Show Notes –
Join Shannon & Christine as they wrap up Season 9 and launch the WCW book with the Dimensional Authors.
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Stillpoint: A Self-Care Playbook for Caregivers
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What is Essentrics?
What is Qigong?
Cynthia talked about working with Melody LeBaron Transforming Space
Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems Paperback – August 27, 2013
Listen to Season 9’s episodes Women Connected In Wisdom Podcast
Check out all of our amazing authors & speakers here – https://womenconnectedinwisdom.com/conference/
The authors on the show today:
https://womenconnectedinwisdom.com/dr-melissa-bird/
https://womenconnectedinwisdom.com/dr-sheila-k-collins/
https://womenconnectedinwisdom.com/christine-gautreaux-msw/
https://womenconnectedinwisdom.com/shannon-ivey/
Christine Gautreaux 0:06
We have so much to talk about and play with today. I just can’t wait. This is a really special show and a special episode. You want to tell folks what we’re up to
Shannon M. 0:16
who so today’s episode 83 We are talking with the author’s talking about the book that’s about to come out. I know we’ve been kinda Dibble and dabbling in some of what we have coming up, right? We had somebody on an earlier show this season, ask us about the virtual conference, they said, tell us about the conference. But today we’re talking about the book and the conference will come after. So we have our authors to wrap our season. I’m
Christine Gautreaux 0:41
so excited.
Shannon M. 0:44
Hi, ladies, I am Shannon Mitchell, a black millennial business owner, the founder of Shealo Glo 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.
Christine Gautreaux 0:57
Hey, y’all. I’m Christine Gautreaux, a white social justice advocate and international speaker, coach published author in dancing social worker who helps you upgrade yourself and community care.
Shannon M. 1:10
Together we are women connected and wisdom, a podcast grounded in the dimensions of wellness.
Christine Gautreaux 1:15
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. How do we do this in the midst of all this chaos?
Shannon M. 1:27
It’s a lot. It’s a lot, and especially because your personal situation changes, right? What you have going on changes and what you should do, from that point is now different. So I was having this conversation this week with somebody and it’s like, giving them advice on their body, like what might work for your body might be different than mine, you know, or maybe we were similar a certain ages. But now that we’re different ages, things are just fluid and it changes. So continuing to stay up to date is what I’ve been working on.
Christine Gautreaux 1:56
I love that. Well, how about we give it because we are wrapping up season nine. Usually at this show. We talk about all different eight dimensions of wellness, which we’re going to do that with some of our authors that we’re going to have popping on and off today. But should let’s go over the eight dimensions. And just Yeah, what do you think? Yeah,
Shannon M. 2:17
no, I think we should definitely do it to refresh. Let me pull it up here. sucka. Stay organized. Okay, so we’re going to do it. And we started doing an alphabetical order. Right. And I liked that because sometimes it’s difficult to pick, which one do you start with? So mental and emotional is one. Environmental wellness is the next one, financial wellness, intellectual wellness, physical, occupational, spiritual wellness and social wellness. All of those are the eight dimensions. Right? Yeah.
Christine Gautreaux 2:49
I’m just gonna invite everybody to take a deep breath. Because
sometimes when I hear those, and I’m out of balance, it’s a little overwhelming, because you’re like, oh, yeah, a little bounce on that one. Let’s pull that one back in or, you know, and we’ve been on deadline for this website and this book in this conference. So I’m a little on balance. Oh, I just noticed, even as you read it was like, oh, yeah, there’s a couple of those I could bring back into center, right?
Shannon M. 3:22
Yeah.
Yeah. And I was definitely thinking about you and the ladies up at six 630 This morning working on stuff for the book, and I’m like, I should probably be asleep right now. But I was thinking about the article that you shared the seven different types of rests, you know, and sometimes, especially as women who have so much stuff going on, it can be like I should be resting I shouldn’t still be working but sometimes that work is what you need to do because it’ll give you more rest or more energy when you are doing everything else. These bank transactions and writing off tax the tax write offs that’s been on my goals list from my manifestation Monday’s group. You ladies know I’ve been talking about this for weeks you know what our taxes do right now? No, I also don’t like being in September and this stuff is supposed to be organized every month as far as my list goes, you know, so just being able to knock that out. When maybe you know that night I get an hour or less of sleep for me sometimes that’s better.
Christine Gautreaux 4:19
I love that. I love that. Yeah, I was trying to pull up the article because I posted it earlier this week and I was trying to pull it up so we can put it in our show notes and I will make sure you do that. Yeah, I know that for myself. Like sometimes the getting up earlier and knocking something off like my newsletter. helps to bring me rest because then my brains not like I know for myself, especially the scrolling in the sleep on Tiktok as much as I love it because I love people’s creativity. Yeah, it is not restful for me, like I don’t feel rejuvenated. Like I have to set a timer for myself on that. Because it’s fun. And it’s social connections and things like that. But it’s not restful. Like, I look up and an hours gone by, and I’m not feeling rested and rejuvenated versus if I gotten up and gone on a walk outside. I walked home from the chiropractor this morning. Joe was all like, oh, wait on you. I’m like, no, no, drop me off. I literally want to walk home because my day is so busy. If I don’t get this walk in now, it’s not happening. And I wouldn’t walk to it because it’s only it’s a little over a mile and a quarter from my house. But I didn’t have time because I was busy working. So I compromised, right, that’s the other thing that I try to be gentle with myself about is there are seasons where we’re busier. Or, you know, it’s the start of school. For a lot of our listeners, it’s the start of a new season. It’s the start. And there are seasons when we are busier. And August to September tends to be one of those times. So it’s like, okay, how can I stack? One of the things I was talking actually with one of our authors who plans on meeting here today, Dr. Cynthia Phelps, we were she Oh, she just popped into our waiting room as I called her name. I love how that happens. So we were chatting about something. And we were trying to come up for new languaging around, you know, the old saying about killing two birds with one stone. And because we were talking, she was like she was giving me props for walking home from the chiropractor. And she’s like, Yeah, we need a new language for that. So it’s not violent language, right? Yes. And I was talking about being a mixed media artist, and that I like to stack things. And I thought about mixed media art, and how you do you layer things on top of each other. And I love that I love that in my life. I love that in my wellness, I love that my art. So I think I’m gonna call it mixed media living, not just mixed media, art, mixed media living where I stack things in people. And it’s all just yummy and juicy and beautiful.
