Show notes –
Join Shannon & Christine as they chat about Physical Wellness with special guest Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith.
Stillpoint – https://www.amazon.com/Stillpoint-Self-Care-Playbook-Caregivers-Breathe/dp/1732370400
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Free Assessment – RestQuiz.com
A Sacred Rest Quest – Dr. Dalton-Smith – I Choose My Best Life
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.
Christine Gautreaux 0:21
Hey, y’all. 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. How do we do this? Right? We like to bring in experts, especially when we’re not good at it.
Shannon M. 0:56
What would you do you call a friend I mean, call a friend call to friends. And let’s figure it out.
Christine Gautreaux 1:02
Today is definitely a phone or friend day after the last couple of launches we’ve had it is like, okay,
Shannon M. 1:09
it’s okay, so we talked about it. Let’s take a second, right, since we’re all well we come for so this year, I have started if one salary position, right, that was January Top Golf, went to another salary position went to pop it out, right, then I did get your manager training that’s outside of learning the second business and the third business and launching the book, rebranding and working with SCAD and the two classes, right. And now we’re launching the community. So I cannot wait. So when
Christine Gautreaux 1:40
you forgot the little thing of the conference for for the International Conference, okay.
Shannon M. 1:46
So it’s like launch and launch. And we’re just, we’re in we’re running in this a marathon. You know, I’m really excited about talking about different ways to rest today when we talk about our physical wellness. So let me go to the definition so we can jump into our conversation. For physical wellness, it is the ability to maintain a quality of life that allows you to thrive in your daily activities without undue fatigue, or physical stress. physical wellness recognizes that our daily choices, habits and behaviors have an impact on our overall health, well being and quality of life. Oh, yeah.
Christine Gautreaux 2:26
That our daily choices, right. I was thinking about that. And I look forward to having this conversation with our guests in just a minute. But I was thinking about that, because I caught myself at what was I saying to my family, it was something about the busiest week I’ve had are some of the you know, because I mean, part of that is really true. We’ve got this conference, this is going on. And then Facebook of all things was what popped up to keep me honest, because this month is always a busy month. I don’t know how it is for other people’s schedules. But like three years ago, I was speaking at the parliament of world religions, and I was in Ontario, Ontario, Canada. And all those pictures popped up, right? And it was back to back with another. And I was like, oh, yeah, I’ve been keeping the schedule like, Hmm, this may not be like a one off thing I may need to reevaluate the level of activity that’s been happening for a couple of years now. So I think it’s very ironic that we’re talking about sacred rest today. I mean, we scheduled it this way. But we knew coming off this conference coming off this book launch, that we needed to talk about our risk schedule, because we’ve been burning the candle a little bit at both ends.
Shannon M. 3:49
Yeah, we have. And it’s interesting, because every day I’m like, do I go to sleep right now? Or do I do something? Write the email, or do I hear projections in the schedule estate get organized over here? Or this over here? You know, but no, like there is. And that’s why I’m glad that we’ve been working on the time management with the money management, right? Because if all of that is not as organized as possible, it gets chaotic. And then it starts going over to our physical wellness, because we’re holding that physical stress of what should be what I should have done when really like we talked about what Laurel and stark at the conference again, three and a half hours a day is just beauty labor and taking care of the household stuff, cooking organizing stuff, or yeah, all the unpaid stuff. So that other stuff was realistic to get done and then having grace on where we’re at with the capacity with whatever context we have to keep in consideration for that day. You know, yeah,
Christine Gautreaux 4:48
well, I am definitely all transparency to our listeners, folks that are listening live or listening on the repeat. It’s very ironic to me and funny that I woke up with a little insomnia this morning at about 4:30am. So we’re coming into the show of sacred rest with me being lack of sleep. But I would love to pull up our expert if you’re ready shaving because I need all the help I can get with this. Yes,
Shannon M. 5:14
I need help, too. It’s been very busy. I’m super excited to know more. So I can be intentional about how we do all this. I love
Christine Gautreaux 5:22
it. How do we do it? So Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith is a board certified internal medicine physician, speaker and award winning author. She is an international well being thought leader featured in numerous media outlets, including prevention, MSNBC Women’s Day Fox, Fast Company Psychology Today, Inc, CNN health and ted.com. She is the author of numerous books, including her best seller sacred rest, recover your life, renew your energy, restore your sanity, including insight on the seven types of risks needed to optimize your productivity, increase your overall happiness, overcome burnout, and live your best life. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited about this. Over 250,000 people have discovered their personal rest deficits using her free assessment at rest. quiz.com we’re gonna put that in our show notes too. And you can learn more about Dr. Saundra at Dr. Dalton smith.com. And you’ll know we’ll put all that in our show notes so you can connect. Here we go, y’all.
Shannon M. 6:31
Welcome to the show. Welcome. Hi. How are you? I’m doing good. I’m so excited to talk to you about the seven different types of risks.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 6:45
Yeah, we’re doing this well.
Christine Gautreaux 6:48
I, you heard me say I’m a little bit sleep deprived. I’m hearing an echo y’all, so I’m not sure. And we check that y’all we check that soundcheck before. But you heard me say I’m sleep deprived, which is not a normal state that I’m in. But I know it’s normal for a lot of Americans and probably other folks all over the world. So I have a couple of questions to start with. First of all, where did the idea in the book about sacred rests come from?
