Season 8 Wrap Up ⋆ Women Connected in Wisdom

Christine Gautreaux 0:41
I felt like with what’s going on in the world, we needed a little extra dance. You know, I think last week we said with Dr. Collins that hard times require furious dancing. Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon M. 0:54
It makes sense. And we said it was an Alice Walker book, right? Yes, it is.

Christine Gautreaux 0:59
Yeah, an African proverb. And Alice Walker uses a title of one of her books. Yeah.

Shannon M. 1:06
And I thought that was so interesting. When I think about dancing and stretching, I think about tension releasing from your body, right? So if it’s crazy times, and you’re dancing, I’m thinking about beating all of that from the bottom of my feet, releasing the energy. And it’s kind of like, Sheila said that how can you dance and not feel joy for me one day, I realized Mint is kind of like that I was in the kitchen, that hospital one day, and I said, you can’t be mad and smell meant at the same time, you know, so some of those things. Just push the other energy away.

Christine Gautreaux 1:39
I like that. I like that. I mean, it’s one of those cents for me, too. That makes me feel happy. Rosemary, you know, is good for memory. And it is also one of those but it’s But MIT definitely is. You know, citrus, too. Does that smell like a good limiter?

Shannon M. 2:03
Let’s do this. Okay, ladies, welcome to our podcast. I am Shannon Mitchell, a black female, millennial entrepreneur, the founder of Shiloh glow, a handmade shea butter company. I am a champion for your self care, business care and intentional wellness.

Christine Gautreaux 2:20
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. 2:31
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 2:39
And we like to get together every week to have intentional conversations about how to be well in business relationships in life. How do we do this? How do we? How do we juggle it all?

Shannon M. 2:49
Who is a lot to juggle? I’m not that good of a juggler in real life, like nine balls is a lot 17 I don’t even know, you know.

Christine Gautreaux 3:01
I love that I just had that image of me trying to juggle 17 balls, which I do often in my life. Right. But the reality is that’s you drop balls when you’re juggling that much.

Shannon M. 3:11
Yeah, like unless you have partnership power, maybe we don’t have to juggle all of them to get maybe we’re thinking about it a certain type of way. Right? I

Christine Gautreaux 3:18
love that.

Shannon M. 3:19
Yeah. Tell us about this past season. That’s part of the five steps to self care, right from Stillpoint.

Christine Gautreaux 3:25
Right, five skills to self care. Absolutely. Part number three partnership power, my favorite one. And for obvious reasons, you know, one of my values is collaboration, and how do we collaborate with folks instead of compete in order for, you know, all that when the water rises, all the boats rise? So how do we do that together?

Shannon M. 3:50
Yeah. And I think it’s so important, even with just the way that we live in general, you know, I see a lot of the competition in between. I mean, we talk about it between women, right? And why is that? Where does it come from? And even though we unlearn things, how do we realize where it comes from in our life, and then change to a more healthier approach, you know, it might make somebody feel better if you, I don’t know, feel like you have a one up on somebody who I show them in this conversation. But I feel like you lose out that person loses out from what it could have been. Now, if we’re not two pieces that match together, then we’re just not, you know, two pieces of the same puzzle. But that doesn’t mean that we have to be rude to each other. We could just keep going.

Christine Gautreaux 4:33
Right? Well, and I think about like healthy competition, right? I mean, you think about I mean, I always grew up playing sports and on teams, and the fact that when you’re doing your best right and when you’re like, trying to compete against yourself, like for your better better time or your your, you know, personal goal, and then that can promote like that within the whole team. I mean, it’s not that I’m better than you are, you’re better than me. It’s like, like, let’s be the best together. Like, let’s let’s do this together. And, and it can flip easy, right? We have to be careful about that, depending on our personalities and how we were raised. And you know, I was raised by a football coach in Texas, I have to watch this side of myself all the time. I really, really just check in like, am I being Is this the? Am I being healthy with this?

Shannon M. 5:31
Yeah. And I think that’s the question. You know, I think that competition against yourself, absolutely. Not in an unhealthy way. But let me see if I can do better than I did last time. But yeah, I do. I was in band, you know, I’m a huge band nerd. And I didn’t even think about as competition we’re winning. That is what we’re doing. We’re winning. Okay. So I hear what you’re saying.

Christine Gautreaux 5:54
Have you been seeing the memes lately on social media? About

Shannon M. 5:58
the Usher memes, which means if you’ve been seeing

Christine Gautreaux 6:01
there, what I was thinking about is, these folks be talking about this heat, like they’ve never been in band camp before.

Shannon M. 6:09
Okay, and mind you, that’s the heart of che logo, I was out there bad camp with those little tank tops on and I thought my shoulder was just, I thought it was just a different color. Because of where the tank top fill, you’re gonna have a different color, whether it is right. And it ended up being a pH imbalance. And my skin lotion wasn’t working and started using shea butter. And the rest is history. But VanCamp is definitely a memory.

Christine Gautreaux 6:35
Right? What did you play flute?

Shannon M. 6:37
The best instrument? I love that. Yes, other instruments hate it when I say that. But I would hate to be second to you know. So. Here comes the competitive Street,

Christine Gautreaux 6:52
talking about a little healthy competition.

