Show notes –
Join Shannon & Christine as we talk about social wellness & how to love ourselves more with author Jenna Banks.
Shealo Glo – www.shealoglo.com Now offering Subscriptions * Delivered on the 1st & 15th!
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Stillpoint – https://www.amazon.com/Stillpoint-Self-Care-Playbook-Caregivers-Breathe/dp/1732370400
Secrets of InterPlay – https://www.interplay.org/index.cfm/go/events:event/happening_id/2918/
Book a free inquiry coaching session with Christine here: https://www.christinegautreaux.com
Join Christine at one of her events: https://linktr.ee/christinegautreauxmsw
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Listen to past episodes: https://womenconnectedinwisdompodcast.com/
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Facebook page Women Connected in Wisdom Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/womenconnectedinwisdompodcast
Black History Month – https://learn.masterclass.com/blackhistorymonth?s=03&fbclid=IwAR16_thmXOhf-J6olv4RsQs_16RKiIPCUvxP4W8MWZS4Bh9sL69DhysgC7A
Chelsie Kryst Miss USA – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/06/who-was-cheslie-kryst-miss-usa
Lies My teacher Told me –James W. Loewenhttps://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281
Leading from the Outside – Stacey Abrams https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250214805/leadfromtheoutside
How to find out more about our guest Jenna Banks:
Instagram: @jennabanks.0
Facebook: @jennabanks.0
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/banksjenna/
Pre-order Jenna’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Me-More-Happiness-Self-Love/dp/1956072004
Free Give-a-ways from Jenna:
Free “I Love Me More” playlist on Apple Music and Spotify available on the homepage of my website.
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.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, women, book, love, feel, life, jenna, tuning, talk, wellness, shannon, relationships, drained, joy, conversation, thought, practice, world, grateful, valued
SPEAKERS
Shannon M., Jenna Banks, Christine Gautreaux
Shannon M. 00:08
Let’s do this. 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 00:25
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. 00:35
Yes. And together, we are women connected in wisdom, a podcast grounded in the eight dimensions of wellness. Welcome, welcome to our show.
Christine Gautreaux 00:43
And we like to get together every week and have intentional conversations between ourselves and with some awesome guests in order to learn how to be wise in business relationships and wellness. So what are we talking about today, Shannon? Yes, today
Shannon M. 00:59
we are talking about social wellness. And to jump right in, the definition we’re using is social wellness 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.
Christine Gautreaux 01:26
I love that. Every time we talk about social wellness, I realize the depth of it and like how big it is, and how much people have been impacted through the pandemic in the last eight years. And why we’ve got to talk about it. Yeah, right. Yeah. what bubbles up for you when you think about it?
Shannon M. 01:50
For me, I usually think about relationships with others, right? Whether it be friendship, so we don’t always dive into friendships and how they can affect you. Sometimes we talk about relationships, but friendships is a whole thing, too. And then I think about social dynamics at work. Being a young professional, you ladies know, I love business systems. That’s what I think about as a business owner, how do I want my relationships to be with the people that I collaborate with, with Christine with my business partner with my partner, and how we balance everything. But then as an employee, on the other end? How do I want my relationships to be with my team and the people who are scheduled? And the people who schedule me, you know, so I think about it in the occupational wellness category? A lot of times as well. Right? They
Christine Gautreaux 02:37
all overlap, don’t they? Absolutely. I think when I think about it, that last line about being a piece of the bigger puzzle of the bigger, you know, the bigger world, you and I were prepping for today’s show. And we were thinking about resources, because you know, we always love to give our listeners resources. And I know that our guest has some amazing resources for us today, too. But one of them that popped up for me this week. You know, it’s Black History Month. And so the whole month of February, but the month of love and the month of black history, and I think they go together in a lot of ways too. But there is this resource that popped up. It is a masterclass called the history, you weren’t taught in school, black history, black freedom and black love. And it is streaming free during Black History Month. So I want to put that as a resource in our in our, for our show notes for our listeners, because it’s really cool, y’all. It is, um, it’s a three part class, black history, black freedom and black love. And it is they talk about past, they talk about present and they talk about future. So I’m going to it looks phenomenal. So I’m going to put that in for our resources. Yeah, what have you been reading or looking at?
Shannon M. 03:54
Yeah, and I put it directly below that. One is lies my teacher told me and this book is, you know, they say you when you read, you expand your mind, you expand your mind to spaces that it cannot go back from that’s how I feel like, you know what, now it’s all starting to make sense. You know why? Even certain people have bad grades if they think a certain type of way, because if it’s taught like this, but really, it’s missing a lot of details, then no wonder why people are confused at the order of history or the origin of certain things or how things should go in the future. Not as far as who should be over who but just as far as the social workings of things, how do things actually work if we don’t understand the dynamics and how textured situations can be whether it’s the thought process, or the person in general, we’re missing a lot of what it takes to get from point A to point B. And that’s what lies my teachers taught me it’s really made me think about
Christine Gautreaux 04:57
Yeah, I think you know, I do A lot of embodiment work within or play. And I think about what you just said about if pieces were missing, or if it was taught out of order. And kids know, like, they may not know, like they feel it in their bodies or they know something’s not right, or they. So that’s what I think about when you when you talk about that. And we all the pieces fit together in the puzzle like this, the definition of social wellness talks about
Shannon M. 05:26
Absolutely. And it’s just like right now, you know, in the school system, how we are asked to leave certain things out. And we’re talking about Black History Month, this like skipped right now and curriculum, and we’re going to march what, that doesn’t make sense, you know, so I’m thinking again, that’s why I’m grateful to be able to have the conversations that we have to make sure that we’re covering all the dimensions and everything that goes into really doing it in a healthy way.
