Show Notes –
Join Shannon & Christine as they chat about Emotional and Mental Wellness with special guest Ilene Dillon.
Things we talked about today
- Emotions are energy
- Growth is all about change
- Changing Anger into Enthusiasm
- Partnering with our emotions
- Emotions start in the body
- 4 signs of Healing
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Shannon M. 0:08
Hi ladies, I am Shannon Mitchell, a black millennial business owner, the founder of shallow glow LLC, an all natural skincare company that helps you glow from head to toe. I am a champion for your daily self care, business care and intentional wellness. Hey, y’all.
Christine Gautreaux 0:23
I’m Christine Gautreaux, a white social justice advocate, and international speaker, coach, published author and dancing social worker who helps you upgrade yourself and community care
Shannon M. 0:35
together. We are women connected in wisdom, a podcast grounded in the eight dimensions of wellness.
Christine Gautreaux 0:39
And we like to get together every week for intentional conversations between us and special guests about how to be wise in business relationships and wellness.
Shannon M. 0:49
Yeah, it’s there’s a little longer i like it. I like the longer intro. Right? Yeah, well,
Christine Gautreaux 0:56
I was just sitting there thinking as we were dancing, and that really are dancing in to the podcast is one of my favorite times of the week, that it’s a moment to just breathe in dance. And you know, pretty much midweek right here Wednesday at five o’clock Eastern time. So it’s nice to take a dance break midweek?
Shannon M. 1:17
Absolutely. Yeah. And sometimes you wonder, do I feel like dancing? And then here comes in music? And of course, how could you not? How could you not move to the beat? You know? So one of those things that spark joy is interested, I wasn’t planning on talking about this. Guess who I met this week at work? Oh,
Christine Gautreaux 1:36
I don’t know how to do this. Can you tell me? Well, people don’t know where you were. I mean, they don’t know your location. So.
Shannon M. 1:43
So this week met Chris Tucker at work, right? And took care of him came in for a special guest, right? They enjoy themselves, of course, I’m gonna take care of anybody like they’re special. And so just because you’re a celebrity, like, I treat you like I treat anybody, right. And so they thoroughly enjoy themselves. And I had an opportunity to talk to him again at the end of the event. And he thanked me and told me all the stuff about how I made their visit special, right. But I made sure to tell him that he’s brought so much joy to our life, because of all the laughs and everything that he’s done with his movies. When I think about Chris Tucker, I can’t help but either laugh or think about laughing so I made sure to thank him for a little more joy during the quarantine.
Christine Gautreaux 2:24
Well, I love that. Yeah. What a fun thing to be able to thank somebody exactly for bringing you joy. Yeah, I love that. He was in
Shannon M. 2:36
rush hour. It was. That’s the one that I usually think about, you know, and we talked about communication. I just thought it was so funny. whole time Jackie Chan knew how to speak English. It was hilarious. You know, when he was right, you just assume that I didn’t know. So I guess that goes into social wellness. Right?
Christine Gautreaux 2:54
I love that. Well, you know my story with one of our friends of the show, Karen drecker. Right. Do you know that origin story?
Shannon M. 3:04
I don’t know. Tell me again.
Christine Gautreaux 3:05
So Karen drecker is a singer songwriter who I love. I love her music. I use it with my clients. I use it for myself. And one day, I was having a really tough day. And I was like, Okay, what would you tell a client and I thought I tell a client to put on a piece of your favorite music and dance around and shift this energy. And so I put on a Karen darker song and I danced around and boy, my energy shifted. And so from that place, I just reached out I found and at this point, I didn’t know her and I wrote an email out into the void, like, assuming an assistant would get it or it might never make it to her. But I found her you know, on her website, email, and just wrote her a note and said, Thank you, like thank you for your work. Thank you for what you do kind of what you just said you did with Chris, right? Like, thank you for bringing me this joy. Well, this was years ago, and she responds back. He says, Hey, you made my day, I got this email. And she said, Oh, and by the way, and she’s in California, she’s like, I’m gonna be in Georgia for a women’s retreat. Do you want to go and meet me there? I was like, why? Yeah, of course. And then, so I invite everybody I know to go with me, because you know, that’s who I am. I’m a connector, right? And I go, and I get to go meet her ahead of time because I had invited so many people, I got VIP status, right. And at the time, and I didn’t this was the first conference I’ve ever been to where like if you got a certain number of people there or did you got VIP status and that meant you went to a welcome banquet. And then you went, You sat at the front of the row front of the room, and I had told one of my friends that was coming, I’m like, Yeah, I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna I’m gonna sit with you all. And she was like, no, no, there’s a reason you’re supposed to be there. So I went very first night met Karen drecker. Talk to her about collaborating in the future, I was like, Oh, check, I’m done. Like, I’m gonna go home. And then I go, and I sit at the front of the room. And I sit by this tall elderly. Like, you could just tell she had presents black woman, and I sit by her and you know me, I just start talking. I’m like, Hey, did I see that her name is Dr. Barbara Bishop. And I said, Dr. Bishop, you want to tell me about your church? She said, Oh, no, honey, I just got back from the Parliament of world religions. I’ve been in front of 1000s of people. And I’m here to rest. And I want you to tell me about you. And so very long story short, we find that we have the connection of Texas. And at the time, this was pre pandemic, and I was working in the Georgia prison system. And somehow we got on the topic of self defense, and women going to prison for the defending themselves. And the difference between Georgia and Texas and, and basically women’s rights, right. And all this time. I don’t know who she is. We’re just talking we’re carrying on and we’re having a conversation. And then people start coming up and fan girl winner. I’m like, I had no idea cuz she, she was in her sweat. She was like, I’m here to rest. She was sleeping part of the. So she ends up being leader of the largest black New Thought movement church in Atlanta. She’s superstar written all these books. She is the speaker that Sunday. So we come in Sunday, and this was a unity women’s retreat. And we come in Sunday. And she has Oh, and the other part of the story was when she mentioned the Parliament of world religions, I was like, oh, interplay. I have friends that were just there. This was the year before I went or two years before I went, I was like, yeah, she’s like, Oh, yeah. And so it was all these like synchronicity about click, click, click, click, click right. And so Sunday, she gets up on the pulpit, she is in all her glory, like she is fully present, she is fully bringing the message. She has got sheets about women’s rights on all of the on all of the tables. And then she’s standing up there. And she tells a story that she and I talked about, about women’s rights. And she said, my new friend, she goes, Oh, honey, I’m in my 80s Remind me your name. And she tells the story of women in prison, and not having the same rights and data there. And behind me, I heard probably 200 women get it, like I heard them go and get it. And I was like, oh, that’s why I was there. Not to meet and dance with Karen drecker. I thought that’s why I was there. Right. But I was there for this connection, this conversation and having that impact.
