Show notes –
Join Shannon & Christine for a chat about Social Wellness and the 8 dimensions of Wellness in order to have healthier, happier lives.
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https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/05/tech/facebook-whistleblower-testify/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/technology/facebook-down.html
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.
Christine Gautreaux 0:45
I love it. And we like to get together weekly to have intentional conversations. But the last two weeks, we have had tech issues that have overcome. And we’re keeping our fingers crossed today. We weren’t the only we weren’t the only ones having big tech issues, though.
Shannon M. 1:04
Right? Right. And it’s directly related to what we’re talking about today. Should we go ahead and jump into the definition? Oh, let’s
Christine Gautreaux 1:12
do it. What are we talking about today.
Shannon M. 1:14
So this week, we are talking about social wellness. And 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. We read
Christine Gautreaux 1:39
that one more time, Shannon.
Shannon M. 1:41
Of course, of course, 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 human time.
Christine Gautreaux 2:03
I love that definition. I mean, it kind of wraps almost all the dimensions of wellness together, right? But it’s about the balance, the word balance kind of sticks out for me. Yeah. And how do we do that? Like, how do we do that normally? And then how do we do it in a global pandemic?
Shannon M. 2:20
Right? Exactly. Especially because like you always say, there’s no real thing as balance. So is this constant rock or swaying and figuring out what you need for that day in that situation with the person that you’re dealing with that that time and then go into the next one? That’s how I think about it.
Christine Gautreaux 2:40
Oh, my gosh, you saying that. So on this cross country road trip that I was on, I listened to a book on tape, which it’s called essentialism. And let me look up. Let me make sure I don’t say the gentleman’s name wrong. You’re gonna love it essentialism. But one of the things he talked about is the acronym when what is needed now? I like that. So like you even saying that is what? What brought it up for me, because what is needed now, in this moment for our wellness, Greg McEwen is, is the author of that book essentialism. And it’s called essentialism, the disciplined pursuit of less.
Shannon M. 3:24
Okay.
Christine Gautreaux 3:28
And what he was talking about in that book, I think it ties into what we’re talking about today, Shannon, is that there’s so many things that are non essential around us. And we talk about this about how, like, we get information all the time, you know, from our phones from the world, from computers, from people walking by everywhere, and most of it is non essential. So really, kind of training ourselves that what is essential, what goes with our purpose? What goes with our mission? What goes with, I know, you are so much better at this than I am. I just know that my friend, being in friendship with you for several. Because, you know, I like to do all the things.
Shannon M. 4:17
You’re all like, yeah.
Christine Gautreaux 4:19
Right. So, um, yeah, I think you will enjoy it. I was thinking about you as I listened to it.
Shannon M. 4:26
Really? Yeah. That also reminds me of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. You know, Steven talks about keeping First things first. And I think that being in the hospitality industry on different levels as a hiring manager, opening restaurants, and as a server, even as a host back in at Friday’s days at Kennesaw State, you know, what do you need to do right now you have a lot of stuff to do. You’re in the weeds, you’re running around. It’s crazy as Mother’s Day or Friday, like whatever is going on, but you can only do one thing at a time. That’s what I will tell My trainee. So what do you need to do next? Do that quickly, you know?
Christine Gautreaux 5:05
Yeah. Well, in the book essentialism, he references Stephen Covey’s seven habits. And tell us a story about Stephen Covey. And, you know, I read that years ago, and it all kind of ties in, right, like what he was taught what McEwen was talking about in essentialism was, and I don’t know if it was Americans or the Western world, but we took the word priority, and made it plural. It’s the complete antithesis of what priority is like that we can only have one priority at a time. But we think we can do 510 20 I’m guilty. I mean, you know, me, I’m like, Yeah, I would do it all. But that that is oftentimes not effective. Now, I want to give a little asterisk here, because this is written by a white male. And I always take that into account. Because with white male privilege, a lot of times they have the privilege of only doing one thing at a time, because they have other people in their lives that are taking care of the other things. And as women, oftentimes, we don’t have that privilege. We got to be taken care of the house. And like all of this at the same time. Yeah. So we’re juggling? Yeah. So I just I always want to, I always want to bring that because I think about that when I listen, who is the author? What is their perspective? What are their privileges? How do they get to write for this? And who does it work for? Does it work for everybody? Or does it work for just a certain population?