Christine Gautreaux 05:53
Right, our guest today, I can’t wait to introduce y’all. We’re gonna do that in just a few minutes. But his is an expert on talking and sharing about ways to have self love. And I think that’s a vital conversation when we’re talking about social wellness. Before we bring our guest on, I want to ask because we always wait to do this to the end of the show, and then we’re like cramming it in at the end. I want to ask now, what is happening over a shallow glow, because Shayla glow is the sponsor of the women connected and wisdom podcast, and I want you to speak to what’s happening over there.
Shannon M. 06:32
Yes, so so much, again, being intentional about talking to the community. And like we said, we’re going to talk about some self love today and motivating women to be intentional about doing that every day. It is a Valentine’s Day coming up. But just like we don’t want valentine’s day to just be on one day. It’s not just about the person that you’re with first, the love starts with you. And we love everybody else better from that. So we’re doing that through our glow kits. We have the travel Glow Kit that will pass through TSA, that 3.4 limit. There was one time I had what
Christine Gautreaux 07:08
was I have to tell a story real quick, thank you for putting out that new product because I had the old product with me this trip and four ounces. And you know, I went to Colorado so the moisture gets out of your skin. Well, TSA i Two things happen. Let me get my shout out for precheck. If you if you don’t have precheck it is totally worth it if you travel on a regular basis. So I was in the precheck line. So that gives me a little bit of privilege, you know, because they so so they pulled my bag and I was like why did I pull my bag. I made it to security, which is mostly usually the toughest security I go through why it’s called Ronna pull up my bag, and they found the four ounces of Shayla glow. And I was like, I had I’m like,
07:53
don’t throw it away. But the TSA agent was a sweetheart and undid it and goes, Yeah, that looks like about 3.4.
Christine Gautreaux 08:06
But I will have to say because you know we have this these conversations on the show. It was totally white privilege to because he looks at me and he says, You look like a good passenger. Now I bit my tongue. I did not say Oh, because I’m a nice white lady. I didn’t say it. I thought it but just name it the
Shannon M. 08:26
shea butter. I get it. Yeah. In the trash. But yeah, I was at the airport and has to throw away my huge thing of coconut oil one time I thought it was gonna get checked in is. So we have the travel kits for you guys. Okay, so they are below 3.4. No question. And we know you need more than that on a regular basis. So then we have the home glow kits. But yes, that’s what we’re working on right now. And new scents are coming. So those are on the way and I’m excited about it.
Christine Gautreaux 08:54
I can’t wait like you really y’all if you haven’t tried her product yet, you got to try it because I was coming home from Colorado with crack tans because it was like one degree there and I just got out my shea butter and it tasted absolutely so grateful for you and the end your company. So thank you. I want to give a shout out really quick. We have an upcoming secrets of Interplay for helping professionals. That is happening next weekend and I will put the link to that in the show notes. If you are looking for something to help prevent burnout or pull you out of burnout and help reconnect you with your joy and your inner authority. This might be the place for you. So check it out. Alright, let’s get back to social wellness. Yes, social you want to read that definition one more time before we bring Jim
Shannon M. 09:45
Yes, 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 parts dissipating as an interdependent piece of the bigger puzzle of humankind.
Christine Gautreaux 10:06
I love that so much and our next guest is going to speak so well to this show. genebanks is an entrepreneur, real estate investor, author, speaker and self love advocate. Against all odds she pivoted from the self loathing, self loathing survivor of a traumatic childhood in nearly fatal suicide to a fully empowered woman who knows her worth. Following her passion for entrepreneurship. She started a home based business with just a GED $400 In a laptop, I can’t wait to hear the story. And she sold that business in 2019 for half a million dollars. Having achieved business success, she now focuses her mission to fulfill what she sees as her ultimate life’s purpose. helping women embrace their value and power through self love. Her upcoming book titled I love me more how to find happiness and success through self love is scheduled to release on March 8 2022. On International Women’s Day. So y’all welcome to our stage, Jenna banks.
Jenna Banks 11:20
Thank you ladies. What a nice welcome. I’m so happy to be here with you.
Christine Gautreaux 11:24
We are so excited to have this conversation today. I’m so new book, but not new work to you.
Jenna Banks 11:35
Hmm. Oh, no. Yeah, I just got her here. She is just prices. Beautiful. Thank you just arrived yesterday, I was just so emotional opening that box because like you said, it’s not new. For me. It’s been a life journey to get to this point. So yes, yeah.
Christine Gautreaux 11:57
Tell us how you figured out that this was your purpose and passion?