So very long story. But that’s just what made me think of when you talked about meeting Chris and thanking him.
Shannon M. 8:16
Yeah, and you’re worth listening to. So absolutely. And that’s what I love about women connected in wisdom. You know, I think about the podcast and what I say on here, right? I go through it in my mind. I’m like, Oh, I hope I don’t sound too salesy. I hope I’m not trying to, but this is really what happens. You talk to somebody, and then they know somebody. And then here we go with the ripple effect. And that’s how life is.
Christine Gautreaux 8:40
I think about that. I think about, you know, our life stories and synchronicities and how we ended up where we ended up and why we do right. How do we do all this
Shannon M. 8:51
change? Yes, yes. And it’s so interesting to COVID It’s like, oh, a schedule keeps changing. These keep changing. I thought I set a plan. And now it’s different in isn’t that how life has always been, you know, like, season is different. And you have to approach it differently to do the same thing. So I hear you,
Christine Gautreaux 9:10
right, and about the time we get it figured out things change. Again, yeah, right. A kid goes or kid comes or you know, a different stage or age of development, whether it’s with ourselves or our friends or our partners or our children. It’s like who? I’m glad we’re talking about what we’re talking about today. You want to prep our listeners for what we’re chatting about.
Shannon M. 9:30
Yes, let’s go ahead and dive into the definition. Today we’re talking about emotional and mental wellness. Emotional mental wellness 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 encourages autonomy and useful decision making skills and striving towards good mental health.
Christine Gautreaux 9:59
I like that striving towards good mental health where almost everybody I know is struggling right now.
Shannon M. 10:07
And in addition to the list of situations that we’ve had to deal with, right, it’s also, what about mental health in general, I’m learning more about mental health and what it looks like. It’s like, Oh, everybody is affected, everybody’s family is affected. And I don’t think that I was always thinking about it as closely as I am now. Before the pandemic. Right.
Christine Gautreaux 10:30
Well, I think it was a global. Well, I mean, we were all in trauma at that time, right. And all in all under stress, people had different kinds, of course, and yeah, and people were more adversely affected than others. But I think it was a moment that we had to realize that cool, this is tough, right? Yeah. I can’t wait to talk to our guest today. Should I introduce her and bring her up here because she is an expert on on on emotional and mental wellness. So I’m just going to introduce her and we’re going to pull her up on the stage. Here we go. Ilene Dillon. MSW, you know, I love those initials, has dedicated her life to helping people resolve personal challenges once and for all, then create their lives as they want them to be a transformation specialist. She has worked 50 years as a marriage counselor, psychotherapist and coach. Ilene is a global speaker, Amazon International Best Selling Author, mastermind leader podcast guest and is currently developing her first TEDx speech, transforming anger into an enthusiasm since 2017. Ilene has worked and traveled full time in North America in her RV. Oh, come on up here, Ilene. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. I love your bio, because it’s so resembles mine. Having that Masters of Social Work, and I read about what you do and who you are, and you definitely have expertise in emotional and mental wellness. Yes, so tell us a little bit about what you’ve been up to.
Ilene Dillon 12:21
Okay. And before I get started, I have three things I would like to tie in to what you guys were just talking about. Number one, I love the comment of the woman you were talking with Who said I’m at tell me your name. Again. I’m turning ad in November of this year, and I’m throwing myself a big party in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Karen Drucker when my daughter who’s turning 52, this coming Saturday, when she was a young girl, about nine or 10 years old, I sent her to a music camp in Marin County, California. And one of the people who was just getting her start in music was participating in that. And it was Karen Drucker. So I know.
