Show notes –
Join Shannon and Christine as they chat about Social Wellness.
This week’s resources and references:
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski
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, welcome to our show. We are talking about social wellness.
Christine Gautreaux 0:50
I think this is such a huge topic to talk about, especially as in the United States, we’re starting to come to the we’re starting to reemerge from the pandemic, it’s by far not over. And I want to be conscious of our friends and colleagues in India who are in the worst of it right now. Um, but here in the United States, we’re starting to reemerge and an open up. And so this social wound what what does that look like? Like? What’s the definition? What are we talking about here when we talk about social wellness? Because I think a lot of folks may have had deprivation from the past year around this. So should we go into depth,
Shannon M. 1:34
deprivation and a lot of stuff? Yeah, let’s jump right into it. So the definition we’re working from today, ladies is what is social wellness. It is about nurturing ourselves, others and our relationships. social wellness consists of not only balancing our own physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, but also actively participating as an interdependent piece of the bigger puzzle of humankind. Right.
Christine Gautreaux 2:10
That’s a lot of intersectionality. Which, you know, we like
Shannon M. 2:15
intersections all over the place, like interstate listen levels, there’s a lot of stuff, what do you want to call it layers?
Christine Gautreaux 2:23
A lot of layers when it talks about balancing our own physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Because you know, we always all we often laughed on the show and joke that physical wellness could incorporate almost everything. But by this definition, social wellness can almost incorporate all the other pieces of the eight dimensions of wellness. Yeah. Right. It is, yeah, what jumps out at you about that definition.
Shannon M. 2:53
So it’s the relationship between balancing our own and also actively participating as an interdependent that part, right, and I try not to make stuff too complicated. But I started a podcast for this reason. So let’s really talk about it, right. So balancing your own life, managing your own life, your own emotions, your own physical wellness, all of your wellness, and then the interdependence of how mine reacts to yours, and what makes the space of us in between each other. For all the relationships that you have, whether it’s with your parents, whether it’s occupation, or with your bosses, excuse me, with your, your work environment, and then with your bosses, with your co workers, with the people that you feel like work under you, what does that look like, you know, to every social relationship that you can have? And how to how does that change and relate on a daily basis and on a month to month basis? That’s what I think about that thing about social wellness.
Christine Gautreaux 4:01
Right? Yeah, that it’s so interconnected, you know, and that it starts with our self care, you know, this is my life’s purpose, about self and community care, and how to balance it, and how do we, how do we say well, as we’re taking care of others, you know, when I when I co wrote Stillpoint, with Sheila Kay Collins in it, we talk about the danger to caregivers. And you know, I’ve been doing a lot of work this year with activist and caregivers and people that and a lot of women who take care of other people, and are burnout, and are tired, and are forgetting to take care of themselves. And it’s this social wellness is a piece of it. Like how do we balance ourselves in the world? Because we got to have both, right? We know from this last year of the pandemic for folks that were isolated, and didn’t, they had a lot of, they may have had a lot of time with themselves. But they weren’t engaged in community in the way they usually were. And I was talking with a lot of folks that that was really painful and really hard. So, boy, it’s a dance. It is that is that? You know, how do we do that? And I’m a connector. So I tend to sometimes I get out of balance with doing so much community that I’m not doing enough self. And I was, Oh, I saw a statistic. I was reading this book about burnout, I need to look at what the what the title of it was. And it was talking about, I’ll find it, I’ll put it in our show notes. I should have written it down for I got on line with you. It was talking about we need 40%. Rest. So it was talking about,
Shannon M. 6:00
say it again, Christine, wait a minute. These people know
Christine Gautreaux 6:04
40% rest, that means 10 hours out of a 24 hour day. So
Shannon M. 6:13
that makes sense. Because I’m like, Is this supposed to be how it was gonna be like,
Christine Gautreaux 6:20
but think about that. Like, think about that, as women business owners as caregivers as activists, like how often do we give ourselves 40% Rest? Hate.
Shannon M. 6:37
And I haven’t seen it,
Christine Gautreaux 6:39
right? If we’re sleeping seven and a half to eight hours. That’s still two hours, two to two and a half hours additional rest today, and what their research was showing, and I’m going to look it up. What their research was showing is if you don’t, then your body breaks down. Yeah. Right, which I know to be true. As a body wise person. I’ve been there. I don’t even know that, you know, this story. Shannon, I was, um, the story starts with me standing on a street corner and weighing him in Texas. Okay, it might not have quite been 2am, it might have been midnight. But I had a box on my shoulder I had just wrapped up at the time, I was the development director for homes of St. Mark a foster care and adoption agency. And I had just wrapped up the celebration on the top floor of the Houston aquarium with 500 people, it was a very successful event very successful. And you know, when you do events, what happens is there’s always that box at the end that people leave stuff like Lost and Found or the, you know, the little bits that need to go back to the office. That makes sense. I was standing on the street corner, and I was exhausted. At the time I was working a full time job. I had finished my master’s program I had not rested after I finished my master’s program. And that had included a full time internship and a full time job and two young kids. And I had never taken the time to rest. Wait.