Shannon M. 7:03
Yeah, I think it’s really necessary. You know, it even reminds me of serving you consolidate your steps, I say save the ankles, you do not want to be walking back and forth and driving yourself crazy. Because you’re going back and forth. If you can do it all in this section. That makes sense. And what I’ve been doing when I think about my time, especially working so much is okay. Let me make sure I hit each different role. Let me hang out with my best friend. Let me spend some time with my god, Mom, let me be over here with my partner so that I can, you know, not look up and it’d be two years and I haven’t seen anybody not saying that. Again. In the busier seasons. Sometimes you have to take more time for you. But in the end the what is it the energy of being exponential, right and not living 100% of who you are and 10% What is it say? It says don’t live 100% of your time on 10% of who you are. So making sure that even as we do all these things, I still take time to live. That’s what I’ve been working on. I love
Christine Gautreaux 8:02
that you’re always such a good example of social wellness. You really do a good job of that. I- Yeah, well, y’all I am excited. We’ve already got some of our authors starting to pop in our greenroom and I would love to bring a couple of them up on stage and start to have some conversations about these eight dimensions of wellness. Before we do that, I want to give a quick shout out to our guests last season. Because we had Missy Singer DuMars She kicked off our season last time talking about environmental wellness, and she is she was a fabulous episode about the farm and growing and being close to the Earth. We had Courtney Dorsey, one of our authors coach CO, who came on talked about social wellness. We had Eileen Dillon, you remember Eileen came in from Texas and motions on the move. That was a great episode. Shout out to Eileen. We had a LaVerne Baker Hotep, who is now known as Verna Darnell, who did the spiritual wellness with the digit divah. We had Diane Brazil who came on. That was a really fun episode about occupational wellness. We had Dr. Amanda camp with racial justice from the heart. That was just two weeks ago. And then last week, we did the global healer Summit, and talking about where we’re going to be talking at the end of this week. So all those links will be in our show notes. And I am excited to get our guests up here. You ready?
Shannon M. 9:38
Yes, let’s do it.
Christine Gautreaux 9:39
All right. So those of you all that our usual listeners know we usually give bios but we’re not doing the whole bio thing today because there’s going to be a lot of authors popping in and out there could be up to 16 in addition to us, so we’re just going to invite them on call their name and see what they’ve been up to. So, Dr. Melissa bird, how Are you?
Dr. Melissa Bird 10:02
Hello, Hello, hello.
Hello! So great to see you. How are you?
I’m really good. How are you?
Shannon M. 10:09
Good to see here? Yes, happy to see you again.
Dr. Melissa Bird 10:14
I’m happy to be with you.
Shannon M. 10:16
I’ve been thinking about the mermaids garden. You know, we were talking how many seasons ago I feel like many, many moons ago about the dreams of the mermaids garden, you telling your friends telling your husband about it? Say this is what’s going to happen? So where are we with the mermaids garden and everything that you have going on. And with environmental wellness,
Dr. Melissa Bird 10:36
oh, my gosh, it feels like so long ago that we had that conversation. Um, you know, we are almost there, we finally found land. And we are trying to work out a contract with the owner of the land, we found it, I actually sent 500 Letters to a targeted area asking if they were wanting to sell or knew someone who was and we got one response. And it’s the land has everything on our wish list. So it’s very, very exciting. And I hope, I really hope you guys are almost there, I really just want to contract. So for your listeners who haven’t heard the mermaids garden is a regenerative and sustainable retreat space and aquaculture farm well, people where people can reconnect to themselves, the land and their bodies. And I am really, really excited that it’s moving along, we’ve got some incredible business partners, who actually served in Iraq with my husband, we’ve just, we’ve identified a bunch of different avenues for funding. And I think this actually goes to environmental wellness. Because of course, we’re creating this regenerative and sustainable place and a place where people can really holistically integrate the environment and the beauty of, you know, the land with themselves. And it’s so interesting listening to you all talk about the all the different types of wellness, because one of the things that I’ve really realized is that when you engage in, in, in projects like this, that actually incorporate the different types of wellness that you all talk about, people don’t like it. And I literally had a conversation with someone from an organization here in Oregon yesterday. They’re like supposed to get money, startup funds for entrepreneurs. And she’s like, You need to put that fish farm and industrial park and give up on the retreat thing. And I was all what is regenerative or sustainable about anything that you just said. And, and what really occurred to me, y’all was, was that when people can’t understand this vision of wellness, they cannot, they cannot get behind projects that are regenerative, sustainable, earth based projects. And this is not the first time this particular woman has said this to us. She said it two years ago when we were trying to get funding two years ago, and I realized I was like I was crying last night because I was like, I just want my father, I want to eat this farm to other people. I want to give this experience to other people. I want you to be in service to other people. And Jim was like, she’s never been with us. She’s never going to be with us. But I’ll tell you all, here’s the thing. She’s the one who has all the power.