Shannon M. 6:56
Everybody’s needed though, right? When you make the whole sound, all of the drums and the horns and the drum major organizing it. I love it. I think about it, like business systems? And how do we? How do we all walk on the field and make the designs that we’re making and play our part without stepping on each other’s toes without hurting one another and staying together? Right. And although I still

Christine Gautreaux 7:18
have some solos, right, yeah, yeah, allowing people to have some solos. Well, I know today we are doing our overview of season eight. And we’re doing a little bit of ranch, yes, ends in Episode 74. And it feels like it was a year ago that we started the season. But we started it off with environmental wellness with Ann Smith and Angela Webber, from the green tent movement, which was really cool, you know, talking about creating communities around environmental action, which needed more than ever, y’all, like we were talking about before the show, just last week, the US Supreme Court Delta blow to climate action. And what it did, it ruled that it would limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. So it was actually the ruling prevents the EPA from using its authority under the Clean Air Act of 1970. So you know, it probably wasn’t even that good. And it’s saying you can’t even do that. Right. Who I am. I’m a little concerned for us right now.

Shannon M. 8:38
Very concerned. Right. Very concerned. And when we talk about all these things that we see, right, the rulings that we should see the the shootings that we see the information that we get, it’s like, it’s understandable to feel like we get really bad news every day, you know. So then that’s when I think about the first step of self care. Right? Excuse me, one of the skills the first skill and it’s separating, okay, what can I do to be more intentional? And then how can I do use partnership power? Maybe I need to reach out to a government official or write a letter or make a phone call. And then outside of that, what do I need to put down what’s not even mine to pick up right now? And that’s the only way I know to keep going. I feel like if you pick up all this stuff, again, it’s a lot for any one person to carry. That’s why we got to do it together. Right.

Christine Gautreaux 9:29
And to your point, I think we do need to do it together. Because you know, when we talk about environmental wellness, and we talk about what is ours and what isn’t I think it’s every one of us living on this planet right now. That if we’re not paying attention to the health of the Earth, Joe the earth is gonna survive. She’s gonna shake us off her backs like we’re looking at these temperatures already. We’re looking at the extreme weather, we’re looking at the scientific data, like, we gotta be paying attention and making a difference here. So, to your point to like we can’t all do, but let’s look at what organizations are on the ground doing this work and don’t it you know, Sierra Club is always one of the ones I’m, that’s a go to, for me. What are ways that we can reach out to our legislatures about climate action? And and what is going on even locally? Like, is there a tree ordinance is there you know, what are we doing? Like check, I would say start out in our own communities.

Shannon M. 10:40
I like that. And you know, environmental wellness is one of the well, one of the categories. I said, I feel like I can learn so much in this area, even with the EPA, I had to look up what that is, you know, the Environmental Protection Agency, that makes sense that there will be one of those with the way we take care of parks and try to do reserves and different things, you know, but to know exactly what they do is very important. Because if the air quality is different, because they have less, you know, control over making sure that it’s safe for us and the animals. What does that mean for us? What does that mean for our food supply? And things like the mermaid garden with one of our authors, Dr. bird that we talked about, you know, how does it affect the ripple of everything else?

Christine Gautreaux 11:20
Right, right. Not to mention that, you know, we’re given companies more autonomy than we’re given women in this country right now. So

Shannon M. 11:30
that’s a little frustrating. Companies have done,

Christine Gautreaux 11:33
right. Yeah, it really does feel like we’re doing that to step and do it a little backwards right now. So intellectual wellness, this season, we talked with Michelle Manning, the sex therapists. That was such a fun show. It was titled Stop faking orgasms. She was so fun to talk to.

Shannon M. 11:58
Yes. And I’ve been thinking about just how you use your voice, you know, stop acting like you’re okay, if you’re not okay, and not saying that. We can emotionally dump or anything like that on people. But hey, say what it is so that you can get what you want. You’re not going to get what you want, if somebody doesn’t know what’s going on? Or if you don’t use your voice in certain areas. So either Yeah, I love that conversation.

Christine Gautreaux 12:23
Well, and you know, you and I were talking earlier, it was about a book thing. It wasn’t about the podcast, but we were talking about when women connect with themselves, each other in the world. Really, nothing’s impossible. And I think about this, when I think about that episode, and about connecting to ourselves, and knowing what do we need? What do we want? What do we, and often, I think we don’t slow down enough to ask those questions. And I think it changes, like, as our ages change, and our environments change, and, you know, so I think that she really made me think about that, like, really taking a deep breath, checking in with yourself, and, and also having good support systems to talk to like, if you need the therapists to talk to or a coach or, you know, best friend, like they don’t want to be ashamed of, of your sexuality that you want to be able to have those conversations.