Shannon M. 8:20
You’re right, it included what
Christine Gautreaux 8:22
right. This is. It included a full time internship a full time job, and two young kids and Joe and right and then I hadn’t rested after that I just kept going. So I was standing on the street corner. And at this time, and people from Houston are gonna laugh because they’re gonna say at this time, it’s always this way. But this was a good 1520 years ago, that construction was happening. So I would have an hour hour and a half plus every day one way to get to and from work because the way the construction worked. And so I was done this event, my kids were still young. And I’ve seen them on the street corner and I was just like, I’m done. I’m exhausted. I am really trying to do it all. And I I can’t and so I I really consciously at that moment. Remember thinking about setting it all down. Now later, fast forward, I’m gonna tell the story in a couple of different parts. But fast forward, and I had a teacher tell me relax and set it down. But remember to hold on to your immune system. So let’s back up in the story. I did not know that. I did not know that wisdom at the time. And I remember standing on the street corner and I remember setting it down. I set the box down as I waited for my ride to come pick me up. And I thought I’m done. I’m exhausted and I’m done. And I woke up the next morning burning with Bell’s Palsy. And my body had an autoimmune flare. That was, you know, my body was telling me I was done. But I was not listening. Right. And so that is when I decided to become an entrepreneur and I quit working full time and went contract and started my own business. So I could have some more, some more, and I loved in. Let me let me say one more thing about that story before we move on. Part of why it took so long to stop is I love this agency, I love the people I worked with. I love the organization, I loved the work I was doing in the world. But I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was taking care of everybody else, and not taking care of myself. So that you know how we talked about in Stillpoint. And I know I’ve said it on the I’ve said it on the show before. But when we talk about the definition of health care, and we talk about, and I’m going to read it out loud, because you know, I need to tell myself this
Shannon M. 11:05
every day.
Christine Gautreaux 11:09
self care is not putting ourselves through frequent reoccurring cycles of overworked, followed by crashing to recover. This Rhythm of full speed ahead, followed by total collapse is damaging to all dimensions of ourselves, the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, and our social wellness. Like when we talk about when we talk about how do we do social wellness, and all those things are incorporated in it. It goes back to that starting with our self care, right.
Shannon M. 11:49
We could talk about, I mean, I’m so excited to have this conversation with you. Right. So one, let’s tell our listeners, we don’t have a guest today. So welcome to our room, right is us and you were talking about social wellness and this. Christine, like, changed my life. Okay, you know, I was the kitchen manager as the kitchen manager when the general managers not there. I’m the general manager, and Christine you know, I do my job. Okay, they used to people used to tell me when I would get home. A CNA here talking about you. They met they say Shannon always asking for us to give her the food and always telling us to clean up. Don’t make me sound so good. When I’m not there, like just complaining about me doing my job is crazy. But the night that I spent the night at work, it’s like last night, this is exactly what I’ll do. Christine, like reading your book has helped me give a more specific level of articulation to the situations that I’ve gone through. Thank you. Because last night I was up till 7am working this time on my business so it’ll be worth it. It’ll compound over here, right? And I learned a lesson this night. But I stayed at this restaurant, y’all. So 730 in the morning. And the reason I did not stay later was because we were being QA, which is quality assurance. So the health inspector for my restaurant company was there to check our restaurant out. The other managers were supposed to come back they did not. I was by myself. Until 730. I knew everybody would be there at eight. I said I’m not going to be here eight o’clock. I’m up. I’m about to go to sleep, because I still have to work today. But I spent the night and that was because I was being too nice. I know my cooks are tired. I care about my cooks. I make sure they eat I make sure that the breaks are rotated. I make sure they have water. And I make sure my food is together and our time let’s not play with these guests. I guess need hot food now. Late. What are you doing? Are we are we on our phone? I’ll be cooking, are we at work? What are we doing, but I made sure that I take care of them. And I wanted these men to be able to go home to their families. And so I stayed because I didn’t want to point out stuff and be too nitpicky. But then nobody came back. And then I was by myself but even as a closing manager, it would have been inappropriate, really, for me to put more work on the other managers that I should have had the staff do. So that’s delegation, right? Being comfortable, as a young black female leader delegating to men and older men and all and that’s occupational wellness, that’s another conversation, but I stayed at till 730 So I realized that instead of doing 18 things by myself, I should have asked 10 people to do two things. Just two things and take that 20 That other hours Mind you we close at 10pm I left we might leave on a little Late Night at three at the absolute latest, you know, that’s late 730. No, that’s not healthy. You know. So when I realized, like you said, I’m committed to everybody else, clearly, but me. I said I was gonna drink more water today. And I, I just didn’t get around to it. But I got around to wiping the undersides of these people calendar and the underside of the sink on my back at 5am. But you didn’t work out for the past three months? Are they going to call you when you’re sick? Are they going to be mad? Because you’re not at work?