Christine Gautreaux 13:29
Ah, well, you know, I’m listening to you talk, Dr. Bird and I’m thinking about one of our authors, Dr. Sheila K Collins, who’s going to come on in just a minute as being a trailblazer, right? You’re a trailblazer, and you are doing something new and quote unquote, different. Right? And, and people and when you’re doing something new or something that’s not in the current system, right? Yeah. We will like to give a lot of pushback. And you know, we have to have a lot of compassion for ourselves and others and talking about compassion. I want to bring Dr. Cynthia Phelps up on the screen from inner ally. Hello, Dr. Phelps. It was in the house too. So I’m gonna bring Sheila
Shannon M. 14:14
up who was
Christine Gautreaux 14:19
so, Dr. Phelps
what you been up to? That’s my god, doggy. Aliada Okay, we’ll go to Sheila and then we’ll come back to Aliada. So my god doggy, Dr. Phelps dog is a little wiener dog that’s my god doggy. And so every time she hears my voice, she starts barking
she likes to have her Tia. So Sheila, Dr. Sheila K Collins, what have you been up to?
Sheila K Collins 14:54
Don’t get- it trying to get in. But I finally see I was I had an earlier I Yeah, I was ahead of it. And so of course, because, you know, that was a later addition. So as we’re talking, it’s not always good to be ahead of things. It’s as worse and it’s not. I mean, no, you want to be just right on time. But hey, you know, some of us
Christine Gautreaux 15:20
that right? Well, especially people that are at the cutting edge of what you do. So, you know, one of the things that I know you’ve been doing lately, because I’ve been watching you and helping you is the reimagine platform, you’ve been doing the art of grieving, and doing some cutting edge stuff around grief and loss. You want to tell our listeners a little bit about that?
Sheila K Collins 15:43
Well, I, I am so into it. And I think what is feeding me about it is that it is about using the arts, which is, you know, people aren’t on that page, either. I mean, they don’t get what what you mean, when you say that arts can inspire us, or that doing our making art can feed our souls and give us energy and help us to grieve? I mean, they people don’t always get that. But I think in the reimagine platform, that’s what I’ve been doing is going back through so many of the, what we call the run of shows, you know, and, gosh, we did a lot we oh, my gosh, we did a lot. So now I’m working with my writing coach to see if we can get this into a different format into the book format.
Christine Gautreaux 16:35
Well, in folks are gonna get a teaser that when they read your chapter for the women connected in wisdom book, because your book was about the art of grieving.
Sheila K Collins 16:44
Well, that’s right. Right, right. And I focused a lot in that about the physicality of grief, because people don’t recognize often that there’s a whole physicality to it. And so, you know, there’s a reason that you can’t lift your head up off of handle off of the off of your arm after you’ve been in certain situations. And that that there, you have to find ways to reinvigorate yourself and the arts are one of the ways that can help us do that. So I love one of them. Yeah.
Christine Gautreaux 17:21
All right. Dr. Phelps, I just realized we have all three, Shannon, all three of our doctors are the current, or the current authors that are in the house today. So yeah, with our distinguished colleagues, Dr. Phelps, how’re you doing over there you where you can come on and give us an update?
Cynthia Phelps 17:39
I absolutely can. Well, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. It’s always a delight. And what is happening for me? Well, I have been working with our local YWCA. And I love this organization, mostly because their motto is awesome. And that is eliminating racism and an empowering women. I was like, sign me up for that. And I am going to be teaching a I declined to call it a meditation class, even though that’s kind of what it is. I’m calling it guided inner compassion. And so it’s going to be short, guided meditations, where we’re exploring how we can be more kind and supportive to ourselves. And so that’s going to be a six week course that’s coming up. And I’m very delighted to be teaching in that context.
Christine Gautreaux 18:49
No, yay. I don’t know if you know how often we call your name on the show. By or, or what happens behind the scenes is if I’m not being kind to myself, Shannon’s like, where’s your inner ally? That was today,
Shannon M. 19:04
I said, I’m not gonna sit here and allow this, okay.
Cynthia Phelps 19:09
Call the name of the inner allies to the rescue.
Shannon M. 19:13
I need to get my cards I need to get the inner ally car so I can get the different voices down.
Christine Gautreaux 19:21
Dr. Bird, I want to call you back into this conversation because before the show, we were talking behind the scenes about what you think we need. When you think about women connected in wisdom. When you think about what the world needs. I loved your perspective on it. And I want you to share it with Dr. Phelps and Dr. Collins and our listeners because I want to have this conversation between us because it really goes nicely with our book.