Jenna Banks 12:01
Well, the Universe works in beautiful, unexpected ways, doesn’t it? Mm hmm. It was one of those just unexpected moments where I was, I was going through a traumatic breakup. It was a heart of heartbreak for me. But I had to choose myself and put myself first that’s how I’ve, I’ve raised myself to be and I stick with that, even if it means breaking my heart and sometimes going through some uncomfortable situations. And I was in one of those situations. And I was at dinner with a friend of mine who really couldn’t understand why would break up with somebody that I was really in love with. And I said, Well, you know, I did my best to communicate my needs. He wasn’t able to value me enough. And I had to value myself enough and love me more and leave as as she’s like, what? I was like, What do you mean? What like, I put myself first in my life, I my highest priority, I follow my happiness. And if something isn’t serving me and my life’s purpose, I need to get out and choose myself, even if it means breaking my own heart. i She just couldn’t understand. And I was like, oh, okay, so I tried my best to explain it to her. But it didn’t get through by the end of dinner, we say goodnight. And a few weeks later, she’d been she told me, you know, Jen, I’ve been thinking about what you said. And oh my gosh, I get it. It clicks for her. She had really been thing I just thought, wow, this is amazing that you were pondering it that much. You know, it was very confusing for her. But she realized at that moment, there was a particular moment in time that happened after she’d been contemplating it, where she was in a relationship as well. She had been she’d probably been in for a few months. And she didn’t really knew where nowhere, she didn’t sit with this guy like and she didn’t feel valued. She didn’t feel like he valued her time and attention at all. And she was constantly agonizing over the relationship. And she realized what at one moment, she was like, Oh, I get it. I’m not valuing myself by allowing this in my life. And it gave her the power and the courage to choose herself and cut the relationship off and never looked back. And when she told me that story, I thought, oh my goodness, like I’m taking for granted all that I’ve gotten gone through in life to get to the point where I am now but man, you know one story if that was powerful enough to change someone’s life for the better and empower them, you know, what would happen if I actually helped more people? So she actually asked me in that same conversation, she said it’d be really helpful for me to know how you got to where you are. And that got me thinking, Well, what to get me so I just started writing about it journaling and and then I realized, oh, there’s there’s a lot here and maybe I should think about writing a book about it. So
Christine Gautreaux 14:57
that’s how that I was looking on your website, which is gorgeous. By the way, thank you in the show notes for folks to check it out. Awesome. And I love what you say on there about what relationship is the one you’re currently working on strengthening the most. And then she goes on in the website and says fill in the blank. I would hope that my family friends or partner would say that I’m a shining example of loving, blink the most. What do most people say? Have you done studies around that one? Yeah, well,
Jenna Banks 15:35
yes, personal polls, but usually it’s my partner, my kids, everyone else, but themselves. Like when you ask people to list out, you know, who are the highest priorities, sometimes myself doesn’t even come up. And it’s should be the first thing that comes up. And I want to say I want to preface that by saying, you know, somebody listening or watching this right now might be thinking, God, that sounds selfish. That is actually the biggest obstacle. That’s what most people think most women think especially is loving myself would be selfish, putting myself first would be selfish, making my needs, my highest priority would be narcissistic. And thus, we run so far the other direction, that we don’t even look at it. We don’t even consider it. We don’t even think about receiving that love that we have for ourselves. And it’s a very unfortunate situation, which is when I did that homework. I was like, Oh, I the more I started researching for the book, besides just writing my own stories, I was looking for some research and data and other elements to back up what I’m saying like it’s not just me, there’s their science. Mine is there’s psychology behind this. There’s there’s a lot behind this. And I came to find out that one of the biggest inhibitors is this fear of selfishness syndrome. And so I wanted to appropriate get that off the table right off the bat in the book. Because yeah, it’s that fear of selfishness that keeps us from loving ourselves.
Christine Gautreaux 17:11
Right. We talk about that in my book that my co author and I wrote about for caregivers and it’s the exact same issue right and and what people don’t realize especially women, is, this is dangerous. It is not just Oh duh, you know, this is not fluffy Frou Frou, this is dangerous. Y’all like the the statistics and the research about caregivers, which most caregivers are women, there are men caregivers, but the statistics about caregivers dying younger than they need to die, whether that’s by suicide, whether that’s by major illnesses, whether that’s by like, they are shocking when you start to look at it, and how it’s because they’re not taking care of themselves, whether that’s mental and emotional, whether that’s going to the doctor when they need to go to the doctor, I hope self love. And women have been trained, especially in the United States to put that aside and take care of everybody else’s needs bosses partner you’re talking about? So you are talking my language, Jenna, how do how do we talk with girlfriends, with with our sisters with the women listening on the show? How to what shifts it for them? Like say somebody? This is a new concept to them? And they’re like, I don’t even know where to start by loving myself? Where do you start?
Jenna Banks 18:39
Oh, wow, that’s a really good question. Christine. I would love to answer that. Let’s see if I can answer that. Because yeah, you’re right. Where do you start? where I started, was tuning into my intuition. And and listening to it. I won’t even say honoring it. Because that’s a hard place to start if you’re not even used to doing that. That your body’s constantly communicating with you. Your energy field, like what feels good, and what doesn’t feel good. And just tuning into that alone takes a lot of time, especially when you’re used to abandoning yourself self sacrificing people pleasing, we squelch down what we truly feel. Because we want to be the nice girl. We don’t want to be selfish. We don’t want to come off mean or rude or narcissistic or whatever. And so we don’t honor these feelings that are in our bodies that are communicating to us, Hey, this is what I need. This doesn’t feel good. This is a boundary. And really that is I think the very first step is tuning into that and that takes in and of itself probably years to get to that point and I know it took me a while
Christine Gautreaux 19:59
right I love that Jenna, because we talked about that in Stillpoint self care is tuning in, like, I love that. Shannon, you look like you were gonna say something or had a question my friend.