Christine Gautreaux 15:37
Right? I mean, that’s the thing, right? And we want to I think sometimes it plays into Well, I think it could be way we were raised, it can play into ego, it could play into, you know, but we are replaceable, right? And we don’t want to be replaceable. But in a lot of ways we are unless we’re down and out. Like we’re replaceable to companies into jobs and things like that. Right? Replaceable to ourselves and to our families. So right, that thing about how do we do this? Right? How what?
Shannon M. 16:16
So like, what I love, Christine, is that before that would almost have been me. I think it offends a lot of people. I’m not replaceable. I’m Shannon Mitchell, I’m irreplaceable. And that’s true, right? We just talked about how that’s true. But I gained more peace. When I became a business owner. And I learned that you the roles that you play and your responsibilities, you should actually get to a level where you could teach somebody else to do that is just like I said, take the task shouldn’t have been mine, I shouldn’t ask somebody else to do it. But what does it look like to financially be able to do that to know how to articulate what you need in order to ask somebody else to help you. And so again, my point is, as a business owner, I’m not always going to be the person that’s hand making the shape, but I make all this stuff right now. But eventually, it might be somebody else, eventually, it might be somebody else at the market, it’s not gonna be me at every market, I’m gonna have five people at five markets, and I’m going to be somewhere else one day, right. And so we can do that in our lives. That’s just working smarter instead of harder. And so we’ve got to let go of personally, trying to be the end all be all for everybody, and take care of ourselves make ourselves a priority.
Christine Gautreaux 17:37
I love that was what was rising up in me, as you said that Shannon is the VA learning how not to try to be everything for everybody. Right? And having boundaries with ourselves and each other. You know, we talked about that being the fifth skill of self care in Stillpoint is boundaries and saying yes, and saying no, and being able to say no. So you can say yes to the things that you really want to and bring you joy, right? Yeah, I was reading this article, as we prepped for today. It was called The Seven Ways To successfully cultivate social wellness for life. And it was from a place called optimum performance Institute. And we’ll drop that link in our show notes. But it talks about how to cultivate your habits of social wellness. And it gave seven guidelines which we’ve already we’re right on the money with. The first one is practicing self care, like finding balance in our life. And so, you know, you and I’ve talked about this on the show before and several of our guests have brought it up but self care means something different for everybody. Right? Self Care is I know for you one of the things you love to do is take care of your nails. And that’s part of your healthcare practice. Are you going to show them your nail kit? Is it close by
Shannon M. 19:00
Yeah, so I got everything right here. So my nails were done this week is is particularly particularly Okay interesting. Because I’ve done my nails twice in one week. I really do the most pieces nails Okay. When you because I’ve been cleaning and of course they get my stuff so I did them again. We went to Grandma Linda’s 70th birthday party. Shout out to Grandma Linda. I had to look good for these pictures. Christine. This is going down in history. Okay, it’s in quarantine. So I try to enjoy my community that way. And yes, I did them twice but we talk about tools. I have this box that has the different things I need different files and clippers and the brush to brush off the extra nail this right and then I got an Amazon affiliate, you know, gorgeous little briefcase that organizes everything.
Christine Gautreaux 20:03
And then will you describe it for our listeners who are listening and not watching?