Christine Gautreaux 13:08
Thank you, because, you know, it just shows those connections, right? Yeah. That today, I was gonna tell that story based on what Shannon said. And then you have that connection, y’all. We did not rehearse this or talk about this before the show in any way. Absolutely
Ilene Dillon 13:25
true. And And thirdly, I’d like to say that COVID has been fairly easy for me. And I think it is because I have learned so much about emotions. And I’d like to tell people as much as I can today. So can I just start out by saying, I think most of us don’t understand, we feel like things have been falling apart. And we’re going crazy, and we can’t, you know, there’s something wrong. And I want to take the position that there is nothing wrong. What happens whether you’re an individual or a whole society, is that we are all part of a giant school, the Earth is a big giant school, we all come here to learn and grow. And the way we do it is through our experiences. Now most people do not like to change, which is what growth is all about. And so as a therapist, what I’ve learned is that a person will put off growing or changing and every time you put it off, your pain for that particular issue increases, right. So literally, we wait until our pain is so great. We think it wouldn’t be any worse. If we make the change. That’s when we change. So what has been happening in the world there and we all know this. Now with a little hindsight through the COVID experience. There are a number of things that we have needed to learn that we have been putting off among To the largest of these is feeling our emotions, or feeling emotions, I like not to own them because emotions are energy and energy is designed to move. And when we say it’s my fear or my anger or our emotions, we tend to hold on to them. And instead I say the emotions are the emotions that come up in me. But, but we, we have all been taught to hold on to emotions, particularly those we consider negative like anger. And in preparation for this a TEDx speech that I’ve been doing, I have discovered that we now have documented proof that repressed anger held on to anger is a part of the etiology. It’s a part of what causes the three biggest killer diseases in the United States. Heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Right. So literally, the anger that we have learned all of us have learned to do it. Anger that we’ve learned to hold on to, is killing us, in large measure in larger numbers. And let me let me offer a little transparency, I am a recovered angry person. And that’s what my need to recover was what got me into understanding and learning about anger and how it works. And from that, all the other emotions, and there’s an entire system, once you understand it, for one emotion, you can understand it for all emotions. And when we tie it in with mental health, this is the last thing I’m going to before give you a chance to talk. When we tie it in to mental health or trauma as you guys were talking about, because emotions are energy they need to move and trauma occurs. When you don’t process you don’t let that energy move. I had a very traumatic early childhood lost my birth mother when I was to a number of things. And I now at almost 80 have a really fantastic life. And I’m not plagued by trauma anymore. And it’s just because I learned how to work with emotions, and anybody, everybody can learn to work with emotions. So I’m busy writing books, and traveling and giving speeches. Because my whole life for as long as it holds up is dedicated to getting the word out that emotions need to be on the move. In fact, I wrote a book emotions in motion, where is that? There’s my book on Amazon. Emotions need to be on the move. And a big part of the problems that we have, whether it’s physical or mental illness, or depression, or whatever, all has to do with the fact that we’re holding on to emotions, instead of using them to help us learn these lessons, the way they’re designed to work.
Christine Gautreaux 18:11
Oh, my gosh, I am so excited. You came to talk to us today, Ilene. What I have so many things that are bubbling up, and I’m sure Shannon does too. So I’m gonna say one and then pass the mic. But the first thing I think about is about how we’re designed to change. And so you’re talking about our emotions being on the move. And it’s when we hold on that we get stuck or hold on to that trauma. So I would love I’m going to see what Shannon has a question about but I would love for you to like give some concrete resources or examples to our listeners, like say they’re listening today. And they’re like, oh, Ilene, I’m not a recovered angry person. I’m still really pissed off about what’s going on in our country, with the racism with the misogyny with the current legislative, like, Ah, I’m mad. What do I do, right?
Ilene Dillon 19:07
It’s really very simple. Every emotion has a message for us. The way I describe it is we have an experience. And with that experience and emotion arises, it could be love. It could be loneliness, it could be anger, it could be fear, but especially one but maybe more than one emotion will arise. Well, that emotion has a message for us. And each emotion has a different message. For example, a simple one is loneliness. That we mostly think that loneliness occurs when we’re alone because we are alone. But we know that you can feel lonely in a crowd or in a marriage. So that’s not it. It is about energy. Loneliness is about energy and when you feel lonely, you have more of your personal energy going out then you have energy coming in, or another way of looking at it is you’re not loving yourself enough. And an easy way to make that shift so that you are bringing energy in is to do something, you have a talent for you, we’re talking about doing the dancing as you come in. Right? That’s something you guys have a talent for, and you enjoy it. And it brings that in, and I’ll lay you odds when you’re doing it, you’re not thinking about being lonely at all right? And so, anger, you know, I, I had a traumatic event, when I was about 27 years old, I’d been married since I was 19. And my had a 10 month old child, and my husband came home one day, my fairy first Mother’s Day, in fact, and said, I’m not ready to be a father, and I’m leaving. And I had no idea I was an angry person. But boy, when I got dumped like that, anger just started pouring out of me. And it was going over my child and I, my dad had been very angry, and I’d had a lot of his anger on me. And I went, I can’t do this to my child. And that’s what set me off on the hunt. And it was pre internet days. So I went to the libraries of huge universities and got the reference librarians to help me look and guess what, there was no information about anger. In those days, and you’ll appreciate this Christine. Therapist even did not look at emotions separate from mental illness diagnoses, right? So anger was part of schizophrenia, or part of bipolar disorder. But we didn’t know anything about anger itself, or how to work with it. So I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing until I finally started figuring things out. And fortunately, I was a therapist, and I would say, to my clients, this has worked for me, would you like to experiment with it in your life? And many, I mean, so many people as you’re talking about work, you know, desperate to learn something of what to do about the emotions that they were feeling. And so they said, Yes, during COVID, one of the things that made COVID Really great for me, is I had people that had been my clients, close to 40 years ago, search me a search for me on the internet and find me and say, I need to work with you, again, I needed to Nup. And what I discovered is that all the work that we had done on emotions with them was still working, it was still in place, that was not the issue, there were new things that had come up that they wanted to work on. So anger has two messages for us. One is that we, we get angry, because we have an idea of how things are supposed to be in the world, we’re supposed to be able to go out of our houses without wearing masks, we’re supposed to be able to fill our gas tank with gas without paying our rent along with it, you know. And so when when those things that we think should happen, don’t, or we think they should not happen. And they do, that’s when we get angry, I call that the universal cause of anger, right. And the other message from anger is to take action. The old I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore. But refining this down just a little bit more. What I’ve discovered is that when I have a belief or an idea about how things are supposed to work, and they don’t work, my ideas are incorrect. So really, the message of anger when you get angry is you got an idea about something that’s incorrect, and you need to change it.
