always say yes to people, or if you were raised, which we’re going to get to that one in just a minute. But if you were raised where you put everybody else’s needs ahead of your own, if you don’t know what your strengths and weaknesses are to be able to then seek partnership power that complements or supports or, you know, yeah, that’s a that’s a thing. Like, yeah, checking in with ourselves and knowing who we are. And you may need help with that. You may need to get a coach, you may need to get a therapist you may need like, that’s partnership power. Like it doesn’t have to be just a friend or a colleague, it can be that we hire somebody to support us in this journey. Yes. Yeah. Now, number four, number four can be a little bit challenging sometimes, but I think it’s an important one, stepping back and seeing the big picture and the relationship between the parts. That old adage of you can’t see the forest for the trees, right. But sometimes we’re so in it. This skill is about really taking a bird’s eye view or and stepping back and broadening and I wrote an article recently or a newsletter on LinkedIn that was talking about in the times that we live right. This skill can be useful in self care, like so when you step back and you look at the history like say with the mass shootings that have been going on right. How did we Get here. What is the broader perspective of this? What laws came into place? What are the facts? What are the lobbyists, what is happening? Like, it’s a little headache. This one to me seems, is a little heavier as far as stepping back. But then I was talking to my friend at a this week, and he was caregiving with his dad. And he said, he used the skill by he was getting really overwhelmed with emotion and things like that. And he literally stepped back, he physically took several steps back from his dad’s bed, and just kind of softens his gaze and got a broader perspective about what state was it they were in, and what were what was going on, and what was happening in this conversation. So it can be heavy in the fact that we look at, you know, history and facts and knowing what’s going on. So we can take clear and right action. Or it could be where we literally walk out of the building at lunch, and soften our gaze from the problem. Or like, I like to tell Sheila, when we step away from the computer to step away from sometimes when you get really into it, and like it’s not working, or you’re like, you’ve been doing it for hours, it’s like, oh, step back and get a broader perspective.

Shannon M.  36:24

Yes. And for me to what I realized, when I realized I needed to surrender some of the details of life a little more, right. And I needed to get partnership power and do that from operating my strengths and my weaknesses. This also helped me with something else I’ve learned in that season, about when not learned but realized about myself was that I did things the way that I was taught how to do them, right, I’m a great student. So if you taught me, this is how you make tea, I hadn’t even thought about like, I know, there’s different ways to make tea, but I just make it this way, because that’s the way I was taught, you know, so as a business owner, or as a leader or somebody in a caregiving position, especially because your immune system is compromise, you know, because it does put this weight on you. I think that stepping back from the situation or give space for new creative ideas, you know, okay, how can I reach this goal, but make it so that it fits my schedule now or make it so that it it meets my physical demands where they are, you know, me never have not having been a mom yet, me being able to physically caretaker for somebody might be different than a woman who is actively pregnant right now, or who has had children, she may need to take it on a different way. And again, that doesn’t make her a worse daughter or a bad partner or, you know, diminish or roll is just being aware of where we are and how we need to address the situation. It also reminds me of starting with the end in mind, you know, what is the goal for me, the financial goal is financial freedom, and being set up for three generations. So I know that when I spent the night reading our book, I said, I’ve stayed up reading a lot of books for other people, I can stay up and read my book for one night. But I also knew that I didn’t want to do this really hard work, and then a burnout cycle, like we talked about. So I’ve slowly been resting and regenerating and making sure that that’s not the norm. So stepping out and then doing the little things to what does Eleanor say,

Christine Gautreaux  38:26

Eleanor is listening and says when you talk about stepping back, I like to go stand on the moon in my mind and look back at the issues on earth that I’m concerned with. Everything looks different from up there, and it helps that visualization

Shannon M.  38:40

of that too. I can tell you ladies, not that. It’s not in a form of escape. I love where I live, I love where I sleep. I feel like I have great we talked about environmental wellness, right great relationship with where I rest, but I’ve also been imagining to be somewhere else, you know, we were at the photoshoot for example. Yesterday, I said Imagine you’re in Costa Rica right now like somewhere relaxing. So I like to go to sleep around the world and different places. So it’s interesting that you say that Eleanor, I might go stand on the moon to I’m gonna try it at least once. I like that idea. Yeah,

Christine Gautreaux  39:15

right. I love that. Well, and I just when I think about that visualization, I immediately think about all the water and all the in water soothing to me. So it immediately and I think about the clouds and all the cloud pictures.

Shannon M.  39:32

My background for my phone is

Christine Gautreaux  39:35

visualization. Right? I love it. Well, let’s talk about the fifth skill of self care, which I think can be the most challenging, right. It is exercising choice by saying no and yes. So who boundaries, right? Yes. When we are taught to say yes, whether it’s To all our family members or our jobs or the world, and you know, we’ve met people, like people that are complete, yes, people and people that are complete, no people, often they’re in relationship together, which I think is funny. But, you know, we have to be able to say no. In order to say yes, terone self care.

Shannon M.  40:24

And I’ve, I’ve been loving the word no, this past week, I’m not gonna lie to you, like, I’ve been looking at my schedule, we were talking about the planner, right? And I said, over the last seven days, there’s been a lot going on with the needs of the team, right? There’s still COVID people’s families are affected a certain way, normal stuff that happens with people in the schedule has been moving. And I said, if I did not block the time for the podcast in the business, it would have been lost in the sauce, you know? So being able to say no, so that you can say yes to something else, has been one of my favorite skills that I’ve been practicing, because I still need to practice it. But

Christine Gautreaux  41:04

I think we all do, right. I think especially women raised in the south, right? We’re taught to be account accommodating more than not, and being able to have those boundaries and say no, and I think we’re also when you’re a highly sensitive being like, you don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings, or you don’t want to do this and that. But really, I have met so many people, most often women, most often caregivers, or activist or, you know, people doing helping professions that like are nurses and social workers. And, and they say yes, until the point that they drop, and whether that’s with a health a major health issue, or a major health concern, or, you know, it takes a toll on people’s health and wellness, if they’re not paying attention to this one. And that. Yeah, and I mean, because we know, there’s so many choices in the world right now, like so many choices, that we have to be able to say no to even good stuff. You know, it’s easy to say no to that. Well, sometimes it is. And sometimes we you know, I can just speak for myself. When I started practicing this muscle. It was easy or to say stuff to say no to the things I don’t like, right? Yeah. Oh, no, I’m gonna I’m gonna say no to that. Right. Usually, it’s a really long, complicated answer, and I will be in charge. But it’s harder to say no to the things that are really awesome. But still Don’t serve yourself care. Yes, or your or your precious things that we need to all be checking in on our sleep, or clean eating, or moving our bodies and being in just communities where we are feeling fed by the relationships, right? Yeah,

Shannon M.  42:44

yeah. And even we talk about missions, and we had a vision board party at the beginning of the year, you know, I think about how, how do I want to show up for the people that I care about, at the end of my life when it’s chanin was all of these things that I over give two to work and not spend time with my family and I didn’t even realize it, you know, there’s a difference. If I have to go to work so that I can even have the car to get to you guys. That makes sense. You know, we have responsibilities and different hats that we wear. But that’s why I keep bringing up Sherry Riley’s book of exponential living and not living 100% of your life on 10% of who you are. And that’s how we can be critical about okay, you know what I said? Yes, already, I’ve done what I need to do for the team this week, I’m going to say this No, so that I can keep the yes that I set for myself already, instead of continuing to cross out the self care and add in the shift, know, the self care has got to stay because all the shifts will be out for a week if we’re sick.

Christine Gautreaux  43:45

I love that you say that we talked about practical tools and resources and that you just named it right, block your block time off for yourself. That’s an easy way that’s an easy way to hold a boundary is to put your self care in there first, whether that you are going on a walk, whether that you are sleeping extra, if you’ve got something big the night before, like block that time off in your calendar. So when somebody asked, you can say I’m sorry, I already have something scheduled. So you don’t have to say I’m scheduling myself. You just say I have something on the calendar, I have something scheduled. I actually have a day because you know, being an entrepreneur, it’s really easy to work seven days a week, it just is especially after the last two years. I know I know. And I had to literally write a day in my calendar, where it was completely blocked off. So my automatic scheduler doesn’t schedule anybody in there. And it says do not schedule. This is creative and piddling time for like the next book or the next right, it is downtime for my brain and where nobody else was getting scheduled in there. So I think that I think it’s skill and I think it’s something that we all need to be looking at you And the other thing I know, we’re probably getting close to time, Shannon. But the other thing I like to say to clients and communities that I work with is self care looks different for everybody. Right? Self care can be practical, like, lighten the candle and paying your bills and giving gratitude for being able to pay your bills that week. We don’t want to take that for granted right? Now we see on the TV that it’s manicures and pedicures and the spa day. And yeah, those are great if that’s what works for your body. But it’s also the things like, you know, eating things that are healthy for your body and moving your body every day, whether that’s just stretching or going for a run or something in between, right, yeah.

Shannon M.  45:49

And listening to things that edify you that builds you up. You know, there’s a lot of music, if I was out at a party, I love the beat. You know, this, the lyrics are demoralizing, so I’m not gonna listen to them on a daily basis, you know? And so what’s the difference in doing, tying in all this senses and seeing which one works better for you? But yeah, I definitely don’t minimize light and a good candle. I love candles, right?

Christine Gautreaux  46:15

What works? Right? I was online with somebody today that I believe they were in Arizona, and they lit an imaginary candle, because I go, I’m not adding to the heat here. So the things that weren’t, right, yeah, what works for you, but taking some time, some intentional time, and thinking about it, or dreaming about it, or going to the moon and like Eleanor suggested, and, you know, taking some time to be intentional, about what does your body need in this time?

Shannon M.  46:49

Right. And we talked about it, you know, we said that sometimes we can feel like it’s selfish. But if we’re talking about a team, and how to set up the collaboration, right, it doesn’t benefit the team, for the individual to not know their strengths or weaknesses, or to be Miss paired, you know, because now that brings down the effectiveness and everything else we need for the business to run or the groups around or the family to run event, you know, so knowing where you are and how to take care of you sets up the next person to know how to either complement you in a healthy way, or what type of person they need on their team. So whether it’s us talking about physically being there, and literally surviving to the next day to be able to be there and thriving with our our loved ones or setting up the expert expectations, right for the workflow. I think that when you break it down like that you can see that is absolutely necessary and not selfish to know where you are and what you need to do you know what you’re made to do?

Christine Gautreaux  47:49

Absolutely. Because we’re not talking about, we’re actually talking about self care in order to sustain and thrive in community care. We’re not talking about him being separate, right? You know, Shannon and I are artist, activist community members we are, we believe in building community. But if we don’t, if every individual in that community doesn’t take care of themselves, then they can’t sustain and thrive in community care. So we need

Shannon M.  48:23

you. Yeah. And, and I know that we’re about to do our wisdom and action on and I think this will be my last story that I share. I remember November 12 2019, the day my mom passed away, and I went to church, it was a Tuesday it was at fusion and fusion is lit right love going to the young adults group. And it was my first day I was supposed to be volunteering. So we’re at the end, and they shouted me out to pray. And I brought up the fact that my mom had passed away that day, but what better place to be than church, right? And think about emotional intelligence and how I can handle the situation better. I’m thinking maybe that was an emotional dump for them, you know, maybe that might have triggered somebody, I stayed in my space to be able to see it for myself. But looking back, as I after that stepped down from from that position from different positions where I was pouring out, I should I feel like maybe you should have taken more space instead of continuing to serve and pour out for other people. Take a second for yourself, you know, so that they can come and be supported. And you can have the time that you need, instead of sharing things that hadn’t been all the way dealt with. So I think about that to be gentle with yourself my friend. Of course. Of course. Yeah. And giving yourself space as you look at the big picture. And you you step back and look at the details. You know, when you’re partnering with a certain person, what does that look like? You know, maybe you can share it a certain time, but maybe that time is not the right way. And this is like a dance we talk about dancing. So what is the step that you’re at? And then where are we going next to keep on right dancing through life.