Dr. Melissa Bird 19:50
It really does. So the thing I love about this book is that that how it weaves so beautifully that this is not an isolated thing, right. So that to have wellness, we have to weave all of these things together in a tapestry. And that’s so important. What we were talking about before is the importance of us telling our stories about the things that are important to us. So as part of talking about environmental wellness, one of the things that I think is really important, as we are looking at the state of the planet, and is that we have to tell our stories, and we have to rise our stories up to the level where the people with resources can hear them. So it is important for us, particularly as women, to really tell the stories of our sisters to other people so that we can connect them to those resources. And you know, my biggest example of that is the mermaids garden, which I talked about in our chapter. And the work that we’re doing to build this regenerative and sustainable space is disabled veteran owned, woman owned Native American owned LGBT owned, I’m sorry, miss anything, I might have a universally designed, regenerative and sustainable place. And getting people to back something like that has been really difficult because we are disrupting the mold of what it looks like to reconnect people to themselves to their bodies into the land. And that that is really not, we have not set up places where people can put their money where their mouth is when it comes to doing regenerative and sustainable work. And so when we’re going after resources, when we’re trying to find money, you know, I’ve had like four or five bankers say, Listen, if you were doing cows or pigs, we’d understand that but what you’re talking about, we don’t understand it. And we don’t think it’s going to work. And so we’re not going to give you any resources, and resources or money, right. And so we can’t not do our part to help save this planet. And by saying, I don’t even I hate that word save, it just comes out so automatically, to reconnect to the planet, to figure out what the Divine Mother Earth is telling us about what she mean. We cannot do that work without people putting money and power behind environmental wellness.
Christine Gautreaux 22:22
Thank you for that. Yeah, I really loved talking about uplifting people stories, right? People can negative stories. And that’s your story is in the book. And yeah, everybody, we have 18 authors in this book, y’all that have amazing, beautiful, inspiring stories. And, you know, not all of them are like easy peasy stories. Because you know, one of the things we know is women connecting wisdom is that we celebrate each other’s triumphs and trials, like life is not we know, like life is not always easy. And when we have each other in community, we can we can do it.
Shannon M. 23:05
Yeah. And especially to think about it as far as keeping my sanity, right? You know, you get upset, something happens, you call that person. Okay. I knew that I wasn’t overthinking. I knew I wasn’t blowing it out of context. This is actually inappropriate or too much, or this is a boundary that was crossed. And this is what I need to say now, you know, and I definitely hear what you’re saying, Dr. Bird on the What did you say I wrote it down. You said when they can’t understand the vision of the project. And so I’ve been having conversations, like, hey, is there something wrong want to ask this question? And somebody was like, Well, I think you take everything personal. I said, Well, let’s let’s look at it. Right? I’m thinking, well, this is this person’s perspective. But why if there’s an occupational boundary, and I say, This is what I am not comfortable with dealing with that work, doesn’t have to be personal, you know, but again, knowing how to operate in a healthy way, if they can’t understand that, then they, it might seem foreign to them, and they’re gonna label it a certain way. You know, even the deep breathing. I’ve been thinking about two ladies at work in his very high kitchen over this holiday weekend, right? And I keep running into this person and like, why are you breathing so hard? I’m not breathing hard. We’re just taking a deep breath. You know, taking a deep breath to be able to
Christine Gautreaux 24:28
you irritate me, I take the stress out of my body.
Shannon M. 24:36
I’m not holding on to it. We’re gonna be healthy and happy. You know? So that’s why I think being connected is so important. Because just like with addiction, we talk about loss. We talk about a lot of stuff in the book, right? You have to get an environment that support it. Because if you’re always around fries, you’re always around the energy that brings you to a certain place when stuff happens. It’s going to be difficult to stay on the Uh, the road. So wisdom and wellness, you know, so yeah, we have to stay connected and share the stories of the authentic story so we can really get the piece that is the key to get to the next level, you know, we think that the operations go a certain way. But when we get into the this is actually how I did it, there are 16 extra steps 32 other steps that need to be taken that we’re going to miss and if we don’t know what happened,
Christine Gautreaux 25:24
right, I love that patient. And because you know, when you when you talk about people being overnight success, successes, which I am really our book is going to be an overnight success. And the conference is going to be an overnight success. And that overnight has taken us six months.
Shannon M. 25:42
And I would say you know me, I’m gonna take it back even to the beginning of manifestation Mondays, because that’s what we talk about. Right? And it’s September now, January will be five years. So that’s five years of meeting every single week, you know, so we’re on episode 83. But how many episodes of manifestation Monday’s right. Have we been able to enjoy? You know, so? And even that it’s deeper than that the connections? If you really think about what led us to this point, you’ll see the connections that have happened. Yeah.