Right? So if you don’t change it, as we were saying earlier, the pain builds up, you go over and over the same things, it gets harder. But the minute the second you change it, you’re done with it. You don’t have to keep doing that. So what I suggest to people is when they feel anger in them, say what do I think should or should not happen? And identify that and look at it and look at the reality what what you know, like if you’re driving on the freeway, and somebody cuts in front of you, a lot of people get angry about that driver cutting in front of them. But the reality is a lot of drivers on the freeway cut in front of other drivers, right? And so if you can remind yourself of that, you know, I think this driver should not be cutting in front of me. But you know, maybe 80% of all drivers do at one point or another cut in front of other drivers. Then you go Oh, so you’re part of the 80% Okay, and you don’t you don’t register anger the same way
Shannon M. 25:00
I love that. And for me, it’s like you said, what is the expectation? What did you say when you have an idea of what’s supposed to happen? Right? So this person was not supposed to cut me off. My car was supposed to be where their car is, right? But then you see the car in front of them. And you were going the speed you were going because you knew you couldn’t go past the car in front of you. So does it really matter if they cut in front of you? Are you still exactly where you would have been? Had they been in the other lane? You know, and that’s how I sort and separate and have kept myself calm, do COVID suit, I hear what you’re saying.
Ilene Dillon 25:32
I have a little phrase I use because I drive a lot. I go, oh, I forgot you on the road.
Shannon M. 25:42
I Like that. What did Eleanor say?
Ilene Dillon 25:46
You know, makes me laugh. So
Shannon M. 25:48
you gotta laugh at it or if not, you’ll be angry. You gotta be something else. Yeah.
Christine Gautreaux 25:54
Yeah, let’s lift up. One of our listener Eleanor’s question, Ilene, she asked, how do you move through sadness when the cause never goes away?
Ilene Dillon 26:04
That is a really good question. Well, first of all, you accept that you’re sad. Uh, you allow yourself to feel it. Sadness usually comes in waves, particularly if you had, if it’s connected to grief, it may never be over. And it’s just energy that needs to come through you. And what I’ve found in going through some deaths in my own family, is that that kind of sadness comes up, that kind of grief comes up when you feel like you weren’t finished, like you didn’t get to tell them everything, or spend all the time with that person that you wanted to. And so another thing that you can do, that may help, I’m not saying it’s a guarantee, but either talk to them out loud and say the things you’d like to say, or write a letter that you don’t intend to send, but put it down on paper, there is power in the spoken and written word. And also, when you’re doing that you’re facing fact, you’re looking at things squarely. So for example, you could say, you know, I just love you to pieces, and I miss you so much. And you can also include, and, boy, that one thing you did used to drive me crazy, and I was really upset with you about that, you know, so you can, you can put the truth out there without having to hold it back. And if you just keep working with it, and don’t think of it as something that’s a miss when it comes up, but almost welcome it like oh, you know, there are four signs of healing, crying, laughing, sweating, and shaking. Right? So if you’re doing crying, and you’re sad, go ahead and cry. And in fact, watch a sad, a sad movie, stimulate it. Go ahead and let yourself feel it.
Christine Gautreaux 28:02
I have a question about that. So you just said crying, laughing, sweating and shaking? Why is shaking, including I mean, I have my own theories, because I do this with clients and with people through interplay. But I want to hear, I want to hear what you have to say on that one, Ilene?
Ilene Dillon 28:22
Well, I don’t remember the man’s name. Um, I apologize to him here in public. But I had an internet podcast radio program for 13 years myself. And I interviewed a man who specialized in dealing with trauma. And what he pointed out is that animals like if a deer most of us have seen a deer get startled or whatever. You can see the skin on the deer the first shaking, right? And we humans are designed to do that also. But because we also learned to sit on our emotions and not move a lot. We’re supposed to sit still in school. We don’t do that. So he has a system where he actually has you lean up against the wall in a kind of a semi squatting position until your legs start to shake so badly. You can no longer stand up and then you can shake your whole body once you lie down. I tried it because I wanted to see if it worked. And so what what it really is is about recapturing a healing modality. That is part of who we are as animals but that we have bypassed
Christine Gautreaux 29:37
Hey, y’all, this is a great place to take a break. Take a deep breath and hear from our awesome sponsors that make women connected and wisdom podcast possible. Shannon we are so grateful that Shealo glo is the sponsor of the women connected in wisdom podcast and I wanted to take this moment to ask you when you think about the people who use Shayla glow are we talking to Wow.