Christine Gautreaux  50:01

I love that. So what’s your wisdom and action from this conversation today?

Shannon M.  50:07

And I think that is my wisdom. And actually, I was thinking about my hashtag. And I liked that dancing through life. Yeah, as things happen, still continuing to move. That was one of my goals this year is to dance more. Last year, we worked on patience. So as I do with all the different things, we’re going to keep dancing, I’m going to keep taking care of myself. And I will say, you know, I’ve been liking to do two hashtags. So I will also say, hashtag glow from head to toe. Because yesterday after everything happened, so you know what, I love my body, I love who I am. Let me take some time to rest. And shallow glow was genuinely the way that I do that every day. So they I’m thankful for the product and the benefit that has had in my life. So those are my two, what about you?

Christine Gautreaux  50:51

Oh, I love that. Well, you know, on this one hashtag, when we’re talking about the five skills of self care, I’ve gotta go hashtag partnership power. Because I or you know, hashtag connected to me, they kind of go go hand in hand. And then I think the other one would be hashtag say no, to say yes to yourself. And that, that boundaries are healthy and good. And yeah. So if you’re listening, whether you’re listening, live or listening on the recording, find us on social media and give us your hashtag of your wisdom in action this week. What do you want to do around emotional and mental wellness, and bringing that into balance? Because that can be challenging. A lot of people are struggling right now. And we’re we don’t have to do it by ourselves, y’all. We don’t know. We’ll put in the show notes about hotline if you need to reach out to somebody. And also, oh, let’s see what Eleanor’s hashtag is for today. Hashtag take care of yourself. No one else will do it for you. Right. That’s an awesome one. Eleanor, thanks for being with us and listening today. And yeah, just so grateful for this conversation and to have this time with you, my friend.

Shannon M.  52:11

Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you for the five steps and for still point. I love the reminder. We’re, you know, connected in community work in our passions and purpose in life. And we can still take that time to be still for a second. So thank you, ladies for joining us. We’ll see you live next week. Are we here next week? Actually, Christine, are we Yes.

Christine Gautreaux  52:33

Is the weekend here next week? Yeah, okay.

Shannon M.  52:35

Okay, perfect. So we will see you ladies next week. Live at Five. And don’t forget, be well, be wise. And be whole. We’ll talk to you soon.

Unknown Speaker  52:52

Thanks for listening. This has been the women connected and wisdom podcast on air live on Wednesdays at 5pm. Eastern via Facebook and YouTube. Be sure to like, share and subscribe be part of the conversation and get connected at women connected in wisdom.com.

Christine Gautreaux 0:01
Hello, hello. Hello my friend.

Shannon M. 0:04
Hello Beautiful. How are you doing? Hi, I’m good. How are you? Good. Happy to be here. Happy to be here. I was. I think we should just jump right in right we’re talking about usually we don’t say this but as a trigger warning before we just jump into this story Okay, talking about mental and emotional well being. And how’s that a shallow glow photo shoot yesterday y’all had the police called on me being black on white man stairs is what I was thinking about titling the book. Okay. But it was the whole situation. And some people don’t walk out of those situations literally. Like, this is not me being dramatic. So, so happy.

Christine Gautreaux 0:48
Mature. Well, thank you. Yeah. And just to give clarity, because I know the background, this situation, you were invited to this location. Of course, you had permission to be there and taking pictures. And some random white guy decides that

Shannon M. 1:08
he’s gonna pass time. Yes. Yeah, yep. So for me it was.

Christine Gautreaux 1:14
So taking pictures while Black was

Shannon M. 1:17
there we go taking pictures while black, let’s say running business while black, let’s say circulating dollars in the economy, while black. But the beautiful thing was there for che loco. Right. And that’s literally what we’re talking about. In one hand, the bodies are not valued, and in the other hand, were very well taken care of on a daily basis, despite somebody else’s opinion about it. So that’s what Shayla was about. So any day, the way I live my life that Shannon Mitchell is on the news, she was author, a co host, I’m doing all these things to live my purpose. And that’s why I tried to do that every day. So yes to what we’re going to talk about today and how to maintain the wellness and everything that we’re

Christine Gautreaux 2:02
in the midst of chaos and isms. Let’s do this.

Shannon M. 2:09
Okay, leggings, welcome to our podcast. I am Shannon Mitchell, a black female, millennial entrepreneur, the founder of shallow glow, a handmade shea butter company. I am a champion for your self care, business care and intentional wellness.

Christine Gautreaux 2:25
And I am Christine Gautreaux, a white social justice advocate and international speaker, coach and published author who helps you upgrade yourself in community care.

Shannon M. 2:36
Yes. And together, we are women connected in wisdom, a podcast grounded in the eight dimensions of wellness. Welcome, welcome to our show.

Christine Gautreaux 2:45
Yeah, and we like to get together every week for intentional conversations about how to be wise in business relationships and wellness. How do we do this?

Shannon M. 2:56
In reality, you know, like, we were talking about the book earlier, the book that we’re working on, and wanting to really give the listeners and the readers practical information. You know, a lot of times I felt like, it makes sense, you know, we might leave out the details that are embarrassing, or the details that we might have to take a little more time to explain even you know, for somebody to really understand the story. But I love that we get to share stories and resources and really give all the details. So we’ll know how to really get from A to B, when we’re putting that wisdom in the action. We’re not missing a step because part of the story was left out. You know,

Christine Gautreaux 3:32
I love that because I think that often we live in a culture that people think they should know things, right. They think that everybody else knows or they think like, how do you do that? But if we don’t ask if we don’t have the conversations, if we don’t share our stories, how do people know? Right? I mean, you can Google stuff in the internet, but sometimes Yeah.

Shannon M. 3:59
And it’s so interesting that you say that because for me, it comes from an okay, so I mentioned this one one day when I was on the show with you ladies. And so you know, the chapter has changed. So I’m not a liar. It was included. But I did take it out the whole journey of how far I feel like I’ve come in the list of things I know to do to take care of myself. Right. So yeah, that’s what we’re talking about. So let’s jump into the definition. Today. Like I said, we’re talking about mental and emotional well being right. So to be specific, it is about being intentional and aware of all of our feelings, and includes having the capacity and tools to handle and express these emotions in a healthy manner. And the ability to learn and grow from experience. emotional well being encouraged encourages autonomy, and useful decision making skills and striving toward good mental health. So for me this week, is a little different, you know, with a lot of things. I think I do a great job at being okay and And we talked about it, I’m sure before on live when my mentor, my late mentor invited me to her studio, we were recording something for Black History Month. And the guy behind the cameras trying to pull it out. He’s like, pull out some sadness, we need you to be a little more sad. And I realized sadness was missing. I said, where is it, I don’t even know how to access it. And there are plenty of things in my life. Somebody be like, I would be sad. They’re, they’re there and be able to call on it. But because I try to process and then deal with and continue forward it. I felt like it made it so that I couldn’t connect to it. You know. So me being connected to my emotions and where I am mentally is something I’ve been really intentional about knowing where I’m at and being able to articulate.

Christine Gautreaux 5:44
Right, especially when crazy stuff happens. My being profiled, and yeah, like, yeah,

Shannon M. 5:52
and how do you handled that in a healthy manner? You know, so this past week, I just finished my salary manager training for the second time in two months. Okay, we’re talking about mental wellness and occupational wellness, okay, staying sane in the midst of everything. And what was I going to say, Lord, let’s see the capacity. Oh, and so my general manager was reminding me about my connectedness to my emotions. And I was thinking about us and thinking about manifestation Mondays, she said that your superpower is, you know, where you’re soft, and where you’re vulnerable. And you’re this inspiring person that you’re out in the world, you know, that’s where your superpower is. And she reminded me of the importance again, to stay connected to my emotions. That’s the part that stood out for me. So when were being in this very hostile situation, it was hostile situation with this guy following us through the building on the phone with the police. I’m listening to my tone. Right in it sounded like it did the night before. When I’m managing the kitchen. Everybody’s crazy. And you have to be the, okay, do this, do this, do this. We’re going to keep going, what do you need? I got you no problem. And I’m like, Am I okay, right now, because it sounds like I’m disassociated. But I’m trying not to escalate the situation, trying to stay aware of what’s going on, and still handle it in a healthy way. So I don’t create something else. Because this person is trying to act a certain way.

Christine Gautreaux 7:19
I don’t hear that you were disassociated at all, I hear that you are emotionally regulated.

Shannon M. 7:24
And that’s an extra, you know, we, we look for a balance, quote unquote, balance for those who are listening to the audio, but that it I just tried to check myself, you know, but I appreciate your perspective, because that’s what I felt like it was, I feel like we’re okay, I’ve checked on everybody. And I think she did a great job.

Christine Gautreaux 7:42
I’m currently going through this trauma certification course. And we were just talking about this, right? That when we get when we get into a fight flight or or flee mode, which could have easily gotten in that situation, fight or flight. Yeah. And then you’re hyper, like you’re hyper vigilant and you’re hyper, but then your emotions are out of whack. And you’re you’re feeling like, your blood pressure might change. You might all those things like you’re dysregulated completely understandable in a situation like that. Right? What it sounds like, to me what you’re describing, as you were emotionally regulated, you were taking a deep breath, you were being present in the situation, what is going on? How can I keep myself safe? And these other people say a team, what your team? What is it? What are our next steps? Right? Yeah, so

Shannon M. 8:30
So when we talk about like PTSD and things like that, I think that that is the difference between how do I say it? That is how we’re resilient. That’s what we’re talking about today, you know, emotional resilience. And so if you say that I found this article from Psychology Today that was talking about 81% of African Americans deal with racial trauma, things like that. Right. But then it suggests that less than I think it was less than 10%. If I’m correct, I’m looking at the percentage right now. Yes, 9.1 prevalence rate of PTSD. So again, with a psychology degree, I love research, I’m all about the numbers and making sure that it’s accurate for 81%, to deal with it and 9.1% to say that they deal with PTSD. PTSD is a very serious category to be in, right, there’s certain criteria that have to be met. I wouldn’t say that is this low. I think that might be just, you know, more research that needs to be done or whatever, would make that number more accurate, and maybe it is accurate based on the headcount that they had in their research group. But what I think is that it’s not as high as 81%. I would also say that you know, because we are used to hearing about these stories, so it’s given us the space to think about how I want it to turn out I know I don’t want to turn out a shooting him or him shooting us or the police shooting us So how do I make that not happen like a George Zimmerman situation? Let me instead do X, Y, and Z. And I feel like that helped me not be as traumatized as I could have been had it gone a different way.

Christine Gautreaux 10:12
Right? Well, I’m also curious about the date on that one, too, because I know there’s a lot new, there’s a lot of new research coming out about racial trauma, and the effects of racial trauma. And if they’re separating it out between post traumatic stress and racial trauma, or if they’re putting it under post traumatic stress caused by racial trauma, this

Shannon M. 10:33
important question, right? Yes. And the article is from September 6 2015. And as a rule, I think I usually like to keep it within the last four years, especially after COVID. And a lot of stuff has happened. So more research is going on in different areas. Thank you for that point.

Christine Gautreaux 10:49
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, we talked about this before the show how, especially research in black communities is underfunded, and under reported. And I was just seeing recently, an article come out about COVID, about how the, the monitors the sensors for the oxygen, were not working correctly, for people with melanated scan, especially the darker the skin, the less and so they weren’t getting the treatment they needed, because the sensor is built is probably tested and built mostly on white skinned bodies. And that makes sense. You know, it’s these things that we wonder about disparity in healthcare, we wonder about the systems that are set up, and it can be and simple is not the right word, because it’s not simple because the system was set up this way. But it can be the matter of it wasn’t tested on enough people that had donated skin, right? That’s not simple, because we have to ask the question of why and why did that happen? But then it causes this whole domino effect of health and wellness, and more black people dying, or dark skinned folks dying because they didn’t get the adequate treatment and care.

