Clowning around with Physical Wellness – With Agnotti Cowie

Show notes – 

Join Shannon and Christine for a chat about Physical Wellness with their special guest interplayer and clown Agnotti Cowie.

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Agnotti Cowie: http://agnotti.com/

on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agnotti

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GA Department of Behavioral Health and developmental disabilities – Dr. Adell Flowers – https://www.linkedin.com/company/georgia-department-of-behavioral-health-and-developmental-disabilities/

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Show Transcript – 

NOTE: While it’s not perfect, we offer this transcription by Otter.ai for those who are hearing impaired or who don’t find listening to a podcast enjoyable or possible.

Christine Gautreaux 0:08
Let’s do this.

Shannon M. 0:08
Okay, ladies, welcome to our podcast. I am Shannon Mitchell, a black female, millennial entrepreneur, the founder of shallow glow, a handmade shea butter company. I am a champion for your self care, business care and intentional wellness.

Christine Gautreaux 0:25
And I am Christine Gautreaux, a white social justice advocate, an international speaker, coach and published author who helps you upgrade yourself in community care.

Shannon M. 0:35
Yes. And together, we are women connected in wisdom, a podcast grounded in the eight dimensions of wellness. Welcome to season by,

Christine Gautreaux 0:44
right we like to get together every week and have intentional conversations about how do we do this? How do we do all this craziness called life, especially in these chaotic times? So what about you, my friend? How do you do this? Yeah,

Shannon M. 1:00
yeah, yeah. So I’m so excited about what we’re talking about today, so I won’t I won’t go too much into it. But it’s definitely something big that I do. But without going into that, what I will say is be intentional about it. Really, you know, somebody asked me well, how do you focus on all eight dimensions every day? Well, one, I talk about practical businesses, and I really use checklists. Thankfully, I’m the type of person that helps with, you know, it helps me with my willpower and my memory space, trying to remember everything I have to do. I don’t even have to worry about that. Is it on the checklist? Did I check it off? Yes or no, you know, and giving myself grace with that, not expecting to always have 100 on that assignment. But if I’m missing stuff, why are you missing that and looking at that, and that’s really helped me stay on the gauge of where I am and what I need to do to make sure that I’m okay.

Christine Gautreaux 1:57
I love that you said that not always making 100 I was speaking in presenting last week for the behavioral health for some really talented clinicians that work for the state of Georgia. And we were talking about self care, and Dr. Adel flowers, who I’m hoping we can get to come on and speak to our audience. She was doing this really cool presentation. And she has all her bubbles of self are which are of course right in alignment with the eight dimensions of wellness. And she was talking about, I think it was her I’m not sure if it’s her another speaker, we’re talking about having a B day that sometimes you know, you may not have an a day, you may have a B day and it’s okay to allow yourself to, you know, have one of those days and that we just do the very best we can sometimes especially, you know, we’re still in a global pandemic, we are still holding a lot of grief and loss and, and gratitude at the same time, but a lot of that in in our bodies. So you know, I’m excited today to talk about physical wellness with our guest, who’s a friend and a colleague. I can’t wait. Before we do that, I have to tell you, I snuck off. But I have done a lot since the last time I saw you last week. I snuck off to the north Georgia mountains to bucquoy State Park. Have you been there? Up near Helen? No, Shannon, you got to go. And our listeners if you are in Georgia, you got to go. If you are out of Georgia, it is a it is a destination spot. So this talk about physical wellness, like you just you know how you get out at some places and it’s so beautiful. You instantly feel better. Like the grounds were beautiful, that Anna Ruby Falls is up there in that’s on the national forest land. And so I did that at the very end when I was leaving totally worth it. There’s an extra entrance fee because it’s national and they’re trying to help preserve the land. But stunning. I think it may be the largest falls in Georgia. I don’t think it’s the tallest because I think that’s Amicalola falls but but in a route like it’s large, these two giant falls. I’ll have to post a pic on our social media because it was just beautiful. It’s about a quarter mile hike up the mountain to see it. But it’s on paved paths. It’s gorgeous. And yeah, it’s highly recommended to her by we’ll put it in the show notes we’ll put how to get there in there. And that was just one of the things I did to take care of myself also did a retreat with some amazing women and did Interplay which we’re going to talk about in a little bit, but what do you do to take care of yourself

Shannon M. 4:50
this last week? Good. Ooh. So I specifically left my hair in the Swiss did not take it out so I would not have to do anything to it. It did a facial did my nails so last week I was laughing because we talked about nails right? I got a new nail glue from Amazon, put the nails back on, nails came back off. Now, I think I know the problem though Christine is because and this is the thing with beauty right? We’re talking about physical wellness, which is perfect. Because women were expected to upkeep these high standards shaving waxing, nails, hair, eyebrows, moustache, and Beard gone, all these all these things are, but sometimes it’s actually to our detriment to the detriment of our physical well being. So when we’re putting on these fake nails at the nail salon, they’re filing down out I don’t like that falling down the outside of your nails. So based on the instructions of how to have your nails last long, I think my nails are too moisturized. I think it’s too because I use the butter, I use the oil, they file it down and put acetone on it. I’m like it’ll work and then they just pop off. So that’s what I’ve been thinking about how the things that I do to upkeep myself, does it add to my wellness does it take away? If I still want a certain loop? What do I do? How does you know how do I do that naturally so that we kind of compromise and not use the time of doing it over and over again. So yeah.