Shannon M. 30:01
That’s a good question. I think about three groups really one, the group that’s removing hair, right, so whether you’re using laser hair removal, waxing, shaving, you got to make sure that you’re putting back what you’re taking out the second group, I think about those with dry skin, and the problems that that might cause right, the scars, itching, burning, whatever the situation is, you definitely need all three steps, right? The exfoliation making sure you’re taking the dead skin cells off the oil, putting in the moisture, and then the shea butter with the aloe sealing it helping you heal those things help both groups, right. And third, for the third group is those with chronic illness. You know, the story is personally from cancer and different diseases that our population is dealing with on a daily basis throughout families as individuals. So I’m thinking about my mom and my grandmother and those around me with the same generation of ties, right, and what positive healthy habits, we can start to make sure that we’re maintaining our wellness, especially because the skin is like the cape, the exterior the the shield for your immune system. So with COVID, we have to be intentional about covering ourselves. And those are the groups I think about. I love it.
Christine Gautreaux 31:15
And you know what else I love about your product? It’s all natural, handmade, and it smells great, y’all, so yay.
Shannon M. 31:24
Yes, Esthetician tested and approved. Yes. Yes. What about you? When you think about your company? What groups of people do you think about?
Christine Gautreaux 31:33
Well, you know, I work with individual coaching clients, I work in community classes and with corporate teams, and with all of them, I use a strength based embodied approach to help folks connect with themselves and access joy, reduce burnout, and build resilience. You know, especially during these times, I think we need it. I think we need all the hashtag partnership power we can get. Yes. Well, my favorite coach deal didn’t know this while we were growing up, but you know, she was my volleyball and basketball coach for years. And she had us doing that wall trick she was with that’s, you remember that Shannon? Squats?
Shannon M. 32:22
is a list of difficult exercises. And that’s on them. It’s simple. But I know what you mean about the shaking,
Ilene Dillon 32:28
oh, agonizing one too. I mean, I think you’re supposed to do it for 15 or 20 minutes with his exercise. And you’re just sitting there going?
Shannon M. 32:38
I can only imagine.
Christine Gautreaux 32:40
I find that fascinating. Because recently when I did a fitness what are they called, like a fitness assessment at a new gym. You know, sitting on the wall is one of the like, how long you can do it is an indicator of physical wellness. So I find it fascinating that when you take it past that point, and you do the shaking, that it can then be an indicator of emotional and mental wellness. Because you’re letting that go.
Ilene Dillon 33:09
emotions come into the body first. Yeah, absolutely. Motions are of the body. So healing the or working with the body and working with the emotions goes together.
Christine Gautreaux 33:21
Oh, you’re speaking my language, Ilene, like this is what I do through interplay and with my private clients. And, you know, we’re not taught that originally a social worker. I know that taught that in school, right. But when I hit on it, I was like, This is it. Like the working with the body, the working with the emotions, the being able to even look at them and feel them and process them. I love this that you’re doing. Shannon, you look like you were about to pop in there and say something. Yeah,
Shannon M. 33:51
because I think about the same thing with Shayla glow and the effect that it has with families and the stories that I’ve had with everybody I’m actually thinking about starting to bring them on. So people can come share their stories with Shiloh, because if I just tell you it sounds, again, just like with the women connected in wisdom, and if you know, you know how amazing it is when we’re connected and the things that it can lead to is this thing, same thing with shallow glow, it feels like it’s reaching to say that something so simple can have such a profound effect. But it really does, you know, especially through losing people like you were saying, Ilene, like it’s helped so many people to COVID, whether it’s from that, or from cancer in different situations when they can take that time with themselves in their family. And it’s been healing.
Ilene Dillon 34:36
Yeah, yeah, it was in reaction to what you said, but I’m almost 80 And it went right through my head.
Christine Gautreaux 34:46
Well, so you can have almost 80 I was thinking when you were talking about sadness and grief and loss. I was thinking about our friend and my co author Sheila Kay Collins, who one of her books is called warrior mother. and it is the memoir of her losing two of her three children, two of her adult children, one to HIV AIDS and one to breast cancer five years later. And, you know, one of the things that she has always taught me is that we must make art out of what happens to us. And so one of the ways she’s taught me about greeting, sadness, and playing with sadness is that too, especially if it’s somebody that’s crossed over died, is, what can you do in their name? Like, what can you do? What was their work in the world? And how can you continue their work in the world. And so like, we’ve done many performances, her son was a theater. He was in the theater and love shows, and we’ve done many performances on his crossing over day to honor his life and his legacy. Right. And I know there’s many, I don’t know if they’re, if their stories, Proverbs, I don’t know what you would call them. But the one about that people live on until the last until their name is said for the last time, I knew I’m missing that went up, but really just tell them the stories, and I loved how you said that about greeting them. And I think about it for sadness, but I think about it for other things, too, right? When I love sitting around telling stories that make me laugh, right? When you think about some things, when with my kids, you know, raising that, you know, definitely not perfect things have gone wrong. And you know, how you get around with friends or family, and you just some of your most embarrassing moments come up, but you tell the story, and you laugh. And instead of I used to be really sensitive and get upset and be like, Oh, why are you saying that? Why are you doing that? And then until I realized, oh, yeah, like, I didn’t die from that I I’m human, I messed up like grieving, even the embarrassment, and being able to, to let it go or change it or I don’t know what you would call it in your system. But
Ilene Dillon 37:17
well, you what you really do is end up releasing the energy. Right? So emotions, we have the experience, the emotions rise up in us in some way, so that we are aware that we have them, then we take a look at what their messages and this book that I was talking about that I wrote the emotions in motion, I go the wrong direction every time I have 12 emotions in there, and the signal of each one or the message of each one. So you can identify the message. And that gives you the clue of how to work on your, your experience what what needs to be learned. Like, if it’s anger, aren’t I need to look at what idea I’ve have here that got violated, what expectation and see what, what new thing I can bring in. And so that’s what what emotions are for. And unfortunately, I don’t know when it started. But generations ago, we started demonizing emotions, you know, this one is a negative emotion, that’s a bad emotion. And this one is wonderful and good. But, you know, I, in my research, I’ve discovered that love can be bad. Also, if somebody is claiming to love you, or trying to love you, when you don’t want them to love you, that’s not a good thing. And so there are ways that all emotions have positive and negative aspects. But if we can learn to see them as friends, there, that’s my friend, it’s they’re bringing me a message to help me with the growing, I’m in a big giant school, I’m either going to suffer because I don’t learn and grow or I’m going to grow. And these friends are here to help me with it. That’s that’s my message to get to the world.