Shannon M. 20:10
Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about your question and where I started because I got to the same place like, you know what? I love you. I’m gonna have to let you go. You know, I love me more. And I think about what do you want for your life? And I think that a lot of times, we’re not always asked that, you know, even now, I was telling my partner earlier, that is interesting. When I meet different people, and they want me on their team. They’re like, Oh, this is what I have going on. This is what you should do. And it’s like, wait a minute, I’m actually booked. You know, we’re booked out. And I appreciate that you see that, but what about what I want for myself first. And so knowing what you want for yourself, and then seeing if that lines up. I think that’s what helps me stay grounded. And even if I get too far off, it’s like, wait a minute, come back over here. We’re getting a little too far over here. Because again, I’m realizing like you said, Jenna, in my body or in the energy fields, is starting to get a little off. So that’s one thing I try to pay attention to is kind of like, what you want to eat, you know, and picking a place like, Hmm, that sounds good. But it’s not really what I want right now. And being true to that and whatever your goal is.
Jenna Banks 21:22
I love that. Shannon? Yes. 100%? Absolutely. Thank you.
Christine Gautreaux 21:27
Now, Jenna, do you have daily practices or things that you like? Put under your self love that you think? Because we always talked about self care practices on the show? And we talked about to wellness? So like, do you have wellness practices or self care practices that you talk about in the book, or that you just do on a regular basis that
Jenna Banks 21:47
I tell ya, yeah, I mean, a one that’s in the book that I do daily if I can, which means that I have to force myself to most of the time because I’m working like 12 hour days these days. So I, I really have to do it. But it’s called My joy list. It’s just a list of really simple things that I can do to put me in my happy place. Not complicated not going to the spa, or anything that’s going to take a lot of effort. I’m talking super basic, like tuning on music. I love music so much. And I forget sometimes to turn it on. So I look at my list. Oh, yeah, right. If I turn on some music, I’m going to lift my spirit, I’m going to feel my soul. And another one is just if I look outside, it’s a sunny day, just get out Jenna, go for a walk, it doesn’t have to be an hour can be 30 minutes, but get out in the sun, move your body, that’ll put me in a happy place. I have other little silly things. Like I watched I watched funny animal that videos, Instagram has figured out my my tastes and feeds me those cat videos and all those other animal videos. And I just laugh and smile the whole time. And it’s simple, easy, right? It doesn’t take that much time. But it feeds my soul. And you need to do that. If you do that daily. As you both probably know, if you’re feeding your soul daily, it absolutely makes an impact. Right? It was joyous. Yes,
Christine Gautreaux 23:15
we always talk about gratitude list, but I love that you call it your joy list. So it sounds like there’s two separate things there. Right? That your joy, you’re writing down the things that literally bring you joy, to remind yourself if you’re working too much, or if you need to be brought back to center. These are things that work for me. Right? I love
Jenna Banks 23:36
that. Yeah, cuz I mean, I’m passionate about what I do. I’m so lucky and blessed. As you mentioned earlier, in my bio, I sold my company, I can now be a social entrepreneur and give back and do the things I’m super, super passionate about. That totally feeds my soul as well. But it doesn’t mean it’s not exhausting. Yeah, so you have to you have to get back to yourself. I have this analogy I call the power container. And I also mentioned the book I’m doing talks about it and workshops on it. Now. It’s this imaginary imagine you have this vessel in your body maybe starts with the lower end of your stomach and goes up to your chest area. Imagine so it’s called the power I call it the power container. When it’s full, when you’re full of your love or power, that’s my saying is your love is your power in his right so you can give your love or your power away to everybody else. But if you don’t give it back to yourself, you drain your power container or if you’re if you have other drains in your life, like you know somebody who gets you to say yes all the time when you really want to say no, you let people cross your boundaries. These are examples of drains, but we can also power ourselves up with our love by practicing your joy lists, some self care, spending time with yourself journaling and all of that. Now again tuning into the energy that’s how you know how, where you’re at where to measure, right? So when you’re when you’re on full power or what I call power full, you feel powerful you feel on top of the world, you can accomplish all of your tasks. You’re dancing in the car, when you’re playing your music, as opposed to just listening. You’re like, yeah, you know, like, you go out in the world, and people like chi, they want to get to know you, like, you know what it feels like when you’re reading it, then you also know what it feels like when you’re drained. Right? There’s nothing like you can see, like, I’ve had conversations with people I love and I just take what they’re saying with like, a pessimistic view. And is that not them? It’s me, right? I’m just not in full power. I am not motivated to do things. I don’t get my chores done all we know what it feels like when it’s trained. So if we start to tune into that and strive to operate at a place of power full, then we can better like monitor you. How do I want to feel today? And and I always check in with myself daily. This is something I’ve been doing for years, every single day, how do I feel? Do I feel powered up? Or do I feel drained? Okay, if I feel drained today, why? Let’s look back. And that’s where journaling comes in. For me this morning practice of journaling, like, did I let a boundary get crushed yesterday? Okay, well, how did that make me feel? What triggered it? What could I have done differently? And same thing, if I’m feeling on full power? Probably, you know, write about what I’m grateful for? What’s making me feel that way? Am I pursuing my passions and interests? Am I doing new things that inspire me, you know, just tuning into what that is? So you get more familiar with? What drains you? And what powers you up?