Christine Gautreaux 6:23
All good things to think about right? You know, I’m on the opposite scale of that. I had nails once that was the day of my wedding. And I think they lasted for 24 hours. I am not good. I’m not good with nails idea. I am what spatially challenged already and then you add on top it just can’t function will ask ignore it when she gets what she is. Right. I definitely. I definitely do we want and bring our guests on. I am so excited to introduce her to our listeners. And yeah, are you ready? Alright, let’s do it. So y’all, y’all know I get excited about almost every guest we have but this one I am especially excited about She is a friend and she is a colleague, and I’m going to officially read her bio so I don’t screw it up because you know, my bio for her would be ignored. He is awesome. But I’m gonna read their bio here we go. Egg knotty they she is a Chicago native who is passionate about the intersection of social justice, community dialogue and performing arts. Do you see it could just go with it? Nadia is awesome. They facilitate workshops employing a variety of pedagogical techniques, such as inner play Theatre of the Oppressed in devising theatre since 2013. She has been hired by Interplay to produce and facilitate events around the world as well as recently becoming their development director. She is also freelancing for a number of theatre companies and schools as a teaching artist, performer and facilitator offering workshops in drama, puppetry, storytelling, musical theater, and movement. Y’all Welcome to the show, my friend and colleague Ignasi Callie. All right way, I’m on this debate igniting nails no nails were yet.

Unknown Speaker 8:24
Well, I mean, I I barely cut my nails. So um, I don’t really do nails, but I was thinking about how I cut my hair last night, I cut my hair myself. Which is definitely a physical kind of self care thing that I do. Because it’s also about not wanting to, you know, have to schedule an appointment for my hair. It’s just like, Okay, today’s the day that I’m just gonna, you know, just get lighter and, you know, like, kind of just shed all that weight on my head.

Shannon M. 9:07
I love it. And it’s so interesting how you don’t realize how heavy your hair is. So you cut it off when I went natural I shaved my hair. And I said where did the wait I didn’t even recognize the wait until I take it off. And for me that was so deep. We talked about wellness and things that we’re hearing you know each individual hairs light, but you definitely feel the difference after you cut it off. And your haircut looks great.

Christine Gautreaux 9:32
Yeah, it does. I would have never known you did that yourself. That’s impressive, my friend. We should add hairdresser under that. You know what, Shannon? Our listeners? I know I mentioned it last week, but they may not know I’m traveling but I realized I’m a little out of order because we did not read the definition for physical wellness. No. All right for my friend Bonnie.

Shannon M. 9:56
I actually put the wrong one here. So let’s pull this up. Boom. Okay, physical wellness is the ability to maintain a quality of life that allows you to get the most out of your daily activities without undue fatigue, or physical stress. Physical one is recognized, recognizes that our daily habits and behaviors have an impact on our overall health, well being and quality of life.

Christine Gautreaux 10:24
Yes. What do you think about when you think about that definition? Ignore it.

Unknown Speaker 10:30
I think about drinking water as a basic thing that I actually sometimes have issues doing. And yeah, cheers to that.

Christine Gautreaux 10:45
Because our listeners who are listening and not watching, we’re all taking a pause and drinking water. So we encourage you to do that too with us

Unknown Speaker 10:54
agree. And to know what helps you drink water, you know, some of these like basic things like Is it cold water? Is it room temperature water? Is it a huge jar next to you, that, you know, you have to just put there to make you drink water.

Christine Gautreaux 11:13
You know what I’m a sucker for. Because I’m currently traveling, I’m a sucker for pretty water. Like when you walk into a hotel, and they have the fruit floating in the water. Like I’m immediately drawn over to it. And I’ve got to drink some of that. So I need to get better at home about infusing my water with like fruit or cucumber. Because if it’s pretty

Shannon M. 11:35
Oh, yeah, I want to drink it. Yeah, I was at work this week. And that is actually something else I did. One of our teammates may water had great fruit and man, and I think I had lemon in there. I don’t even like grapefruit. But this water was amazing. So I said, I’m gonna start doing that.

Christine Gautreaux 11:54
I love that.

Shannon M. 11:55
That’s a good question, though. Like Nadi, what helps you drink water?

Unknown Speaker 11:59
Yeah, so I like room temperature water, because I can just kind of chug it. And I realized that it has to be just kind of like next to me on a daily basis. Otherwise, I kind of forget to drink. And it’s again, like, I just like these, like huge jars of water that are just continually next to me. And then I have a lake of a little water bottle next to my bed in order to just continually remind myself, Okay, drink water. I also love seltzer water. But I know that like, if I only drink seltzer water, I don’t drink enough water. So just like knowing yourself, so that you can get enough in the day.