Shannon M. 20:10
Absolutely. So what this is, is, it looks like a two sided clear briefcase and it has little compartments. Imagine if you had band aids and they would be about that size. It’s a little bit bigger than that. And you can put whatever you want to on either side. People who make jewelry, jewelry, use it, right. People unite for Yeah, yeah, no, I love it. And that’s how I found out about it when I was little beads. And I think my mom bought me something like this. And so the fact that it’s two sided, makes it super functional. And when I got it, I got everything that I needed, you know, I got the 500 set of acrylic nails, I got the nail polish, so I got a little sample so I could try out the different colors. And then I have a smaller tool kit that came with like toe separators I think that’s what they’re called, you know, different grades of nail filers, because you use different ones for different things came with a cuticle cutter, I got a little brush to help me take out the excess nail polish on the toe. That’s not key, you know, I’m saying color and all outside of the lines is cool sometimes, but not on the toes. So I I got to step to make sure that I have what I need to be able to take care of myself. And again, whoo saw from everything that has been quarantined. When we talk about social wellness, of course it ties in occupational, that’s kind of what we’ve been talking about. But it’s it’s really important for my sanity, and my mental and emotional well being to actively take care of myself when I’m in an environment that values my life less than air fresheners and electronic votes, like y’all move quick on this other stuff. But when it comes to me, I could get shot in this person only get charged for the bullets that Miss. So I’m gonna make sure that I take care of myself as long as I can. And this is how I make that more of a fun and optimistic thing. And you can have fun with it and be creative and stay in this side of healthy operating.
Christine Gautreaux 22:21
Right. And for people that were listening and not looking at, she has all these beautiful array of colors for her nails, which I love. Exact opposite of you Shannon like I’m a hippie chick that doesn’t do her nails. Like if I put a nail polish it might be clear. And that’s like big whoo for me. Now, I love doing my toenails. But it’s not like that doesn’t fall under myself. Like it’s fun. But it’s not that one doesn’t fall into my self care read, like more like one of my number one self cares is walking outside barefooted and putting my feet on the earth. Right. And that I love and one of my clients, you know, self care, well, several of my clients actually is doing some ceremony around paying bills like putting a candle on and paying their bills and giving gratitude for paying their bills and self care looks different for everybody, right? But if we can use this to manage stress and self soothe and help self help have self compassion for ourselves, which we have an expert on self compassion, going to be a guest in a couple of weeks, Dr. Cynthia Phelps from inner ally, and I can’t wait to talk to her about some of this too. But in the article, they also talk about knowing yourself which I love that you’re my friend like you know you’re doing your nails, this is what you like, but getting to know yourself like identifying your preferences, your values, we talked about that. Um, we talked about that and still point to like, know your inner authority, like your body wisdom. What do you like? Not what we’re taught to like from media and telling us how we should look or what but what do we like, right? What’s your favorite color? SHAN Yes. Yeah. What’s your favorite?
Shannon M. 24:20
The jury the jury is still out right now. I would say red but honestly, I’m liking all the different shades of red. I like coral. You know, I’m liking the the burgundy. I like I like those and I also have been enjoying yellow Morrison’s that’s the shallow glow colors, you know, enjoying bringing that bright energy out because quarantine I feel like it’s been dark, you know? So I’ve been intentional about looking at brighter colors.
Christine Gautreaux 24:51
Okay, I like that.
Shannon M. 24:53
About yours. What’s your favorite color? Oh, well,
Christine Gautreaux 24:56
for years it was blue but really I love purple. So You know, I’m really resisting hard not running out and buying that new iPhone, because I’m not an early adopter. Like I usually intentionally do not buy things when they first come out. But they have timpani. They have to, to me with the purple to tell you. Yeah, I’m not getting it. Dry, right? It just dropped and my kids texted me. They know how much I love purple. They’re like, Mom, I’m like, I’m not looking. I’m not looking at self control. So when we talk about financial wellness, I don’t pop up. I’m hearing sale, say how much you spend?
Shannon M. 25:39
Yeah, you got to be strategic with it. And you might still get it. It’s not No, it just might be not right now, you know? And like you said, that’s the balance of social wellness and social expectations. Do I already get it because it’s the newest one. I like the color. So it’s cool to have stuff that I like, and people like to know that I have new things like that’s the thing for me. And I feel like a lot of young people, the the expectation of look like everything’s cool and flashy and worth the Instagram picture. But do you have life insurance? Okay, is
less. Yeah, I will say I do too, you know, just like you vote, we got to vote, we got to make sure that our stuff is set up. It’s not just about what other people say. And it’s so interesting, because outside of inflation that I think about all the time with all this money that’s coming out, right. I also think about what’s about to say, I also think about how to get set up again, how to get set up for real, and making sure that we’re not just feeding it to what people expect of us, especially when we talk about intersectionality. You talked about one of your teachers, I had a teacher who told me that you need to say no, sometimes, you know, and at this point, I was five classes. So I had a full time a full schedule. At college. Right. Then I had three jobs. And I was a TA so one of the students. I was her ra i was her resident assistant and would help her at the dorms have bits for her all this stuff. And I was her ta I was her teacher’s assistant. So in this class, if she had any questions about tutoring, or different things that we would help the professor with, I was her person for both. But clearly you see this a lot a lot on my plate. And I didn’t realize how much I said yes, until Professor Donovan shout out to Professor Donovan, in psychology and Absa Kennesaw State, if she’s still there, but she told me you have to say no more. And so the relationship with yes and no, is very important.