Christine Gautreaux 26:12
Well, Cynthia and I were just talking about that last week, because we’re right, we were prepping for the conference. And I was getting her opinion on something. And she said, what was the what was the most impactful? I can’t remember how you ask it. You said something about what was the most impactful conference you’ve ever been to? Well, that’s Sheila and I’s origin story for writing. The first books don’t point because one of the most impactful conferences I ever went to was when I was an undergrad. And I met Dr. Sheila Kay Collins, who was presenting her first book, and then we ended up I don’t know if I’ve ever told you all this story. But we I watched her I watched her present her book and she was embodied and she was just going for it. She was just a dancer and presenting this material. And it was totally not a snooze fest. It was like what and so I was so enthralled. I went and stood in line and bought her book. And she hates when I tell this part of the story, but I always tell this part of story. So it was a big decision talking about financial wellness because it was a week’s worth of groceries because I was putting myself through college. Now y’all to be fair, the book was probably less than $15 but I was living on ramen noodles and, and hotdogs at that point in my life. We’re not going to talk about the physical world. But so I stood in line, I buy the book, she signs it, we go our separate ways. Like she’s going back to the University of Texas at Arlington in Arlington, Texas. I’m going back to Nacogdoches, Texas, I was an undergrad at Stephen F. Austin State University. And this was before the internet. We’re totally dating ourselves, but before the internet, so we didn’t. We didn’t, we weren’t connected, right. I had her book, I had her signature. We always forget the timeline on this, because it’s been so long ago, but I think it was within the month. It was pretty close, that I got invited to a women’s circle. And in deep East Texas, which was about 40 minutes away from my college, I got invited. I was the youngest member at that time. And I walk in and one of the founding members of the circle was Dr. Sheila Kay Collins. And so then we became retreat sisters and colleagues for 20 years. Like wow. Like that’s I’m sorry, that’s some spirit up in there. Because, yeah, so those connections Yes, you’re right, Shaman, like those connections are 20 plus years, right? We’ve been working on this. So
Shannon M. 28:39
even with che localu I was doing the last production day where we used to produce we’re scaling and we’re moving over right to the logistics of everything. And so it’s the last day to produce in powder springs. And I’m unlocking the door where best friends mom’s house, right? Am I how long how many maker did it take for us to get here? And again, I’m thinking about third grade 20 years ago, you know so you could say it took a conversation or it took this may be a few minutes or a few months like you said but it’s really a whole life of sharing the stories thinking about what you want for yourself like Melissa bird you know making the life that you want to fight for thinking about how you’re going to work through the grief and gratitude that we have in every day and just choosing to stay connected when those situations will make you want to isolate yourself and like bump all of these people who said I couldn’t do it I’m gonna do it by myself. You know you get there sometimes but you can’t stay isolated.
Christine Gautreaux 29:38
I am curious because I know the last couple of weeks have been stressed filled for me, as most of y’all on this call know because you’re part of my support system. But what have you been doing for yourself lately? When you think about wellness, your wellness practices? What if something that you’ve been doing that you want to share with our listeners? 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 Shayla glow 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, where are we talking about?
Shannon M. 30:25
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 generational 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 shield for your immune system. So with COVID We have to be intentional about covering ourselves. And those are the groups I think about.
Christine Gautreaux 31:37
I love it. 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. 31:47
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 31:57
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.
Dr. Melissa Bird 32:23
I have been reading and like reading as trashy a book as I can possibly pick up. And, um, and I have, I’ve been doing listening to a lot of music, but I’m trying to get out of my typical go to either Metallica or 80s bands, like I’m trying to get out of that. And listen, like I was listening to Bruno Mars today. And like, you know, just I’m trying to switch up that music I’m listening to, so that I don’t fall into the same emotional feelings that I have when I listened to my go to so I’m trying to expand that out. So it has been really, really fun. I mean, I’m an avid reader, but I got out of the habit of reading myself to sleep every day and that I’ve started doing again it because it just makes me so happy. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I love that we’re gonna hashtag pro tip for emotional mental wellness.
Christine Gautreaux 33:23
Alright, what do you got Sheila?
Sheila K Collins 33:25
Well, my, my, it’s pretty consistent. I so I, I tell myself and other people keep moving. We are not designed, our bodies are not designed to sit in front of a screen. Or, and so that’s that always is, is what I do either get out in the, you know, that I practice that I love, which I just discovered called a Centrix. And it’s a new well, relatively new system of just kind of stretching and, and getting, like you’re in your side body. I can sort of It’s hard to describe, but I feel like I’m reclaiming the part we lose when we just sit, you know. I mean, we just we have to really find those muscles again and feel like you’re connected to them again. So it just brings me a great deal of joy. And I I’m getting that in and several times a week now.
Christine Gautreaux 34:29
Oh, I love that. Thank you. We’ll put a link to that practice in our show notes. Sheila. Thank you. All right. Dr. Cynthia Phelps, you tell us and I’m also going to bring Melanie LeBaron on the stage. She’s coming. And what we’re doing melody welcome is we are talking about our latest wellness practices of what’s been keeping us going so Dr. Phelps was just about to tell us hers. Well, I
Cynthia Phelps 34:53
have a couple of things that have been pretty standard in my life for a while and that is swimming And I actually do backstroke the whole time. And for me, that’s really fabulous because the computer hunches, it kind of it’s the opposite of that. And so it’s so nice. And another thing that I do twice a week is Chi Gong, which is a slow movement practice. But honestly, what I really want to talk about is I have been working with Melody libera. And she has been counseling me and giving me journaling exercises, and I am I have difficulty getting myself to journal on my own. But having these exercises and prompts and encouragement and love and support has been so important for me. And, you know, it is a difficult time in general, you know, in the world. And it’s a difficult time for me personally. And so I am super grateful for that right now.
Christine Gautreaux 36:11
I love that women connected and wisdom right here in action.
Shannon M. 36:17
We literally,
Cynthia Phelps 36:18
we do it we really did. We don’t just write the books we do it.
Christine Gautreaux 36:23
Right. We practice what we preach. That is for everybody on this call that is for sure. So welcome, Melody welcome. You wrote your chapter, you want to tell folks what you wrote your chapter on and what your latest wellness practice is?