Shannon M. 12:44
Yeah. Yeah. Right. So I know we’re going to talk about inner play. And I’m going to go ahead and jump into it because I want to talk about laughing Okay, the clowny. And when I think about physical wellness, laughing is so important. I really feel like laughing actually, I know. Laughing is one thing I changed in school. I don’t know if you know this, Christine. So in middle school, like 11 years old, I realized I think I’m starting to get depressed, right? What can I do? And I gave myself the image downloaded it right? The the task of laughing once a day. And at first I had to be very intentional about it. And I said, if I get home and I haven’t laughed, you have to look up a video or do something to make yourself laugh. And now stuff will be funny. I’ll laugh days later. You can’t stop me from laughing You know, but it definitely is the only thing that I changed and completely turned around my personal mental and emotional state at that point. And of course it’s helped me continue that but it’s a very physical act right.

Christine Gautreaux 13:51
Can I just I want to pause right there. Your 11 year old I just want to scoop up your 11 year old Shannon and give her the biggest hug because 11 years old. You recognize that you needed to laugh every day my friend. That is powerful. So why that is so wise. Well and ignore it you don’t know Shannon that well yet I hope you get to know her better because she’s freaking amazing. But I love this is So Shannon that even at 11 years old, she scheduled it that she had to she had to check it off and laugh that is ridiculously awesome.

Shannon M. 14:36
Now I have on a checklist hug baby because I need a hug once a day we got this cool wellness, right? Yeah, right.

Christine Gautreaux 14:45
Oh, if you have a check list, ignore it. What’s on your checklist?

Unknown Speaker 14:49
Yeah, well, it’s usually like to do lists. But I think this theme of laughs to her and joy is just like really, really crucial. And, you know, especially with the pandemic, you know, it’s kind of like, we have forgotten some of the things that gave us joy and gave us health, at least in my experience. And then, as things kind of started to open up a little bit, I was reminded, oh, actually, you know, performing in front of a live real audience where I can hear them laughing, is incredible, and was such a source of joy for me before pandemic, and then it was kind of a void during the pandemic, but then afterwards, we were able to figure out, you know, we’re still in it, but, you know, you’re able to figure out how to do that safely. And I think, that sort of live interaction. And, you know, I think that clowning, you know, is often associated with either like these Insane Clown Posse, or, you know, or like those, like murderous clowns. But our clown group is a multiracial, um, you know, you know, some of us are queer in there. And so we’re really trying to bring clowning to everybody, until, like, multiple identities, and we were able to look at grief through the eyes of the clown. And I think it gives people permission to have their emotions and also laugh at the ridiculousness of human emotion. And, you know, I was the clown, I was, like, depressed. And so I was just extremely depressed. And like, you know, people were laughing because it’s it is it when you take it to that extreme, it becomes a little bit funny, and I pull out a bag of potato chips that I can you eat them, so falling out of my mouth? Um, so, you know, it’s that like, oh, yeah, I’ve been there. I’ve been with that bag of potato chips. And I’m going to laugh at it now, because it’s so relatable.

Christine Gautreaux 17:29
Yeah, so true. I mean, and, you know, you talk about clowning in the extremities of emotion. And I think almost all of us have been there at some point in the last 18 months. Just insanity. Like in in emotions, we may not have known that we had sneaking in us, you know, so I love the exaggeration of it and the embodiment of it, you know, you and I share the practice of interplay, and that really being in touch with our body wisdom, and how do we access all these emotions and play with them? Right? Because they’re there. So we might as well dance with them.

Unknown Speaker 18:13
Yeah, and just going back to just going back to your question around the checklist, it’s like, I’m like, I don’t know, if checklists for those kinds of things is really my vibe, but I think it’s like, continually to notice and to check in with myself around. Okay, what’s going on in this very moment? What do I need? Because I’m more of a, like an improviser, you know, that I have more of a spontaneous sort of personality. So it’s more like, Okay, I need to go for a walk. Okay, I need to actually go exercise, um, you know, a lot of different things. So, you know, it’s hard to say what would be on my checklist? Maybe Shannon has a checklist for that for dogs. And,

Shannon M. 19:05
yeah, and, but I hear what you’re saying to like on certain stuff. It might not be the vibe, and especially because this emotional stuff and something that might not be as logical, you know, we do research it might find that is not healthy to do it that way. So I wouldn’t even put everything that I would want to do on there. But I think that it helps to, like it helps me especially with that one, specifically, minimize my anxiety of everything I have to go on and make sure that it’s not all work that some of it is, is this too and that I do like to reserve some of it for spontaneity. So last night, we just went out and went and did something when usually especially in these times, that hasn’t been the case, you know, so even though I’m a planner, I definitely think it’s healthy to have both and you we were talking about it earlier, Maddie about how you’re an introvert. It’s Really, excuse me an extrovert is, right, this river is really interesting because I’m like, in the middle of both. So I can manage Top Golf and run up and down these three flights and three stories of people having a party and having a good time talking to the guest and talk to the staff. And then I need to come home and be quiet, like, recharge that way to you know, so it charges me to be around people, it charges me to be by myself. And I feel like it’s the same for planning and spontaneity at the same time to the balance of all of those together.