Shannon M. 6:35
Right? And I think that’s a great way to stay in a healthy position to receive information, right? Because especially when we talk about women and women connected and wisdom, voices, and who got to be an author and gets to do different things. A lot of times the information may be coming from a man just like Robert Kiyosaki, you know, I love some Robert Kiyosaki information. But I have to remember that some things may need to be tweaked to fit my life as a black woman in 2021, than when he was in the military back in the 70s. I think if I’m getting the decade, correct, you know, so as much as I appreciate his perspective and the wisdom, and it has absolutely helped me, I have to be mindful to take things with a grain of salt, and absolutely apply them correctly.
Christine Gautreaux 7:25
Right? I will, I think it’s a good filter for all of us to look through. Yeah, like, what is the lens of this person’s that they’re speaking through? And it doesn’t mean it’s not valid? It doesn’t mean it hasn’t worked. But oftentimes, we have to look at barriers that are in place for different people to Would it work if it was applied across the board to everybody?
Shannon M. 7:47
Right? And then sometimes, barriers of course, have to we have to keep in mind, but also, like you said, just the situation, the reality of the situation. I’m cooking beans and in the shower at the same time, I love technology, shout
Christine Gautreaux 8:01
out. Oh, I love the shower.
Shannon M. 8:07
But you got it some sometimes we are absolutely doing things, multiple things at one time as women. So yeah, just remembering to take things with a grain of salt. And to think about who’s telling you certain things. Even if this person is a woman, you know, are they married? Or they’re not married? Do they have kids? Or they don’t have kids? What is their? What do they believe about certain things, what motivates them or what has hurt them in the past that might change the advice that they give you that might completely change what you decide to do. But that one sentence that they said might have been the sentence that didn’t apply to your situation? So yeah, right.
Christine Gautreaux 8:46
Well, it’s always interesting to me, and I’m always interested in people’s perspectives and talking about social work. And talking about Knology. Let’s talk about what’s been happening over there at Facebook. Like I didn’t feel so bad when we had take tech issues, because I think Facebook had tech issues. This
Shannon M. 9:10
is the internet, it’s not us.
Christine Gautreaux 9:14
Which, you know, let’s first talk about the whistleblower, and then talk about the tech because I know it affected both of our businesses, and a lot of people we know and love their businesses. So I want to talk about that too. But let’s first talk about this whistleblower and what she’s saying. Because I think when it comes to wellness, it’s important that we listen. And, and, you know, yes, she’s coming through her own lens, and I’m sure there’s other viewpoints who will talk about the second but, you know, basically, this is and we’ll we’ll link to the article we’re referencing, but Francis, how do we decide it was Hogan or Hogan? I say Hogan, Hogan, a 37 year old formal Facebook product manager who worked on civic integrity issues at the company. She testified in front of commerce subcommittee in front of Congress, about what Facebook and Instagram, Facebook owns Instagram knew about the effects on young users. And she testified about other issues. But the main thing is, is she’s saying she believes Facebook products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy. And it says the company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical. I got an ad, right when that popped up profits before people, congressional action is needed. They won’t solve this crisis without your help. The other thing that she did a whole thing on 60 minutes the night before. And they were talking about especially the negative effects of misinformation and harm caused by Instagram, especially the young girls. And I know you care about this because you’re a wellness company, and you care about whole body issues. Yes. So I just wanted to bring that up and have a discussion about it.