Shannon M. 13:23
Yeah. Yeah. And I would say to like, like you said, the, for me, that part of why che logo is so important, right? We talk about six and talk about marriage, all these things that we look forward to, but we talked about somebody else touching your body more than you touching your body. You know, it doesn’t have to always be orgasms. What about just how much you physically touch your body? Do you tell yourself, hey, I look good. I look really good today. You know, we’re like tissue stuff on the shoulder just a little. Just raise yourself. You know, I said that one of these. I had an interview this past month that we were talking about women connected and wisdom and shallow glow on the Shot Show with his business to business connections. And I was taught, he asked me what I do in the morning, and I said, I hug my boo when I kiss myself. And I’m sure a lot of people don’t see it. Like how do you kiss yourself? Well, there’s a lot of places to kiss, you know, can you reach them? Is the question. So just making sure you take care of yourself, you know, like we said, being connected with yourself, so then you can be connected to other people. I think that it can’t be talked about enough.

Christine Gautreaux 14:28
Right? I agree. You know, an interplay when I’m doing a warm up or sometimes with groups or with private clients. I always say you know, you rub if you need soothing you, Pat, if you need energy, and that just checking in with ourselves, right? If you tap or you pattern yourself, it can give you energy and I always recommend people do their whole bodies like and there’s different I mean, there’s different studies about this to like about our organs and live different like the pineal gland that you can access to To top of your head or your kidneys, or your you know that when we tap on ourselves and pat ourselves, it often brings us energy and it wakes us up. And it is it is a healthy way. Right? I always think about it as a grounding to like it gets us connected with ourselves. I know you and I were talking about before the show, like just feeling a little off with everything that’s going on in the world. And when I get that feeling, one of the things I do is like, you know, not gonna be shocking to anybody listen to us for any length of time is you got to take a deep breath, and just, huh, read it out with a big old sound. And the other thing I do is ground by feeling my feet on the floor or pattern myself. If it’s shocking news, or news that has been disturbing, like the last couple of weeks, as you know, I might rub and you know, we think about with babies, how will often just if they’re unsettled, will rub them. Well, we can do that for ourselves. You know, Dr. Cynthia Phelps, who’s been one of our guests, and we’ll come back on she’s one of our authors, and the women connecting the wisdom book always says, you know, everybody suffers, it is part of the human condition, but that we can also have self compassion for ourselves, and we can help to soothe ourselves and emotionally regulate. So I think about her often with that. I know she wasn’t on this season, but I think I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s next season or next. She’s coming back to chat with us. I think season nine she’s coming back.

Shannon M. 16:36
Any even before that, don’t you guys have a self forgiveness? class coming up? When is that? Is that July? 11? I saw it on the in the community. Oh, cool. Yeah, I think we have some we do. Look at it. I don’t think I have the date wrong. But just thinking about Cynthia and her work with the inner ally. I think about that a lot. You know, how are you talking to yourself? And paying attention to how how I nitpick at certain things or, or even? How do you say it just are quick to, to say to say it a certain way, instead of considering the whole situation like, well, you know what, maybe you’re tired because you worked 12 doubles out of the 20 shifts that you worked and not, you’re being lazy, and you don’t want to work on your business outside of your responsibilities at work. Right?

Christine Gautreaux 17:37
Yeah, like being gentle with yourself. You know, that’s a phrase I use often, and be gentle with yourself doesn’t mean that you don’t, that you don’t hold yourself accountable. But look at that whole picture. Right, you get that? I mean, we talked about that with the skills of self care of getting that broader perspective. And what may be needed in the moment is gentleness and kindness. I mean, I think I think the world I think ourselves and the world can all use more gentleness and kindness, right? Like, what are the things that we can do for ourselves and for each other? Yeah.

Shannon M. 18:12
And for me, that’s not I want to spend a little more time there. Because I think that some people might think it sounds soft, right? I think that it’s not a weakness to do that. I think it’s definitely a strength, I think is definitely necessary. You can’t always get what you want. By force. That’s not the way to stay sustained sustainable in wellness, right, we talked about maintaining our wellness, but also just removing yourself from the different parts of it, you know, why do you have to be that harsh? If you’re talking about yourself getting sleep? Let’s talk about it, you know, like, why is it so hard for you to slow down when you do so much in the whole week? And so that’s what I try to remind myself is Oh, yeah, I did actually work a lot of hours, I might not have calculated it, but my body added it up. And it said that it needed service. So that’s okay, you know, I can still get everything done. And that’s the reality of the situation. So we’re so good at try to remind myself of that.

Christine Gautreaux 19:07
Right? I’m glad that you are reminding yourself of that. And also, I just want to add it if you can’t get everything done, right. It’s okay to set something down or ask for help for the pieces that you can’t, especially if it’s if it’s times of extreme stress. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s important. You know, this season, we also talked to Felicia Fraile, about financial wellness talking about starting nonprofits. That was a fun conversation. And that’s going to be followed up, y’all. She wrote a chapter for the book that’s coming out in September, about financial wellness, and how to start nonprofits and what some of that looks like. So yeah, I am. I’m excited about that.

Shannon M. 19:51
And what I loved about our conversation with her was the reminder that people may love you, right, they’re close, close friends and family will support you, but they might might not be the person to support it for the next 15 years, they’re gonna be interested in and love you be excited, maybe they won’t be you know, but make sure that you’re getting different people in your network who can fill in the connections for everything you need for your company, you know, so that you don’t take things personal or have unrealistic expectations. That was a great nugget from their show.