Christine Gautreaux 20:37
That’s what I was just gonna say is the balance, right? I had a teacher one time tell me that, you know, balance itself is almost impossible, but it’s the seeking of the balance. That is what is healthy and the journey. I had a retreat that I facilitated years ago, y’all. And it’s probably still out there on some social media. But I was we were taking a walk in the woods, and I had jumped up on this stump and I had done, I think it’s called the swan pose. It’s like where you have one foot in one foot back when you’re standing on one foot and your arms are out, right. And I had this really cool shot. And so it looked like I was flying. And somebody snapped a picture like right in the right moment. So like, it looks like I am perfectly balanced. Like it looks like I’m one of those yoga gurus, right. I fell off the stump a second later, like in all trades. But man, I use that picture for forever, because it was a really awesome. So now, you were for at least a second. Maybe two seconds. Right? I was balanced. Yeah, absolutely. So agnostic, you said that you do a lot of different things and spontaneous things for your physical wellness, like, what’s one of your favorites? What do you like to do?

Unknown Speaker 21:55
Yeah, um, I do, you know, I actually have learned how to exercise which has been a learning curve for me, um, it isn’t something that my family ever prioritized. But I was lucky enough to have a roommate, who’s a college friend of mine who is very active and, and I’ve just sort of followed her around a little bit. And she like, teaches classes and I’m like, Oh, actually, I feel way better. And it’s not only like it, sometimes I get back pain, but it helps like the back pain. And that’s what kind of keeps me going back. And to know, like, what kind of keeps me going back as well. And part of that is the social part of it. I’m in and that has been the only way to get me to exercise is if there’s a social element to it. And taking her online classes have been really wonderful.

Christine Gautreaux 23:00
I am so with you, like I and our listeners will know if they’ve listened to any other episodes. Like I like to make social dates for my exercise. Like I have somebody I walk with and my sweet husband and I we Zumba together. And you know, I have friends that I interplay with and you know, I do all the if I’m and I used to run by myself, but I like groups, like I like cycling in groups or running or training. And that’s I like I also I don’t know which part of me this is, but you know, I like to stack things. So it can have multiple, like, if I’m checking off the Ohio, I get to see this awesome person. And I get to do exercise like at the same time. Like, that just brings such joy to me, they get to stack it up. So what about you, Shannon? You love to do? Yeah, I know you’ve been

Shannon M. 23:54
running lately. Yeah. And that’s another thing I was thinking about. You asked me what I’ve been doing. So I’ve specifically not been running in the morning, not only because of the schedule, but because I’ve run it up and down the stairs at work. So instead of running in the morning, I do hit in the staircase. And I have a rule that I take the stairs and the elevator so that’s been good. Yeah.

Christine Gautreaux 24:20
Yeah,

Shannon M. 24:22
I’ve also been making sure I met this gentleman at the at the post office, and we’re talking about the chiropractor. He told me about stretching your spine forwards, backwards to the left and then to the right. 30 seconds. I said you know what, I’m gonna do two minutes a day. Yeah, stretch it out. You know, and he was saying how that is helped him. Continue his spine alignment outside of his chiropractic appointment. And as far as preventative things I like to do that I got you preventative habits and things to stay well, you know, so, yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing. Stretching

Christine Gautreaux 25:00
I feel like our inner play does that a lot. So Ignite and I share the practice of inner play. And we always have a warm up, when we do inner play the head to toe, it reminds me of your shallow glow Shannon, because ignore it, she will have to get Shannon to tell you about it in a minute. But she has a wellness business, and she helps people glow from head to toe to love the little bit. And we do when we do inner play, we stretch from head to toe and check in with our whole body and our whole body wisdom. We have an International Week of Interplay coming up don’t wait.

Unknown Speaker 25:38
Yeah, yeah. So from October 2, through the 10th. There’s some outlying workshops, so that go to the 12th. But most of the activities are that time. And it is a week of free Interplay classes. There’s a few that are in person, but most of them are online, it’s 25 Plus workshops that you can just plug into for free. And it’s, um, it’s about raising the vibration of the organization. And, you know, the vastness of our community and the connections that we have made globally. And it’s also a fundraiser for people who have been involved in Interplay already already kind of know and believe in interplay, but it’s for also for new people. So the contribution is totally optional, but it’s bottom line, totally free. Lots of different people are leading things. So you’ll really get a variety of, of things to try out.