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 7:25
Well, but initially change really from me, burning out. I had I had in my life when I completely burned out after about 1010 years, and I had my children, they renew renewed warrants, and so on and why it’s two years old. And what I figured out a way for me to be able to continue with them my medical practice within the career that I love, and still be able to function properly.
Christine Gautreaux 8:05
And we often have guests on the show that talk about this you hear in our intro when we talk about like how do we do it, especially as women, which a lot of women are still the household managers, they’re the main caregivers, there, a lot of women are sandwiched in between children and parents. And if they’re not, they’re taking care of communities and they’re activist or they’re doing all of that, right. So I love this topic of how do we do it? And so it sounds to me like your answer is are the seven types of rest.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 8:37
That is correct. For myself, what I’ve noticed is that I personally, when I was going through this process of burnout, I had to figure out how am I going to be able to continue in the job that I love because I love medicine, and still be able to do it effectively with and without having to go on a vacation every time I know that I’m gonna get tired without having to carve out large periods of time. And so really seven types of Ras was looking at how do I restore myself throughout the day throughout the week? What are those integrative restorative practices that I can use? And I think for most of us, when you say you’re tired, you just think, Oh, if I get enough sleep, then I should wake up feeling refreshed. But what happens when you get eight hours, and you wake up still exhausted? That’s what I had to figure out for myself. How do I remain energized without taking vacations all the time without having to quit my job. And the seven types include things like physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, sensory and creative.
Christine Gautreaux 9:45
Where do we know those from right? They go right in alignment with the eight dimensions of wellness. I love that. Will you say more? Me or Shannon? You Oh, Okay.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 10:00
With those seven different types, I think what I had to really help myself figure out first before then I started teaching other people was specifically how do I determine what kind of tired? Because saying that you’re fatigued is really insufficient as a physician, if someone comes to me and say, Hey, Doc, I heard, what do I do with that I don’t even know where to begin to look what what treatments to begin to offer needs. Specific to direct the care, I think to self care, we just say, Hey, I’m tired. But we don’t actually identify what’s tired. And that’s really well how the seven types of risks of help I feel most people, it gave them vocabulary to identify where their fatigue is, and then helps them to be able to be more intentional and specific, and the time of restorative activities that they use for their, for their, for themselves.
Shannon M. 10:55
And that was my favorite thing about the article that I saw, like dead, right? Because sometimes I’ll come home. And even if I’ve worked 1516 hours that day, after how much sleep, I might not want to go right to sleep, I might want to stay read something or watch something to not have to actively use my analytical side of my brand. I can just enjoy being entertained, right? And I said, why is that? I knew that was true. But how can I be so tired but still feel more rested? With less sleep? If I spent my time a certain way? Would you mind going through what the seven different types of risks are?
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 11:33
Yeah. So physical risk, specifically deals with what we most often think about our physical body. So it has two components, it has an active component, which includes things like stretching and yoga and massage therapy and leisure walks, those things that actually help with the circulation and the lymphatics of the body, then it also includes past physical rest, which are things like sleeping and napping. So it’s those things that you know, that you really don’t have a whole lot of control over, but are the physical component of rest. And I think what’s important to understand is that, if you have a any type of breath deficit, any of these seven types of risks, they can ultimately affect your ability to get high quality sleep. Because as you know, as we go into things like mental rest deficits, and social rest deficits, those things can interfere with your ability to actually be able to sleep. So I’ll just ask mental rest deficits next. Because for those people who’ve ever laid down at night to go to sleep, and you’re exhausted, but your mind, you’re thinking all the thoughts, you’re processing information, and you’re, you’re ruminating over your to do list for the next day. Those are all signs of a mental rest deficit, your mind is overly active, you’re not able to turn your brain off, so to speak. And so you want to be able to find those activities that help you to do that to be able to kind of close some of those mental taps back up. Some simple ways people do that include things like brain dumping before going to bed, mindfulness type activities, decreasing multitasking, all of those are ways that you can improve that.
Christine Gautreaux 13:17
Thank you, because I was just about to ask that. Because usually I don’t have an issue with it. Except if I’m in a big event, but like this morning, I feel like that’s what woke me up is like I hadn’t done an effective brain dump. And so my brain woke me up, say, Oh, you have to remember this, right? And I was like, Are you kidding me brain, like, I have a rule that if it’s before five o’clock, it really should be illegal to be awake, like, Rome personal rule, but I’m like, okay, 5am or later, you’re okay. But if I get woken up before five, I’m not a huge fan. So I think what you’re describing is what happened to me this morning at approximately 4:30am my brain went.
Shannon M. 13:59
So if you know, we talk about the wisdom in action, I’m sorry to cut you off if you want to. Okay, it makes me think maybe it might not be something that you need all the time. All right. But if you’re traveling or you have a big event, and you’re maybe if you’re at a conference, if we’re physically there, maybe that’s when you need to have something by the bed to write it down, or just take time to write it down before you go to sleep that makes a lot of sense.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 14:25
And your writing really vary based on what’s going on in your specific life and, and how you’re processing information. Because there are going to be time periods when you are are kind of ruminating over thoughts more than others. Anytime that you’re in anything new. If you’re if you’re a thinker, someone who tends to overthink things, new situations, complicated situations when problems arise. So when you’re trying to branch out or being creative, all of those are going to activate the brain to be more productive and processing. And so when you know that that As the state that you’re in within your business, then it is helpful to have notepads by the bedside or anywhere. So that you can quickly dump information and not require your brain to continue to hold on to it. But
Christine Gautreaux 15:12
I love that idea. And I’m just going to state the obvious here. So other people don’t make the same mistake I did. So I often use my phone to do notes. But I can’t do that when I’m doing a brain dump either at night or in the morning, because then it activates my brain because of seeing the screen. So I learned that the hard way. Like cat, don’t do that. Don’t turn on your phone to write it down. That says, really, really go old school with a notepad and notebook because otherwise my little brain goes.