Shannon M. 39:14
So, what I what I hear you saying too, earlier, you talked about how growth is will change is part of growth. Right? So what about how would you help somebody who might not have the best relationship with change? How what is your perspective on change so that you can continue to grow in each season?
Ilene Dillon 39:36
Well, I as a therapist, I generally, Shannon tell, you know, describe how the system works. And I, for want of a better term, I talk about how the universe is presenting. It’s usually a part of us but I talked about the universe is presenting an opportunity for us to grow and I can Sit and talk with somebody and we try to look at things from a different perspective. I think this is what therapists a lot. Do. You know what if you did this, what’s the worst thing that could happen? Could you face that, etcetera, etcetera. And then help a person or encourage a person to come up with a plan for, for dealing with it. And often as a therapist, like, I’ll meet with you this week, and you’ll have an idea of plan for how you’re going to work with an emotion and you come back the next week, and you say, Oh, I didn’t do my homework. And my reaction is, you know, don’t worry about a thing. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t do your homework. But do keep in mind that the universe is going to now that it’s presented this lesson to you, it’s just going to keep presenting it and presenting it. And every time it presents, it’s going to be more painful, but you take as long as you want.
Christine Gautreaux 40:59
Now, Ilene, if I was your client, you could probably say that to me about I didn’t do your homework. But just so you know, if it was Shannon, she’d have done her homework, because it’s in her planner. And she,
Shannon M. 41:09
and I love it.
Ilene Dillon 41:11
If you did do your homework, and you’re already in the process of change, so we would look at, maybe you did a fourth of what we talked about and didn’t do the other three quarters. And then we do what is called a successive approximation, we, we reward you, we appreciate you for making the change that you did make. And then we examine and anybody can do this with themselves, then it was about simplicity. Keep that in mind. That’s what I was gonna say that that anybody can can do this, you just set your next goal. Okay, so what was it that I was going to do? I only got a fourth of it done, what was I going to do? And the next time you go a little further, and you appreciate yourself for doing that you don’t tear yourself apart? Because you didn’t get it all done? You know? Yes, keep going until you get it done. I
Shannon M. 42:07
love that. And you remembered your comment about simplicity. What was that about?
Ilene Dillon 42:12
Well, years ago, I went to the Picasso Museum. And Picasso when he was a teenager, his artwork was like a photograph, it was very detailed, if you drew a house, it had all the boards and everything. And then the way the museum is set up this, they go through his blue period in his red period, all the way you know, the whole museum. And by the time you get to the end, this is a horse. Wait a minute, this is a horse, that is a cloud, whatever. It’s just one line. It’s just simple. And it really drew my attention to the fact that people who are really adept, do things simply, they aim for going for the simplest way of doing it. And that’s part of my message about emotions, especially working with anger. Working with anger is simple. Children can do it. It’s not always easy, but it’s simple. And I I’d like us to get back to more of a dedication to having doing things the simple way, and not diss that in any way, shape, or form.
Shannon M. 43:32
And I know that this is something that you have coming up, Ilene, but would you mind telling us a little bit more about transforming anger into enthusiasm. I feel like that’s what I’ve done with my mom passing away chronic illness. It’s I’m tired of women getting sick, because nobody else is taking the time to make sure we’re okay. We’re taking the time to make sure everybody else is okay. And we’re not getting to ourselves. So it’s me. I’m so upset about it. Let me go change the world. That’s where I am with it. Right? So how would you advise somebody else to transform it?
Ilene Dillon 44:05
Well, I’m definitely interested in changing the world, but I’m doing it. After I have started, I have learned to take care of myself. And I think a lot of women, at least that I’ve worked with, feel like taking care of yourself is selfish. And in fact, it’s the opposite. Think about I start my life with a bank account that somebody has put a million dollars in. And those million dollars are for caring for other people. If all I do is give those dollars away to other people. My bank account is eventually going to get empty. And I won’t have it to use for me and I won’t be able to help anybody else either. But if I use some of those dollars, to take care of other people, and I also take care of me that puts money back in the account. And so I always have something for myself, and then others get what runs over from that. And when you do it the opposite when you’re saying no, no, I’ll put you first you run out, you get irritable, you get sick, you, you get paranoid, you help nobody, you can’t even help yourself, much less somebody else. So when I’m working with somebody in therapy, I asked them to consider the possibility that when we came to this earth, somebody took a little, there’s like, there’s a cloth, I call it the God Cloth, it’s an essence of God, right? And they cut it up into small pieces. And when the soul leaves, wherever it’s leaving, somebody jams a piece of God Cloth into you, so that every time you take care of yourself, you’re taking care of God. And that’s a whole different way to think about it. And every time you’re not taking care of yourself, or not doing well by yourself. That’s what you’re also doing to God.
Christine Gautreaux 46:04
Mm hmm. I love that, Ilene, I love that imagery. And I love that. So I’m hearing you say transforming anger to enthusiasm is about taking care of ourselves along this journey.