Shannon M. 12:01
Absolutely. And that’s what we talk about, you know, self and community care if one person this is affected by one person, it’s not just that person is their family and their their even their work environment, the team is thrown off, and it it ripples in so many different ways. And in generations. You know, I don’t want to give too much away, but I was reading our book this week. And, okay, and I love the stories of the different generations. You know, we’re not just talking about moms, we’re talking about grandmas too. And for my specific story, me and my best friend, Maya. So you know, one of my goals is to be a grandma one day, okay, I want to do cartwheels and somersaults, rock climbing and stuff with my grandma.

Christine Gautreaux 12:42
What do you want to be called?

Shannon M. 12:44
I don’t know. Yeah, we were talking earlier before our friend. But first, let’s get to the parenthood. Okay, you’re out. Right.

Christine Gautreaux 12:53
Some people know those things from four years old. Right?

Shannon M. 12:56
I try not to over plan it, you know, and I’m glad that I didn’t. Because before I plan the name for my children, I plan the name for my books. So we’re

Christine Gautreaux 13:06
talking to right now.

Shannon M. 13:07
Yeah, sir. Certain things are off the list is really generous. Yep. It’s really in the end. I’m intentional about that, for my mental and emotional wellness. You know, for example, when my dad was sick, he’s going through chemo and surgery. I didn’t ask a lot of questions. And it really surprised me. I’m like, she’s so quiet. Y’all know, I talk a lot, you know, and I showed me like, I’m so scared. I’m just gonna wait to see what happens. I’m just gonna be okay every day and like, pray to God that this man survives. Like, really? You know? So yeah.

Christine Gautreaux 13:43
So that’s a really good thing to notice. Right? It’s a good thing to notice that where you’re at react differently in different situations. And in that moment, you need to be still in quiet because you were scared, right?

Shannon M. 13:56
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and specifically, because at that time, my dad was married to my second stepmom. Right. I’m in ninth grade. So my question was, if he passes away, do I stay here? And if she gets remarried, what do I call him? Is he like my stepdad? You know, where am I adopted into the family? And then or, like, do I go on foster care? Like what I said, I would rather not have to worry about any of that. I would rather he just be okay. Right. So when we talk about resilience, and the steps that we’re gonna go into, like, these are so important. And again, I think it helps me stay centered. It helps me stay. It helps me maintain my wellness and the different dimensions because again, if what I’ve started doing sometimes if I really am not, okay, like I just mentioned, Linda, my late mentor, she passed away. I took two days off, would love to have taken more. But if I take a mental health day, every thought every time I felt like I need to, I might not work a lot, you know, so we got to work on the rest zilliant seed level and what it looks like in a healthy way, not minimizing anything or not giving it the space that it deserves, but how do we process it? And what does that look like?

Christine Gautreaux 15:12
All right? Well, and you know, I’m a firm believer that there are skills that we can and muscles that we can build around us that, that the way that dominant culture teaches us that, oh, it should look like this or should look like that is it’s a yesI. And there’s parts of that, that we can use for self care. But when we’re talking about true resiliency, when we’re talking about self care skills, we’re talking about totally different things. So do you want to jump into this conversation? Of course, for our regular listeners today, y’all we it’s gonna be Shannon tonight, because we were, we were talking about emotional and mental wellness. And we were talking about what’s going on in the world. And we realized we haven’t had this full in depth conversation. And so we wanted to have it with y’all today about the five skills of self care. So coming to you, for those of y’all that are watching, I’m holding up the Stillpoint book. And for those of y’all that are listening, this is coming to you from the book Stillpoint, a self care playbook for caregivers to find ease and time to breathe and reclaim joy. And this is a book that I co wrote with my friend and colleague Sheila K. Collins, Dr. Collins, I was honored to be askin on this project. And so it’s my joy to talk about it today. Because it’s also like my purpose and my passion. Because before the pandemic y’all 57 million Americans were identifying as caregivers, that and most of them unpaid. Like, these are the folks that are working. They’re taking care of children, they’re taking care of elders, some of them are sandwich generations taking care of both a lot of them identify as women. And they’re, it’s a dangerous profession. They’re dying in higher numbers, because they’re not taking care of themselves. So we wrote this book, we updated this book, I was called into the project to update this book with statistics and looking at somatic ways that we can address self care. What are the tools and techniques we can have in our toolbox? Is times like these, like these chaotic times we’re in.

Shannon M. 17:35
So can we go more into what is somatic? I love when I read the book, you ladies differentiating the really logical way that we’re taught to think you know, as an honor student, great edit. Okay, Kumari, and college, even with all these jobs and everything, so learning something to, to fit into a certain expectation to get a great I’m very good at. So the somatic part was really interesting to me.

Christine Gautreaux 18:04
Right? So when we talk about Cymatics, we’re talking about the body, we’re talking about that things start in the physical things start with our bodies, this human experience is all about being in this body and being here and being present. And often, especially in you know, United States culture, often what we value and especially when we’re talking about work, and things like that is from the head up, the neck up, right? We’re valuing the intelligence, we’re valuing the brain, we’re, we’re not talking about the whole system and the whole body. And as we know, we got to write if we have our health, if we don’t have all the dimensions of wellness, we’re not able to function in work and other places. So I would also say, Shannon, one of the things I want to talk about to start is, you know, what is self care? Like, when we, you know, for years, people talk about self care, and they equate it with being selfish and in that’s, I think we’re getting away from that and 2022 but I think there if you know the true definition of what it is and is not so you up for that?

Shannon M. 19:11
Absolutely. Is it on? Let me see if I can pull it up. I don’t have that give me I was actually

Christine Gautreaux 19:16
just gonna read it if you’re good for it. Yeah, I was gonna say I was gonna start with what it’s not right. self care is not continuing to educate and train ourselves to withstand more stress in order to take on more stress. We all know people who insist on staying in unhealthy jobs or relationships, while asking for help in order to tolerate more abuse more gracefully. self care is not putting ourselves through frequent reoccurring cycles of overwork, followed by crashing to recover. This Rhythm of full speed of head, followed by total collapse is damaging to all dimensions of ourselves. So the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Shannon M. 20:05
Right? Absolutely. Yeah.

Christine Gautreaux 20:07
And unfortunately, our culture like wants those things to have, like, so it’s kind of countercultural to be like, Oh, wait, that’s not what we’re talking about here. Right. So what is self care? Self Care is tuning in recognizing earlier and earlier, the subtle physical signs of potential difficulties. caring people become good at reading other people’s body language, such as clenched jaw, stooped shoulders, and sad eyes, and I know is like a manager of people, you’re very good at that, too. Thanks. Self care means tuning into ourselves, and learning how to read our own body language. So then you take that you’re tuning in, and then what self care is, it’s about tending. It’s about being actively involved. When we’re taking care of other people, when we’re managing other people, right? Whether we’re a caregiver, a private professional, whether we’re a manager in any job supervising a team, it has the potential to take on other people’s tension and stress, right. But when we tend to ourselves with self care, we perfect the art of not taking on other people’s tension. Or if it does happen to sneak in, and we do take it on, by tending to ourselves, we learn to let go of it quickly, so that we’re free to experience a life of balance and vitality. So it’s about recognizing it, and noticing it in our bodies, and then having the tools and skills to let it go. And that’s what helps build resilience, right? Because I think we’ve all been there where we’ve had a bad day at work. Yeah, somebody said something about us that we took on other people’s tension and stress. And then we woke up in the middle of the night thinking about it, right? Oh, I should have said that. Or, Oh, I wish I wouldn’t have done that. Or oh, you know. And also, or we take it really personal, right? We think, Oh, I’m not a good at this, or I’m not good at that. And I think that’s part of it is, is how do we have the skills? How do we build up the skills of self care and resilience? So we’re not waking up at two o’clock in the morning?

Shannon M. 22:22
Yeah, that’s not fun. Thinking about they’re still rented space in your head thinking about this other person who is wherever they are. And I’ll never find out what they were doing when I was thinking about it. Right? Yeah.

Christine Gautreaux 22:36
Well, and my husband and I often have that conversation about that we’re giving that person a lot of energy. Right? What could we be doing instead?

Shannon M. 22:46
Absolutely. And that’s why it’s so important for and we’re going to talk about the steps, so important for me to talk about it, right? Whether it’s me writing it out. And sometimes we talk about attention spans, and let’s be honest, sometimes somebody might not have the attention span for you to go through all the details. If you still have to get it out. Write it out, you know, yesterday, I call it the seals, it seals been on the show, she helps people with their racism workout, you know, I just want to make sure I have the right perspective. And that helped me in our conversation helped me to continue to process it in a healthy way.

Christine Gautreaux 23:20
Oh, you know what that is? That’s number three that we’re going to talk about. That’s partnership power, my

Shannon M. 23:23
friend is and I have burners, yes, right? Yes.

Christine Gautreaux 23:27
Well, write it out. You can dance it out. I did to him. Right? Yes. What did we when we take that when something chaotic or stressful happens, right? There’s some skills we can go through or steps we can go through. And we talked about that in the book a lot like different modalities or different things to try. Because not everybody works. Not everything works for everybody, right? Everybody VOD, why, right? Because we all come from different places, different backgrounds, different ages. So something that works for me may not work for you. It may, but we shouldn’t assume that it does.

Shannon M. 24:05
And it doesn’t have to be. We talk about collaboration versus competition, right? It’s not Christine told me to do this. It’s not working. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You know, it’s, well, that doesn’t work. You know, it doesn’t work for me and what I have going on, or maybe even the season that I am in my life, you know, just like for example, we have been doing the podcast and doing great at putting up everything on social media, right. And I realized that me doing social media, for my business. The way I did it for the podcast was not the same. You have a different technology setup than I had, you know what I mean? So maybe what’s easy for Christina do on her computers. It’s not easy for me to do at work when I’m on my phone or maybe not at work, but when I’m doing my social media, how I’ve been used to doing it on my phone, you know, and that’s okay, because we’re in two different positions with everything that we have going on and it’s not a danger on me. It’s not a ding on you. is just that that’s the reality of the situation. So what do I need? And how can I still get there? Right.

Christine Gautreaux 25:07
And you just gave a great illustration and a great point, Shannon, of the first skill of self care, right? The first skill of self care is sorting and separating what belongs to us from what belongs to others. Right? So you just, you just illustrated that beautifully, like it wasn’t about it was like, this is where I’m at, this is where you’re at. And this is how this is how we do things. Right. The same can be said for emotional stuff, right? We were talking about work and crazy stuff happening at work. Is your supervising people being able to sort and separate? Is this yours? Is this theirs? Is is ours together? And which pieces do I need to address or not address? Right?

Shannon M. 25:50
Absolutely. And that helps me, when I think about it, it goes with the list of lies that I wrote about my life where I talk about that a lot. And in that season, when I was sorting and separating my life, thinking about where things came from, and figuring out who I want it to be close to, and things like that. That’s what I was doing. And I realized that some stuff I was holding on was not mine. And I had those conversations, you know, I had the new conversations with the people close to me, talk to my best friend, like, hey, I really need to grow in this area. If if you’re gonna you know, if you’re gonna grow, then we can be best friends, we can go together. And if not, I love you no matter what, and we might have to not be as close. That’s a difficult conversation I had with a close friend of 20 years, you know, and we talk about friendships in the book too. But to be able to sort and separate, and that that she was the person that I had heavier conversations with, because we’re great, which is why we’re best friends. And it’s been so long. But some of the other conversations were heavier, you know, and thankfully, they turned out great. And even in a situation if you feel like it might not, I think that it still benefits you and helps with my personal boundaries and teaching people how I want to be treated to have those conversations and just roll the dice. And if they receive it, they receive it. And if not, then we know where we stand.

Christine Gautreaux 27:10
Right. But I think the first part is that sorting and separating it out. So you know, where you’re coming from? And what are your boundaries? And what do you need? And, and can make those I statements, you know,

Shannon M. 27:21
and those change, and they change, you know, like you talk about people popping up at the house, we don’t have people pop up that the house, you know, so it’s just differences. And before maybe it would have been more welcoming, you know, but just with the details and everything, the decision is different. And that’s okay.