Shannon M. 15:47
I think you have a big brain.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 15:55
Still five? Yeah, so one that really is syncing, rewrap and dealing with how we use our senses. And as you mentioned, when you open up your phone, that’s one way that you increase your sensory input. And there’s so many other ways, we really just have to be mindful of our sensory environments in places where we spend most of our time. What are the background noises? What are the lights? What you know, what are the things that we’re experiencing within our environment, and those things have an effect on us more than just even our ability to sleep, or even our personalities. Because if you become sensory overwhelmed, most of us respond to sensory overload syndromes with either irritation, agitation, rage or anger. And so if you find that you tend to be very irritable at the end of the day, and you work in a place that maybe you’re hearing the elevator go off all day long, and you think you’re ignoring it, you think, you know, your subconscious has blocked it out, your subconscious can only block it out by being actively engaged in the process of filtering it. So be aware of all of that sensory input, because it does have an effect on you. Well, I
Christine Gautreaux 17:03
also have a curiosity for people that are identify as neurodivergent. And like folks with ADHD and autism, they do you address that in the book about, cuz to me that would be additional sensory rest might be needed.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 17:21
His book is used by a lot of therapists and people that are specifically managing people with ADHD. And I don’t specifically go through that in the book, I focus, I stay in my lane, I focus on the seven types of rest and the resource that I did. But I think a lot of people with stroke relate the information because it does apply to so many different situations from therapists using it with their mental health patients to teachers using it with their students. I think the big part of that is for them to to understand how different things are affecting their rest from from my standpoint, that’s the part that I’ve tried to try to help people contribute in that area.
Shannon M. 18:04
Love that. Okay, so we talked about sensory rest, right, what’s the next was the fourth one,
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 18:09
the fourth is creative. And so someone who is using creative energy in any way, whether that is problem solving, whether that’s innovation, whether that’s brainstorming, whether that’s thinking outside of the box, researching, if you’re if you’re an author, and you’re writing words, if you’re a musician, and you’re coming up with music, if you’re a speaker, and you’re crafting coffee, if you’re an entrepreneur, you’re niching. All of those are signs of creativity being used. And so what we found is that most people, although they use an excessive amount of creative energy, are not as intentional in getting creative, they don’t understand that that’s a part of them, that can be depleted. And so because it’s a place that can be depleted, it can result in a rest deficit. And so a lot of people are saying, I’m so tired, and they’re trying to get you know, 789 10 hours of sleep, but really the type of tired, they are creative the time. And so the way we restore creative rest is by allowing ourselves to appreciate beauty in whatever form that is. Whether it’s natural beauty, like like, you know, being out on a date and nature and going to the park or the beach or the ocean, or, you know, looking at flowers and trees, or if it’s manmade beauty, like listening to music or art or seeing a play or dance. All of those things inspire they awaken our creative thinking process and allow us to kind of have that all like child that childlike awe and wonder and fill us back up creatively. And we have to understand that if we’re pouring out creatively, there has to be times when we allow ourselves to just appreciate what has already been created. And just to put a differentiation here, this is not the same as taking an art class or pottery class with your girlfriends. That’s actually creative work. You’re putting a demand on your own creativity during those times. You’re getting social rest, because you’re out with your girls and you’re having fun, but you’re not getting creative. Creative rest is when you appreciate what has already been created. Go to an art museum, you’re looking at what’s already been done. That’s more of what I’m referring to.
Christine Gautreaux 20:16
That’s when I go off the grid. Like it makes perfect sense to me. So when I need creative rest, I go to the woods, I go to nature, I take my, I’ll take my camera out not to create anything, but just to capture like the flowers or the mountains, or I’ll go to the waterfalls, you know, so what you’re saying makes Oh, my body is just like, yes. And it’s overdue. Yeah.
Shannon M. 20:41
And it reminds me of when I was talking about listening to audiobooks and stuff, right. At first, I was against audiobooks because I love physical books. But I said, You know what, if CEOs read a certain amount of books a year, I need to make sure that I’m getting that massive information. If I don’t have the time to physically read it. I’ll listen to it. But then I realized that you can only listen to so much. And you have to have that period of application, right? So it can’t just be consumed, consumed. consumed. Do you figure out it’s like, Listen, I need to watch TV for a second and have somebody else tell me what they did. You know, what’s the what’s the mystery over here that I can find out without having to figure it out? myself?