Christine Gautreaux 20:22
Absolutely. That was a good one that was shown number episode 69. And then we had SATA Mara, who is very special to both of us, because she is our audio gal who keeps women connected in wisdom, running smoothly every week and distributed to the masses. And she came and talked to us about spiritual wellness. That was a fun conversation.

Shannon M. 20:51
And I’ve since then started listening to the book we were talking about, and I can’t remember if she mentioned it on show or before, but the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle has been really interesting in just thinking about how often does my mind do nothing, you know, if I can’t fall asleep, I think about big life size litters? That’s a clearer and you can see through it, right, I just tried to clear my mind of everything, like I close out my tabs on my phone, and my eye and my computer. But we’re not gonna have any what,

Christine Gautreaux 21:24
again, saying, describe again, would you do,

Shannon M. 21:28
so if I can’t sleep? I think about clearer in huge life size, like person size letters, that’s actually clear, you can see through it. And it’s actually on like a grassy hill with a nice sky behind it with the clouds. So you can see this beautiful view through it. I mean, just looking at it, and I’m going to sleep. counting sheep is like, No, I try to stay on the number that I’m on is too intentional for me. Yeah.

Christine Gautreaux 21:55
I when I can’t sleep, I put on a meditation. And I distract myself by listening to the meditation or the person’s voice. And then I’m usually gone. Like, it’s it also works when Joe is talking to me. Sorry, probably worse. It is, though, that if it’s there’s a certain time of night and somebody’s just, you know, talking in the void. Well, I’m out. Right. And I’m assuming my subconscious is sometimes getting it. Yeah. And I just love to hear our listeners if they have a, somebody they listened to to go to sleep or what they’re going to sleep tricks are right, a really good

Shannon M. 22:39
question. I do have a few more tricks. Yeah. So if let’s say I really can’t sleep, the clear is not working right? It’s still foggy, or whatever it is, I will flip to the other side of the bed. So flip to where my feet usually are. and reposition myself I still do. But because it’s like a new space. I’m usually able to fall asleep that way.

Christine Gautreaux 23:02
That’s very rare environment. Flip it upside interesting. Yeah. See, I’m a proactive before I even get in the bed. Like I have a nighttime routine. And I often work with my clients when they’re struggling with sleep and things like that. I’ll say what’s your evening routine? We talked about evening routine and we talked about morning routines because I think I think they are so crucial to health and wellness. And I think they’re the thing that we resist the most or at least I do, you know, it’s like ah, but you know, I have certain things that I do before I go to sleep before I ever get to the bed that signals my body that Okay, it’s time to shut down.

Shannon M. 23:44
It’s what do you do for me is Shayla glow on my joints. What do you do?

Christine Gautreaux 23:49
Right? Well, what I do is I often get off screens by certain time and start settling I like to read I usually I’m a bath person so I like to take a hot Epsom salt bath and I’ll read a little and I will lower the lights. I may I have a don’t talk to me rule. It doesn’t always work in my household but it’s pretty much if it’s after 10 o’clock. Don’t be talking to me. But you know I’m settling down I’m settling down my nervous system I’m and then sometimes I’ll journal or All right, my gratitude list. I know you’d like to do that to yes, yeah. Yeah. And then just you know, I give thanks for the day if I’m, I like to look at my calendar for tomorrow before I even start that part of the routine. Like I don’t like to my calendar for tomorrow to be the next thing that I’m looking at. Because then sometimes that gives me anxiety depending on what is you know what’s on board or if I need to prep for something or things like that, but I like to do that before. So if there’s something that needs to be done or an email that needs to be sent, I do that before I start

Shannon M. 24:58
the shoot I do Just send this and now here we go.

Christine Gautreaux 25:02
In the bed with that, there has been some nights, right where I jump out of bed to go and write that email. I mean, I think that happens to everybody occasionally. But yeah, I try not for it to happen. Yeah.

Shannon M. 25:14
And it’s interesting that you talk about routines, because that’s what I’ve been thinking, you know, back into a salaried position. Now, since COVID, has happened since January, and I’m thinking about discipline, you know, it’s easy to get to a certain place, sometimes sometimes it’s difficult. Once you get there, you’re like, I finally got here, right? How do you have the discipline to keep going? I think that’s what stops one of our self sabotaging habits that could stop us from getting where we’re going a lot of times is just merely to continue on the path and the plan that you have. And this past week, I haven’t been as on my routine in the morning. So that’s one of my goals this week is doing it at least four times my time before everything else.

Christine Gautreaux 25:57
Well, I check in with myself when that happened, Shannon, like I check in and say, am I bored? Right? Am I trying to self sabotage? Or am I bored? Because I might be bored. And if I’m bored, you can change up things in your routine, to give it some new flavor, right? Um, we’re or I know, this one’s going to be shocking for both of us. But you know, am I over scheduled? And just exhausted?

Shannon M. 26:25
Yeah, but I like that those two questions. Right?