Christine Gautreaux 26:47
Sheila and I will be leading part of our radical self and community care. We’ll do that on Tuesday morning on that Tuesday morning at 11:30am. Eastern time, I got to give it Ignasi all that info. So we get official. But yeah, come join us, y’all come join us and check it out. It’s not going to shock you ignore it that I talk about Interplay often on this podcast. So our listeners, this will not be the first. And I would say I’d have to go back and look at our guests because we are on episode number 47. Now, I would say at least eight to 10 of them are associated with interplay in one way or another. Because I know some amazing women through Interplay that’s the other thing when you talk about globally, like y’all, like we play with folks in India, in Africa, in Australia, like Canada, where else am I missing? Magnani? Your Europe? Yeah, the Netherlands, the UK shout out to my friend dad a. So yeah, we you know, we’ve got some pretty amazing people, and just fine. So come play with us. Absolutely. Ignore it. What, um, go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 28:07
Well, I was just gonna, you know, correlate physical wellness with interplay. Because I think, you know, like Christine was saying, it’s rooted in our body wisdom, and we all have individual body wisdom. And that is the practice of being able to notice what our body is telling us and, and be able to kind of build that and understand that over time, like, notice what our bodies are telling us over time. So that’s, like, the biggest philosophy. And we do that in community through playing through storytelling, movement and vocalization. And so part of the physical wellness that all humans need is that community connection is to be in spaces with other humans to be seen, to be heard, to hear and to, to witness other people’s experiences. We not only get a like a deeper connection and deeper understanding, we just feel more whole once we’re a part of communities. So it just Interplay so deeply aligns with physical wellness, but also spiritual wellness, you know,

Christine Gautreaux 29:28
lots of emotional and mental wellness, social wellness. Yeah. Which we know we talk about all the time on this show Ignagni that Shana and I do about the intersectionality. Right. And what I loved about your bio, too, is your social justice work and with the Theater of the Oppressed and interplay and your clowning, and how are you using all these really cool modalities, art based modalities to make a difference in the world? What do you been up to?

Unknown Speaker 30:00
Yeah, well, you know, I’m always trying. So you know, it’s always about doing your best in that kind of stuff. So part of, you know, it is through racial justice work. And, you know, I help lead white affinity space using Interplay to really, like, think about how we can be better white people and less, less oppressive, white people. And then, you know, I teach after school programs. And so I think a lot of my kind of social justice. You know, mine goes a lot to that, because it’s about providing artful, inspiring and empowering workshops to young people. So right now I’m doing musical theater. And we’re always writing our own scripts, which is a really important part of how I develop, which is the devising the word that you heard in my bio, so it’s like creating an original piece of theatre, and the students really get to look at what they want to say who they want to be, you know, they have full full power in that space. And especially with certain educational systems, they might not feel that they have a say in those things. So that’s a part of it. I think some of the other theatre companies that I work with free street theatre and opera Matic really create free community wide, you know, performances and events around Chicago, to really engage the community in joy, connection and deeper dialogue around some of these bigger things.

Christine Gautreaux 32:09
I love that so much. Our friend, Judy Keating is giving a shout out and saying hello, beauties great use of interplay. Judy was one of the CO organizers and leaders of the women’s retreat that I was at the wise women galactic gathering that it was a retreat for empowerment of women. And we kicked it off with some interplay, which, no shocker, the ladies were loved it because it’s a great way to connect people and get in touch with our own body wisdom. And they’re going to have, I’ll have to put that in our show notes, they’re going to have a virtual offering of that in January. So we will put that up for our listeners to be able to connect with to and acknowledge all those performed those places that you’re giving a shout out to we will connect our listeners to because we have listeners all over the nation in the world. So if you’re in the Chicago area, you can check it out. And we will definitely do the show notes for the International Week of Interplay to Shannon, you look like you had a question or a comment my friend? Yeah,

Shannon M. 33:14
I did. I did. So we can’t go about grief and joy and moving your body and how that connects you to your emotions. Can we talk more about grief enjoy together and what you do with that?

Unknown Speaker 33:28
area? Grief enjoy together you said?

Shannon M. 33:32
Yeah, or balancing it? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 33:37
Yeah, um, I think there’s a bit of needing to honor grief before getting to that joy. And so sometimes, I think, you know, people are eager to get to the joy. And then therefore, kind of just, like, push the grief away, and, you know, deal with it another time and it, you know, comes up always again. So, you know, even when people are grieving and there’s just a lot of a lot of grief right now that there are sprinkles of joy that can happen throughout because some of the, you know, remembering of people and, you know, my family would always just kind of make jokes about oh, anything and everything and probably like pretty, you know, out there kind of things. So, you know, it’s like really finding ways to be joyful in kind of sticky situations or grief filled situations.

Christine Gautreaux 34:51
Ignore it, if we were talking. Yeah, I do too. And we were talking before the show about because I’m trying Traveling and with my two year old nibbling right now. And we were talking about when people realize they’re funny. And I’m curious about you being a professional clown. When did you realize you were funny?

Unknown Speaker 35:16
Yes, so I had a family that that had a lot of hospital journeys and a hospital visits. So I think that was my first unofficial clowning as a kid. And, you know, realizing, you know, is my brother. So realizing that, like, my brother was going through all these things, and that I could bring some joy to this really not fun situation. And so, it, it was kind of the thing I did within the family. Oh, you know, whenever there was something happening, I was like, Okay, look for the job. Look for the job. Look for the joke. So it wasn’t until more recently that I became actually a professional clown. But I think some of that learning happened before I even knew about clowning or really wanted to be a theatre artist.

Christine Gautreaux 36:22
So you discovered early the power of laughter.

Unknown Speaker 36:26
Exactly.

Christine Gautreaux 36:29
Shannon, will you share with our listeners the story you were telling us before the show? Cuz it was so powerful?