Christine Gautreaux 21:19
You know what this solves? This is the answer to a question I’ve had. So Dr. Dalton Smith, we’ve talked about this on the show before but one of my go to, and I didn’t realize it was my go to rest, but is reality TV shows about creativity. So like the cooking show, or the glassblowing show, or even the makeup artist show, but it’s exactly what you’re talking about. It’s creative rest, because I’m not creating but I’m watching somebody else create, and, and fulfill their dreams. And that’s so satisfying to me. And that has been my go to throughout the whole pandemic. So that’s fascinating.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 22:00
Yeah, so you’re appreciating the beauty that someone else is creating. And that’s at the very heart of that. Yeah, two other types of friends that we haven’t discussed yet are emotional. And I mentioned, social, I discussed those typically together, because they both do deal with people. Social risk, specifically is evaluating how different people pull on your energy. So the majority of people you spend time with are negatively pulling from your social energy, your kids, your spouse, your co workers, your clients, they’re all needing things from you. So then you have to evaluate who are the people in your life who don’t need anything from you? And then how regular do you actually make room space in your life to enjoy those people? Because that’s where we get social rest. When there’s no demands on us socially, we’re just enjoying someone’s presence, and having that back and forth of just being in their company. Now emotional rest, on the other hand, deals with having the ability and the freedom and the Liberty really, to express yourself and what you’re feeling so what you know, your emotions, your what you’re going through within that day or that week, you know, what authentically Are you experiencing, and being able to just be very real, raw and authentic about that without having to feel as if you have to make someone else digest your feelings a little bit easier. I think too often, we try to put makeup on our on our emotions, so that it’s easier for other people to bear. And there needs to be at least someone in your life where you can just say it like it is whether that’s a therapist, a counselor, a trusted friend, you get to pick who your emotional rest person is. Or if you have more than one who those people are. But you need to be, you need to understand that that person needs to have a very high level of respect for you. And they’re not going to judge you in that process. Or that come back.
Christine Gautreaux 23:58
Huh, I love that. I love that differentiation. And I love what you’re saying. Because right when you were talking about social and emotional rest, two or three people popped up in my head. And it was probably about three years ago or four years ago, that I said, I want healthy, reciprocal friendships. And those are two of the people that came into my life or that our friendships deepened. And what I’m recognizing as you’re talking is that because they give me social and emotional rest, like they are people I can go for a walk with. And yeah, I love that.
Shannon M. 24:37
And I was thinking about this. That role. One of the I think now he’s a district manager or some high level manager at Top Golf now. And I went out to South Carolina to train at the beginning of the year like I was talking about, and he gave me a list of books I always ask that like, what are books that you like to do? One of them was talking about not expecting anything bad, right like giving this person if Christina and I are partners, me being the best partner that I can supporting her the best the bring the resources at a healthy place, right? And she doesn’t have to do anything back. It’s not about I did this for you, you do this for me. And even though I tried to operate like that, sometimes you think you or you might, let’s say, be surprised when a situation goes a certain way, if you’re supporting somebody to a certain extent, and then they don’t show up for you, or they don’t show up for themselves to finish something. Does that make sense? So you’re like, Well, I did this, why did this person not do that? Well, instead of that, let’s have realistic expectations. And if you do what you do, because that’s your purpose, and your passion, then somebody can really show you who they are. And then you can find out where your emotional rest really is, right? When we have these inauthentic relationships, that people are faking their support or faking how they feel, or you’re not authentic about what you need, then we don’t really know where we are. And then when stuff really happens, and you need some ID or something happens, or now it’s COVID. In the work environment is shifting, how do we address it. So that’s the next part that I want to get to, we got to all seven of the types of rest, right?
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 26:11
The spiritual rest, for the most part deals with really how we help the needy each one of us has for purpose and belonging and love, whether we experienced that through a faith based situation, or we experienced that through different causes and communities that we’re a part of every person needs to find kind of that connectivity, where they’re able to, to really feel connected to humanity as a whole.
Shannon M. 26:39
Yeah. And it’s so important, because when I think about things that frustrated me, I am able to stay centered, and operating from a place of love, because that’s the type of person that I want to be as an individual, right? So that’s a place that I’m able to come from, but not because America has loved black women so much, right? Because I know, God loves me, he validates me, and then I can operate in the world outside of that energy. And we work a lot, right. We talked about our work schedules. That’s what we’re talking about when we’re launching stuff when we’re working on our business, when we’re trying to support our community, how do we still rest? I know that you also help teams with this, right? So when it comes to a team aspect, what is the biggest challenge that you usually see them deal with? And how do you help them with that?
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 27:25
Now I’m sorry, did you say teams or teams?
Shannon M. 27:28
Teams? Team? Yes.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 27:31
Okay. Because, because I also have worked with teams. So both of those are very near and dear to my heart. So with teams, and specifically, what I’m noticing is that as a leader of a team, you have to be consciously aware of the rest deficits within your within your group. And so if you’re looking at, you know, sometimes we’re trying to get blood from a turnip, so to speak, we’re trying to get our teams to be more productive, more creative, or whatever. And you’re not really recognizing that they have not been restored in a way to be able to produce at the level you’re asking them to produce. Most of us are producing out of our emptiness, if we’re, if we’re just honest, you know, we have a level of gifting and talent and grit that just makes us produce. And so we can produce even when we are completely burned out. And so over 67% of the population is burned out, yet stuff is still getting done. What we have to understand is, once we help people actually understand that rest is not simply about sleeping, or napping, or going on vacation or quitting their jobs and changing careers and all these other things, that is really about restoring the energy you have, so that you’re actually able to give from your place of fullness. So that when you do get to work or you do go or do your own company, whatever it is you’re doing. You’re not always giving from your emptiness, but you’re giving from a place where you actually feel restored, energized and the best version of yourself. Because then you’re you produce that not only a higher capacity, but the work you produce is actually of a greater quality. You actually bring more to the world and more to your work and more to everything that you care about your family, your your health, every other aspect of your life improves, and not because you’re doing more is because you’re actually able to bring more of yourself to what you’re doing.