Christine Gautreaux 26:29
And I mean, knowing that if you are there are things you can do to replenish your your bucket, right? It could be a little extra sleep, it could be bodywork, it could be health related, like, what are the things because here’s the other thing I know to be true, sometimes in routine and sometimes in life. When I’m over scheduled or overworked or things are really full, right? It’s often that I don’t need more sleep, I need something that refreshes me. And so that could be like a walk in the park with a friend. Because I may have been working so much that I haven’t connected with a dear friend recently. And, you know, and listeners who’ve listened for any amount of time know that I like to stack things. So if I have a good friend going in to walk with me out in nature in the park, things like that refuels my bucket. So I have that kind of list of things that really work for me. And I know to be true to it, sometimes they don’t work depending on the time of year, or depending on the mood I’m in or, you know, it’d be like, okay, so what are other things that do that?

Shannon M. 27:45
I love it. Hold on This is this is and this is why I do the podcast, this is what we will be doing on manifestation. Monday is taken notes, wait a minute, may change based on season, this is good stuff in the mood. And that’s true. I love that you say that because we were talking about values right? And not have I actually have written my mission statement based on the eight dimensions took me a while to write all these things. I said, You know what, this is a big project that I just gave myself. But when I think about being a partner, and being a best friend, being a god, mom and being a manager of a multimillion dollar restaurant, and the owner of two, eventually seven figure businesses, it’s a lot, you know what I mean? And so I might not need more sleep, I may need to be refreshed. And one of the ways that I now that I know the verbiage, right that I see that I do that is by changing the the frequency of the category. So if I’ve been spending a lot of time with my partner, but I haven’t seen my best friend, okay, I need the best friend time or I need some little brother time or just change it up so that I’m hitting my different hats and things that are important in my life that I want to do, right, especially a lot of times I talk about Sherry Reilly and not spending 10% or 100% of your time on 10% of who you are. I’m really intentional about okay, what are the other parts of you that you may not have hit in a while. But I like the idea of a refreshing list. Like we talked about a joy list with Jenna bags, right? A refreshing list will be great. I might need to do that.

Christine Gautreaux 29:17
Right. Well, and I think we mentioned it, I can’t remember when we talked about it. But you know, with the economy right now, with inflation being high. I mean, this makes a difference sometimes on self care on things, but I want our listeners, I want us each other and I want our listeners to remember didn’t have to cost money to refresh you or renew. So I also have a list of things that don’t cost money that I really like to do. So I can remind myself because sometimes I’ll get in the mood. Oh, you know that.

Shannon M. 29:52
I want to spend money on this. Yeah, right.

Christine Gautreaux 29:55
Yeah, right. Or I’m, you know, I’m choosing to spend it on something else but I mean I need to do that I need to do something, you know. So I have that list, which often includes a lot of nature. Right? So but art also mean, guarantee you look around your house, you’ve got art supplies. Yeah. And if not come to my house because I’ll share. Because, you know, there’s things we can do that don’t cost a ton of money that can refill us. Yeah. And renew us.

Shannon M. 30:26
I think that’s a good idea to have a free side and then some aside that you might want to spend money on and I list that we made you know, because, yeah, even when I do have the money, I still don’t have to spend it. You know, I’d love a good walk in the park. If I’m inside too long. And COVID definitely taught me that if I’m inside too long, I need to get outside. Okay, you got to plant me in the sun.

Christine Gautreaux 30:47
Yes, I got out last night and took a walk as the sun was cooling off. And I took Monty he was being a little bit of a terror. You know, he’s a terrier. So we call him sometimes a little terror. But he needed to go on a walk. And I did to like it was nice to walk around the neighborhood and the setting sun and just see what’s bloomin. See, you know, just as I think it’s a way to connect, like, I like to walk and connect with the area that I’m in and hear the sounds and, you know, use all my senses. Because I think that’s another way to get grounded. And, and also to remind myself that I may not agree with all my neighbors and I can still be kind and loved. You know? So? Yeah. Well, you know, Episode 71 motional, mental wellness. That was a fun one because you interviewed me about Stillpoint and the five skills of self care. That was, you know, we were talking earlier, somebody in an interview asked you what one of your favorite episodes was, I think I’m gonna I think I’m writing down now, episode number 71 is one of my favorites.

Shannon M. 32:00
And still point is so important. I’ve really, because I thought that I wasn’t I knew I was right. Okay, I knew I was right in thinking that when women aren’t taking care of themselves, we are getting sick. Like instead of cancer being on the cause of death, it could be overworked and undernourished that is at the actual cause of death. You know, so when I read about how caretakers immune systems were compromised, how it affects you three years after you’re done caregiving, and I’m thinking about women and men, right, who are caregiving, and okay, one person, but then there’s other people after this person either gets better, or we’re celebrating their life, right? Because that’s the reality of how these things go. So when does this up? When is their immune system better? That’s when I’m thinking so it has to be every day, something that we’re intentional about, because we’re literally compromised for caring so much. So it’s a beautiful thing, but how do we make sure that we’re taking care of

Christine Gautreaux 33:01
right? And, um, you know, I don’t know if we talked about it in that episode of my why did we talk about my why,

Shannon M. 33:09
and then I don’t? I don’t think? I don’t think so. I don’t think we’ve talked about