Melody LeBaron 36:36
Sure. So my chapter is on environmental wellness, specifically the home and the workplace. And I earlier this summer, I went on pilgrimage to two of the lands of my ancestry Scotland and France. And one of the biggest pieces of medicine one of the biggest learnings that I brought home from Iona, the island that Hebridean island off the west coast of Scotland and the south of France, is to partner with beauty. And not just you know, sometimes those of us in Western culture, when we move into a home, I always say it’s like taking a new lover, you have to learn where the light switches are in the dark. You have to get used to things. And there are reasons good reasons you fell in love with the space and wanted to move there. It’s only after you move in that you’re like, I didn’t notice that thing. So there’s I think there’s a lot in common. And you know, I believe we’re all in relationship with the land on which we live in with the homes in which we live in the spaces in which we work. But most of us once we, you know, maybe we change the wall colors or the floorings and we put out our furniture, and we hang our art, and it looks acceptable to us. We’re like, you know, we’re done. That’s it. And for me to come back from some of the most beautiful beautiful lands, which I I didn’t go for the reasons many people go to France. I didn’t go to Iona to see the restored Abbey, although it was beautiful. I went to be with the land. And just noticing those tiny bunches of orchids along every path. In one place on Iona and noticing the sunlight glinting off the lake on Iona just refreshed in me, not just my need to create beauty in my work space and in my home, but my need to partner with it to notice it to appreciate it. I came home convinced that out of all creation, every everything that’s created have has a purpose and I came home convinced that the purpose for human beings is to appreciate beauty and to go into a state of awe. And I want everyone to have that in their own home and workspace.
Christine Gautreaux 39:42
Hmm thank you for sharing Melanie that’s beautiful. Speaking of beauty Shannon IV just snuck into our snuck into our green room. Hello Shannon IV Hey Shannon. And her chapter in the book is about Making a life worth fighting for, and creating beauty in your work and your life. You want to say, hey, Shannon, and what you’re up to, and we were just all going around talking about our latest wellness practices, what’s keeping us what’s keeping us afloat in these times?
Shannon Ivey 40:17
Oh, well, hey, y’all. I apologize for being a little bit late. But I was coaching a story for an upcoming story slam in my town, and I am, I’m filled up. I’m just filled to the brim with excitement, both for the storyteller and for the audience. So that’s where I was, but what’s keeping me afloat? Y’all really want to know, wild dancing. I am. Like shake it like your mama. Like my mom’s not watching this because flailing might have been is a little I felt a little bit on Sunday, like maybe Elaine from Seinfeld. But I just when times around me are ridiculous. I have to meet it with my own level of ridiculous, which means while dancing, so that is what made me feel very, very happy.
Sacil Armstrong 41:15
So
Christine Gautreaux 41:15
I love that it’s Alice Walker that says in her book hard times require furious dancing.
Shannon M. 41:21
I was just talking about that yesterday. Yeah, yep. And I’m so excited for all of our authors. Melissa said earlier how beautifully the stories weave together. And I know we’re gonna have a lot of events. We have a lot of stuff coming for everybody. But I want you ladies to know how excited I am that. If I would have written a book by myself, I feel like I would have said a lot of the things that you ladies said, right? Like these. These are the messages that I want people to know. But I love that it’s attached to your personal story. So I can relax and laugh and cry and be like, Wow, I can’t believe she made it through that. And yep, I agree with that, too. You know, so I love how you start your chapter Shannon and I love that there’s two Shamans in this book. I’m not gonna lie. So I’m excited for you guys. But I’m excited for the Shannon’s.
Christine Gautreaux 42:10
Especially excited, right? Yes, yeah. Well, I have a question for our authors. Because you know, I know each of y’all are incredibly busy with your businesses, your lives, your purpose driven mission and things that you’re putting out there in the world. How many of y’all saw the cover? When it came by an email? Did you see the cover? We got a couple of folks who did a couple of folks who didn’t. All right, Sharon, I’m gonna share the copy of the cover. And then our lizard and then Shannon, you want to describe it for our listeners who are not watching who are listening? Yes. I am so excited about this cover. I mean to
Shannon M. 42:52
me, too. So I want to give a moment for the authors to soak it in. And for our listeners who are not able to see it right now. So we have a beautiful cover. Right the top of it, the majority of it, let’s say three fourths of the page is going to be a beautiful cream color. Flowers coming down from both the left and the right hand of the top of the cover. And then in the middle, we have our woman connected and wisdom logo, that’s going to be a W with the beautiful flower on the left with our infinity sign because we are infinitely wise and infinitely well, right, with the stories rooted in the eight dimensions of wellness, and stories and resources. And then we have all of our beautiful 18 authors listed to make sure that you know who all contributed to it. On the back we have a quote and some information about who we are. And if you’ve been listening to the podcast, of course, you know, and we’re super excited as well. Not only about the women connected in wisdom logo that we’re rolling out, but the connecting was impressed because this won’t be the first book right. So right now we have 18 authors, more stories, more resources to get connected into. Ah,
Christine Gautreaux 44:00
can we just like yeah, come on, give some love for that. Because as much as I love y’all, I have to tell you all these 18 names on this cover. I cannot tell y’all how many times Shannon and I went back forth with the publisher about No, no, no, that’s not right. No, that’s not right. And one of our authors will leave this for a surprise because she’s not on here yet. Didn’t named an official name change in the middle of this book. So her new name is being unveiled with this book on the 27th Yeah, yes. Yeah, it’s all gonna be funny once it works. Yes. So to give our listeners their heads up. This book is going to be available for purchase on Tuesday, September 27, which is y’all two and a half weeks away. So that’s why we wanted to come on today to start talking about it to get started getting pumped about it. We it’s going to be available on Amazon and all major retailers. We are going to try to go for the distinguished title of Amazon bestsellers. So we’re hoping all our fans and our listeners will jump on on that Tuesday the 27th. And trust us, we will remind you on social media, that that’s the day you don’t have to worry about it, we have a plan to remind you, and we hope you’ll join join. Join us by jumping on and buying the Kindle version or buying the paperback version and, and seeing what these amazing, incredible women have to say, like y’all, they’re brilliant. Like they have wisdom, they have resources. As y’all know, on the podcast, we always like our guest to to give practical tips and knowledge like you can read this and like have something to do like it’s a there’s some how to win it. And I love that because I’m a doer. So I like to be inspired. And I like to have something let me do something. Because that helps me make sense of the world. So yeah.