Christine Gautreaux 29:22
I love that so much. I think about our wellness practices, right? One of my wellness practices when I’m on it, and in the flow is I get up and I greet the sun, and I do a walking meditation and I’m outside so I’m connecting with nature in the sun. And sometimes I negotiate with myself, Oh, you need more sleep or you need and it’s very fascinating because I’ve been doing this for years. And actually that hour for myself in nature and doing my wellness practices feeds me more than the extra hour of sleep does and So it goes right in line with what you’re talking about, like finding out where are we restored? What, what brings that restoration in? So I have a question for you. And I know we’re gonna circle back around. I just did your quiz online, by the way, because I couldn’t I couldn’t help myself. And I can’t wait for the results. There are two questions I have for you. So one question on the quiz was related to how we feel about the news and things I I’m curious about what that’s attached to, especially as we have this, the big midterms coming up in a week, which everybody if you haven’t early voted, we need you to early vote. And okay, so did I lose the second question? Let’s just start with that first question. 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. Shayna, 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. 31:10
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 in 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 who have 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.
Christine Gautreaux 32:22
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. 32:32
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 32:42
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. Saundra Dalton Smith 33:08
Yeah, well, I can kind of answer for all the questions because all the questions are interconnected in a way that you will never figure out what goes to one. Okay. And that’s it. That’s purposeful, because some of them are a little bit more self explanatory, just because, like it’s hard to camouflage the physical and right. You know, it’s like, does your body hurt? Does it not hurt? Oh, some of those are harder to camouflage. But quite a few of them are suddenly interconnected in the algorithm. But just specifically with news, you know, if you think about news, or even news feeds, like social media and news feeds, it’s not a social aspect. There’s also the emotional aspect. Because depending on the news you’re listening to, you can actually have an effect on you emotionally. How you how you feel, whether you’re anxious, whether you’re, whether you’re happy whether you’re sad. So all of those are quite interconnected.
Christine Gautreaux 33:59
Oh, I so agree with you. I’m about to head home to see my folks in a couple of days. And it’s one of the first things I always talk to my dad about, because he wakes up in the morning and turns on the news, and has it on like just constant and I’m like, Dad, and then he talks about like, he’s worried or he’s anxious. And I’m like, Yeah, turn that off. Because even if you’re not thinking that it’s coming in, it’s just coming in, like I know, within 10 minutes, it’s coming in.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 34:28
And the problem is if depending on your dad’s just innate personality, if he happens to be someone who molds over information in their head, he’s a processor. And so things just bounce off. You know, they actually go in and then middle of the night his brains got to thinking all of these thoughts. Then what ends up happening is not only are you pulled in mental rest deficits, now you have a sip, emotional as well, and potentially a sensory run at the TV’s playing 24/7
Christine Gautreaux 34:55
Too loud, right. Oh, wait, that was my judgment. It probably would have been an inside thought. But okay. Shannon, what are you thinking about over there when you’re listening to all this?
Shannon M. 35:09
No, it makes sense. You know, and I was I was thinking about I want to take the quiz to as soon as I saw it, I said, Yeah, let’s go ahead and see where we are just like the inner ally quiz. I want to see where my self compassion level is. But it’s interesting. I’m grateful to have that information. I need to sit with it a little bit. You know, I think, again, I think what I need to do is take the quiz and figure out how am I tired? How do I think about it? I think taking the quiz will help me with a lot of that stuff that helped me know how I can apply it.