Christine Gautreaux 33:14
No, I know sometimes we have a plan and then we get totally sidetracked because questions come up. Yeah. So you know, one of my why’s of being a co author was she like a Collins was the story of my grandmother of my maternal grandmother. So my grandmother Mahoney, she was caregiving. My grandfather, who had Alzheimer’s. And this was back before they knew that Alzheimer’s who was a they were just starting to use that word. It was not a common word like it is now. And actually on his death certificate, it said heart failure. It didn’t say Alzheimer’s. And so she was caregiving him, she was working full time, she was like a trailblazer and was an accountant. And, you know, she had raised five kids, she’s working outside of the home, she was taking care of him, she would not put him in a nursing home because she felt like the nursing homes around her were subpar. And she wouldn’t ask for a lot of help. I remember one time being called over for help when he had fallen and couldn’t get up. And she was on this journey for two years as he declined. And after he passed away, she was taking one of the first community college classes I will never forget this because I mean, my grandmother was cutting edge like she’s in her 70s and taking a computer class, right, and redoing the house and just getting her life on track. And she passed away from a brain aneurysm that the doctor said attributed to stress. And that was from that two years of caregiving where she wasn’t sleeping enough where she wasn’t taking care of herself, you know, and, and wasn’t really asking for help. So that’s A big why of why I work with clients and why I work with communities that we talk about self care is not selfish. Like, we must have self care in order to sustain Community Care.

Shannon M. 35:14
Again, go ahead.

Christine Gautreaux 35:16
No, I just, um, you know, what’s the big deal? Yeah.

Shannon M. 35:20
Yeah. And, and why not, you know, if I’m going to go and spend 10 hours at work, why not take 10 seconds to make sure that I have something to drink. And that’s what I told my friend who helps different patients. And I told her, I said, okay, in between those rooms, when you’re going from patient to patient, I need you to sip some water. But I need you to do that for me, you know, because everybody else is going to be okay, their life is gonna go however, it goes for this Tuesday. But if you’re not here, then I’m not okay. You’re not okay. Let’s drink some water in between, you know, and find ways to fit because we find time to pick up our phone and be on social media be on Instagram, I’m interested to see how long it would say that I’m on Instagram a day, probably less than a lot of people, you know, shout out to my partnership power. I have a marketing team helping. But we have time for these different things, you know, so a few seconds for yourself is not a lot to spin when you have the rest of the 24 hours for everything.

Christine Gautreaux 36:19
And I would encourage more than seconds. Absolutely. But you and I were talking about before the show. We were talking about the practical ways to do that. Right. Yeah. And that really comes down to scheduling it y’all like scheduling your calendar, like give yourself that morning routine. Give yourself the evening routine, and put it in your calendar. So if somebody asks, Can you do such and such? Oh, I’m already booked Right? Or scheduled that walk in or schedule that doctor’s appointment? I mean, things that you know, and we can change our perspective of it. Like it doesn’t have to be dreaded exercise or the dreaded doctor. It can be self care, it can be like, Yay, I get to go do this and take this time for myself.

Shannon M. 37:03
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So

Christine Gautreaux 37:07
episode 72. This season, we talked about social wellness with our friends, Cecile Armstrong and making equity a habit. Yes, that was a good episode.

Shannon M. 37:18
So good. And we talked about the difference between equity and equality, you know, and really equipping people with the tools and the resources that they need to have access to the opportunities that they need to better their accessibility to things like doctor’s appointments or different organizations, or even having the time to go to something like the green tent movement. I know, we’re kind of hopping around. But that was one of the things that I was so let’s just say it, I was so impressed. Christine, I met you. So she’s spoken at the U N, I don’t even know what where they would speak. But that’s impressive, you know, and so to be able to bring those ladies on is amazing. You know, I was so excited for that show. So to be able to talk with Cecile about equity versus equality. And for me to have the opportunity to have a platform to have a co host like you when it gets like that. I don’t I don’t miss it any week, I get to do it, you know. So just thinking about how we play a role in helping situations for women, is what I’m so excited about. And that’s something that a shot was asking me about. He said, What impact do you think that your living mentor will have? And so I told you that I said, Christine go through, because she’s she was an international speaker, coach and author before I met her. And I said, what impact can we not have women connected? I said, I don’t even know what to tell you right now. It might change his life and his family, you know, so I’m so excited.

Christine Gautreaux 38:50
Well, you know, I believe in the power of connection and the power of us working together. Absolutely. Yeah. And the power of rest. So this season went a week longer than most of our seasons, y’all because we took June 22 off practicing what we preach

Shannon M. 39:09
today, okay, for your birthday. cannot skip it.

Christine Gautreaux 39:14
Right? Yeah, turn 52 this year. It’s a weird number, but it’s a cool number.

Shannon M. 39:20
And number I’m happy that you made it too.

Christine Gautreaux 39:24
Right? I don’t I you know, I’m not one of those people that thinks I’m gonna die young. So if it happens, I’m going to be surprised. But I hang out with 70 and 80 year olds, so and they get older every year most of them Thank goodness. And so I like just see myself aging and getting older and that’s what I always tell younger woman is hanging out with older women. Like they inspire you. They give you hope they they’re just really cool too. Right? Like it’s they have stories that we need to hear and you Yeah, it was good. So last week, episode 73, physical wellness, we talked to my co author, Dr. Sheila K. Collins, and we talked about the physicality of grief, a dancers reflections on the art of grieving. She was doing some powerful work with grief and loss right now.