Shannon M. 11:18
Yeah. And, you know, part of what I think about too is how much I reference material from men and how much I reference material from women. And I love that this article gives so much detail, the part that you just said, reached out to me. The other part that I thought was really interesting was by Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, Blumenthal. And he claims that the the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on consumer protection expressed heartfelt gratitude for the stand up to this huge giant, right. But He also added that the damage to self interest and self worth inflicted by Facebook today will haunt a generation. And so those two things together with the image that women have online, young women have online, Instagram, thinking about having a platform for children. And then the effects that we’ve seen already, especially when we talk about the increase in bullying, the increase in suicide, it definitely sets an alarm off for me, because a lot of these images are altered, the surgeries all these things have gone up and they cause they have caused health difficulties and a whole list of things. So those are the things I think about when I think about the young ladies in the way they think about themselves.
Christine Gautreaux 12:44
Well, I also think about social wellness, you know, because I just my girls are just out of high school for a little bit. And you know, one of the things I noticed that caused a lot of problems is when I was in school, and probably even when you were in school, Shannon, like if our friends excluded us for something, or if our friends had something going on, and it was a limited number, we didn’t usually know about it. Like we might get a, we might get a Oh, hey, this happened. But you don’t get the details, you don’t get notices that all your friends are gathering without you or the tracking, like that piece of the social wellness, I really do think is not only affecting kids, I mean, I’ve had adult friends and clients telling me before that social media is not healthy for them. Right. And you and I use it a lot for our businesses. So that also that balance of you know, how do we use it? How do we not use it? I thought what was also interesting in that article is, of course, Zuckerberg was, you know, saying trying to discredit her and all that and saying that he believed that testimony created a false pic overall, a false picture of the company. But he also echoed the need for Congress to take action. So kind of saying to me, yes, we know something needs to change, but we’re not going to do it unless you make this right. Like, I thought that was interesting.
Shannon M. 14:07
And when I read this article I was thinking about, I wonder if when they created Facebook, they knew that it would be so instrumental, you know, who knew that a social media app would have a conversation with Congress? So you know, I thought, hey, what’s in pictures and writing captions? And here we are talking about national threats and the whole disturbance of a generation.
Christine Gautreaux 14:32
Right? Well in then. So taking aside that piece, taking aside the piece of of the potential harm that could be going on with our kids and young adults, then now all those of us that have are solopreneurs, or entrepreneurs or businesses, so many of us have to use social media to get the message out even our podcasts, right. We use social media all the time. And Facebook went down. Like totally went down. So there was an article in The New York Times It was titled gone in minutes out for hours outage shakes Facebook. And it says, When apps are used by billions of people worldwide blinked out, lives were disrupted, businesses were cut off from customers. And some Facebook employees were locked out of their offices. I had several things I was supposed to be a part of. And they were like, sorry, we can’t stream we’re down, did it? I was actually on. I was in a meeting. For Arts equity. I’m doing a board a national board training. It’s actually kind of international, because a couple people on my group are from Canada. But we’re doing a board training what
Shannon M. 15:44
I say kind of international.
Christine Gautreaux 15:49
Love our Canadian listeners and friends. And it was we were like, Oh, should we do this group? Should we do this? And right, when we were determining, should we do a Facebook group? Should we do a WhatsApp group, the whole system went down, like nothing was working. And we’re like, oh, we should make a Text group. We should go old school. And, you know, it’s kind of business 101? Yeah, one of the first things that I talk with my clients about and when we do mastermind, we talk about the fact that we don’t own any of these platforms, like we’re debts, and they can go down at any time. Things. We own our like, our email list, like, that’s our personal context for who we own. We don’t own them. But you know what I mean, we have that information, and we have control over that information. But all the rest Boy, that was that was so apparent when all those apps went down.