Christine Gautreaux 35:40
I am curious, Dr. Dalton Smith, what are your wellness practices? Like? What gives you rest? Because you are a doctor, a mom, active in your community? Best Selling Author on doing all this speaking and talking? How do you do it? We’re looking to you.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 36:00
Yeah. And I run a company. So you know, it’s one of those things where what I found for myself is every morning, when I get up, the very first thing that I do is I kind of just do a quick self check. I think self awareness is at the very root of all of it on so I hop out of the bed, it’s like, do I hop out of the bed? Or do I roll over and think oh, God, I don’t have the energy for this today? Because if I do that, then I know somewhere, yes, the day prior, I didn’t restore an area, that’s just it’s still depleted. And so my goal is to always hop out of the bed, well, some level of energy. So when I hop out, I initially start thinking about, you know, what are my plans for that day? Where am I going to be expending my energy? Just going to using for example, but you ladies were just talking about for yourself? Now I’m hopping out of bed and I know this week, you know, I’m focusing on launching a conference or running a conference, what kind of energy am I going to be using to do that? While I’m going to be sitting in front of a screen, so I got a lot of sensory input. So what can I do to downgrade that sensory input in the middle of running a four day conference, I have a conference I do as well, every year. And so some of the things I might do during that week might include blocking out five minutes just to go sit with my eyes closed. So when the attendees having their break, rather than me stressing out and worrying about all the details, I’m gonna go lay on the floor with my eyes closed, I might roll on the foam roller, if I’ve been sitting in the chair for eight hours, I might do jumping jacks, you know, something to get my body moving my mind, if I’m writing, if I’m in the middle of book writing season, and I’m having to be really creative and come up with words and phrases and all of those things, then I make a specific dedicated point to surround myself with creative images. And so my lockscreen I’ll set it to squirrel, all of the waterfalls and colors and streams and oceans, all of these pictures that whenever my computer you know, when I’m pausing, and I’m thinking and my computer goes to his lock screen, it is always a nature setting, because that’s what restores me. And my husband knows when I’m writing, he will buy me flowers. Flowers are my love language of nature is my love language. So he can pick me up and take me somewhere in if I’m writing. But he’ll bring it to me. So he’ll bring flowers and fresh flowers, I’ll specifically block time out to go for a walk, when I’m actively writing, I’ll actually put into the schedule, just go outside, sit on the deck and just look at nothing, or go outside and do a five minute walk around the house. If my stressor is specifically that I’m know I’m draining as I’m going to go into the hospital, whereas that typically for me tends to be more emotional draining, because as an internist, you deal a lot with death. And so I know that’s going to be emotionally draining for me, then I’ll block off time to later on that week to be with my girlfriends who I can actually have that kind of conversation with, I should say to specific girlfriends, where I can have that specific kind of conversation with. And they understand that if I’m sad, or if I’m mourning the loss of a patient, they’re okay with me processing that in front of them. Whereas I can’t process that in front of the patient’s family. Or, you know, I can’t process that in front of my nurses. Because it’s not appropriate the professionalism of it requires that I keep that in check. But I have to have some people to process that in front of that’s why physician suicides through the roof, most of us are trying to not process it. But we have to have that in place. And so that’s kind of how I go about it. I look at what’s going on that day or that week, and I make sure that I am intentional about getting the restorative practices built into my day.
Christine Gautreaux 39:35
Now it’s just such an affirmation for what we talk about on the show and for how we are doing our best to live our lives. Thank you for that. And I heard you and I want to make sure I heard you right because I like to get really specific especially for myself. You’re checking once a week like you do a check in once a week with your schedule to look at the balance of it.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 39:57
I do it I do a daily weekly and monthly is how I do this, I make sure that I look at my schedule for the entire week because some act some restorative activities you can’t really do every day. Like, I’d love to hang out with my girls every day. But that’s just not realistic. We got kids. Right? I mean, but we can usually fit in at least once a week or a couple of times in a month to do something together, even if it’s virtual, you know, or even if it’s just kind of a kind of a, what do they call it? FaceTime or WhatsApp is what we use to chat. So even if it’s that, and then every day, that morning, when I wake up, I asked, you know, how am I feeling? If I feel depleted? I asked, How did I use energy this, you know, the past couple of days? And what did I not repeat. And then I tried that particular day to make sure that I do something to pour back into whatever that bucket may have been.
Christine Gautreaux 40:49
Hmm. I love that we often talk I can’t tell you how many times we talk on the show about just going outside and putting our feet in the grass, even if it’s for five minutes. And when we were doing the conference last week, we were really intentional about the breaks and told folks, let’s walk away from the computer like, lay on the floor, go outside, go get water, you know, Shannon loves to be like, are we drinking our water? And before I forget, will you tell us about your retreat that you have? Is that something that is it closed? Or is it something open?
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 41:24
We do our retreat every we do a couple of retreats every year, I do a virtual one that’s in January. And then we have a in person one that’s in March. And we just finished it up last week, actually, with our last one, we do it at St. Simons Island, Georgia. It’s beautiful kind of South Savannah look with the moss coming off of the trees and the water and the shorelines and you know the cranes and all of those things. We have these beautiful waterfront room that this location that we have. And it’s awesome, we have women come usually we’ve had two and a half between 30 to 50. Women, we try to keep it reasonably smart, we call it we consider that small is reasonably small. Because we like to give a lot of personal attention to the women we like to be able to have them kind of interact with the speakers and all that are there. And we we put them in a waterfront room and feed them well the entire time they’re there and give them a lot of opportunity to have some silent time and some time for creative rest and sometimes JetForce social rest where they’re engaging with and finding and meeting new friends. You know, the best part of that we the one we just finished, since it’s so fresh on my mind, I just got home Sunday from it. What we found is that a lot of times these women who come they come with all their stuff, like this one particular woman, she came with her, her iPad and her cell phone and you know her computer and all her stuff and she’s coming to a rest retreat with all of her stuff. And so the first night there we see her with all of her stuff, and we tell them all you know, look we’re asking you to do gadget, thing you to, you know, you’re gonna have withdrawal we’re here for you. But we want you to turn it all off and leave it in your room and truly just come on the journey with us. And by the last day this woman she was so closed in and so boxed off and so kind of flying, I don’t really know if I want to give get all touchy feely and share her feelings and emotions. She was the most vocal, she was an introvert who’s self proclaimed, she was an introvert. By the last day she was the most vocal, had the hugest smile on her face, and was in tears that she had to leave and go home home. She was like I’ve never felt so loved and cared for. It’s amazing how beautiful life is when you just allow someone else to just be like, Okay, we’re going to take care of you for these four days, we’re going to feed you so much food you would pop if you ate a whole of it, like you don’t have to worry about a single thing. And the very first thing that we do when they show up is we give them each a personalized gift with their name embroidered on it is oftentimes like a blanket or shawl or something that will have their name embroidered on it. And without fail. There’s always a few women every year, who when they walk in and we try to put it in the room, sometimes the hotel won’t let us we’ll put it on their desk. But when they this year, we had to put it on their desk because they wouldn’t let us get in the rooms because of COVID. So they walked in and some of them opened it up and tears just streaming down their face. And they’re like, I’ve never had anybody do something so personal for me. And we’re strangers to them. And you know, they feel like they know you can see listen to your podcast or read your book, but But technically you’re a stranger. And I think just just that little bit of emotional and social connection and rest just starts the process immediately.