Shannon M. 40:19
Yes, yes. And just the fact that she uses her story. You know, we look at people and you never know what somebody’s gone through. And we always talk about black and brown bodies, that’s very important. Absolutely. You know, to be in Sheila’s shoes, losing her children has difficult, it doesn’t matter what you look like, you know, so to be able to dance through it, and hold the grief and the gratitude and dance fiercely through difficult times, and maybe sit down. If you need to sit down sometimes, you know, the story and still point about her patient that she at last, and she didn’t realize it was her birthday. I was like, wow, you know, we really taken time to celebrate ourselves, and have space for ourselves and dance through it is what I think about when I think about Sheila, right?

Christine Gautreaux 41:09
Absolutely. We were we teach a class together every Tuesday morning called radical self in community care. And we do it online. We’ve been doing it through the let’s reimagine platform for the last two years. And it’s been really powerful because we interplay with people all over the world. And we had somebody pop in this week whose daughter is has a terminal diagnosis and needed community, and for her to have a place to land that was embodied. And that was a group that people in that group had been through that and are still dancing and are still you know, it is powerful, you know, and we always say when we close that class out on Tuesdays that, you know, the importance of so we always every week, we have this ritual that we do, where everybody writes in the chat, one thing that they commit to for self care. And one thing that they commit to is for community care that week. And one of the things we always say is, you know, we don’t have to do it by ourselves. That yes, it’s self care, but you can have an accountability buddy, you can have a community that may be part of your self care, right? So kids especially here in the US, like we have this the you know, the white dominant culture teaches us to be individualist and pull yourself up by your boots. Well, you know what? Somebody made the boots. Somebody made the house that you’re sitting in right so that we don’t that we can be interdependent. We don’t have to be individualist.

Shannon M. 42:44
Yeah. And for me, it’s kind of like being in control of everything. I don’t want to control every breath of every human on the world. That’s overwhelming. You know, I don’t want to be in control of everything. So if I were to I could make the clothes from scratch and so everything I sold the curtains and do the woodwork. I could do everything but I would only ever be building this stuff. You know, so I love being able to use like Leakey talking about partnership power to get stuff done.

Christine Gautreaux 43:14
Talking about making the clothes, I just have to get a shout out. I just got back last weekend, I went up to the Lumbee homecoming in Pennbrook, North Carolina. It’s the home of the Lumbee nation. It is one of the largest tribes in North America, I believe I would have I’ll put a link in our show notes to their community. But it was their homecoming and I was there for cucalorus Film Festival, which my friend down Raleigh and Kim PVS was the executive director of and so I went up with Dr. Blue from performing arts and we drove up there to be of support to these friends and colleagues and we went through the Museum on the campus, North Carolina. My I’m gonna get it wrong. But it was, I think it was the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. And they have a museum of Eastern Native American culture on the campus. And there was one of the most gorgeous quilts I have ever seen in my life. It was this pine cone pattern. So part of the Lumbee Tribe in one of their symbols, this is pine cone pattern. And so if you ever look at the bottom of the pine cone, it’s like a mandala or a spiral. And the one that’s in the museum, it has like 26 squares where the woman who created it did this little fold and tuck of all the square it’s like a three dimensional I’m gonna have to put a link to a picture on our show notes. It was stunning in so many ways, and I don’t know if you know this about me, my friends but if all I’ve always wanted to quilt because my nanny my grandmother, my paternal grandmother, lather, Ruth Nichols was a amazing quilter. But by the time I got old enough to quilt, she was shaken. And she had given up quilting. And so it’s one of those things that’s on my bucket list that I need to take a class like I have this I just need to sign up for a class somewhere. But I think about the history, I think about well, and you also know I love me some practical art right? So I think about all the people that have slept underquilt keeping us warm, but also the art of it is really magical to me. Yeah.

Shannon M. 45:45
I don’t know if you know this. Do you know that crochet?

Christine Gautreaux 45:48
Crochet? Yeah, I know. It’s one of your self care things.

Shannon M. 45:50
Yes, exactly. It’s so quilt is usually what I make. And I usually recently it’s been for the for the children that are coming in the circle, one of our youngest members of manifestation, Mondays has a blanket and oh, my god daughter has a blanket. And when baby being who should be here any hour now. My best friend’s new baby. He will get one two closer to the wintertime. So fun, right? Yeah. Look,

Christine Gautreaux 46:19
I can’t wait to see a picture that my friend.

Shannon M. 46:22
Yeah, I can’t wait for you to start quilting. I think you’ll really like it. Right? Yeah,

Christine Gautreaux 46:26
it feels like one of those when I’m older things, but then you don’t want to wait until you shake it. I probably need to get on that right now.

Shannon M. 46:37
I definitely feel like a grandma. Every time I make a blanket. It’s still a thing.