Shannon M. 16:42
Yeah. And that’s specifically what I was gonna say, you know, that is absolutely something that we talk about when we talk about building a business, okay, you’re on social media. And what’s beautiful about starting a business in this day and age is that you don’t need $11 million to build a brick and mortar store, before you can set up shop and have your business fully functioning. But in order to be fully functioning, you do need your own real estate online. And that means your own website that you pay for the demand for and an email list so that if somebody else does, what a Facebook decides, hey, we’re actually going to close tonight at midnight, what are you going to do? You know, you have to have those contacts? Right?
Christine Gautreaux 17:24
Yes, absolutely. Our friend Barry, Andy Lee is listening today and given us some claps. She’s like, Yep, we’re trying to get her scheduled to come on y’all. She’s got a great new book out that our listeners need to listen to, and hear about. So we’re trying to get brandy up here in the next couple of weeks. So yeah, well, let’s talk about that, Shannon, when we, as business owners, as women, as people who are on social media, way more than we probably need to be, how do we balance that? How do we have social wellness? So this
Shannon M. 18:00
a couple of things, one, thank the Lord for technology and automation, because I am not trying to wrack my brain with which hashtags to use today and what day it is to stay relevant that’s already scheduled out. You know, I’ve already scheduled my two posts today. I think it actually posts while we were on here. So if you go to the Shayla low Instagram, and I just posted, clearly, I’m not on Instagram right now, you know. And that absolutely helps not only for me to make sure that I’m consistent, because as a person, I might not text you back, you text me last week cursing, and I didn’t text you back, you know. So we can’t do that if we’re going to be consistent with our audience. So that helps. And also remembering to give yourself grace. You know, I definitely had mental health day, October 10, down on the calendar is something that I wanted to have an email and post about didn’t happen, I was actually supposed to be at work ended up not on the schedule. So me and my best friend were out in the sun enjoying our company. And that was the best way to do that. And I look back and I said, Hey, I could have did all this stuff. But this literally what this day is about. So I’m not going to be myself but I’m thankful for the way that I spend my time. And that also helps me with the overwhelm that can come with working on social media, especially because the people who are in my, in my tribe care about the way they look, you know, they they love natural products, they they feel like they have challenges with their skin, they have severely dry skin, they have acne or are dealing with whatever they’re dealing with with their body and they want to improve it. And so when I’m personally going to find them, I run across beautiful women on Instagram where women who hide themselves and all of that makes me think about things a certain way. So for them and for me, yeah, it’s about the balance of it.
Christine Gautreaux 19:58
Well, what I heard in there is that you give yourself social media breaks, I heard a lot of what you said. But one of the big things I heard is you give yourself social media breaks. So I love that. I, before the pandemic, I was really good at that, like I would take whole weekends and disconnect and shut down. And, you know, so many of us had to make our businesses or, you know, we went online, and so we had to instantaneously be online. And so I realized over the last 18 months, for sure, I have not done as good of a job at that. So, but let’s talk personally, about social wellness and balancing our friends and all this emotional mental during a pandemic. comes up for you when you think about that I know one of these answers, because I know you so well, but
Shannon M. 20:49
so let’s talk about being my best friend, right? Actually, I’ve shared that both of our moms recently passed away from cancer. And so with that, I think about these memes, and these conversations, people have like shout out to the adult friends who know we don’t have to talk every day. And that’s a real thing, you know, not being too dependent on the other person. And also remembering that it might not be anything that you did, they might be taking time for themselves. And so where that leaves me when I need support is making sure that I’m feeding into myself every day that I’m taking that time in the morning. I didn’t do that the last two days, I immediately saw the difference in the way that my days went, because I didn’t do that. So remembering that balance, for lack of a better word right now is how I stay in a healthy place with my relationships, not having unrealistic expectations. Right? Yeah.