Christine Gautreaux 27:39
All right. So let’s talk about number two, the second skill of self care. Yeah, letting go and surrendering and learning when and how to do this. Right? Yes, there’s often a lot of things in our lives that we’re not in control of. That we can’t make happen a certain way, you know, but what pieces, anybody that’s been involved in 12 steps, programs, or, really, when we talk about spiritual wellness and have a belief in a higher power, you know, you’ve probably been exposed to this concept of letting go and surrendering that, you know, there are things that we’re not in charge of, it doesn’t mean we don’t take action towards some things. But if we think we are completely in charge of the outcome at all times, that can cause a lot of stress and, and chip away our resiliency when things don’t go away. Yeah, yeah, when a natural disaster occurs when a hard diagnosis comes when a layoff comes. Right?

Shannon M. 28:46
And when in the season that I was reading and studying about surrender, I’ve really learned that I’m glad I don’t have to control everything, you know, if I had to control everything, countries would not wake up I would forget okay. Oh, I forgot about insert random country, you know, and that random to the people that live there, of course, we love everybody, you know, we’re women connected in wisdom. But if I was control of people waking up, forgotten, people will be missing fingerprints, like it will be a whole thing you know, so that you know made it lighter for me, I don’t want to be in control over everything. And then as a business owner now I think about Stacey Abrams book and how she talks about her partnership power and how she wasn’t doing things by herself. And I have the honor to say the same thing you know, I can have an international podcast and know that you know what some of this stuff I can surrender and I can trust that Christina Scott it and I’ll do the other part and then it still works out.

Christine Gautreaux 29:44
Right? Well and that’s perfect lead in to number three, which is my favorite. Well, I like them all but number three is I’m very partial to because number three is building and using partnership power to get help from others. And you know, pretty self-explanatory, but we are women connected in wisdom. And we’re all about building partnership power. But yeah, when I think about people, you know, we think about dominant culture in the West, about individual rugged individualism, like pull yourself up by the bootstraps, right? And that is, that’s not what we’re talking about y’all, because somebody made those boots. So

Shannon M. 30:25
what do you ever really do by ourselves? Like, right?

Christine Gautreaux 30:29
Right? We’re not born by ourselves. Because, you know, our moms are a big part in that.

Shannon M. 30:36
And the dad was in there somewhere. Oh, yes.

Christine Gautreaux 30:42
But you know, this interconnectedness that we have, but that we can be intentional as a skill, we can build this muscle, like, thinking about when we look at what skills do I have? What am I really good at, like affirming the good in yourself, but also recognizing, hey, I may not be as good as that, like, yeah, Shannon is much better at scheduling than I am y’all. Y’all probably know that if you’re listening to us for any time, or, you know, who is the calendar and the schedule are in this in this partnership, that would be shared, right? But finding people that complement who you are, and in your skills and their skills and partnership power and being an I’m a big believer in collaborating and working with people that bring me joy? Yeah. Yeah, that when I get done with a work session with somebody, I am like, like, I’m just filled with joy, like, I am so lucky. Right? Yeah. Because my life I’ve created so many partnerships and patent partnership, how are you using the skill that I get off meetings, like meetings that people will be like, you have a two hour meeting? I’m like, Oh, my gosh, that was awesome. Yes, no, good, right. But it does take it does take skill, and it takes intentionality. You said, go ahead.

Shannon M. 32:07
No, I’m sorry, got finish your thought? No, I think I was. And so when I think about partnership power, especially at the beginning of COVID, what I realized is that I need to key in a little deeper into my strengths and weaknesses, you know, so that I can intentionally build, build my team and know what I’m looking for. Sometimes we build teams, and they’re people that are like us. And because we get along, we think that it’s going to work. But two people working on the same thing, when there’s a list of 500 is only going to last so long. You know, you gave me credit for being a great organizer. And I pride myself on my planner usage, I’ve been doing a great job so we can get all this stuff done. But the way I love how you compliment it is you do this stuff digitally, you know, and what I’ve realized over the past year is and person talking all this stuff is great, you know, digital social media, is it’s a whole nother it’s like being in two worlds, you know, so for me sometimes that can be draining. So I love that, I’ll put it down on the planner, and you will put it into the computer. And together, we’ve made it work, you know. And so that’s that’s how you do it. You know, I know that about myself, I know that being on social media, over a certain amount of time will start having a draining effect on me. So I’m mindful that that boundary. And that’s why I collaborate with the different people that I do for the different projects that we work on together. Right.

Christine Gautreaux 33:29
Yeah. And I mean, that goes it is an intentionality around it. And it’s a skill. Because if you were raised to always say yes to people, or if you were raised, which we’re going to get to that one in just a minute. But if you were raised where you put everybody else’s needs ahead of your own, if you don’t know what your strengths and weaknesses are to be able to then seek partnership power that complements or supports or, you know, yeah, that’s a that’s a thing. Like, yeah, checking in with ourselves and knowing who we are. And you may need help with that. You may need to get a coach, you may need to get a therapist you may need like, that’s partnership power. Like it doesn’t have to be just a friend or a colleague, it can be that we hire somebody to support us in this journey. Yes. Yeah. Now, number four, number four can be a little bit challenging sometimes, but I think it’s an important one, stepping back and seeing the big picture and the relationship between the parts. That old adage of you can’t see the forest for the trees, right. But sometimes we’re so in it. This skill is about really taking a bird’s eye view or and stepping back and broadening and I wrote an article recently or a newsletter on LinkedIn that was talking about in the times that we live right. This skill can be useful in self care, like so when you step back and you look at the history like say with the mass shootings that have been going on right. How did we Get here. What is the broader perspective of this? What laws came into place? What are the facts? What are the lobbyists, what is happening? Like, it’s a little headache. This one to me seems, is a little heavier as far as stepping back. But then I was talking to my friend at a this week, and he was caregiving with his dad. And he said, he used the skill by he was getting really overwhelmed with emotion and things like that. And he literally stepped back, he physically took several steps back from his dad’s bed, and just kind of softens his gaze and got a broader perspective about what state was it they were in, and what were what was going on, and what was happening in this conversation. So it can be heavy in the fact that we look at, you know, history and facts and knowing what’s going on. So we can take clear and right action. Or it could be where we literally walk out of the building at lunch, and soften our gaze from the problem. Or like, I like to tell Sheila, when we step away from the computer to step away from sometimes when you get really into it, and like it’s not working, or you’re like, you’ve been doing it for hours, it’s like, oh, step back and get a broader perspective.

Shannon M. 36:24
Yes. And for me to what I realized, when I realized I needed to surrender some of the details of life a little more, right. And I needed to get partnership power and do that from operating my strengths and my weaknesses. This also helped me with something else I’ve learned in that season, about when not learned but realized about myself was that I did things the way that I was taught how to do them, right, I’m a great student. So if you taught me, this is how you make tea, I hadn’t even thought about like, I know, there’s different ways to make tea, but I just make it this way, because that’s the way I was taught, you know, so as a business owner, or as a leader or somebody in a caregiving position, especially because your immune system is compromise, you know, because it does put this weight on you. I think that stepping back from the situation or give space for new creative ideas, you know, okay, how can I reach this goal, but make it so that it fits my schedule now or make it so that it it meets my physical demands where they are, you know, me never have not having been a mom yet, me being able to physically caretaker for somebody might be different than a woman who is actively pregnant right now, or who has had children, she may need to take it on a different way. And again, that doesn’t make her a worse daughter or a bad partner or, you know, diminish or roll is just being aware of where we are and how we need to address the situation. It also reminds me of starting with the end in mind, you know, what is the goal for me, the financial goal is financial freedom, and being set up for three generations. So I know that when I spent the night reading our book, I said, I’ve stayed up reading a lot of books for other people, I can stay up and read my book for one night. But I also knew that I didn’t want to do this really hard work, and then a burnout cycle, like we talked about. So I’ve slowly been resting and regenerating and making sure that that’s not the norm. So stepping out and then doing the little things to what does Eleanor say,

Christine Gautreaux 38:26
Eleanor is listening and says when you talk about stepping back, I like to go stand on the moon in my mind and look back at the issues on earth that I’m concerned with. Everything looks different from up there, and it helps that visualization

Shannon M. 38:40
of that too. I can tell you ladies, not that. It’s not in a form of escape. I love where I live, I love where I sleep. I feel like I have great we talked about environmental wellness, right great relationship with where I rest, but I’ve also been imagining to be somewhere else, you know, we were at the photoshoot for example. Yesterday, I said Imagine you’re in Costa Rica right now like somewhere relaxing. So I like to go to sleep around the world and different places. So it’s interesting that you say that Eleanor, I might go stand on the moon to I’m gonna try it at least once. I like that idea. Yeah,

Christine Gautreaux 39:15
right. I love that. Well, and I just when I think about that visualization, I immediately think about all the water and all the in water soothing to me. So it immediately and I think about the clouds and all the cloud pictures.

Shannon M. 39:32
My background for my phone is

Christine Gautreaux 39:35
visualization. Right? I love it. Well, let’s talk about the fifth skill of self care, which I think can be the most challenging, right. It is exercising choice by saying no and yes. So who boundaries, right? Yes. When we are taught to say yes, whether it’s To all our family members or our jobs or the world, and you know, we’ve met people, like people that are complete, yes, people and people that are complete, no people, often they’re in relationship together, which I think is funny. But, you know, we have to be able to say no. In order to say yes, terone self care.

Shannon M. 40:24
And I’ve, I’ve been loving the word no, this past week, I’m not gonna lie to you, like, I’ve been looking at my schedule, we were talking about the planner, right? And I said, over the last seven days, there’s been a lot going on with the needs of the team, right? There’s still COVID people’s families are affected a certain way, normal stuff that happens with people in the schedule has been moving. And I said, if I did not block the time for the podcast in the business, it would have been lost in the sauce, you know? So being able to say no, so that you can say yes to something else, has been one of my favorite skills that I’ve been practicing, because I still need to practice it. But

Christine Gautreaux 41:04
I think we all do, right. I think especially women raised in the south, right? We’re taught to be account accommodating more than not, and being able to have those boundaries and say no, and I think we’re also when you’re a highly sensitive being like, you don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings, or you don’t want to do this and that. But really, I have met so many people, most often women, most often caregivers, or activist or, you know, people doing helping professions that like are nurses and social workers. And, and they say yes, until the point that they drop, and whether that’s with a health a major health issue, or a major health concern, or, you know, it takes a toll on people’s health and wellness, if they’re not paying attention to this one. And that. Yeah, and I mean, because we know, there’s so many choices in the world right now, like so many choices, that we have to be able to say no to even good stuff. You know, it’s easy to say no to that. Well, sometimes it is. And sometimes we you know, I can just speak for myself. When I started practicing this muscle. It was easy or to say stuff to say no to the things I don’t like, right? Yeah. Oh, no, I’m gonna I’m gonna say no to that. Right. Usually, it’s a really long, complicated answer, and I will be in charge. But it’s harder to say no to the things that are really awesome. But still Don’t serve yourself care. Yes, or your or your precious things that we need to all be checking in on our sleep, or clean eating, or moving our bodies and being in just communities where we are feeling fed by the relationships, right? Yeah,

Shannon M. 42:44
yeah. And even we talk about missions, and we had a vision board party at the beginning of the year, you know, I think about how, how do I want to show up for the people that I care about, at the end of my life when it’s chanin was all of these things that I over give two to work and not spend time with my family and I didn’t even realize it, you know, there’s a difference. If I have to go to work so that I can even have the car to get to you guys. That makes sense. You know, we have responsibilities and different hats that we wear. But that’s why I keep bringing up Sherry Riley’s book of exponential living and not living 100% of your life on 10% of who you are. And that’s how we can be critical about okay, you know what I said? Yes, already, I’ve done what I need to do for the team this week, I’m going to say this No, so that I can keep the yes that I set for myself already, instead of continuing to cross out the self care and add in the shift, know, the self care has got to stay because all the shifts will be out for a week if we’re sick.