Shannon M. 45:59
And I mean, I love it. And I love it also because of the collaboration, right? That’s what we’re about competition over collaboration. And as women, there’s
Christine Gautreaux 46:08
that collaboration over competition,
Shannon M. 46:11
without the community, okay, get all twisted, backwards and upside down. So, yes, collaboration over competition, right? Especially as ladies, a lot of times, we’re told what to do a lot. And we give a lot of orders. But it’s not always broken down into this is actually, again, like I said earlier how you do it. So that’s what I’m most excited about. We’re not up here like, well, Shannon says what she said, That’s what I said. And that’s it, it’s let me show you how to use your voice, you know, let me show you and take you alongside me and hold the door open for the ladies behind us so that we can genuinely be well because that’s what we see, you know, the backlash sometimes of people who may not be able to see the vision, we haven’t always been healthy. And that’s the goal and what we’re working towards. So a lot of times, I get guys who were like, Well, is it only ladies, and even though we uplift, female voices, you know, the advice and the resources are still for everybody. So if you want to come learn how to dance through grief, it’ll help you you know, so I’m looking forward to all the stories of who it touches.
Christine Gautreaux 47:10
Well, we know we have male listeners, we’ve got low Aika and Joe and Pharaoh like, we’ve got folks who listen and and we’re all about lifting women’s voices that because often they are suppressed. So we want to lift that up. Well, y’all I’m paying attention to time. So I think we go around one more time and give last words just for today. Not last words for forever. But our give our authors a chance to say one or anything else you want to say about the book or about wellness or what what do you got for us? Oh, you want to do it in the form of wisdom and action? Shannon?
Shannon M. 47:49
We could we can set it up. Okay, so again, you ladies have been on the show. So you know each week usually is the dimension that we’re talking about. Since it’s all eight, you can pick a dimension, because we asked you what are you doing intentionally while we’re writing this book to take care of yourself, right? Or if you want, you can tailor it to your to your chapter, I’m talking about physical wellness. So maybe that’ll be what my hashtag isn’t. But I’ll let you ladies go first. And what are you actively doing to support yourself before we become published authors? Well, some of us are, but let’s say again or for the first time. Who wants to go first? Or do you want me to go first? I’ll go first. If you ladies need me to.
Christine Gautreaux 48:32
You go first and then pass it to somebody.
Shannon M. 48:34
Okay. Okay, so I have I have three, you know, I like to break the rules. Okay, there’s a special episode, we’re wrapping season nine. I’ll give you ladies my three. I like hashtag disrupting the mold. It’s gonna look a little different, right as we do this. Hashtag keep moving. I love that staying fluid and making sure I’m letting go of the tension and being present. And partner in beauty. I love that because shallow glow was part of the beauty industry but genuinely in life. That’s something I’ve been thinking about, okay, these things are going on. But did you look for the good as well? What about the beauty in the situation? So those are my three.
Melody LeBaron 49:12
So thank you, Shannon, for that. For those ideas. And one thing I have to, I’m so excited about I’ve been doing it for nine months, and I’m finally starting to see a result. So I do a lot of work and my expertise is working with the body of the land on which we live and the body of the homes and the workspaces. I’m really an expert at that. I’m not such an expert when it comes to my own body. And I had some physical structural problems last year. And my physical therapist recommended. I work out with a trainer, an experienced trainer and I’ve been working out starting with once a week and moving to twice a week in January. And then three times a week in May. And I am just now starting to feel so much joy in movement in physically that I’m stronger that I can carry things on my pilgrimage, I only had carry on luggage, and I could, I could manage it myself and get it into the overhead bin myself. I am so proud of being 67 years old and being fitter than probably I’ve ever been in my life. So that’s my resilience practice.
Shannon M. 50:36
That’s huge. That’s huge. I love that hashtag resilience practice. And the carry on is not to be minimized the last carry on I said, I’m not doing this. I need some wheels, man, I need wheels.
Melody LeBaron 50:48
Right? Especially when I’m coming home with lots of rocks and
Shannon M. 50:56
yes, environmental wellness for you. Right, who’s next? Ladies? What’s your wisdom in action? Go
Shannon Ivey 51:09
as a as a coach, I work with mindset. Right? And and the stories that I tell myself. And so sometimes I imagine a ceiling, or a barrier that were one doesn’t exist. So I began to sort of play with my own thoughts and like, what if that’s all theater thing? What if? What if this book goes further than I ever thought? What if I created a larger group? What if I made new friends? What if I have new collaborations and connections? I just am allowing myself to have fun with what ifs and not just be worried about what else? I’m great at that already. So I’m finding that joy in the what if and having a wedding.
Christine Gautreaux 51:59
I love that. Love that so much of what if party
Shannon M. 52:04
thinks they do continue to exceed expectations. If you look forward. And welcome Cecile to I know we’re wrapping up but we’re doing our wisdom and action. So you know when it gets to your turn, whether it’s on your dimension that you’re speaking on in the book or something that you’re doing for any of the eight since it is the season nine wrap.