Christine Gautreaux 21:45
I also think setting those expectations there, too. Right? My inner circle of friends knows. I’m not that great on the phone all the time. I know. That’s weird, because everybody that hears me talk on this, you’re like, Oh, she loves to talk. And I do. But it’s really weird down on the phone a lot. And I don’t know if it’s because of my age and how it was raised. Because I don’t know if I’ve ever told to the chairman, like I’m old enough that I remember when my aunt and uncle had a party line. Do you know what party lines are? No, it was a party line. So a party line is in Texas, and in other rural places, people used to share phone lines. So like, you would have to pick up the phone and see if somebody else was on the phone. And if they were on the phone, you just put it down or you say excuse me, I need to use the phone. Right. So the phone was not used for anything except like usually business or important that I was raised that like it’s not a it’s not for entertainment it is for so different than kids now, like, for business or it was used. And it was probably when I got to college that things started shifting, that the phone then became, well, long distance went away. Because you know, back when I was growing up, you’d have to call somebody if they weren’t in your area and it cost a lot of money. You also Weren’t you know, we weren’t allowed to do that. So I kind of just wasn’t raised to talk on the phone a lot. And but man, I can text I’m a texter. Like I like texting and I like responding quickly. Now, the only problem with that is sometimes I respond in my mind, I don’t know if this happens to anybody else. But like I have a cold conversation with you in my mind, and then I’ll be driving, right? Like it’ll come in while I’m driving. I’m like having this conversation. And I think I’ve responded by but talking about that like setting the expectations with my friends or like things like that like to say, Hey, if you don’t hear from me, text me back or give me a nudge that does not bug me. I for sure. Don’t think I’m mad at you. Or I don’t want to talk to you. Because that’s not true. I’ve just probably been talking to in my mind and
Shannon M. 23:58
have not responded to
Christine Gautreaux 24:00
Right. Right. But that balancing of the emotional and mental with the social. Yeah. Because I know that. I know personally, I’ve changed over the last 18 months about if I’m getting on, there’s so many virtual events, there’s some times that I’m invited to something that I really want to see the people and I just can’t I can’t be on the computer anymore. Because I was on the computer all day. And so I have to find other ways to reach out to those friends or say hello. I had something happened last week we were celebrating the International Week of interplay. And we’re having a big party and I was excited to be there. And I realized Oh Sam is coming home from college for fall break. And I much rather be around the kitchen table having a conversation about what’s been going on in our first semester of college. So I popped on said hello to everybody said we’d love to spend more time with y’all, but I gotta go Same he’s coming home. And and, you know, that’s the other thing about choices we talked about in the book Stillpoint, we talked about one of the skills of self care is saying yes or no. And listeners know, my friends, no, I like to say yes. And I’m having to get better at saying no, or, you know, I’m going to do this amount versus the whole thing, in order to balance myself care. And that’s especially true around social wellness.
Shannon M. 25:34
And even the time allotted, you know, because I’m all about financial freedom, and how time freedom and financial freedom go hand in hand. So one of my goals that my therapist gave me, we talked about, I think last season, is having a stronger social support system. So I look at my calendar, when I’m mapping everything out, what time do I want to give to this person to this group of people? What do we want to do? Do we need to be outside we need to work on something that we talked about last time. And that’s how me and my best friend ended up seeing each other the other day, because I said, What are you doing on Sunday? Let’s put it down in the calendar. Because it’s definitely necessary to get that time.
Christine Gautreaux 26:16
I think that’s true. I, you know, I think before it wasn’t as necessary to calendar, and I think that the more responsibilities we have, the more intention we want to put around it, I think it’s important to block off the space and time to say, Hey, we are going to see each other and not be completely rigid about it. Like if something comes up like you and I had a meeting tomorrow and life got in the way. So we just read Calendar it. And it’s like, Okay, does it Yeah, so I think that I think bringing a little bit of that business into our personal is, is sometimes really healthy, about how do we balance this all. And sometimes it is with the tool of a calendar.