Christine Gautreaux 43:45
I love that you say that we talked about practical tools and resources and that you just named it right, block your block time off for yourself. That’s an easy way that’s an easy way to hold a boundary is to put your self care in there first, whether that you are going on a walk, whether that you are sleeping extra, if you’ve got something big the night before, like block that time off in your calendar. So when somebody asked, you can say I’m sorry, I already have something scheduled. So you don’t have to say I’m scheduling myself. You just say I have something on the calendar, I have something scheduled. I actually have a day because you know, being an entrepreneur, it’s really easy to work seven days a week, it just is especially after the last two years. I know I know. And I had to literally write a day in my calendar, where it was completely blocked off. So my automatic scheduler doesn’t schedule anybody in there. And it says do not schedule. This is creative and piddling time for like the next book or the next right, it is downtime for my brain and where nobody else was getting scheduled in there. So I think that I think it’s skill and I think it’s something that we all need to be looking at you And the other thing I know, we’re probably getting close to time, Shannon. But the other thing I like to say to clients and communities that I work with is self care looks different for everybody. Right? Self care can be practical, like, lighten the candle and paying your bills and giving gratitude for being able to pay your bills that week. We don’t want to take that for granted right? Now we see on the TV that it’s manicures and pedicures and the spa day. And yeah, those are great if that’s what works for your body. But it’s also the things like, you know, eating things that are healthy for your body and moving your body every day, whether that’s just stretching or going for a run or something in between, right, yeah.

Shannon M. 45:49
And listening to things that edify you that builds you up. You know, there’s a lot of music, if I was out at a party, I love the beat. You know, this, the lyrics are demoralizing, so I’m not gonna listen to them on a daily basis, you know? And so what’s the difference in doing, tying in all this senses and seeing which one works better for you? But yeah, I definitely don’t minimize light and a good candle. I love candles, right?

Christine Gautreaux 46:15
What works? Right? I was online with somebody today that I believe they were in Arizona, and they lit an imaginary candle, because I go, I’m not adding to the heat here. So the things that weren’t, right, yeah, what works for you, but taking some time, some intentional time, and thinking about it, or dreaming about it, or going to the moon and like Eleanor suggested, and, you know, taking some time to be intentional, about what does your body need in this time?

Shannon M. 46:49
Right. And we talked about it, you know, we said that sometimes we can feel like it’s selfish. But if we’re talking about a team, and how to set up the collaboration, right, it doesn’t benefit the team, for the individual to not know their strengths or weaknesses, or to be Miss paired, you know, because now that brings down the effectiveness and everything else we need for the business to run or the groups around or the family to run event, you know, so knowing where you are and how to take care of you sets up the next person to know how to either complement you in a healthy way, or what type of person they need on their team. So whether it’s us talking about physically being there, and literally surviving to the next day to be able to be there and thriving with our our loved ones or setting up the expert expectations, right for the workflow. I think that when you break it down like that you can see that is absolutely necessary and not selfish to know where you are and what you need to do you know what you’re made to do?

Christine Gautreaux 47:49
Absolutely. Because we’re not talking about, we’re actually talking about self care in order to sustain and thrive in community care. We’re not talking about him being separate, right? You know, Shannon and I are artist, activist community members we are, we believe in building community. But if we don’t, if every individual in that community doesn’t take care of themselves, then they can’t sustain and thrive in community care. So we need

Shannon M. 48:23
you. Yeah. And, and I know that we’re about to do our wisdom and action on and I think this will be my last story that I share. I remember November 12 2019, the day my mom passed away, and I went to church, it was a Tuesday it was at fusion and fusion is lit right love going to the young adults group. And it was my first day I was supposed to be volunteering. So we’re at the end, and they shouted me out to pray. And I brought up the fact that my mom had passed away that day, but what better place to be than church, right? And think about emotional intelligence and how I can handle the situation better. I’m thinking maybe that was an emotional dump for them, you know, maybe that might have triggered somebody, I stayed in my space to be able to see it for myself. But looking back, as I after that stepped down from from that position from different positions where I was pouring out, I should I feel like maybe you should have taken more space instead of continuing to serve and pour out for other people. Take a second for yourself, you know, so that they can come and be supported. And you can have the time that you need, instead of sharing things that hadn’t been all the way dealt with. So I think about that to be gentle with yourself my friend. Of course. Of course. Yeah. And giving yourself space as you look at the big picture. And you you step back and look at the details. You know, when you’re partnering with a certain person, what does that look like? You know, maybe you can share it a certain time, but maybe that time is not the right way. And this is like a dance we talk about dancing. So what is the step that you’re at? And then where are we going next to keep on right dancing through life.

Christine Gautreaux 50:01
I love that. So what’s your wisdom and action from this conversation today?

Shannon M. 50:07
And I think that is my wisdom. And actually, I was thinking about my hashtag. And I liked that dancing through life. Yeah, as things happen, still continuing to move. That was one of my goals this year is to dance more. Last year, we worked on patience. So as I do with all the different things, we’re going to keep dancing, I’m going to keep taking care of myself. And I will say, you know, I’ve been liking to do two hashtags. So I will also say, hashtag glow from head to toe. Because yesterday after everything happened, so you know what, I love my body, I love who I am. Let me take some time to rest. And shallow glow was genuinely the way that I do that every day. So they I’m thankful for the product and the benefit that has had in my life. So those are my two, what about you?

Christine Gautreaux 50:51
Oh, I love that. Well, you know, on this one hashtag, when we’re talking about the five skills of self care, I’ve gotta go hashtag partnership power. Because I or you know, hashtag connected to me, they kind of go go hand in hand. And then I think the other one would be hashtag say no, to say yes to yourself. And that, that boundaries are healthy and good. And yeah. So if you’re listening, whether you’re listening, live or listening on the recording, find us on social media and give us your hashtag of your wisdom in action this week. What do you want to do around emotional and mental wellness, and bringing that into balance? Because that can be challenging. A lot of people are struggling right now. And we’re we don’t have to do it by ourselves, y’all. We don’t know. We’ll put in the show notes about hotline if you need to reach out to somebody. And also, oh, let’s see what Eleanor’s hashtag is for today. Hashtag take care of yourself. No one else will do it for you. Right. That’s an awesome one. Eleanor, thanks for being with us and listening today. And yeah, just so grateful for this conversation and to have this time with you, my friend.

Shannon M. 52:11
Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you for the five steps and for still point. I love the reminder. We’re, you know, connected in community work in our passions and purpose in life. And we can still take that time to be still for a second. So thank you, ladies for joining us. We’ll see you live next week. Are we here next week? Actually, Christine, are we Yes.

Christine Gautreaux 52:33
Is the weekend here next week? Yeah, okay.

Shannon M. 52:35
Okay, perfect. So we will see you ladies next week. Live at Five. And don’t forget, be well, be wise. And be whole. We’ll talk to you soon.

Unknown Speaker 52:52
Thanks for listening. This has been the women connected and wisdom podcast on air live on Wednesdays at 5pm. Eastern via Facebook and YouTube. Be sure to like, share and subscribe be part of the conversation and get connected at women connected in wisdom.com.

Christine Gautreaux 0:01
Hello, hello. Hello my friend.

Shannon M. 0:04
Hello Beautiful. How are you doing? Hi, I’m good. How are you? Good. Happy to be here. Happy to be here. I was. I think we should just jump right in right we’re talking about usually we don’t say this but as a trigger warning before we just jump into this story Okay, talking about mental and emotional well being. And how’s that a shallow glow photo shoot yesterday y’all had the police called on me being black on white man stairs is what I was thinking about titling the book. Okay. But it was the whole situation. And some people don’t walk out of those situations literally. Like, this is not me being dramatic. So, so happy.

Christine Gautreaux 0:48
Mature. Well, thank you. Yeah. And just to give clarity, because I know the background, this situation, you were invited to this location. Of course, you had permission to be there and taking pictures. And some random white guy decides that

Shannon M. 1:08
he’s gonna pass time. Yes. Yeah, yep. So for me it was.

Christine Gautreaux 1:14
So taking pictures while Black was

Shannon M. 1:17
there we go taking pictures while black, let’s say running business while black, let’s say circulating dollars in the economy, while black. But the beautiful thing was there for che loco. Right. And that’s literally what we’re talking about. In one hand, the bodies are not valued, and in the other hand, were very well taken care of on a daily basis, despite somebody else’s opinion about it. So that’s what Shayla was about. So any day, the way I live my life that Shannon Mitchell is on the news, she was author, a co host, I’m doing all these things to live my purpose. And that’s why I tried to do that every day. So yes to what we’re going to talk about today and how to maintain the wellness and everything that we’re

Christine Gautreaux 2:02
in the midst of chaos and isms. Let’s do this.

Shannon M. 2:09
Okay, leggings, welcome to our podcast. I am Shannon Mitchell, a black female, millennial entrepreneur, the founder of shallow glow, a handmade shea butter company. I am a champion for your self care, business care and intentional wellness.

Christine Gautreaux 2:25
And I am Christine Gautreaux, a white social justice advocate and international speaker, coach and published author who helps you upgrade yourself in community care.

Shannon M. 2:36
Yes. And together, we are women connected in wisdom, a podcast grounded in the eight dimensions of wellness. Welcome, welcome to our show.

Christine Gautreaux 2:45
Yeah, and we like to get together every week for intentional conversations about how to be wise in business relationships and wellness. How do we do this?

Shannon M. 2:56
In reality, you know, like, we were talking about the book earlier, the book that we’re working on, and wanting to really give the listeners and the readers practical information. You know, a lot of times I felt like, it makes sense, you know, we might leave out the details that are embarrassing, or the details that we might have to take a little more time to explain even you know, for somebody to really understand the story. But I love that we get to share stories and resources and really give all the details. So we’ll know how to really get from A to B, when we’re putting that wisdom in the action. We’re not missing a step because part of the story was left out. You know,

Christine Gautreaux 3:32
I love that because I think that often we live in a culture that people think they should know things, right. They think that everybody else knows or they think like, how do you do that? But if we don’t ask if we don’t have the conversations, if we don’t share our stories, how do people know? Right? I mean, you can Google stuff in the internet, but sometimes Yeah.

Shannon M. 3:59
And it’s so interesting that you say that because for me, it comes from an okay, so I mentioned this one one day when I was on the show with you ladies. And so you know, the chapter has changed. So I’m not a liar. It was included. But I did take it out the whole journey of how far I feel like I’ve come in the list of things I know to do to take care of myself. Right. So yeah, that’s what we’re talking about. So let’s jump into the definition. Today. Like I said, we’re talking about mental and emotional well being right. So to be specific, it is about being intentional and aware of all of our feelings, and includes having the capacity and tools to handle and express these emotions in a healthy manner. And the ability to learn and grow from experience. emotional well being encouraged encourages autonomy, and useful decision making skills and striving toward good mental health. So for me this week, is a little different, you know, with a lot of things. I think I do a great job at being okay and And we talked about it, I’m sure before on live when my mentor, my late mentor invited me to her studio, we were recording something for Black History Month. And the guy behind the cameras trying to pull it out. He’s like, pull out some sadness, we need you to be a little more sad. And I realized sadness was missing. I said, where is it, I don’t even know how to access it. And there are plenty of things in my life. Somebody be like, I would be sad. They’re, they’re there and be able to call on it. But because I try to process and then deal with and continue forward it. I felt like it made it so that I couldn’t connect to it. You know. So me being connected to my emotions and where I am mentally is something I’ve been really intentional about knowing where I’m at and being able to articulate.