Christine Gautreaux 26:40
Oh, I love that so much. I love that daily practice of your journaling. That is really inspiring. Jenna. We were talking before the show about a couple of things. But I want to hear if you’re willing to tell it your story of building a company with a laptop in 500. And got like, tell us this story. Because that sounds like that’s gonna be just incredibly inspiring for our listeners to,
Jenna Banks 27:06
I’m happy to share Yes, oh, my goodness, that was, you know how we have those energetic moments in our lives where either we’re feeling on top of the world, or just low, low low, and you’re you have to make a decision, right? It’s just like, oh, this energy is just like, it’s there, and you’ve got it, you need to move on it, you need to make take action, in order to just feel better. That was a situation I was in a very comfortable corporate job. And I had just not been feeling good. My power container was pretty empty, I was drained, I was just not wanting to show up at work. I didn’t feel valued there anymore. I felt like I was just keeping my feet warm, I wasn’t challenged. And one day, I felt that just bottom of the barrel feeling it was like just like, uncomfortable as the best way I could describe it extreme discomfort. And I thought, You know what, I’ve got it, I’ve got to take action on this, I need to change it and make this huge shift in my life. And that and that means not being at this place anymore. It’s not serving me, this is the universe giving me a sign, it’s time to go, I quit. I didn’t have a backup plan. I didn’t know what I was going to do. And that’s a pretty bold move to make. But you know, life is worth living to the fullest. And there’s no amount of money that could make me sacrifice my happiness and comfort. So I I felt amazing for the first week or two. And then I have to admit, it felt a little uncomfortable after that a little bit of fear came in. And I thought oh, now what, what am I going to do? Like I had no plan. And I did what I usually do when I take breaks in between jobs or entrepreneurial endeavors, I just took time to invest back into myself. And that meant going through some savings, to marinate in it and to reconnect with myself and just tune in to what what were my passions? What was I enjoying, before I got into that job? How can I reignite that again for myself. And so I went back into an old industry had been in that I really, really loved the most and decided to do my own business. And I was like, you know, let me just try my hand on it. I’m, I’m one who doesn’t like to throw a bunch of money at something at first, I just tried to get the proof of concept. So yeah, my $400 went towards getting a website, starting blogging, learning about content creation. Content marketing was kind of new at the time. So I just learned all about that and started testing it out. My first client was NASDAQ who was clear across the country so I kind of proved my concept that I could do this nationally. I didn’t have to be local. And and so I thought okay, alright, so that’s one good step. And then I just follow the next step and next thing, you know, grow into a business that did very well and I was able to keep it operating at home. I didn’t have to leave the comfort of my home and then pretty soon I was traveling around the world, being able to work from wherever was add it was really absolute freedom grew, my company hired a very low cost overseas team that allowed me a lot more freedom to really delegate most of my tasks, and was eventually able to sell it for half a million dollars. Somebody thought the model works pretty well. And they were willing to pay me that for it. So once the universe gave me that gift, I thought, You know what, there’s bigger plans for me. Like, I’m not gonna let this be all that, that I do in life, that that’s not my that’s not my best story. I’ve got a lot more in me. Yeah. And so here we are saying,
30:38
well done.
Jenna Banks 30:39
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
Shannon M. 30:43
I’m sorry, go ahead.
Jenna Banks 30:44
I was just gonna say, you know, you could look at it, like the pinnacle. Or you could look at it as the first step. You know, I think this is a first step of just a great career that’s going in a whole new direction that I can’t wait, you know, because if we look at it from a woman’s perspective, as you ladies both probably know, you know, we’ve had a lot of hurdles to overcome, to get to where we are as women today, if you think about it, it was only back in night, did you know that it was only back in 1974. That we it became a law that we can have our own credit card without a husband signing of our mortgage without a man signing it. You know, even I was talking to someone not too long ago who even in 1976, when she went to go get a mortgage, they the bank wouldn’t count more than half of her income, because she might get pregnant. Right at any time. That that was illegal. That’s crazy.
Christine Gautreaux 31:41
Our lifetime, maybe younger than I should have. But you know, this is our lifetime, like this is this generation. Absolutely. So think about the lack
Jenna Banks 31:53
of power that we’ve had as women to even put content out in the world. Right? We didn’t have the money, the resources, no one would listen to us. And so you know, when more women can be empowered to have the comfort to take some time off and look at life, and how can we contribute in a greater way? from a woman’s perspective? We haven’t had that.
Christine Gautreaux 32:18
Absolutely, I was just reading Stacey Abrams lead from the outside book, if y’all haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. And I’ll put it on our show notes. But she talks about in there, how women, often women in people of color, and don’t often ask for investors or money, because they don’t know how to but they also haven’t been taught to that, you know, white men, they’ll ask for what they need. They’ll ask for the money to invest in their company, they will go for it. And I mean, it’s understandable with women and minorities, why they haven’t because of all the barriers, but it is a new skill. We have to teach ourselves and to say, hey, we’re allowed to do this in 2022, that we can go for this and ask for what we need and honor ourselves. Like you said earlier, Jenna, like love ourselves and honor ourselves enough that we’re saying, Hey, this is what we’re doing. Yeah.
Jenna Banks 33:19
Yeah, yeah, a whole new area. It’s a whole new area for a lot of us women, and that we just we don’t have anything to model it after a very little. So you’re breaking some new ground here? Yeah, but yeah, I’m sorry, you were gonna say something, Shannon?