Shannon M. 26:58
Right. And that that brings me to the emotional and mental part of the social wellness, right? Again, we remember that even though we plan it, that’s not to expect it to go exactly like that things almost every single time change was just putting the intention behind putting it down, saying you’re going to do it. And usually, it’ll get done. Within a certain amount of time.
Christine Gautreaux 27:20
I had hoped to pull up this article by my friend, Cynthia went and Henry, she was she recently sent something out and I couldn’t find it. There’s another one I’m going to link to, which is pretty awesome. But she was talking about. And it was it was really talking about social wellness, because it was talking about having a group of people or a support system to go back to. Like sometimes we do hard things. Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes jobs are stressful, or things are stressful. But having a core group. And I know you and I are really lucky, because we have our manifesting Monday women and we have other groups in our lives that function this way for us. But if you don’t have one, create one, y’all like creating a group. And it doesn’t mean everybody thinks exactly the same way. It doesn’t mean things are always perfect. But you have a mission or in the tension to support each other. That you are, you know, it’s what we do over at women connected in wisdom community, like our intention is to support each other, and to lift each other up. And I think that’s, I think that’s more needed than ever.
Shannon M. 28:34
Absolutely. And that is what I will say about social media. You know, when my mom passed away, I had opportunity to meet my family right before COVID, shut everything down. Everybody didn’t get together, but I hadn’t seen any of them my entire life. So now having social media, that’s really important, you know, so that I can be connected with people in Alabama or in Detroit and see pictures from 50 years ago from people that I never met. So if Facebook were to go away, that would be a part of what would be missing. And that’s part of what she was talking about in the cage, you know, so, yeah, it’s about the different sides of it and how we use it intentionally. I think that’s really important. How are you going to use it? And then if you see that part of it is traumatizing you how do you minimize that part and then maximize the part that you’re going to use for your benefit?
Christine Gautreaux 29:27
Right. And sometimes that setting limits on ourselves. Yeah, you know, you saying that about your family. Facebook, really kind of came onto the scene when I was moving from Texas to Georgia. So like, I’ve been a user like it, my age group and the time and all happen. It has helped me to stay in touch with people that I probably wouldn’t do a good job staying in touch with. I am a great letter writer. I’m not a great getting it into the mail. I could write you a note, I could write you a letter, and I will find it a year or two down the road where it was on. I told somebody the other day, I need a post office helper, like their only job is to swing by and say, I’ll take that to the post office for you. I have something sitting in my car right now that needed to go to the post office today that I’ve been trying to get into Monday. We just got to know ourselves, right? What works, what doesn’t work?
Shannon M. 30:29
That’s before it. And again, you know, I think that is part of the conversations that I have with my friends, what I what I do what I don’t do, or hey, when I’m like this, if I’m hot, hungry or tired, don’t take it personal way. I this is this is me, it’s not you in being able to know those boundaries. And, you know, have the strengths of our community cover those?
Christine Gautreaux 30:51
Absolutely. Well, you know, when I’m working with my coaching clients, we talk about the same thing. We talk about basic needs being met, right? Sleep with, you know, that’s so simple. But there’s so many different studies out there. And you know, there was a kick for a while that we don’t need as much sleep. But really, the overall consensus is, especially as adults, we need seven and a half to eight hours of sleep or more. And that’s where we’re at our highest functioning, and to really not glorify the lack of sleep, right, that you you can hustle and get eight hours of sleep. And actually, you may hustle better. And so we talk about like the basics, like good sleep, good food, good exercise. And, you know, that’s some of the first things I I speak with my clients about. And then I was, you know, telling you about Cynthia Witten, Henry’s article, and I was reading another thing from her. She wrote this article recently about if the collective body is in trauma, do we protect or do we dare to dance? It’s a really good article. I’ll put a link to it in our show notes. But one of the things that she wrote in there, which I’ve talked about with clients, especially around interplay, anthropologist Angeles area, and I think that that’s her name. She wrote a book called in the fourfold way, walking the path of the warrior, healer, teacher, and visionary. She wrote, in many shamanic societies, if you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened dispirited or depressed, they would ask one of four questions. When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you start being enchanted by stories? And when did you start finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence? I think about that. And
Shannon M. 32:59
when you first read that, when I thought about silence, the part that reminded me about social media is all the noise, right? The constant scrolling, you have new posts, this random person messaged you five days ago, you didn’t see it. And it’s all these things, making noise in your mind, you know, and that’s why my time in the morning is so important, especially working in the hospitality industry. It’s my job to talk and to make sure people are enjoying themselves. So being quiet, like not talking out loud, is so important for me. And being mindful of what I want to happen that day. Or think about the things that are going on. That really helps you introducing Interplay to me and talking about dance and, and singing has absolutely helped. And I need to add more of that into my life this week. Right?