Christine Gautreaux 5:44
Right, especially when crazy stuff happens. My being profiled, and yeah, like, yeah,

Shannon M. 5:52
and how do you handled that in a healthy manner? You know, so this past week, I just finished my salary manager training for the second time in two months. Okay, we’re talking about mental wellness and occupational wellness, okay, staying sane in the midst of everything. And what was I going to say, Lord, let’s see the capacity. Oh, and so my general manager was reminding me about my connectedness to my emotions. And I was thinking about us and thinking about manifestation Mondays, she said that your superpower is, you know, where you’re soft, and where you’re vulnerable. And you’re this inspiring person that you’re out in the world, you know, that’s where your superpower is. And she reminded me of the importance again, to stay connected to my emotions. That’s the part that stood out for me. So when were being in this very hostile situation, it was hostile situation with this guy following us through the building on the phone with the police. I’m listening to my tone. Right in it sounded like it did the night before. When I’m managing the kitchen. Everybody’s crazy. And you have to be the, okay, do this, do this, do this. We’re going to keep going, what do you need? I got you no problem. And I’m like, Am I okay, right now, because it sounds like I’m disassociated. But I’m trying not to escalate the situation, trying to stay aware of what’s going on, and still handle it in a healthy way. So I don’t create something else. Because this person is trying to act a certain way.

Christine Gautreaux 7:19
I don’t hear that you were disassociated at all, I hear that you are emotionally regulated.

Shannon M. 7:24
And that’s an extra, you know, we, we look for a balance, quote unquote, balance for those who are listening to the audio, but that it I just tried to check myself, you know, but I appreciate your perspective, because that’s what I felt like it was, I feel like we’re okay, I’ve checked on everybody. And I think she did a great job.

Christine Gautreaux 7:42
I’m currently going through this trauma certification course. And we were just talking about this, right? That when we get when we get into a fight flight or or flee mode, which could have easily gotten in that situation, fight or flight. Yeah. And then you’re hyper, like you’re hyper vigilant and you’re hyper, but then your emotions are out of whack. And you’re you’re feeling like, your blood pressure might change. You might all those things like you’re dysregulated completely understandable in a situation like that. Right? What it sounds like, to me what you’re describing, as you were emotionally regulated, you were taking a deep breath, you were being present in the situation, what is going on? How can I keep myself safe? And these other people say a team, what your team? What is it? What are our next steps? Right? Yeah, so

Shannon M. 8:30
So when we talk about like PTSD and things like that, I think that that is the difference between how do I say it? That is how we’re resilient. That’s what we’re talking about today, you know, emotional resilience. And so if you say that I found this article from Psychology Today that was talking about 81% of African Americans deal with racial trauma, things like that. Right. But then it suggests that less than I think it was less than 10%. If I’m correct, I’m looking at the percentage right now. Yes, 9.1 prevalence rate of PTSD. So again, with a psychology degree, I love research, I’m all about the numbers and making sure that it’s accurate for 81%, to deal with it and 9.1% to say that they deal with PTSD. PTSD is a very serious category to be in, right, there’s certain criteria that have to be met. I wouldn’t say that is this low. I think that might be just, you know, more research that needs to be done or whatever, would make that number more accurate, and maybe it is accurate based on the headcount that they had in their research group. But what I think is that it’s not as high as 81%. I would also say that you know, because we are used to hearing about these stories, so it’s given us the space to think about how I want it to turn out I know I don’t want to turn out a shooting him or him shooting us or the police shooting us So how do I make that not happen like a George Zimmerman situation? Let me instead do X, Y, and Z. And I feel like that helped me not be as traumatized as I could have been had it gone a different way.

Christine Gautreaux 10:12
Right? Well, I’m also curious about the date on that one, too, because I know there’s a lot new, there’s a lot of new research coming out about racial trauma, and the effects of racial trauma. And if they’re separating it out between post traumatic stress and racial trauma, or if they’re putting it under post traumatic stress caused by racial trauma, this

Shannon M. 10:33
important question, right? Yes. And the article is from September 6 2015. And as a rule, I think I usually like to keep it within the last four years, especially after COVID. And a lot of stuff has happened. So more research is going on in different areas. Thank you for that point.

Christine Gautreaux 10:49
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, we talked about this before the show how, especially research in black communities is underfunded, and under reported. And I was just seeing recently, an article come out about COVID, about how the, the monitors the sensors for the oxygen, were not working correctly, for people with melanated scan, especially the darker the skin, the less and so they weren’t getting the treatment they needed, because the sensor is built is probably tested and built mostly on white skinned bodies. And that makes sense. You know, it’s these things that we wonder about disparity in healthcare, we wonder about the systems that are set up, and it can be and simple is not the right word, because it’s not simple because the system was set up this way. But it can be the matter of it wasn’t tested on enough people that had donated skin, right? That’s not simple, because we have to ask the question of why and why did that happen? But then it causes this whole domino effect of health and wellness, and more black people dying, or dark skinned folks dying because they didn’t get the adequate treatment and care.

Shannon M. 12:01
Absolutely. And that’s what we talk about, you know, self and community care if one person this is affected by one person, it’s not just that person is their family and their their even their work environment, the team is thrown off, and it it ripples in so many different ways. And in generations. You know, I don’t want to give too much away, but I was reading our book this week. And, okay, and I love the stories of the different generations. You know, we’re not just talking about moms, we’re talking about grandmas too. And for my specific story, me and my best friend, Maya. So you know, one of my goals is to be a grandma one day, okay, I want to do cartwheels and somersaults, rock climbing and stuff with my grandma.

Christine Gautreaux 12:42
What do you want to be called?

Shannon M. 12:44
I don’t know. Yeah, we were talking earlier before our friend. But first, let’s get to the parenthood. Okay, you’re out. Right.

Christine Gautreaux 12:53
Some people know those things from four years old. Right?

Shannon M. 12:56
I try not to over plan it, you know, and I’m glad that I didn’t. Because before I plan the name for my children, I plan the name for my books. So we’re

Christine Gautreaux 13:06
talking to right now.

Shannon M. 13:07
Yeah, sir. Certain things are off the list is really generous. Yep. It’s really in the end. I’m intentional about that, for my mental and emotional wellness. You know, for example, when my dad was sick, he’s going through chemo and surgery. I didn’t ask a lot of questions. And it really surprised me. I’m like, she’s so quiet. Y’all know, I talk a lot, you know, and I showed me like, I’m so scared. I’m just gonna wait to see what happens. I’m just gonna be okay every day and like, pray to God that this man survives. Like, really? You know? So yeah.

Christine Gautreaux 13:43
So that’s a really good thing to notice. Right? It’s a good thing to notice that where you’re at react differently in different situations. And in that moment, you need to be still in quiet because you were scared, right?

Shannon M. 13:56
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and specifically, because at that time, my dad was married to my second stepmom. Right. I’m in ninth grade. So my question was, if he passes away, do I stay here? And if she gets remarried, what do I call him? Is he like my stepdad? You know, where am I adopted into the family? And then or, like, do I go on foster care? Like what I said, I would rather not have to worry about any of that. I would rather he just be okay. Right. So when we talk about resilience, and the steps that we’re gonna go into, like, these are so important. And again, I think it helps me stay centered. It helps me stay. It helps me maintain my wellness and the different dimensions because again, if what I’ve started doing sometimes if I really am not, okay, like I just mentioned, Linda, my late mentor, she passed away. I took two days off, would love to have taken more. But if I take a mental health day, every thought every time I felt like I need to, I might not work a lot, you know, so we got to work on the rest zilliant seed level and what it looks like in a healthy way, not minimizing anything or not giving it the space that it deserves, but how do we process it? And what does that look like?

Christine Gautreaux 15:12
All right? Well, and you know, I’m a firm believer that there are skills that we can and muscles that we can build around us that, that the way that dominant culture teaches us that, oh, it should look like this or should look like that is it’s a yesI. And there’s parts of that, that we can use for self care. But when we’re talking about true resiliency, when we’re talking about self care skills, we’re talking about totally different things. So do you want to jump into this conversation? Of course, for our regular listeners today, y’all we it’s gonna be Shannon tonight, because we were, we were talking about emotional and mental wellness. And we were talking about what’s going on in the world. And we realized we haven’t had this full in depth conversation. And so we wanted to have it with y’all today about the five skills of self care. So coming to you, for those of y’all that are watching, I’m holding up the Stillpoint book. And for those of y’all that are listening, this is coming to you from the book Stillpoint, a self care playbook for caregivers to find ease and time to breathe and reclaim joy. And this is a book that I co wrote with my friend and colleague Sheila K. Collins, Dr. Collins, I was honored to be askin on this project. And so it’s my joy to talk about it today. Because it’s also like my purpose and my passion. Because before the pandemic y’all 57 million Americans were identifying as caregivers, that and most of them unpaid. Like, these are the folks that are working. They’re taking care of children, they’re taking care of elders, some of them are sandwich generations taking care of both a lot of them identify as women. And they’re, it’s a dangerous profession. They’re dying in higher numbers, because they’re not taking care of themselves. So we wrote this book, we updated this book, I was called into the project to update this book with statistics and looking at somatic ways that we can address self care. What are the tools and techniques we can have in our toolbox? Is times like these, like these chaotic times we’re in.

Shannon M. 17:35
So can we go more into what is somatic? I love when I read the book, you ladies differentiating the really logical way that we’re taught to think you know, as an honor student, great edit. Okay, Kumari, and college, even with all these jobs and everything, so learning something to, to fit into a certain expectation to get a great I’m very good at. So the somatic part was really interesting to me.

Christine Gautreaux 18:04
Right? So when we talk about Cymatics, we’re talking about the body, we’re talking about that things start in the physical things start with our bodies, this human experience is all about being in this body and being here and being present. And often, especially in you know, United States culture, often what we value and especially when we’re talking about work, and things like that is from the head up, the neck up, right? We’re valuing the intelligence, we’re valuing the brain, we’re, we’re not talking about the whole system and the whole body. And as we know, we got to write if we have our health, if we don’t have all the dimensions of wellness, we’re not able to function in work and other places. So I would also say, Shannon, one of the things I want to talk about to start is, you know, what is self care? Like, when we, you know, for years, people talk about self care, and they equate it with being selfish and in that’s, I think we’re getting away from that and 2022 but I think there if you know the true definition of what it is and is not so you up for that?

Shannon M. 19:11
Absolutely. Is it on? Let me see if I can pull it up. I don’t have that give me I was actually

Christine Gautreaux 19:16
just gonna read it if you’re good for it. Yeah, I was gonna say I was gonna start with what it’s not right. self care is not continuing to educate and train ourselves to withstand more stress in order to take on more stress. We all know people who insist on staying in unhealthy jobs or relationships, while asking for help in order to tolerate more abuse more gracefully. self care is not putting ourselves through frequent reoccurring cycles of overwork, followed by crashing to recover. This Rhythm of full speed of head, followed by total collapse is damaging to all dimensions of ourselves. So the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Shannon M. 20:05
Right? Absolutely. Yeah.

Christine Gautreaux 20:07
And unfortunately, our culture like wants those things to have, like, so it’s kind of countercultural to be like, Oh, wait, that’s not what we’re talking about here. Right. So what is self care? Self Care is tuning in recognizing earlier and earlier, the subtle physical signs of potential difficulties. caring people become good at reading other people’s body language, such as clenched jaw, stooped shoulders, and sad eyes, and I know is like a manager of people, you’re very good at that, too. Thanks. Self care means tuning into ourselves, and learning how to read our own body language. So then you take that you’re tuning in, and then what self care is, it’s about tending. It’s about being actively involved. When we’re taking care of other people, when we’re managing other people, right? Whether we’re a caregiver, a private professional, whether we’re a manager in any job supervising a team, it has the potential to take on other people’s tension and stress, right. But when we tend to ourselves with self care, we perfect the art of not taking on other people’s tension. Or if it does happen to sneak in, and we do take it on, by tending to ourselves, we learn to let go of it quickly, so that we’re free to experience a life of balance and vitality. So it’s about recognizing it, and noticing it in our bodies, and then having the tools and skills to let it go. And that’s what helps build resilience, right? Because I think we’ve all been there where we’ve had a bad day at work. Yeah, somebody said something about us that we took on other people’s tension and stress. And then we woke up in the middle of the night thinking about it, right? Oh, I should have said that. Or, Oh, I wish I wouldn’t have done that. Or oh, you know. And also, or we take it really personal, right? We think, Oh, I’m not a good at this, or I’m not good at that. And I think that’s part of it is, is how do we have the skills? How do we build up the skills of self care and resilience? So we’re not waking up at two o’clock in the morning?