Christine Gautreaux 27:49
I think it’s huge. And you know, it’s often where it comes from, you know, whether it’s the wanting to be nice or polite, or I think about this and boundaries as we open back up. And as invitations are going to start to come in. And as we look at this, because you know, that when we first started talking about social wellness, you know, the first thing I go to is hanging out with folks or, you know, being a part of communities and and that’s a piece of it, right? That’s a piece of it. But how do we do that? In right balance? How do we do that, and have self care at the same time. The this article I was mentioning earlier, it talks about owning up to your own part in every relationship, that there are two people involved in each contribute any situation that comes up positive or negative, and taking responsibility for yourself. And I think about the NA talks about disagreements and conflict, but I’m even thinking about this. As you know, there’s been some folks I haven’t I literally have not seen in a year.
Shannon M. 29:09
Right? Most. Yeah.
Christine Gautreaux 29:11
Right. And it’s like, okay, where, how am I going to do that? Right? How am I going to I’m not articulating this well, but I think about our schedules, I think I don’t know about y’all, but my schedule has been nuts run into business during this pandemic. And so getting back in balance with that, where I’m having more rest time, but then also, we were talking about this in our radical self care class the other day, that we have a we have a test for self care which I’ll I’ll put a link to it for folks in our show notes. But it talks about one of the things is were like going in between and one of them was rest and recreation, right? Because sometimes we and I think about that, because I think they’re not the same things. Like, I am very much people meet me and are like, Oh my gosh, she’s an extrovert and I have that piece of myself, I’d probably lean more towards being an ambivert. Like I need alone time to recharge, and people recharge me. It’s kind of both. But I think about reopening for social situations reopening for being out there in the world. And that means I’m going to have to put some more rest time in my schedule. I might have a great point. I may totally be overthinking might be a one overthinking it.
Shannon M. 30:45
No, actually, no, not at all. This is what it looks like to be intentional with all eight dimensions, there’s a lot to go into. And people are so used to just talking about the surface and never going deeper that. Again, if we’re really going to work on wellness, our attention spans have got to get longer. That’s it. We’re not We’re not in third grade, you know, like, and even if you got to break it up, if you got to break up when you have the conversation. This is a journey. It’s a lifelong thing. Of course, you know, you don’t have to talk about everything in one conversation or do it all today. That’s not realistic. And we got to be realistic. But I think that you are wise, when we’re connected in wisdom, right? The two whys of looking ahead, as a business owner, what do I want my schedule to look like, just like you should look ahead for your money is time and financial freedom. So you should look at your time too. And honestly, Christine, I’m not. If you don’t know me, you probably won’t see me unless, again, I’m working in a shallow glow, and you’re going to meet me and nice to meet you. Of course, I’m excited to meet you outside of that I’m in the house, because I’m intentional about my physical wellness and my financial wellness. And I still need to be studying to make sure that all this stuff that we’re setting up is successful. And that that I rescue with everything that’s going on again, because we talk about holding the grief and the gratitude. Right. And with again, the Dante right situation, we talk about social wellness. It really took a lot out of me. And I was surprised I was like, you know, I need to go home and sit down. Like this is crazy air freshener. Like, I’m trying not to keep going back to it. But it’s tragic that we can’t spend time on stuff because this every day is literally like every day something happens. We talk about self care. Okay, go to the massage parlor, they’re shooting up massage parlors game, we can’t go to the get Skittles, you know. So I think about us, how are we supposed to do this? Right. And I’m looking forward to talking to Claire, we have a listener who brought up a more up to date, reference that we can use the 12 Universal needs, I’m interested to see what she’s gonna say about it. But right now, you know, I’m gonna go back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And first is survival. In bare minimum, my survival means the the health of my generation or lineage it that means the health of the generations, not just physically, women having babies, you know, we talk about the birds and the bees, we need to talk about the eight dimensions of wellness, okay, and how are we going to get set up. So right now, that’s what my focus is on, then we can look into love and belonging, and parties and all this stuff. But that’s where it comes from. Because if people, as a group, socially are stuck at survival, it’s hard to get up into the deep conversations and the nuances of social wellness, especially when we’re talking about anti bullying and all this stuff for the kids. But how can you talk about anti bullying? When the environment if we’re talking about the national environment and environmental wellness is bullying, like, this is this Congress?