Ilene Dillon 46:18
Absolutely. Well, what we what we haven’t learned, because we’ve been sitting on emotions all the time, is we have not learned that once you get them moving, they transform into something else, you know, just like, just like, water turns into ice, or every every piece of every energy like electricity, or wind or water. That does work. You know, it can, it does things in the world. And interestingly, anger when you master it, when you’re in charge of it, when you’re working with it, when you partner with it to help you grow, it transforms into enthusiasm.
Shannon M. 47:03
I love that. And I can say I personally see that. Absolutely. You know, like I said with, I don’t know if and I don’t know if I would call it anger, maybe I would be in touch with my emotions or something I’m working on Ilene. That’s why I love this conversation. Right? That now I’m excited about Shay logo I’m excited about when we connect it in wisdom. So I definitely don’t think that I have stayed angry. I don’t live there. And I’ve definitely also hear you on the What did you say earlier about the relationship with somebody else? Oh, how it helps you adjust your expectations, right? You’re angry? Well, what did you think was supposed to happen? And whether it’s with my personal relationships in my friends or work, it’s, it’s helped me not stay as black and white or one track minded in the way I thought something was supposed to happen. It opens you up to well, I thought it was this way we could have done it that way. But it happened this way. Are we still reaching our goal? Does it matter? You know, and it’s helped me kind of relax a little bit and be healthier overall?
Ilene Dillon 48:04
Well, in it, just to piggyback on that, a lot of us what I you know, I talk with people all over North America as I travel, and I often tell them that I’ve written a book and that I’m an recovered angry person. And by and large, what people say to me is, I think I could use that book, or I know somebody who could use your book, you know, so we all want to do work on anger. But what I want to say is what what does it cause we think we have a right to be angry, I have a right to be angry, you did this, you did that, or this didn’t happen, whatever. And we do we have a right to be angry. But whenever I allow myself to be angry and dump that anger on you, then if I’m a responsible person living in the world, that’s gonna take me a long time to work through the repercussions, you’re gonna get angry back at me, then I’m going to get hurt, and then I’ll be angry back at you. Or I have to, at some point come to the point of saying, Gosh, I made a mistake there or I didn’t talk well to you. It takes so much effort. And instead when you look at what you’re feeling angry about, let me just tie this into. We say you made me angry. You didn’t make me angry. You can’t make me angry. What is causing me to feel angry is my own ideas about how things are supposed to be. So we want to blame other people for anger. If instead we take responsibility and look for what was I actually angry about what did I think should or should not have happened? Can’t what what is truthful? What can I do hear? Then you’re busy taking power. And you just move right through it and I’m at the point now, where you can never get totally get rid of any motion because it’s energy and we can’t create or destroy energy. Right? But I’m my anger used to be enormous. Wait a minute, which way they’re mine anger used to be like that. And now it’s like that. Right? So it comes up. And then I know what to do to deal with it. And it goes on. And I must say also fear, loneliness. Hurt. I don’t do fear, I don’t do those anymore. I just Oh, okay. So this is the issue of fear. For example, I learned I gave myself a 50th birthday present, and figured out what you do to not have fear plague you anymore. And what you do is, the opposite of fear when you’re working on this level is faith. So when you go into faith or trust, and so the way we’re made up right now, if something happens, the first thing we do is go to the negative, which is the fear part, right? And that means that if we want to get to faith, and it’s not a religious faith, it’s faith like I have when I put my head on the pillow at night and have faith that I’m going to wake up the next day, it’s that kind of faith. Alright, so if I’m already in fear, how do I get myself over to faith? All right. And I made up this thing that works for me, anybody who would like to can use it. I asked myself, What if I had a written guarantee from God? That everything’s going to work out? And I’m going to be okay, then what would I be paying attention to? What decisions would I make? And what actions would I take? Now, I discovered that close to 30 years ago, right? And I started doing it just just for the exercise of it. And it took me four, it took me a while to realize that my life was changing. So now, here I am, turning 80 This year, wandering around in my RV, all over North America. And people say, Aren’t you afraid? And I go, No, I’m not afraid. Well, you’re so brave. No, bravery, is we defined as feeling the fear and doing it anyway. I don’t feel the fear. Right. And what I’ve replaced all of that with is love. I made a choice to have love the guiding principle of everything that I do. And like anybody, I’m not perfect, but boy is it made a difference in my life to make that decision.
Christine Gautreaux 52:43
I leave that is so magical. I am so glad you came and talk to us today. I am just I feel like we could keep talking for hours. And I can’t wait to get your book and read your book. And we may have some follow up questions.
Ilene Dillon 53:01
Okay, all right. Yes, well, I think you have my website, it’s emotional mastery for life.com. We do.
Christine Gautreaux 53:11
And we will put that in our show notes for all of our listeners too, so they can find you and get a hold of you is good is your website, the best way for folks to get a hold of you?
Ilene Dillon 53:22
The best way is by email, Ilene, i l e n e at emotional Pro, like professional, emotional pro.com. That’s because I’m terrible. I’m terrible at technical things and everything’s not up to date. So just write me
Christine Gautreaux 53:39
just write you. Okay, we will put in, we will put that in our show notes for folks to be able to find you. And I want to lift up what Eleanor says true faith is a mental attitude against which there is no possibility of contradiction by Robert Russell.
Beautiful.
Ilene Dillon 53:58
That’s a lovely, lovely way. Yeah.