Shannon M. 22:22
Yeah, that’s not fun. Thinking about they’re still rented space in your head thinking about this other person who is wherever they are. And I’ll never find out what they were doing when I was thinking about it. Right? Yeah.

Christine Gautreaux 22:36
Well, and my husband and I often have that conversation about that we’re giving that person a lot of energy. Right? What could we be doing instead?

Shannon M. 22:46
Absolutely. And that’s why it’s so important for and we’re going to talk about the steps, so important for me to talk about it, right? Whether it’s me writing it out. And sometimes we talk about attention spans, and let’s be honest, sometimes somebody might not have the attention span for you to go through all the details. If you still have to get it out. Write it out, you know, yesterday, I call it the seals, it seals been on the show, she helps people with their racism workout, you know, I just want to make sure I have the right perspective. And that helped me in our conversation helped me to continue to process it in a healthy way.

Christine Gautreaux 23:20
Oh, you know what that is? That’s number three that we’re going to talk about. That’s partnership power, my

Shannon M. 23:23
friend is and I have burners, yes, right? Yes.

Christine Gautreaux 23:27
Well, write it out. You can dance it out. I did to him. Right? Yes. What did we when we take that when something chaotic or stressful happens, right? There’s some skills we can go through or steps we can go through. And we talked about that in the book a lot like different modalities or different things to try. Because not everybody works. Not everything works for everybody, right? Everybody VOD, why, right? Because we all come from different places, different backgrounds, different ages. So something that works for me may not work for you. It may, but we shouldn’t assume that it does.

Shannon M. 24:05
And it doesn’t have to be. We talk about collaboration versus competition, right? It’s not Christine told me to do this. It’s not working. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You know, it’s, well, that doesn’t work. You know, it doesn’t work for me and what I have going on, or maybe even the season that I am in my life, you know, just like for example, we have been doing the podcast and doing great at putting up everything on social media, right. And I realized that me doing social media, for my business. The way I did it for the podcast was not the same. You have a different technology setup than I had, you know what I mean? So maybe what’s easy for Christina do on her computers. It’s not easy for me to do at work when I’m on my phone or maybe not at work, but when I’m doing my social media, how I’ve been used to doing it on my phone, you know, and that’s okay, because we’re in two different positions with everything that we have going on and it’s not a danger on me. It’s not a ding on you. is just that that’s the reality of the situation. So what do I need? And how can I still get there? Right.

Christine Gautreaux 25:07
And you just gave a great illustration and a great point, Shannon, of the first skill of self care, right? The first skill of self care is sorting and separating what belongs to us from what belongs to others. Right? So you just, you just illustrated that beautifully, like it wasn’t about it was like, this is where I’m at, this is where you’re at. And this is how this is how we do things. Right. The same can be said for emotional stuff, right? We were talking about work and crazy stuff happening at work. Is your supervising people being able to sort and separate? Is this yours? Is this theirs? Is is ours together? And which pieces do I need to address or not address? Right?

Shannon M. 25:50
Absolutely. And that helps me, when I think about it, it goes with the list of lies that I wrote about my life where I talk about that a lot. And in that season, when I was sorting and separating my life, thinking about where things came from, and figuring out who I want it to be close to, and things like that. That’s what I was doing. And I realized that some stuff I was holding on was not mine. And I had those conversations, you know, I had the new conversations with the people close to me, talk to my best friend, like, hey, I really need to grow in this area. If if you’re gonna you know, if you’re gonna grow, then we can be best friends, we can go together. And if not, I love you no matter what, and we might have to not be as close. That’s a difficult conversation I had with a close friend of 20 years, you know, and we talk about friendships in the book too. But to be able to sort and separate, and that that she was the person that I had heavier conversations with, because we’re great, which is why we’re best friends. And it’s been so long. But some of the other conversations were heavier, you know, and thankfully, they turned out great. And even in a situation if you feel like it might not, I think that it still benefits you and helps with my personal boundaries and teaching people how I want to be treated to have those conversations and just roll the dice. And if they receive it, they receive it. And if not, then we know where we stand.

Christine Gautreaux 27:10
Right. But I think the first part is that sorting and separating it out. So you know, where you’re coming from? And what are your boundaries? And what do you need? And, and can make those I statements, you know,

Shannon M. 27:21
and those change, and they change, you know, like you talk about people popping up at the house, we don’t have people pop up that the house, you know, so it’s just differences. And before maybe it would have been more welcoming, you know, but just with the details and everything, the decision is different. And that’s okay.

Christine Gautreaux 27:39
All right. So let’s talk about number two, the second skill of self care. Yeah, letting go and surrendering and learning when and how to do this. Right? Yes, there’s often a lot of things in our lives that we’re not in control of. That we can’t make happen a certain way, you know, but what pieces, anybody that’s been involved in 12 steps, programs, or, really, when we talk about spiritual wellness and have a belief in a higher power, you know, you’ve probably been exposed to this concept of letting go and surrendering that, you know, there are things that we’re not in charge of, it doesn’t mean we don’t take action towards some things. But if we think we are completely in charge of the outcome at all times, that can cause a lot of stress and, and chip away our resiliency when things don’t go away. Yeah, yeah, when a natural disaster occurs when a hard diagnosis comes when a layoff comes. Right?

Shannon M. 28:46
And when in the season that I was reading and studying about surrender, I’ve really learned that I’m glad I don’t have to control everything, you know, if I had to control everything, countries would not wake up I would forget okay. Oh, I forgot about insert random country, you know, and that random to the people that live there, of course, we love everybody, you know, we’re women connected in wisdom. But if I was control of people waking up, forgotten, people will be missing fingerprints, like it will be a whole thing you know, so that you know made it lighter for me, I don’t want to be in control over everything. And then as a business owner now I think about Stacey Abrams book and how she talks about her partnership power and how she wasn’t doing things by herself. And I have the honor to say the same thing you know, I can have an international podcast and know that you know what some of this stuff I can surrender and I can trust that Christina Scott it and I’ll do the other part and then it still works out.

Christine Gautreaux 29:44
Right? Well and that’s perfect lead in to number three, which is my favorite. Well, I like them all but number three is I’m very partial to because number three is building and using partnership power to get help from others. And you know, pretty self-explanatory, but we are women connected in wisdom. And we’re all about building partnership power. But yeah, when I think about people, you know, we think about dominant culture in the West, about individual rugged individualism, like pull yourself up by the bootstraps, right? And that is, that’s not what we’re talking about y’all, because somebody made those boots. So

Shannon M. 30:25
what do you ever really do by ourselves? Like, right?

Christine Gautreaux 30:29
Right? We’re not born by ourselves. Because, you know, our moms are a big part in that.

Shannon M. 30:36
And the dad was in there somewhere. Oh, yes.

Christine Gautreaux 30:42
But you know, this interconnectedness that we have, but that we can be intentional as a skill, we can build this muscle, like, thinking about when we look at what skills do I have? What am I really good at, like affirming the good in yourself, but also recognizing, hey, I may not be as good as that, like, yeah, Shannon is much better at scheduling than I am y’all. Y’all probably know that if you’re listening to us for any time, or, you know, who is the calendar and the schedule are in this in this partnership, that would be shared, right? But finding people that complement who you are, and in your skills and their skills and partnership power and being an I’m a big believer in collaborating and working with people that bring me joy? Yeah. Yeah, that when I get done with a work session with somebody, I am like, like, I’m just filled with joy, like, I am so lucky. Right? Yeah. Because my life I’ve created so many partnerships and patent partnership, how are you using the skill that I get off meetings, like meetings that people will be like, you have a two hour meeting? I’m like, Oh, my gosh, that was awesome. Yes, no, good, right. But it does take it does take skill, and it takes intentionality. You said, go ahead.

Shannon M. 32:07
No, I’m sorry, got finish your thought? No, I think I was. And so when I think about partnership power, especially at the beginning of COVID, what I realized is that I need to key in a little deeper into my strengths and weaknesses, you know, so that I can intentionally build, build my team and know what I’m looking for. Sometimes we build teams, and they’re people that are like us. And because we get along, we think that it’s going to work. But two people working on the same thing, when there’s a list of 500 is only going to last so long. You know, you gave me credit for being a great organizer. And I pride myself on my planner usage, I’ve been doing a great job so we can get all this stuff done. But the way I love how you compliment it is you do this stuff digitally, you know, and what I’ve realized over the past year is and person talking all this stuff is great, you know, digital social media, is it’s a whole nother it’s like being in two worlds, you know, so for me sometimes that can be draining. So I love that, I’ll put it down on the planner, and you will put it into the computer. And together, we’ve made it work, you know. And so that’s that’s how you do it. You know, I know that about myself, I know that being on social media, over a certain amount of time will start having a draining effect on me. So I’m mindful that that boundary. And that’s why I collaborate with the different people that I do for the different projects that we work on together. Right.

Christine Gautreaux 33:29
Yeah. And I mean, that goes it is an intentionality around it. And it’s a skill. Because if you were raised to always say yes to people, or if you were raised, which we’re going to get to that one in just a minute. But if you were raised where you put everybody else’s needs ahead of your own, if you don’t know what your strengths and weaknesses are to be able to then seek partnership power that complements or supports or, you know, yeah, that’s a that’s a thing. Like, yeah, checking in with ourselves and knowing who we are. And you may need help with that. You may need to get a coach, you may need to get a therapist you may need like, that’s partnership power. Like it doesn’t have to be just a friend or a colleague, it can be that we hire somebody to support us in this journey. Yes. Yeah. Now, number four, number four can be a little bit challenging sometimes, but I think it’s an important one, stepping back and seeing the big picture and the relationship between the parts. That old adage of you can’t see the forest for the trees, right. But sometimes we’re so in it. This skill is about really taking a bird’s eye view or and stepping back and broadening and I wrote an article recently or a newsletter on LinkedIn that was talking about in the times that we live right. This skill can be useful in self care, like so when you step back and you look at the history like say with the mass shootings that have been going on right. How did we Get here. What is the broader perspective of this? What laws came into place? What are the facts? What are the lobbyists, what is happening? Like, it’s a little headache. This one to me seems, is a little heavier as far as stepping back. But then I was talking to my friend at a this week, and he was caregiving with his dad. And he said, he used the skill by he was getting really overwhelmed with emotion and things like that. And he literally stepped back, he physically took several steps back from his dad’s bed, and just kind of softens his gaze and got a broader perspective about what state was it they were in, and what were what was going on, and what was happening in this conversation. So it can be heavy in the fact that we look at, you know, history and facts and knowing what’s going on. So we can take clear and right action. Or it could be where we literally walk out of the building at lunch, and soften our gaze from the problem. Or like, I like to tell Sheila, when we step away from the computer to step away from sometimes when you get really into it, and like it’s not working, or you’re like, you’ve been doing it for hours, it’s like, oh, step back and get a broader perspective.