Christine Gautreaux 34:16
Gun violence, right says right, as we start to rewire, and open back up, we’re having more mass shootings like that happened in Atlanta, that affected community like in a deep, deep way. And it’s right school, you know, I that’s honestly when one of the gifts of the pandemic is the the school shootings have gone down because, you know, I know for myself as a parent sending my child to school, when you just don’t know like when you get that text that there’s a a lockdown, or there’s a threat of a lot like who Yeah, It’s a, it’s a big?
Shannon M. 35:02
Yes. And And thankfully, I’ve never been that close to a situation like that, you know? And let me be very clear that when I said, there’s no point in having a conversation and no way do I mean to not have a conversation or that the conversation needs to be stopped. But we’ve got to this is not actually it is war propaganda is what I think about people are just saying stuff. But we have to really do the work all the way, we have to go to the root of it. And again, thankfully, I’ve I haven’t been that close. But I do remember one day as a manager, I was at work. And one of my teammates, he, his brother was actually at a school, and he got that text, like something is happening. They’re shooting at my school, and he was at work, he was not okay, of course. So you don’t have me like, at work and put on this front and then continue to do our jobs because we don’t have, or I’ve never seen environment where it’s, Hey, I’m having a situation mentally right. Now, would you mind if I step away from the responsibility of my roles? Of course, you know, you got to figure it out. And so it was interesting. But something else that I do to help me is, knowing that everything that happens in my life works for my good, and is difficult to wrap my mind around that when I think about the men that get killed, and how they call for their moms. And that’s something that they talk about, right? I’m as I’m not a mom yet, but I can’t imagine. But then Dante right, actually called his mom, he was on the phone with her, and I hung up the phone. What? Like, you know, it’s crazy. So, to think that everything that happens in my life works for my good. If I’m a black mother, which one day I will be right? How do you wrap your mind around that, that’s where you got to go to your sole point. And make sure that you’re taking care of yourself. And not overextending yourself for other people whose role is not their responsibility to anyways. And even if they had the opportunity, we know that humans let you down, you know, and that’s why my spiritual, they talks about all the different dimensions, my spiritual wellness is so interconnected to my social wellness. Because again, for the sanity, reason, and be still being able to operate from a place of love and light and positivity and hope for the future, knowing that God has a plan for me, even though somebody else might have a different plan. I have control over the part that I have control over. And I’m going to lose off for a second, put on some shallow glow, drink my water, go run four times a week, so I can work this energy out. And because they shot my Jamal in the back when he was actually excuse me, I think that’s a jazz player. But his name was a mine. Okay. And they shot him in the back while he was his last name.
Christine Gautreaux 38:01
Oh, I didn’t say his last name. I was just saying he was from South Georgia.
Shannon M. 38:06
Right? And excuse me for forgetting his last name. Right. But they did they shot him while he was running. So I think about him when I run. But I do those things so that I can continue to work that out. But again, spirituality and social wellness, it keeps on
Christine Gautreaux 38:23
I may say his last name wrong, but I believe it was arbory
Shannon M. 38:27
arbory? A my arbory. Yeah. Yeah, I think I remember the alliteration. The A but but yeah, you know, so I also understand that with religion and spirituality, a lot of times we talk about how it might turn it so that you try to fight less, or it’s just maybe making you not pay attention to reality. And that’s why all of the eight dimensions helped me to to have a clearer picture of what’s going on, where am I today. And that’s why I start my day with myself. Before I hop on my phone before I look at my email on social media and whatever news story Google populates before I get to go to my Gmail, GQ, and these mattresses, you know, just seeing how people switch their story to be relevant. Before I do all that, what is Shannon’s story? What does Shannon want? You know, because again, as a woman, and as a black person, a lot of times, if you don’t, if you’re not intentional about thinking about those things, it’ll be really easy to fill the blanks on your piece of paper for your life with pre generated answers that somebody else put in and not even realize it you know, so, where am I at today, mentally, spiritually, physically, and then I can do with everything else,
Christine Gautreaux 39:58
right I love what you just said about not letting somebody else’s pregenerated answers be like the script that we live our life by, that we get to, we get
Shannon M. 40:12
off their baby, I write my own story, what is Shannon What is shaded and say about about this about herself, you know. But again, we talked about sitting in authority and having the confidence to do that. That’s something I’m still working on. Every day I see something that I learned or that I could have done better. But again, that’s why it’s a journey. It’s so lifestyle.