Christine Gautreaux 33:49
Well, what they talk about is, it’s a little bit like we lose our souls a little bit if we’re not practicing those birthright practices. And that, and I think a lot of us have struggled with that over the last 18 months during this pandemic. And, you know, I don’t want to be down on Netflix, because I think it saved a lot of people over this pandemic, but there’s only so much Netflix you can watch before you get numb, right? It can be used as a numbing technique. But anybody out there that wants to talk about creative reality shows I’m here for it because they have like, just made me laugh throughout this film. Guy watched more TV in the last 18 months than I probably have in years. So I definitely have, right yeah. There’s a song by the Bensons called keep going on that I’ll put a link to in the end. They wrote it at the beginning of the pandemic, but it talks in the song it talks about and I hope you watch a really, really good TV. No, no, I mean a lot of really, really good. It’s hysterical. I’ll put a link to it. But it’s about keep going on, like, what are the tools we use to keep going on? And, and, you know, it feels like we’re in a marathon stretch right now of social wellness, like how do we stay connected? How do we keep going on? How do we? How do we recharge I know for you and I, we really like nature. Like we that’s a part of it for me. You know, you think social, you think friends, but trees and animals and I walked out the other day Shane, and this gorgeous, huge red tail hawk flew out of my front yard. It was stunning. And then right before we got on the show, I looked out the window, and there were this mama deer and her baby deer in my backyard, you know. So that’s part of my wellness is having intention and paying attention around that.
Shannon M. 35:54
Yeah. And for me, it’s taking care of myself. You know, before the show, we were talking about trauma. And when I think about things that bother me, it’s chronic illness. So we’re stories about people getting sick in ways that could have been prevented or for me in my life, overextending myself, right, we’re talking about social wellness. Sometimes I’ve had friends or romantic relationships that I was over extended sometimes when they asked me to a lot of times when they didn’t. And so for me balancing my physical wellness, and my mental and emotional wellness, when I get bad news means okay, I just got this, this is on the plate. Now. What else do I need to bring in? To balance it out a little bit? You know,
Christine Gautreaux 36:40
I love that you bring that up, because you and I were just talking about another article before the show. And it’s it was called Understanding the window of tolerance and how trauma throws you off balance. And which, you know, we’ve said this on the show before, almost everybody we know is in some kind of trauma through this pandemic. And then there’s layers of trauma, and there’s different levels of, of traumatic events that people have been through. And I was reading through this article, and it talks about like, what is your tolerance and your window of tolerance and how much you can handle? Because, you know, a lot of friends and clients lately have just been saying it’s too much. It’s too much. And so I wanted to read out to our listeners. How can I stay in my window of tolerance because well, it goes hand in hand with the stuff I teach. It talks about healthy alternatives to addictions or other destructive ways of coping, that can help you return to your window of tolerance breathwork and grounding. You know, I teach that through interplay and our friend, Cecile Armstrong, who was on the show, I think it was season two or three. She talked about breath, working, grounding, bringing yourself into the present moment by taking a few deep breaths.