Shannon M. 44:40
Thank you so much for like taking care of the ladies, you know, because it can’t just be us Christina and our two people. So thank you for doing the work that you’ve been doing and for your time today on this show. I have one more question before we go to the to the wisdom and action but I love that you know I love of having similar reactions. So our conference, you know, like, thank you so much for doing this that makes all the work worth it so that we increase their wellness. So that’s amazing. When you were talking about your story and why you started thinking about the seven different types of rice, right, you said I was completely burned out. It had been 10 years of my career, had two young babies, I wanted to spend time with my kids. This is where I was right. What I heard was the difference between burnout. And what were what was the percentage that you gave you gave how many of merit 67% of the population is in a place of burnout, right? So what do you see is the difference that red danger zone between burnout and complete burnout?
Christine Gautreaux 45:45
So can I add something real quick on that too? Was that statistic before the pandemic or during your after the pandemic? Because I
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 45:52
wasted one? Yeah, that’s a recent one from 2022. I think it was from February of 2020 to 67% of workers report that they feel burnout post pandemic.
Shannon M. 46:04
So what is that danger zone? And that that burnout is good that you want to start there? But what do you see?
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 46:10
Yeah, I think for most people, you know, as I stated, a lot of us are functional burnouts, we are, we are technically burned out, according to the World Health Organization, we have all three criteria retired, we don’t like the work we do anymore. And the work that we do produce is not at the highest capacity that we could. So most of us are already meeting that criteria, I think it gets to a dangerous then when you start seeing people, not only are they kind of depressed or down from their burnout, but they’re feeling used and abused from their burnout, I find that a lot of successful people. And I see it, like I said, Because of working within internal medicine, we see a lot of very successful people end up in our ICU and ers because they’ve tried to commit suicide. And we and when we get them in these situations, what we find is that they are so busy producing goodness for other people to consume, but they haven’t actually allowed themselves to consume the same goodness, they actually haven’t allowed space and room and grace in their own lives to to benefit from the what they produce. And I think you know, it’s one of those situations where I oftentimes think about the bee, the bee is busy producing honey, the bee never sits to actually eat the honey, I want to be the person who’s producing anything. I want the I want us to have both aspects of it, a high producer of goodness and a high consumer of the goodness that life has to offer. I think we have to retrain people, that it’s okay to do both. You don’t just have to be a producer of goodness. And that you do deserve to consume just as much actually more goodness than you even produce.
Christine Gautreaux 47:45
Hmm. Preach it. Absolutely. Yes.
Shannon M. 47:48
I received the goodness. Thank you for the answer. Yes. And I What was the I’m sorry to cut you off. Christine, what was the organization that you got the criteria for abhorrent burnout? So that again, what organization did you get?
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 48:01
The World Health Organization? Who?
Christine Gautreaux 48:05
So I think I have, I’m going to try to keep it at two because I know we’re getting close to time. Shannon always loves to ask the question, what are you currently reading? Or what is a book recommendation that you recommend to our listeners? Because our listeners tend to be book readers? And let’s just start with them.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 48:23
Yeah, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna be I’m gonna do some self promotion. And it’s not the book we’re talking about is my latest book. It’s colorful connections. 12 questions about race, that open healthy conversation, it was written, because just talking to you ladies there was written by myself and a white female writer, who I did not know who actually knew my work. She’d read my books, she, we have a similar literary agent. And she was someone who wanted to start having more intentional conversations. And she lives in Rhode Island where it’s only, I think, less than 10% people of different ethnicities. And she was very real and raw about I don’t know how to have these conversations without being fearful. And I think is that fear of entering into conversation of people who don’t look like you that keeps us in the places that we are right now. And so that is my book recommendation. If you’re someone who can enter into social justice conversations, we don’t do it in a confrontational way. We do it in a loving way. But I think we do have to build up people’s courage to be able to do that.
Christine Gautreaux 49:24
Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe we’re at the end of the show talking about this. We’re gonna have to have your co author come back. And maybe both of y’all come back together and do a whole show around colorful conversations. That would be awesome. We would love to Yeah. Fabulous. We will put a link to that. And we will put a link to your website and we’re also going to put a link to the rest quiz. Because so folks can get connected to you. Is there anything else they need to know about?
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 49:57
No, I think that’s probably the that’ll keep him busy.
Christine Gautreaux 50:02
Since we’re talking about rest, we want to take it in little incremental steps.
Shannon M. 50:11
Okay, so every week we talk about wisdom and action, right? Because you can have the knowledge, but we know if you don’t apply it, then it’s now it’s right. You’re not using it wisely as or as effective as it could be used. So today, or this week, based on your physical wellness, what is it that you’re doing for yourself?