Shannon M. 36:35
Yeah. Of course, of course. So I was sharing with the lady when I was 11 in middle school, and how so much stuff was going on. I love how you how you said, Nadia, had a lot of hospital visits, you know, there was hospital visits, people moved. Well, we were moving people, we were moving. A lot of things that kept constantly changing. And so when I will look at the details of the situation and be like, what’s going on, you know, and so in order to have some type of balance, or strive for a balance, like we talked about, right, Christine? I realized I had to laugh once a day, that was a goal I gave myself. And at the beginning, I would get home and realize that I had left that day. And it’s interesting, we were actually just talking about this on a live I did on shallow glue. I was branding stuff this past week getting ready for the new scent Lodge. And we I brought you remember Coach ko Kristina by Broncos CO on screen, brought one of my followers Ashley on the screen. And we were talking about laughing and social anxiety being around people and mental and emotional wellness, you know, as a whole, and laughter is definitely one of those things that I just switched that one thing and it changed everything out. So I love it. It’s really personal for me personally. And even as I add other things to the list, that’s one of the non negotiables it has to be there. You have to add that in to deal with everything else.

Christine Gautreaux 38:03
So I love that that your 11 year old had the inner authority to know that you needed to laugh every day. So what makes you laugh? Like things are funny to different people, right? So what’s your go to? If you need to learn it? What’s your go to?

Shannon M. 38:17
Let’s, let’s start with that people aren’t usually gonna tell you, right? Big foreheads. And I’m talking about like, in movie enlarged foreheads, not my forehead, it’s okay, but big foreheads people falling. Yeah. Oh, areas like little kids falling is plenty. And again, not that I would purposely hurt somebody but stuff is funny. That’s usually what I wouldn’t. People usually wouldn’t say, but outside of that other things like sometimes I love the the irony of the situation and how God works things out like that is crazy that it happened like that, that might be funny. Or I like puns to you know, things that are funny in multiple different type of ways. Just I love that. Yeah,

Christine Gautreaux 39:04
I live with a punster so, um, we’re all about the politics and if we can, right? What about you ignore it? What makes you laugh?

Unknown Speaker 39:14
Well, you know, I love those cat and dog videos are just like when they just kind of do crazy things and I love anything that involves like, kind of a real situation. You know, any sort of movies that like kind of show real funny situations. I just think humanity is really funny. And I like I like just being silly with other humans like in real life, you know? And I love just hearing yes stories from friends. that are like maybe funny and serious or they have multiple, you know, multiple layers to them.

Christine Gautreaux 40:07
Right? I love that. I know we have some listeners listening live. So if y’all want to put comments on Facebook or on YouTube, we’re happy to include them in our broadcast. So you can just pop them in the comments and we’ll, we’ll include you about what makes you laugh and what’s funny to you. And if you’re listening afterwards on audio only, feel free to tag us on social media and tell us what’s funny. And if you have a funny video, you can tag that for us too. My kids are always showing me funny videos. Now our sense of humor are often different, like we’ve been reading. I always love those baby videos with babies that start laughing. You know how when little kids get tickled about something, and it is just so contagious, like their laughter. But I will tell y’all yesterday, y’all my sister and I were sitting outside of a coffee shop. And this sweet lady came up and she had these three dogs. And she and it’s Colorado and there are dogs everywhere, right? This is a very dog friendly town. And so she ties her dogs up, the weather’s gorgeous. She’s just gonna pop in. And she’s popping into a sandwich shop or something to get them a little snack while she goes in. And this sound came out of this dog, y’all. It sounded like a duck. It did not like it. It was like it did this one little quack. And I’ll see my sister videoed it. So if I can, we’ll put a link to it in the show notes. We it was the most hysterical thing and never we’re trying like to like, we didn’t want to laugh at her dogs when she was coming out but stare cool, because you’re like, rather than noise. It was. It was really really funny. Cuz you’re you just didn’t expect it. So I laugh at unexpected things too. Right? I love unexpected things. So yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I think. I think laughter that whole thing about laughter being the best medicine as far as physical wellness goes, I’m a huge believer in that. I’m a huge believer in in laughter being healing and and the physicality of it. Have y’all ever laughed so hard? Your stomach hurts. Do y’all know that feeling? Yeah, to her. Right? We’re in smiley, right? I have my aunt Rosie, who is one of the top three funniest people on the planet. I will officially say that out loud. She is a person that can make my cheeks and my stomach hurt. Like when we get together. She is just somebody that makes me laugh that hard. Who’s that somebody for y’all?

Shannon M. 42:49
I would probably say, if I had to bet, probably Pharaoh, my boyfriend. He’s pretty funny. Yeah, most people wouldn’t expect it. Everybody thinks I’m really serious and professional, which I am. But I’m also really so. And that thing. He makes me laugh more than anybody else.

Christine Gautreaux 43:07
I love that. What about you Ignasi who makes you laugh?

Unknown Speaker 43:12
Yeah, I had an aunt as well that passed away. And she was just so funny. She could do. Like imitations of Julia Child’s and would would read like really funny things in her voice. And, you know, my family would just like, roll over from laughing so hard at her.