Shannon M. 33:35
Oh, you’re fine. I was gonna say that’s one of my, I mean, there’s a lot that I love about your story, right. But that’s why I love that your story goes from considering to not be here anymore, right? That’s a huge choice and a thought process to be in a space in your life to be into now, where you are in teaching women how to be full of power and full of love, and prioritizing themselves. And especially because we could talk about it all day, all the different skills that we can learn and how to be successful as an individual as an entrepreneur, but with women together connected in wisdom. That’s why I love our individual stories, but then doing it together. Because Christine knows something that I don’t know, Jenna, you know, things about being an author and doing things as an entrepreneur that we don’t know, you know, so when you compile them together and have the strengths and the weaknesses overlap, we can exponentiated the results that we have instead of trying to figure it out and recreate the wheel from ground zero.
Jenna Banks 34:35
That’s so beautiful. Shannon, you’re absolutely right. We are more powerful together. You know, that’s, it’s so true. If we think about it, the boys club. We all know it. We see it every day. A guy meets a new guy for the first time any guy doesn’t matter. Hey, bro, what’s up? Yeah, right. Hey, brother. What do women do? How have we been? conditioned to behave with one another even to this day, not you ladies because I know you know better you have a different philosophy but most women out there I see this all the time. It’s a it’s a Oh, hi social niceties and then it’s you know who got a Do you see what she’s wearing? That’s a fake Louie baton. It’s this constant judgment and oh god, she looks sloppy in that outfit sure why she’s showing so much cleavage. We’re judging each other and bringing each other down, instead of saying, Hey, sister, hi, I get an instant like acceptance into the community because we are more powerful together. And when we tear each other down like that, we are not furthering our cause. No. Oh, you
Christine Gautreaux 35:44
are definitely speaking our language Shana, cuz I mean, it is. We all rise together, right? And in you shining, doesn’t diminish my shine at all. And steaming and shining doesn’t diminish my shine at all. We just have to shine like and we can all shine together. I want to I want to have this conversation. We were having it a little bit ahead of time. About a little bit about your story about what’s going on in the world today. What do we what it came up about, as we were talking about Miss USA, Chelsea, who took her own life recently. And the tragedy of that, and in talking about that you see this beautiful young woman she’s 30 years old, in chooses to enter life, she was an advocate for mental health. She was an advocate for social justice. You know, you look she won one of the top awards in the nation for beauty and intelligence. And, and she I don’t know if it’s lack of self love. I don’t know if it was the trolls. I don’t know if it was a mental health break. We don’t know. Nobody ever knows in that moment, that decision. And I know from your story, you have some experience with that, like, how do how do we do it as women for young woman because I know a lot of young people in my life who have struggled with suicidal ideation and suicide. And it just seems tough these days, I think was social media. With all the pressures we were talking about ahead of time for you, I’d love for you to tell the audience about your story about trolls. Like, how do we do this when there’s real reasons that people are trying to tug us down or make us not shine our lights.
Jenna Banks 37:33
So I wasn’t not shining your light person to the public. Up until not that long ago, really, it was only until I started writing this book and decided to really go for it and start doing public speaking and stuff like that, that I said, Okay, I need to embrace this, putting myself out there and be vulnerable and share with everyone, I can’t get more vulnerable than I am in my book. So I put it all out there only because I want others to be able to relate, you know, maybe there’s some part of my story that they can relate to. And so I had to go there and in putting myself out there, which was something I really never did. I was never on social media, never I didn’t have a Facebook page until last year. And I just never did that. But so it was a whole learning experience. But I’ll tell you now that as I might, some of my posts are gaining popularity, one of them went kind of viral ish recently and opened me up to more of the world, people that would be my target audience and those who would not be and, man some of those comments, you know, I mean, while I’m used to getting, you know, the wonderful comments and those who relayed, there were sound that came in that were like, calling, just referring to me as some horrible things like anti christ and all these horrible things. And it was a really good practice for me, actually turned it around and took on some gratitude. Actually, I was thankful for this, you know, we’re usually we’re getting tested constantly, right? And it was just I saw it as another test of resilience truly, and also a test of my ability to forgive. Because I want it you know, my our instant, I can say that I wasn’t instantly like, trying to take it personally, that’s our instant reaction. But, you know, I had to process it under what I know to be true, which is it’s not personal. It really has nothing to do with me. You know, imagine what they must be going through to spend that much of their time and attention hating on people. I can’t even imagine wasting my valuable time and attention on that. And so their internal world must be pretty, pretty sad in order to, to feel that way or to put that out there or to try to make others feel badly because truly the way people behave is usually has nothing to do with you. It’s just a reflection of their internal world. And that allows me to find forgiveness because, you know, it’s not about me, and I’m sad for them that they have to go through that but I I will also block you so I don’t have to see it.