Christine Gautreaux 40:33
Well, one of the things I said in this article, I know I keep going back to it, but it was really yummy. It’s a appreciate yourself and others give more energy to positive negatives to help keep us happier, healthier, and more hopeful. So I just heard you do that for yourself. And it also acknowledging the positive qualities you see in yourself in in accepting genuine compliments from others, like appreciating that positivity. So, you know, I appreciate that you’re drinking your water and taking care of yourself. And not only that, Shannon, like you created the company to help yourself and to help other women. And what a gift that is. Yes, right. What a gift. Yes, I’m just saying our and, and not watching with us right now. I wish I could see Shannon because she really is just glowing right now. Like she is the best advertising crochet logo ever. Just like showing up just beautiful skin and radiating sunshine. So
Shannon M. 41:44
thank you so much. And yeah, you know, we’re coming up on my birthday lady, my birthday, May 17. Okay, and my best friend’s birthday just passed. And when I think about Shayla glow, our sponsor shout out to shea butter and Africa, and Ghana and everything that goes into making these products. But I think about me and my best friend taking care of ourselves. Because both of our mom’s passed away from cancer, like within months of each other, it’s crazy, we have to take care of the women, I don’t care what you say, the woman has to be taken care of, they’re taking care of you, you’ll take care of them who’s gonna be here, none of us are gonna be here if the women aren’t taken care of. And so I look forward to making the money. You know, that is part of financial wellness. It was smarter for me to be a business owner than an employee. But it’s really like you said earlier, you said purpose, right? I feel like I’m living my purpose now doing this podcast with you. Being able to genuinely give a gift of self care. I love that I get to help you take care of yourself. I love that I get to help my best friend take care of herself, and my goddaughter. And my boyfriend’s mom, and this person in Pennsylvania and this person in Maryland and this person in Florida and this person in California, I love that. What more could I ask for to genuinely help people take better care of themselves? Because your environment might not be doing that for you, but you have the power to do it for yourself. But are you going to take the power? Are you going to harness your wellness? Or are you just gonna give it to other people and hope that they get through it on their list of to do things?
Christine Gautreaux 43:23
Now, one thing I want to talk about before we start wrapping because I know we could talk about this all day, for folks who struggle with like, I was thinking about this as you were talking because you and I have a lot of connections, we have a lot of friends, we have a lot of people. But for somebody that might be struggling, coming out of the pandemic for somebody who social wellness is a challenge because they don’t know how to meet people or how to get engaged. I think we should we should give our top honor twos for that because we’re from different generations, we’re from different backgrounds. What would you say to that to somebody who was trying to figure out how to engage socially with new folks.
Shannon M. 44:16
So, one, I love this question. And I would say and I want to be intentional about my answer. So I’m going to think about it for a second. But what I would say is, think about what you need first. You know, don’t step out based on what you see other people need, where are you in your life. So for example, I was a greeter at church at victory on Tuesdays, we had fusion fusion was lit okay, you talk about social wellness. That was my place to go and put down all the weight of my mom being sick work being crazy, trying to figure it out. I was able to go and relax and work on my spiritual wellness and get fed at the same time. But I I also served, so I was intentional about that. With Corona, I had to let that go because I needed to focus on myself. So me letting that go, the responsibility of helping others at church was part of my social wellness. But I made that decision based on where I was. Because if not, I would have tried to hold on to it, because I felt like that’s what I should do. And I’m a leader. So of course, that should help it’s pandemic, people are going to come and need help. But now I’m overextending myself and hurting myself when I needed to heal, and be focused on me for my survival at the bottom right. So of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and being aware of where I am. So I would say, know where you are. And then ask yourself what you want to do have fun with it don’t be so Oh, if I don’t go to this party, then what would benefit you? Right? What are you doing right now? Do you want to go to only virtual? Or do you want to go in person? That’s probably the question, right? And then what do you want it to look like? If it was a perfect situation? Why would you be there? What type of people would you meet, and I would just like you’re intentional about the shows you watch or the food you eat, I will be intentional about the things that you intake and the people that you intake, part of what we were reading before the show you were talking about older relationships. And if they’re healthy, being able to bring those back, a lot of stuff that is not in the life anymore, and the season in your life is over, keep it not in your life anymore. But when you’re adding new relationships, and as we step into the next level of our life and your continued purpose every day, who do you need to be around you, for you to be the best person. You know, when I think about my social wellness, something else I think about is, I am the average of the five people that I spend the most time with. And if you don’t know who that is, and you don’t know why your grade on your test is what it is. And I need to know why my grade is what it is. And I need to pass because if not, it’s death to me and the generations.
Christine Gautreaux 46:59
Like an honor student.