Christine Gautreaux 43:41
And what is her name? Ruth Benedict, Ruth Benedict, we call your name at Ruth. Thank you for your influence. Yeah. It’s, you know, those people are important to us. Like, who am I? I know, we’re, we’re creeping up on time. But before we go, now that we’re on this left track, I want to know who’s your favorite comedian lately, or the show that you would recommend? You know, since we’ve been in the pandemic, because the has there been something that you’ve watched that is really funny, and you’re like, oh, yeah, people need to watch that. That’s funny.

Shannon M. 44:22
It’s interesting, because I’ve actually watched a list of things. I would say, Tiffany had just showed

Unknown Speaker 44:29
they ready. I was gonna say,

Shannon M. 44:36
as well. Yeah, she’s hilarious. And it’s just like woman connected and wisdom. She goes back to the people that she’s reached in who have you know, affected her life and she shares her platform. So I love that. Pretty funny.

Christine Gautreaux 44:51
I love that too. Christy Burke is listening today and she says laughing uncontrollably with my cousin’s all of us think we’re funny. I I love that because my entire family thinks we’re funny too. And you know how when you get to laughing because you crack yourself up? Y’all probably don’t do that. That’s probably just me.

Shannon M. 45:10
Me. Me, my friend used to laugh and then intentionally change our lab. So we just like laugh for like minutes straight and change. Yeah, it was a lot.

Christine Gautreaux 45:23
I’m not surprised that our physical wellness conversation has gone into about laughter. But, you know, we share a friend Ignasi Ruth show Walter does. laughter yoga. Like, if nobody’s heard of laughter yoga, y’all should check that out. So shamon laughter yoga is an intentional practice of laughing and they teach you how to laugh in different ways. Like, like, you can laugh right behind your teeth. Like, he like it teaches you how to live in different parts of your body. And go down like from your right behind your teeth to your throat to your belly laugh like that they’re dead. And it it has you practice laughing with a group of people? Yeah. So yeah, it’s pretty fun.

Shannon M. 46:09
Right? And I think I’m gonna put that on

Unknown Speaker 46:12
the list. Okay, I’m curious, Shannon, if you’d be willing to show us your laugh that changes.

Shannon M. 46:20
Left the changes? Yeah, I’ll do it. So really, the point is to not overthink it. Okay, and shout out to Jessica but my roommate from Kennesaw we used to laugh I’m laughing and I’m just I don’t know. I feel like it’s gonna sound weird if I try to do my life on purpose, but I’m laughing and I’m like, Haha

you just like, however you want

Unknown Speaker 47:08
that word, I mean

Christine Gautreaux 47:14
it’s contagious, isn’t it? Y’all Christy’s given us the last emoji. She thought that was funny. She probably

every week, Ignagni, we do we do on our social media, we do a hashtag called wisdom in action. And what we do is we say like, what out when you think about physical wellness, when you think about this week, or even our conversation? What’s something that you want to hashtag wisdom in action?

Unknown Speaker 47:46
Hmm, you know, I’m a bad millennial, so I don’t really hashtag a lot, but I’m

Christine Gautreaux 47:54
hashtag bad millennial. Um,

Unknown Speaker 48:05
but so I do want to say, I don’t know if it’s a hashtag. But I do want to say that like, you know, part of physical wellness is having the baseline physical, like, things that you need, and to just acknowledge that, you know, unfortunately, like having having clean water is a privilege. Having a house is a privilege. And, you know, I think all of these things are things that are human rights. And so part of it is to say that, you know, we, we need our basic needs before we can kind of go from there to even being more empowered to find what wellness means to an individual.

Christine Gautreaux 48:56
Yep. Totally agree with you. So working towards that hashtag, we’ll be working towards those basic rights for everybody. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Before we jumped on this call, I was doing postcards. I’ll show our listeners if I can find them. I was supposed to mail him before I left Georgia. So they’re coming to Georgia, from Colorado, we’re talking about evaluating the proposed maps. It is a redistricting year in Georgia. And so you know, they a lot of times gerrymandering can happen. And what what that means is that then certain people don’t get certain resources. And you know, a lot of times the maps are drawn according to privilege. And so we there is a project called the Princeton gerrymandering project. And so fair districts Georgia is also providing nonpartisan benchmarks for fair maps so that people are represented and people get their voices heard in a fair way. So you know, Yes, that’s my wisdom and action Shannon, and I’m hashtag and I’m getting these postcards mailed from Colorado to Georgia. So, and I called my representatives today also to ask them, which I would recommend all our listeners do to ask them to fully support. You make sure I give you all the right, the right name. I don’t want to say this the wrong way. Give me just a second. And I will tell you what were what what I called and said I was fully supporting, I am fully supporting the reconciliation package. Because when you talk about basic rights, it this new infrastructure bill has stuff for women, especially about childcare, and about things that support people we love. So I called my representatives today to give him a shout out and say that I was in full support of that. So that’s my wisdom and action what you got going on. Shannon,

Shannon M. 50:58
love it. Love it. Mine is sleep schedule. You know, I said I’ve been working on it. We talked about time management and the 168 hours and through COVID The schedule is consistently changed so much. So change the good. And so sleep schedule has to be consistent. And that’s what I’m working on.