40:04
I love that forgiveness, compassion and block
Jenna Banks 40:06
like. But you know, going back to what you mentioned earlier about the suicidal thoughts, you know, I can totally relate, I was there I was there for, I’d say a year or two, I was very suicidal from like 16 to 17 Multiple suicide attempts, I had a death wish. And I really just fantasized truly about how I could knock myself off in the least amount of pain. And it just seems like another lifetime ago, really, because it’s not at all who I am today. But I did have the the last suicide attempt, it took a whole bottle of pills, I would have died if someone hadn’t found me convulsing. And ambulance came, pumped my stomach, I was in a coma for days. And I really, you know what, when I look back and see, you know what I was feeling back then, I think it really was a lack of self worth. If you think about it, it didn’t know how to value myself. You know, I’ve been raised to put so much attention on external people, external things, pleasing others, worrying about what other people thought of me. If I wasn’t getting the love, which I wasn’t, I was not in a loving home. I wasn’t showing love by either parent. So to come from that background and not know what that feels like, you know, you just feel unlovable, right or invaluable, unworthy. And it really took me learning to tune into myself, those were the first steps. Just learning to tune into that energy and then start to listen to those signals. And then over time, I just came up with my own, I didn’t even know there was such a term of self love until I started to write the book to be honest with you. It I didn’t realize that’s what it was. But that’s what it was. And just learning to tune in and honor myself, I realized that I had value. And you know, like you said Shannon earlier about, you know, someone asking you Oh, yeah, we’d love to have you on our team be like, Well, hey, what about what about me and what I want, you know, I had to learn to to honor myself and value myself in that way, and put high value on my time and attention and feel what that feels like. And it’s no, it’s not selfish, to feel really good and full of your own love or your own power, that’s actually a really great place to be. And the more powerful that I feel, the more I have to give to everybody else, the more I can give to my work, the more that I can give. And also just be that for other people, just your presence alone, when you’re in a state of self love self acceptance is a powerful thing. Just the energy alone benefits the road, you won’t even have to say anything or do anything. Just stand there. Right. And it impacts your Yeah, yeah.
42:56
From head to toe.
Jenna Banks 42:58
Exactly.
Christine Gautreaux 42:59
I love that. Yeah, I think I have one more question just because I’m paying attention to time. And I’m Shannon probably has another question too. But um, I think about when you talk about valuing yourself. And I think about our women, our listeners, most of whom are women, most of whom are doing, you know, 20 million things, probably while they’re listening to the podcast at the same time. And I think about, are there certain steps you take when you’re making decisions? To put yourself first to value yourself, because you know, we are tagged and asked to do so many things in our lives in our world for other people. I guess what I’m just asking is, do you have something that you go through in your head? It sounds like it’s very natural to you now. But when you started this process, and didn’t know how to value yourself, how did you start making yourself a priority and valuing yourself?
Jenna Banks 43:56
That’s a really good question. It is tuning into your comfort or discomfort. That’s it that called intuition or whatever you will, that’s honoring how you feel that truly can be or you’re
Christine Gautreaux 44:11
just taking a deep breath before you say yes or no or anything and checking in with your body and saying, Does this feel good? Or does this feel bad? And if it feels bad, it doesn’t matter who it is? Or what’s going on? It’s a note.
Jenna Banks 44:25
It’s a no, it’s like a knot. I wanted to say, oh, no, I’m sorry. I can’t but actually, that in and of itself is making a small and we do that there’s no apologies necessary. No apologies necessary. No, it’s not a good fit for me. You know, or I had somebody that’s when
Christine Gautreaux 44:41
I have to practice on you know, because I was raised in the south and we’re raised like to be polite into digit. I still to this day after practice on that one about saying that no, is the answer in and of itself
Jenna Banks 44:55
said and no, I can’t I don’t have the time I had somebody just today ask For me, I love helping women. And I encourage you know, anyone that I know, you know, please ask me if there’s anything I can do to help and someone wanted a phone call tonight specifically, and I said, I, I can’t I just don’t have the bandwidth. You can email me text me, I’m happy to answer you on my timeframe, but I just don’t have the time be draining for me right now to do that. I didn’t say that. But I just said I can’t. And that’s okay. You’ve got to honor yourself i that my instant feeling was Oh, God more. More stuff. I can’t know what it’s okay.
Christine Gautreaux 45:33
Well, and what I’m hearing you say, and I know to be true in my own life, and I think Shannon would agree with this, too, is it takes practice, especially when we are so conditioned from the world and our families of origins and different things to not put ourselves first or practice. If that’s the background you come from, it’s going to take practice to, you know, it may be hard, you may have to say no, with your voice shaken the first time, you may have to say no, thank you. Or you may have that one or two sentence explanation. And don’t beat yourself up about that, you know, they get shorter as you have practice. Champion, you look like you need to add something here. Yeah,
Shannon M. 46:10
I was gonna ask a question, Jenna. So right now, and I know we’re wrapping up and we can do our wisdom and action. What do you feel like is your biggest challenge with self love and prioritizing yourself? Oh, it
Jenna Banks 46:23
always was boundaries. That was my biggest challenge. Because most of us don’t realize our boundaries are being tested every single day, whether it’s our kids, our partners, our bosses, our co workers, or even somebody at the grocery store, like you’re being challenged. And you can either try to be the nice girl comply with outdated social norms that disempower you. You know, I mean, it was amazing to me, especially when I go out to restaurants and such when I was single, especially just the things that people felt entitled to do, especially guys. And it was like, you know, I just had to get over this idea of I’m going to be seen as the mean girl to stand up for myself. But it took a lot of hard work. And I have to say, I only recently got to the point where I could say, I feel like I’ve mastered them. But it took a lot of conscious effort, and a lot of trial and error. And of course, a lot of self forgiveness. Because while you’re going through the challenge, to change these patterns, you’re going to mess up along the way. You just have to say, Okay, now reflect on it, what could I have done differently, okay, run through that trial run in your head, or how you can handle it better than next time. Give yourself some forgiveness, and get it the next time. And it might be a new challenge the next time it usually is. And you’ll come up against those patterns that make you want to sacrifice your feeling your good feeling or just comfort or comfort, and just go for the known pattern. But you know, it’s a lot of time and energy that you need to spend on yourself because you are worth it. And so boundaries was that big one. And I’m so proud of myself for getting to the point where I am today with that.