Shannon M. 54:00
Yeah. Yes. I mean, every week we like to do a wisdom and action based on the dimension that we’re talking about. So for your emotional and mental wellness this week, what is your wisdom in action?
Ilene Dillon 54:15
Tell me what a wisdom in action is.
Shannon M. 54:19
So you. Our goal here is to encourage the ladies, our listeners to do something with the information that they get, right? We give resources tell stories, and what are we actually doing? We’re not just in taking information we are acting out in the wisdom that we know. So our wisdom and action. I’ll go first to give you an example. I loved when you said busy taking power. So that’s my hashtag this week. Hashtag I’m busy taking power.
Ilene Dillon 54:47
Very good. Well, I think a key message for me one that was has really been important is that you don’t have I mean, therapists are wonderful. We’ve been one for years and I know that it’s very helpful. But there’s a lot we can do on our own. And we need to be doing partnering with emotions all the time, whenever they come up, that’s the best time to work with them. So this, I would suggest that you number one, say, I’m no longer demonizing any emotions, I’m accepting them. I’m not going to say there’s something wrong with me if I start feeling something. Instead, I’m going to get curious, what is this emotion trying to tell me and if you want to check my book out, it gives you the message that I’ve learned it gives a particular emotion gives. And so then say, okay, if this is my message, what can I do with it? What the question I like to ask myself is, what am I trying to teach myself?
Christine Gautreaux 55:54
I love that I, I think I boil all that down, I lean to say, hashtag partner with your emotions. Okay, with your emotions. And I think the one I’m going to add to is hashtag change quicker. Yeah, we were actually
Ilene Dillon 56:12
instead of instead of change quicker, because that puts pressure on you. Okay, embrace, embrace, change, embrace
Christine Gautreaux 56:19
change. Oh, I like that. Gentleness, that gentle? Yeah, absolutely. I like to do things fast, I lean, but I like
Ilene Dillon 56:30
you know, what I’ve learned as a therapist, and you likely know this too. We have a tendency if we want to change or we think we should change should to push ourselves, and to say whatever it is that we’re seeing needs change as a negative. And I have never seen anybody change effectively when they’ve been pushed or, or dealt with through negativity. But when you love what’s happening to you, you love the emotions that are coming up, you love that you’re a learner, you love the learning, then you change faster and faster and faster all the time, it gets easier and easier and easier.
Christine Gautreaux 57:15
Oh, what a great thing to end on what great words of wisdom. Ilene, thank you so much for coming and talking with us today. Thank you to be connected with you. And we will put all these links in our show notes for so our listeners can find you and connect with you. And we will also keep us posted on when that TEDx Talk comes out. And we will we will make sure our listeners get all that info so they can see you on that stage. We should spend
Ilene Dillon 57:45
time together for years because I’ve got 10 books outline now. And I’m writing on the first one. Hello? Yes, it’s a core book talking about about the Earth as a giant school and then nine books on individual emotions. I haven’t
Shannon M. 58:01
really. And we might have to make it a living. Ilene, maybe we talk about volume two or volume three of our book, you know, right?
Christine Gautreaux 58:07
Well, and the other thing I was thinking is, you know, we offer classes and workshops through our women connecting wisdom community. So we need to talk offline about getting you to come be one of our teachers, we would love that. So
Ilene Dillon 58:19
I would love that to come to Georgia. Thank you. Yes, please.
Christine Gautreaux 58:27
Thank you so much for being here. We’re gonna pop you back into the greenroom. And we’re going to wrap this show for today. Thank you. So my gosh, so much fun. We could have kept talking for hours.
Shannon M. 58:38
Emotional mental is so important. So big.
Christine Gautreaux 58:42
It is well and I loved like I love this whole concept of making friends with your emotions and embracing change. And, and the emotions on the move. You know, I’m all over that like and being embodied on how we do this.
Shannon M. 59:00
So yeah, I’m excited about and I hear you too on the change faster. I’ve been there before when I took too long to get the lesson like Ilene said, the pain level of start going up. And we talked about tolerance. Why does your tolerance have to be so high you don’t have to do that every time you know, bring that bring the brat boundary down a little bit so that we can be effective and you know, that’s been to spend more time than we should in unhealthy situations, things like that.
Christine Gautreaux 59:28
I really love that gentle shift though she did not embrace change. That was That was beautiful. Anything you want to give a shout out for before we close this up for today.
Shannon M. 59:38
I don’t know if I’ve told you this. But yeah, have a huge shout-out. So this Saturday the 30th from 10 to four and I’ll be there actually, let’s say from 10 to two because I have to go to work after we are having our soft launch for our retail space on Auburn Avenue. So I’m so excited. We have a lot of goals coming up right but the retail space is definitely one Have them so we’re rebranding coming out to the retail space. And if you guys are in Atlanta or can make a trip out here for this John Lewis event on the 30th in Atlanta, you can see Shealo glo and get some of our new lemongrass Glow Kit glow kits. What Okay,
Christine Gautreaux 1:00:15
so we will can we put a link to this in the show notes so folks and find you and come say hi. And if y’all drop by that soft opening, which I need all those details, you know, when you get caught by y’all pop in and say you listen to women connected in wisdom podcast, and we are grateful that you listen every week and make sure you like and subscribe, you know, it really does help us get the word out if you like and subscribe, and we’re just grateful to be in conversation.
Shannon M. 1:00:42
Yes, thank you so much. Thank you for 77 episodes. Now that we are the end of this one and we will see you back Live at Five next week. In the meantime, don’t forget, be well be wise and be whole. Thank you so much.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:04
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.