Christine Gautreaux 51:19
Right. What do you got going on over there at Shiloh glow right now? Because didn’t you hit last week about some lavender and vanilla scents? What’s what’s happening over there?

Shannon M. 51:30
So we are coming out with full lines of the Glow Kit is what we’re calling it now. Right so ignore it. I know we talked a little bit about it. But again, glow glow has a dark brown sugar scrub, a multiuse oil and a shea butter that Christine was talking about and they all work together for we just had lemongrass and some of them and Minko when the the shea butter but it wasn’t a complete scent mind right so that’s what I’ve been working on. We’re about to have Lavender Vanilla. So that means sugar scrub oil and shea butter and mango before we just had the mango butter because it wasn’t a cent added it’s actually from the seed is where the mango butter scent comes from. But the oil is going to be mango is amazing. Okay, and I’m so excited for the sugar scrub too. So we’re working on that for October.

Christine Gautreaux 52:22
Oh, thank you can I tell? I’m just gonna give a shout out to Shayla glow because I travel with your production and and I’m in the desert this week and my skin is like and so I’m so grateful that sound effects but that’s exactly what it’s gonna run right now. Right? Like, you know you land in Denver airport and you are dry like you go from the humidity and the wetness of Atlanta to the minute you land in Denver. It sucks all the moisture out of your skin so I’m so grateful to have Shayla go along with me on this journey. Not only makes me smell good. I did have to I will say when I was in the woods this last weekend I hesitated to put it on because it really does smell so good. And the black bears were still active. So I consciously did not put on the mango butter. Because I didn’t want to smell so good. I thought oh, I that might attract some bears that smells so good.

Shannon M. 53:25
Is a cool bonus when to use it. And we’re

Christine Gautreaux 53:29
gonna run in along the way. Not intentionally, but Right. Well, Ignasi. Thank you so much for being here with us today. I’m having this conversation and we will tag on our show notes the International Week of interplay and vite people to come play with us. And if you have any other events you have coming up, do you have anything you want folks to know about that we can connect them with you or

Unknown Speaker 53:54
not a besides International Week of interplay, it’s kind of becoming winter over here in Chicago. So a lot of the outdoor performing is not happening until the summer. But maybe there’ll be some indoor things. So we’ll we’ll see. Well, we will let

Christine Gautreaux 54:13
folks know how to connect with you and we are so glad that you came on to talk to us today. We always love talking with amazing women and we know that you are one of them. So thank you for being with us today my friend.

Unknown Speaker 54:27
Thank you so much. This has been a joy filled conversation and thank you for asking me to come

Christine Gautreaux 54:34
here’s two more laughter I’m popping her back in the green room with Ignasi if we were in person it would have some good hot tea and some chocolate I’m sorry that that doesn’t happen in the virtual space but Whoa, my friend that was a good conversation when it I really enjoyed that.

Shannon M. 54:54
I’ve been looking forward to it. And yes, we get to talk about laughter I need let’s let’s bring them line. Yeah, and we’re not done yet. But this is the first one. So I was definitely excited about it.

Christine Gautreaux 55:05
I love it. You know, this week I am in Colorado supporting my sister and my two year old twin siblings. And so laughter has been a big part of the week because they’re just funny. They’re funny, you know, I am not seeing my private coaching clients this week I am dedicating time to the family and doing you know, I couldn’t not show up and talk to you and have our podcast so I’m about to when we pop off, I’m gonna go I’m gonna go get some nibbling, hugs. You talking about hugging people in physical wellness? Yeah, they’re, they’re awesome at that. So I’m grateful. But all right, what are you off to do that this week? You are taking care of yourself? And

Shannon M. 55:46
yes, taking care of us. Yes. I was so proud of myself the other day when I went to go put on the different color burgers for the new sets. And I had my production schedule already laid out. So I knew everything we needed to go, I was able to pivot and keep going. So that’s what we’re continuing to work on.

Christine Gautreaux 56:07
And did you get the new colors on? I can’t wait to see those. All right. Well, before we take out of here, let our listeners know about what you do for us as being a sponsor to our show. Tell them about the discount you give them I love it. Yes.

Shannon M. 56:22
Yeah. So for our women can they get in wisdom you ladies and gentlemen, if you’re on here, shout out to Joe go throw that listens to our show, right? You can use your discount wise five to go over to shallow glow and get that get that product at the best price possible. Now I will tell you that we’re running out of stuff. Okay, we’re flipping over. So there is no more oil that’s gone, you’ll see that there is no more two ounce mango. So if you want the mango that Kristin was talking about, it’ll be in four outs, which is great because winter is coming. And we’re about to slip over to the new inventory. So if you want to be on that list, make sure that you email me and we’ll get that taken care of. But in the meantime, thank you so much for joining us on the first episode of season five. And don’t forget, be well be wise. And

Christine Gautreaux 57:14
looking forward to it.

Unknown Speaker 57:20
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.