Christine Gautreaux 46:43
Like, always just do it. You know, my daughter crochets. And is amazing at it. I don’t have as much patience for crocheting or knitting. But I think part of that is because I’m left handed. So it’s hard to find a teacher and instructions for it. And it just my brain sometimes doesn’t work that way. Well, my friend, we had an incredible season eight. Yes, we did. Like I always love these times. I always think I’m curious about what our listeners if they liked these wrap ups or not. Because for me, I think it’s an incredible process, like to think to look back to go forward. You know, I love it. I love thinking about our guests and referencing them. And people can find them in the show notes. We’ll put them in there. And just giving gratitude, giving gratitude for the voices that we’ve uplifted this last season. And the ones that are coming because y’all season nine has happened we do. And just the fact that what we’re in Episode 74.

Shannon M. 47:55
Yes, those Top 10% Top 10% in the world, writing a book, when you asked me to do a podcast, I did not think about all this stuff. I didn’t think about it as big. I’m so thankful that is I know that what God has for you is bigger than you think of it. But I said yes to a podcast and said yes to a whole life connected in wisdom. You know,

Christine Gautreaux 48:19
every time I’m like, Oh, I saw your calendar, you’re like, I did not.

Shannon M. 48:27
But that’s the thing. You know, if we don’t plan for our time, somebody else will plan it. If we do not take care of ourselves. It’s not the same they may not take care of you might just go on taking care of so for me, it’s been an honor. And I think I think it’ll be interesting. I want to know what the listeners think about recaps. So if you guys have feedback, what you love, what you would love to see us do let us know. I think it’s really important because when we talk about resting and celebrating, one thing we wanted to focus on with this podcast and our whole platform in general, was not making it feel like work. It’s a lot you know, the situations are heavy, sometimes the the conversations can be heavy in your real life, right when we’re going deep into the different parts of life. But to stop and say, Okay, what just happened? How can we process it? Have we applied what we said we would apply? Did we do what we said we would do for wisdom and action? And then where do we need to you know, tighten some things up and then we keep moving forward?

Christine Gautreaux 49:25
Yeah, I love that. Speaking of wisdom and action, what’s your hashtag wisdom and action for today?

Shannon M. 49:31
Today, let’s see. Let me look at my notes. I will say let’s see. Let’s see

I will say, this might be a weird one. I usually do ones that are like, I don’t know, but this might be a weird one, but I’m gonna say hashtag rubbing or hashtag rubbing yourself maybe rubbing it tapping something like that, you know, might might end up in a weird section, we’re gonna be honest okay

Christine Gautreaux 50:24
that hashtag

Shannon M. 50:26
want to know? What do you say, you know, like, I that’s the best I will say that’s my highlight for the week. How about that I can

Christine Gautreaux 50:36
love your skin or There we go. All right.

Shannon M. 50:39
Okay, so let’s Yeah, let’s say that hashtag love your skin. It doesn’t always have to be specifically Shayla glow. But I think that’s really important. And you know, I think that’s what I was thinking when I’m rubbing myself. It is usually with shea low glow. So that’s great. You know, I’m stalking some things, taking care of the moisture barrier, relaxing myself from the foolishness of the day, letting it all go taking care of myself putting the moisture back in, right. But that’s going to be my focus for the next few days. If I feel like I need some, some soothing, just rub on yourself, you know, if you feel like you need some energy tapping. Got it? I don’t think I had ever heard that before. Thank you.

Christine Gautreaux 51:17
How and that is? Well, to me, we’ve been hanging out this long.

Shannon M. 51:20
And because I need to go to a class on Tuesday. That’s why I need this financial freedom. So I can come to all your classes and interplay and do all this other great stuff.

Christine Gautreaux 51:29
I love that. Well, my wisdom in action. My wisdom in action, I think is going to be hashtag listen. When we get it’s going to be listening to myself and my body and what does it need in this moment? Like I’m checking in right now. And I need some more water for today. I can tell. So, but hashtag listen.

Shannon M. 51:58
Yeah. And that’s the most important thing. You know, we can say again, oh, I need sleep. Maybe you don’t need sleep, maybe you need to be refreshed, you know, doesn’t mean you need to go spend money can still be free. What do you need it to look like? You know, and really being in tune in? That is something that the podcast has helped me do too.

Christine Gautreaux 52:15
And you made me know that or you made me more sleep. But you know, I think listening to ourselves, what do we really need in this moment, and acknowledging that this is a tough moment we’re living through go. And so you know if you need to reach out if you need support, if you need help, that you don’t have to do it by yourself. No, not at all. Well, my friends, we are coming to the end of

Shannon M. 52:40
season eight, season eight. It’s been great. It’s been great.

Now we’re going to the nine I don’t know what it is yet. We’ll figure out a rhyme or something for but I’m excited to continue right on time. I like it nine right on time.

Christine Gautreaux 53:02
Yes. All right. It’s always the bittersweet time when we have to say goodbye.

Shannon M. 53:08
Yes. Thank you so much for listening. Ladies. Thank you for being with us for eight seasons 74 episodes. We’ll see you back live next week at five. And don’t forget, be well be wise and behold

Unknown Speaker 53:31
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.

BE WELL ♥ BE WISE ♥ BE WHOLE

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