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 50:30
Yeah, so this week, because I have a lot of travel that’s coming up in the next two weeks, I’m being very intentional about how I’m physically using my body planes, hotel rooms, so strange pillows, strange beds all have an effect on my body. And so I’m using my foam roller, I am stretching, I’m making sure that I’m doing some some I am training for a marathon. So not necessarily marathon training, because that’s body taxing in itself, but actually just some leisure walks just to make sure that I’m getting my circulation and lymphatics moving, and making sure that I have my compression stock socks for the plane. So that I’m ready for next week’s trips.
Shannon M. 51:08
Great ideas, great ideas for me, what did I write down? I really like I have a couple of hashtags. I want to say hashtag self awareness. But what is where are you fatigued? Or where’s the drain? Right? Because things are going to cost you something. And then how do you get refilled? Or refilled?
Christine Gautreaux 51:29
I wrote down hashtag creative rest. Because we’ve just launched this book, we’ve just launched this conference. It’s been a big creative output. And you were saying about like learning new things or doing new things. And so I put hashtag creative risks, because I think it’s I’m a little past that point. A good definitely have to do that one. Thank you so much for your time and this conversation. I feel like I could keep talking for a couple hours about this subject. It is so fascinating to me.
Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith 52:03
Well, thanks. Thanks for having me on.
Shannon M. 52:04
Absolutely grateful conversations with you and your co author, and we’ll talk to you soon.
Christine Gautreaux 52:11
Take care. Oh, my goodness, that was inspiring. And affirming.
Shannon M. 52:21
Why? Why so affirming for you, because you all feel crazy for being so tired?
Christine Gautreaux 52:26
Well, what I realized is, even though like I’m exhausted today, yeah, because of the physical lack of sleep, the things that she was talking about about like going outside for five minutes or stretching, or those are practices that we talk about often on the show with our guests and each other. And it also are practices that I do. And so, you know, sometimes I don’t know, I’m just gonna speak for myself. I don’t know happens to y’all. But you know how sometimes when you are out of balance, like right now I’m out of balance with the sleep, then I feel like, Oh, I’m not doing anything, right. Like, like, Oh, I just I haven’t rested at all right? Yeah. And when she was talking about the different ways to refill, I was like, I’m gonna do that. Oh, yeah. That’s a that’s a normal everyday practice in my life. So I think it was affirming in that way. What about for you?
Shannon M. 53:18
Yeah, I mean, definitely. Right. And, excuse me, what I look forward to is being more intentional about it. I’ve talked about before, like, if I know that a lot is getting poured out up or let in? Are you putting the right things in? Right? Is that actually what you need to do? Like she said, to refill the specific deficit that you have. So I think being able to be even more intentional about it is gonna be priceless.
Christine Gautreaux 53:42
I want to be more intentional about the monthly view. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at the Daily view, and even the weekly view, but where I, where I sometimes mess up is when the calendar changes, right? So like, say, for example, this our conference? Yeah, somebody said to me, are you taking Monday off? I was like, no, like, prior to taking Saturday off. There was doctors and themeselves. Right. So really, just Saturday. So yeah, it’s fascinating that like to look towards next week schedule, yeah, or next month schedule, and go ahead when we have a big event and go ahead and put in that time off
Shannon M. 54:30
and put in this specific self care. I hadn’t got that far. But I liked that too. And I like I like us putting a day of rest or two after the conference because I went to work that night. I didn’t even finish the conference. So I went straight to the next shift. Yeah. So yeah, it’s gonna be it’s gonna be great. And when I when I saw it, that’s how I felt. I said, Oh, I have to invite her even if she can’t make it. You know, I have to try to get her on the show. The of course, because just the article by itself gave me clarity and that’s it. infilling especially when we talk about six, the article that you read, it was on the seventh, it was the seven types of wrist. Okay, I said, there’s different types of risks. You know, I felt like how I felt with the eight dimensions of wellness, like, I thought there was just wellness, I thought that was just rest, you know, and usually, again, we think about it like sleep. But if there’s categories, that makes sense,
Christine Gautreaux 55:23
well, and how beautiful, they really go side by side with the eight dimensions of wellness, like, I want us to hold each other a little bit accountable for that, like for, like for maybe talking more about it and doing some work around this with the eight dimensions of wellness and the seven types of rest. I want to I want to explore this a little more, but I know we’re out of time. So
Shannon M. 55:46
when anything else we might have a podcast, but never at a time for what we need to do or I don’t think so. I just think again, you know, always want to lift up if you feel like you’re tired. And this not making sense because clearly high performing people have gotten here, people who are helping people have gotten here. We all can get here, right? So if you feel like you’re struggling, I let’s take the test, you know, take the the what is it the rest quiz,
Christine Gautreaux 56:14
right? Yeah, we’re gonna put that in the show notes. And also, what I’m thinking about is that was not the first time I had heard this statistic about suicide for doctors and nurses. I’d heard that statistic before from Dr. Cynthia Phelps. And, and I want to put that in the shownotes to about self compassion, if you’re helping professional and also we’ll put a suicide prevention number in there. Because if you are feeling like hurting yourself or somebody else, please reach out for help that you’re not alone. And that you can be connected.
Shannon M. 56:46
Absolutely. Yep. And be connected. That’s it. I left so thank you so much, guys for joining us. Episode 9110 seasons a book launch a conference. We’ll see you next week Live at Five for the recap for season 10. In the meantime, don’t forget be well be wise and be whole.
Satimara 57:16
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.