Shannon M. 36:24
Yes. And for me to what I realized, when I realized I needed to surrender some of the details of life a little more, right. And I needed to get partnership power and do that from operating my strengths and my weaknesses. This also helped me with something else I’ve learned in that season, about when not learned but realized about myself was that I did things the way that I was taught how to do them, right, I’m a great student. So if you taught me, this is how you make tea, I hadn’t even thought about like, I know, there’s different ways to make tea, but I just make it this way, because that’s the way I was taught, you know, so as a business owner, or as a leader or somebody in a caregiving position, especially because your immune system is compromise, you know, because it does put this weight on you. I think that stepping back from the situation or give space for new creative ideas, you know, okay, how can I reach this goal, but make it so that it fits my schedule now or make it so that it it meets my physical demands where they are, you know, me never have not having been a mom yet, me being able to physically caretaker for somebody might be different than a woman who is actively pregnant right now, or who has had children, she may need to take it on a different way. And again, that doesn’t make her a worse daughter or a bad partner or, you know, diminish or roll is just being aware of where we are and how we need to address the situation. It also reminds me of starting with the end in mind, you know, what is the goal for me, the financial goal is financial freedom, and being set up for three generations. So I know that when I spent the night reading our book, I said, I’ve stayed up reading a lot of books for other people, I can stay up and read my book for one night. But I also knew that I didn’t want to do this really hard work, and then a burnout cycle, like we talked about. So I’ve slowly been resting and regenerating and making sure that that’s not the norm. So stepping out and then doing the little things to what does Eleanor say,

Christine Gautreaux 38:26
Eleanor is listening and says when you talk about stepping back, I like to go stand on the moon in my mind and look back at the issues on earth that I’m concerned with. Everything looks different from up there, and it helps that visualization

Shannon M. 38:40
of that too. I can tell you ladies, not that. It’s not in a form of escape. I love where I live, I love where I sleep. I feel like I have great we talked about environmental wellness, right great relationship with where I rest, but I’ve also been imagining to be somewhere else, you know, we were at the photoshoot for example. Yesterday, I said Imagine you’re in Costa Rica right now like somewhere relaxing. So I like to go to sleep around the world and different places. So it’s interesting that you say that Eleanor, I might go stand on the moon to I’m gonna try it at least once. I like that idea. Yeah,

Christine Gautreaux 39:15
right. I love that. Well, and I just when I think about that visualization, I immediately think about all the water and all the in water soothing to me. So it immediately and I think about the clouds and all the cloud pictures.

Shannon M. 39:32
My background for my phone is

Christine Gautreaux 39:35
visualization. Right? I love it. Well, let’s talk about the fifth skill of self care, which I think can be the most challenging, right. It is exercising choice by saying no and yes. So who boundaries, right? Yes. When we are taught to say yes, whether it’s To all our family members or our jobs or the world, and you know, we’ve met people, like people that are complete, yes, people and people that are complete, no people, often they’re in relationship together, which I think is funny. But, you know, we have to be able to say no. In order to say yes, terone self care.

Shannon M. 40:24
And I’ve, I’ve been loving the word no, this past week, I’m not gonna lie to you, like, I’ve been looking at my schedule, we were talking about the planner, right? And I said, over the last seven days, there’s been a lot going on with the needs of the team, right? There’s still COVID people’s families are affected a certain way, normal stuff that happens with people in the schedule has been moving. And I said, if I did not block the time for the podcast in the business, it would have been lost in the sauce, you know? So being able to say no, so that you can say yes to something else, has been one of my favorite skills that I’ve been practicing, because I still need to practice it. But

Christine Gautreaux 41:04
I think we all do, right. I think especially women raised in the south, right? We’re taught to be account accommodating more than not, and being able to have those boundaries and say no, and I think we’re also when you’re a highly sensitive being like, you don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings, or you don’t want to do this and that. But really, I have met so many people, most often women, most often caregivers, or activist or, you know, people doing helping professions that like are nurses and social workers. And, and they say yes, until the point that they drop, and whether that’s with a health a major health issue, or a major health concern, or, you know, it takes a toll on people’s health and wellness, if they’re not paying attention to this one. And that. Yeah, and I mean, because we know, there’s so many choices in the world right now, like so many choices, that we have to be able to say no to even good stuff. You know, it’s easy to say no to that. Well, sometimes it is. And sometimes we you know, I can just speak for myself. When I started practicing this muscle. It was easy or to say stuff to say no to the things I don’t like, right? Yeah. Oh, no, I’m gonna I’m gonna say no to that. Right. Usually, it’s a really long, complicated answer, and I will be in charge. But it’s harder to say no to the things that are really awesome. But still Don’t serve yourself care. Yes, or your or your precious things that we need to all be checking in on our sleep, or clean eating, or moving our bodies and being in just communities where we are feeling fed by the relationships, right? Yeah,

Shannon M. 42:44
yeah. And even we talk about missions, and we had a vision board party at the beginning of the year, you know, I think about how, how do I want to show up for the people that I care about, at the end of my life when it’s chanin was all of these things that I over give two to work and not spend time with my family and I didn’t even realize it, you know, there’s a difference. If I have to go to work so that I can even have the car to get to you guys. That makes sense. You know, we have responsibilities and different hats that we wear. But that’s why I keep bringing up Sherry Riley’s book of exponential living and not living 100% of your life on 10% of who you are. And that’s how we can be critical about okay, you know what I said? Yes, already, I’ve done what I need to do for the team this week, I’m going to say this No, so that I can keep the yes that I set for myself already, instead of continuing to cross out the self care and add in the shift, know, the self care has got to stay because all the shifts will be out for a week if we’re sick.

Christine Gautreaux 43:45
I love that you say that we talked about practical tools and resources and that you just named it right, block your block time off for yourself. That’s an easy way that’s an easy way to hold a boundary is to put your self care in there first, whether that you are going on a walk, whether that you are sleeping extra, if you’ve got something big the night before, like block that time off in your calendar. So when somebody asked, you can say I’m sorry, I already have something scheduled. So you don’t have to say I’m scheduling myself. You just say I have something on the calendar, I have something scheduled. I actually have a day because you know, being an entrepreneur, it’s really easy to work seven days a week, it just is especially after the last two years. I know I know. And I had to literally write a day in my calendar, where it was completely blocked off. So my automatic scheduler doesn’t schedule anybody in there. And it says do not schedule. This is creative and piddling time for like the next book or the next right, it is downtime for my brain and where nobody else was getting scheduled in there. So I think that I think it’s skill and I think it’s something that we all need to be looking at you And the other thing I know, we’re probably getting close to time, Shannon. But the other thing I like to say to clients and communities that I work with is self care looks different for everybody. Right? Self care can be practical, like, lighten the candle and paying your bills and giving gratitude for being able to pay your bills that week. We don’t want to take that for granted right? Now we see on the TV that it’s manicures and pedicures and the spa day. And yeah, those are great if that’s what works for your body. But it’s also the things like, you know, eating things that are healthy for your body and moving your body every day, whether that’s just stretching or going for a run or something in between, right, yeah.

Shannon M. 45:49
And listening to things that edify you that builds you up. You know, there’s a lot of music, if I was out at a party, I love the beat. You know, this, the lyrics are demoralizing, so I’m not gonna listen to them on a daily basis, you know? And so what’s the difference in doing, tying in all this senses and seeing which one works better for you? But yeah, I definitely don’t minimize light and a good candle. I love candles, right?

Christine Gautreaux 46:15
What works? Right? I was online with somebody today that I believe they were in Arizona, and they lit an imaginary candle, because I go, I’m not adding to the heat here. So the things that weren’t, right, yeah, what works for you, but taking some time, some intentional time, and thinking about it, or dreaming about it, or going to the moon and like Eleanor suggested, and, you know, taking some time to be intentional, about what does your body need in this time?

Shannon M. 46:49
Right. And we talked about it, you know, we said that sometimes we can feel like it’s selfish. But if we’re talking about a team, and how to set up the collaboration, right, it doesn’t benefit the team, for the individual to not know their strengths or weaknesses, or to be Miss paired, you know, because now that brings down the effectiveness and everything else we need for the business to run or the groups around or the family to run event, you know, so knowing where you are and how to take care of you sets up the next person to know how to either complement you in a healthy way, or what type of person they need on their team. So whether it’s us talking about physically being there, and literally surviving to the next day to be able to be there and thriving with our our loved ones or setting up the expert expectations, right for the workflow. I think that when you break it down like that you can see that is absolutely necessary and not selfish to know where you are and what you need to do you know what you’re made to do?

Christine Gautreaux 47:49
Absolutely. Because we’re not talking about, we’re actually talking about self care in order to sustain and thrive in community care. We’re not talking about him being separate, right? You know, Shannon and I are artist, activist community members we are, we believe in building community. But if we don’t, if every individual in that community doesn’t take care of themselves, then they can’t sustain and thrive in community care. So we need

Shannon M. 48:23
you. Yeah. And, and I know that we’re about to do our wisdom and action on and I think this will be my last story that I share. I remember November 12 2019, the day my mom passed away, and I went to church, it was a Tuesday it was at fusion and fusion is lit right love going to the young adults group. And it was my first day I was supposed to be volunteering. So we’re at the end, and they shouted me out to pray. And I brought up the fact that my mom had passed away that day, but what better place to be than church, right? And think about emotional intelligence and how I can handle the situation better. I’m thinking maybe that was an emotional dump for them, you know, maybe that might have triggered somebody, I stayed in my space to be able to see it for myself. But looking back, as I after that stepped down from from that position from different positions where I was pouring out, I should I feel like maybe you should have taken more space instead of continuing to serve and pour out for other people. Take a second for yourself, you know, so that they can come and be supported. And you can have the time that you need, instead of sharing things that hadn’t been all the way dealt with. So I think about that to be gentle with yourself my friend. Of course. Of course. Yeah. And giving yourself space as you look at the big picture. And you you step back and look at the details. You know, when you’re partnering with a certain person, what does that look like? You know, maybe you can share it a certain time, but maybe that time is not the right way. And this is like a dance we talk about dancing. So what is the step that you’re at? And then where are we going next to keep on right dancing through life.

Christine Gautreaux 50:01
I love that. So what’s your wisdom and action from this conversation today?

Shannon M. 50:07
And I think that is my wisdom. And actually, I was thinking about my hashtag. And I liked that dancing through life. Yeah, as things happen, still continuing to move. That was one of my goals this year is to dance more. Last year, we worked on patience. So as I do with all the different things, we’re going to keep dancing, I’m going to keep taking care of myself. And I will say, you know, I’ve been liking to do two hashtags. So I will also say, hashtag glow from head to toe. Because yesterday after everything happened, so you know what, I love my body, I love who I am. Let me take some time to rest. And shallow glow was genuinely the way that I do that every day. So they I’m thankful for the product and the benefit that has had in my life. So those are my two, what about you?

Christine Gautreaux 50:51
Oh, I love that. Well, you know, on this one hashtag, when we’re talking about the five skills of self care, I’ve gotta go hashtag partnership power. Because I or you know, hashtag connected to me, they kind of go go hand in hand. And then I think the other one would be hashtag say no, to say yes to yourself. And that, that boundaries are healthy and good. And yeah. So if you’re listening, whether you’re listening, live or listening on the recording, find us on social media and give us your hashtag of your wisdom in action this week. What do you want to do around emotional and mental wellness, and bringing that into balance? Because that can be challenging. A lot of people are struggling right now. And we’re we don’t have to do it by ourselves, y’all. We don’t know. We’ll put in the show notes about hotline if you need to reach out to somebody. And also, oh, let’s see what Eleanor’s hashtag is for today. Hashtag take care of yourself. No one else will do it for you. Right. That’s an awesome one. Eleanor, thanks for being with us and listening today. And yeah, just so grateful for this conversation and to have this time with you, my friend.

Shannon M. 52:11
Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you for the five steps and for still point. I love the reminder. We’re, you know, connected in community work in our passions and purpose in life. And we can still take that time to be still for a second. So thank you, ladies for joining us. We’ll see you live next week. Are we here next week? Actually, Christine, are we Yes.

Christine Gautreaux 52:33
Is the weekend here next week? Yeah, okay.

Shannon M. 52:35
Okay, perfect. So we will see you ladies next week. Live at Five. And don’t forget, be well, be wise. And be whole. We’ll talk to you soon.

Unknown Speaker 52:52
Thanks for listening. This has been the women connected and wisdom podcast on air live on Wednesdays at 5 pm. Eastern via Facebook and YouTube. Be sure to like, share and subscribe be part of the conversation and get connected at women connected in wisdom.com.