Sacil Armstrong 52:24
All right, thank you.
Christine Gautreaux 52:26
I think Cynthia had her was given us a wave that she was ready.
Cynthia Phelps 52:31
Yeah, one of the things that I have been working on her myself is processing some grief. And in that I have really been thinking about how to hold myself you know, hold my body and to hold the pain the feet, those feelings and those emotions in a very gentle and loving way. And so I don’t know how you want to hashtag that Shannon but
Shannon M. 53:05
holding myself gently. Oh, I love it. I love hashtag gently holding grief, something like that.
Christine Gautreaux 53:12
Beautiful. I wanted to lift up Sheila’s on the in the chat since she was having trouble with her sound. She says a full and deeply relaxing night’s sleep every night. The day goes much better when I do that. Yes, yes. Yes. So I’m gonna hashtag that one get more sleep
Shannon M. 53:33
definitely more sleep with the two hours or some odd change that is from last night. Oh, well, who’s next? Who hasn’t gone? Melissa. You ready?
Dr. Melissa Bird 53:44
Yeah, I am. So I’ve been thinking a lot about just as we’ve been facing all these challenges with purchasing property to do such regenerative and sustainable work and, and that even though intense challenges come our way, when we really breathe in and allow them to happen. And we don’t try and hold it or clench on to the challenge. It allows us to not just flow through the process of experiencing what we’re going through. But it gives us the opportunity to get out of our own way and so being kind to ourselves is the way that we can do that. So you know it’s it’s not my fault keep people don’t understand this vision of regenerative and sustainable connection to the land. But as long as I’m kind of myself and continue in the mission and vision and service of what it is that we’re trying to do. The right person is going to hear the story and the right person is going to say hey, how can I help you make that happen? And I think when we remember that we you know like melody was talking about earlier like we are the land we are intricately woven to the Mother Earth and I put in our chat like we are not separate and above the earth as we have been trained as human beings, we are woven into the fabric of the earth because we are naturally occurring things on this planet. And so it’s we are the land. And we connect to that, then it allows us to engage in the storytelling to uplift the voices of everyone was
Shannon M. 55:29
Sacil I think it’s on you now
Sacil Armstrong 55:30
Okay, I was gonna say, I guess I mean, it’s, it’s my turn. Yeah, well, well, I guess that my wisdom and action kind of is in line with Melissa. I am. I am focusing on letting go. I am somebody who like pushes all the time and is always trying to make things happen. And what I’ve been working on lately is letting go and letting things happen, just allowing things to happen. And Christine reminds me of this all the time, because like I said, my nature is to push and to try to make things happen. And so even even with my social justice activism, I am shifting my thinking from, I’ve got to change the world to I’m just going to invite people to help me change the world because I’m doing my part. And I’m just gonna invite people to come along, and the people who need to show up will. And it’s the same thing with, you know, the things that have happened in my personal life. I’m really trying to let go of making it happen and just like, breathe, and let it happen, however it comes.
Shannon M. 56:30
Yes, yes, Luca says, I’m so excited for each of you. Thank you so much. And I hear what you ladies are saying, I’ve been working on it as well, you know, sometimes we talk about letting go. And it’s the I feel like sometimes the thought is, well, that means I don’t do anything. No, you’re holding on to what you have control of, and letting go of everything else. And that’s the majority of what I found would make me upset, you know, so instead of that, invite the challenge, okay, this is somewhere where I can grow, I have the opportunity to learn something. And nine times out of 10, the majority of this situation will just pass you by you’ll have the lesson and it’ll be good. You know, I saw this quote was talking about mud on a shirt, and instead of smearing it and trying to wipe it off, you’re mad because your shirt is messed up, just let it dry, let it fall off. You didn’t have to do anything. So that’s what it makes me think about.
Christine Gautreaux 57:22
Y’all such wisdom in this room. Such wisdom, right, and this is just a third of our authors. Thank you so much for showing up for being who you are in your beautiful authentic selves and your work in the world. And we are so grateful to be connected and this good stuff.
Shannon M. 57:48
Yes. Thank you for sharing your stories with us. I’m so excited to be a published author for the first time with all of you ladies beside me. really dope experience and a really exciting story to be able to tell
Christine Gautreaux 58:00
if folks are just joining us, y’all the women connected in wisdom book comes out Tuesday, September 27, we will remind you we will connect you to all the 18 authors. So be following our social media page in just know you’re going to be introduced to these amazing human beings who are just kicking butt in the world and doing it with love and laughter and joy. And I can’t wait for you to get connected to each of them.
Shannon M. 58:34
Yes, yes. Okay. What else? Christine? Is there anything else we should go over before we wrap season nine.
Christine Gautreaux 58:42
I think we’re gonna wrap it and I think we’re gonna wrap it together instead of popping everybody back in the green room. So, yeah, everybody do a little happy dance on the screen if you’re watching us because we do believe in being embodied and in movement. We are here the month right.
Shannon M. 59:04
Okay, okay. Thank you ladies so much for again, sharing your stories for your time. Thank you for our listeners for being here from episode one. All the way to 83 for nine seasons and for everything we have coming for you. We’ll see you back live for five next week. In the meantime, don’t forget be well
Christine Gautreaux 59:22
be wise and be whole
Satimara 59:34
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.