Christine Gautreaux 48:06
Oh, I love that. Jenna, will you hold up your book one more time? Oh, yeah. See it? And the other listening it’s I love me more. And it is coming out on International Women’s Day. Correct?
Jenna Banks 48:17
Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, right around the corner. So exciting to read
Christine Gautreaux 48:23
it. Jenna. I’m so excited. I’m, we’re so delighted to have this conversation, we usually wrap our shows with a hashtag wisdom in action. So when you think about this conversation today, when you think about writing the book and how to love yourself more, what would be your hashtag? What would you tell our listeners? What is their What is your wisdom in action?
Jenna Banks 48:48
It is I’m going to try to keep this short and concise is do it uncomfortable. Be willing to go through self love is not all peaches and cream. Usually it’s there’s a misnomer out there that it’s getting your nails done getting your hair done and doing so self care. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot of deeper work that needs to be done to really show yourself love. And that’s the stuff that I cover in the book. And you got to be willing to go through the pain and the discomfort of change to choose yourself and love yourself more.
Christine Gautreaux 49:23
Choose yourself and love yourself more. Yes, yes. Yes, listeners. We’re gonna put all Jenna’s information in our show notes. You can find out more about her at Jenna dash banks.com You buy her book, listen to her podcast because you also have a podcast. We didn’t even get to that. When you put that show, we will put that in our show notes so folks can check it out. And we’re just so delighted to be in connection with you.
Jenna Banks 49:53
Same here ladies. I love this conversation. So so much. Love your energy, love all You’re doing to shine your lights in the world. So thank you for all that you do. I’m very grateful for,
Christine Gautreaux 50:05
you know, be in touch for sure. By Jenna,
Jenna Banks 50:08
I look forward to it. Bye bye.
Christine Gautreaux 50:11
Oh my goodness, what an awesome conversation.
Shannon M. 50:16
And I’m looking forward to reading the book, you know, I love to read. And I’ve just loved the title, love, the more
Christine Gautreaux 50:23
right wisdom and action out of this conversation.
Shannon M. 50:27
And that’s actually so I said, the book was loving me more. That’s actually my hashtag is loving me more. I love me more. And that’s what it is. That’s what this year is, for me falling in love with myself. You know, last year, I think I did a great job at taking care of myself. It’s been a pandemic. That’s good, you know, we’re gonna step it up a notch and love my loving myself more. Right?
Christine Gautreaux 50:53
I think this is such a good topic, we didn’t even really bring it up around Valentine’s Day, or social wellness. But I know that there’s a lot of people that hurt around this time of year. And I loved what Jenna said about tuning into yourself and really loving yourself in that, that really practical skill she gave about journaling. So my wisdom and action is going to get back to my morning pages and journaling. I used to do that all the time. And I’ve kind of gotten out of the habit, because like this morning, I rolled out of bed and rolled into my work chair because I just had an idea that had to come out. But I couldn’t take in, you know, 1530 minutes and done my journaling first I know better. That’s gonna be my wisdom and action is getting back to those practices that are super effective. And being able to be able to just love ourselves more. I love that so much.
Shannon M. 51:47
And I really like difference between gratitude and joy. Necessary. You know, gratitude is one thing, there’s so much so many countless things to be grateful for. But intentionally looking for joy is something that has added more joy to my life too. So I like having a joy list. And tapping into that.
Christine Gautreaux 52:07
We used to have a joy jar when my kids were little because you know, we were just coming out of college had young kids didn’t have a lot of money. And so what we used to do is we would write things that brought us joy that didn’t cost money like going for a walk in the park or going and feeding the ducks are going in and so if we got funky you know if we got feeling sorry for ourselves like that, we just go pick up pick a little slip of paper out of the joy jar, and we would go do it like sometimes it was skip or you know, play hopscotch or like things that that brought us joy literally that didn’t cost any money. And I look for that sometimes, right? Because I love to skip.
Shannon M. 52:51
I liked it sometimes when we go run I just skipping down the good. Yeah.
Christine Gautreaux 52:56
Just automatically, right? Joy. I love that so much, my friend. This was such a good conversation. I’m grateful
Shannon M. 53:07
that it yes, I’m excited for her book release on March 8. International Woman’s Day is such a good date to pick
Christine Gautreaux 53:12
right and listeners we will put all the links in our show notes. Join us as you know, we’re here every week having really great conversations and we look forward we’re grateful to be in connection with each other and with you.
Shannon M. 53:27
Yes, yes and join us next week for episode 55 In the last one of our of our season what is the season seven season? What is what is 54 divided by eight or nine? He back next week for episode 55. In the meantime, don’t forget be well be wise
53:49
and the whole thanks for listening. This has been the women connected and wisdom podcast on air live on Wednesdays at 5pm. 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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