Shannon M. 47:04
The education system, we talk about it, but that’s the reality of situation. And you know, I’m on student Christina, to make sure that I operate in excellence. And so that’s what I would say, be mindful of the five people around you. Well, and I know you said to, you know, I’m long winded, which is why we got a podcast, I will give you one more. But actually, no, I forgot my third one. So go ahead, what’s your
Christine Gautreaux 47:31
I’m gonna piggyback a little bit on what you said about rekindling old friendships or relationships with people who are positive and respectful and supportive. Like you might have lost track over this year with somebody you really liked, like an old colleague or a friend you live in. So I would start there, and there’s somebody that I really want to reconnect with, that the pandemic is what got in the way. And then I loved what you said about checking in with yourself first in what a like, what do you want, like, I always go to volunteering. I love that story of volunteering for victory, because I have found some really dear friends in incredible community and volunteering or activism, like getting involved in something that I’m passionate about is a great way to meet people. Because especially if it’s an activity like that other people are there because they’re usually motivated and excited about it. You know, a simple one is meetup.com. Yeah, a simple one is is going to meet up and filling out your interest and seeing what’s happening around you. Right. That’s a that’s a nice tech tool like that. We can put a link to that too, for folks to check that out. But um, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I
Shannon M. 48:54
specifically love that too. And we talked about me going to therapy, and how the one place that I knew I wanted to focus on was my social support. So when I’ve mapped out my time, and I set my goals for this year, I was intentional about exactly this was my wisdom and action this year, right? Family and friends. So the way I really judge these relationships, are you going to put them on your life insurance policy? If something happens, are you going to give them $10,000 $30,000 $75,000? Whoever is that close? Our you know, how was that relationship? How much time do you spend there? And then it’s like a cell it has the difference is the part that’s really close to you in in the people that aren’t so close and people that are even further from there. And then you know, think about your role in the relationship and how you how you want that to be and then outside of that where do you need support? Is it financially? I needed support financially. So my social circle looks like bookkeepers, we talking about accountants, I’m talking about investors and primary Okay, because my average is low on the financial wellness side. That’s where I’m going to add. And then I’ll one last point that I’ll make to what she said, Christine. I love volunteering. And volunteering actually has been huge in my social wellness throughout my life. I was NHS President beta club secretary. So like volunteer opportunities in high school, like, I was somewhere over there. And it helped me not focus so much on the things I had going on my dad being in and out the hospital as being divorced again. I say, I’ve been divorced twice already, you know. And it helped me remember that. There’s other people that are going through stuff too. You have your stuff, and they have theirs and everybody has to carry their weight. But again, making sure that it’s balanced. You don’t have to overextend yourself. You don’t have to prove anything to anybody. And I want to give a shout out to Shayla glows for Shay row, Brianna. She actually has an organization yes, that does exactly this, you know, make sure she they make sure that the volunteer organizations are doing what they should and are treating the people who they’re supposed to help the way they’re supposed to. And that is huge. You know, a lot of people need help right now. This is what we’re talking about social wellness, financial wellness, physical wellness during quarantine. And I love that she took the time to get educated and get involved in her community. And Brianna was our first Shay row and it was announced on her birthday. So happy birthday again, Brianna. Shout out to you and the work that you do in the community. If you have a shero that you would like to nominate that’s been making a difference in your life in the community email my Shay row as a subject line she lo glow@gmail.com And I’ll make sure that I enter her into this quarter stride.
Christine Gautreaux 51:51
Hmm, I love that. Shayla Glo does that and honors incredible women in the community that we get to talk about him here. I think that is fantastic. Well, my friend as always, I have enjoyed our conversation. I have about 10 more things I could say but we tried.
Shannon M. 52:12
So we do try Yeah, we’ve been doing pretty good
Christine Gautreaux 52:19
are we gonna have an after conversation on clubhouse we’ve been round if listeners to give us feedback about if yo and have some after conversations on clubhouse, where we could meet up and talk some more. And I know we love it when we have listeners that are watching us live. And they give us comments through Facebook or YouTube because we can include them in the conversation. But also, you know, sometimes folks are driving home and they can’t do that or they are not in a position. They’re listening while they cook dinner. So we’ve we’ve been talking about different times that we want to meet up on clubhouse and just invite you all more into a conversation like you know, we’re having tea and having a conversation. And so be watching for that on our social media. You can find us on Instagram. You can find us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter. Find us all over the place. And
Shannon M. 53:20
don’t forget, be well be wise. And we hope to see you next week at 5am at the after party conversations.
Unknown Speaker 53:32
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.
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