I like to do that and just let it out with a big old sigh. Our friend Shanker Rahim, who was on Season One talked about that taking a deep breath and let it out with a roar. But that’s always fun sometimes, right? Number two was check your thoughts. Talk to yourself about what’s going on in the present question whether the feelings of panic or lack of safety are based in factual reality, or if they’re an echo of the past trauma. Affirm yourself for changes you’ve made in work you’ve done or are doing to heal from the trauma. Number three, talking my language will self care when you notice your emotions getting out of control. Think of that as a red flag indicating your need for self care. This can include things like going for a walk, taking a hot shower or bath, giving yourself a few minutes to breathe or calling a friend. Look for soothing, self soothing actions that help you to not be overcome by the emotion and ground you in the present. Like that breathing can ground you in the present. And also just rubbing your skin can ground you in the present and giving yourself some love. The last one they said in there was connection with a loved one. feeling supported and cared for by your loved ones can serve as an important part of self care when you’re reeling from a trauma related trigger. Connect with your loved ones via phone call text, or in person meeting to remind you of their present role in your life. I thought this just tied in beautifully with what we’re talking about today was social wellness.
Shannon M. 39:31
Yeah. Yeah. And it pulls in. You know, I love steel point for talking about how you take care of yourself as an individual and then how you use partnership power. And what it looks like in a community is really important to have both. And the struggle with COVID is that everybody’s going through stuff like you said, so how do we know via just those lines? You know, it’s talking against my best friend the other day and she was talking about making space for the new versions of ourselves. And I thought that was beautiful, you know, we may need to revisit some things, revisit what we need in certain moments, and revisit what that looks like for our role in the community and what they can do to help us. And if if your community is going through so much that you feel like you don’t have the support, now might be the time to see if your job offers, you know, free therapy sessions. Or if there’s somebody else you could talk to maybe that doesn’t know you personally, that can have an unbiased opinion and give you some great context, and some action steps for you to move forward with your healing for different things that have happened. So that’s what
Christine Gautreaux 40:42
I do with my private coaching clients. So yes, I’m highly reached out y’all reach out if you need help or support. And don’t let finances detract you from that, because there’s also free services that we can guide you to, if you need help or support during this time. And we’re going to come back, you know, things are already starting to come back. There’s things you can do safely in public. And there’s things that you know, you can dance outside you kid, you know, saying and what, you can do it by yourself or with other people, and what are things that bring us joy? Like? What are you know, we always talk about our wisdom and action, and our hashtag was from an action. What what do you think about for this week, Shannon, about social wellness, and what’s one thing you’re going to do for yourself for social wellness this week.
Shannon M. 41:36
So I am taking the time that’s usually for shallow glow after my other job after work and giving it to my my social, social community. I have some exciting stuff coming up. And usually I might have some hesitation or some anxiety about that, oh, I have all this stuff to do. But no, thoroughly looking forward to it. And in addition to that, I will also add singing and dancing because I need to sing more, and I need to dance more. So I’m going to do all three of those things this week.
Christine Gautreaux 42:08
No, I love that. Thank you. I love that.
Shannon M. 42:10
What about you? Yeah,
Christine Gautreaux 42:12
I haven’t been singing as much as usual lately. So I’m going to do a little more singing I love to sing outside in my labyrinth. I love to I love to sing awake the day sometimes. So and I have enough space between neighbors that you know that’s not annoying. So I think yes, my hashtag it was an actual would be singing more this week. And, and I have a outdoor game night planned with some folks. And you know, I like to like to play board games. And so working on that this week. I think it’ll be super fun. Yeah, but I have so enjoyed our conversation today my friend. You know, we’ve mentioned Shayla glow throughout the broadcast because we it came up, but is there anything that you need our listeners to know anything that you want to share with them?
Shannon M. 43:05
Yes. So for you ladies listening to our women connected and wisdom podcast, I have a promo code for you if you are interested, and especially in the glass containers, because we’re about to be out we’re doing a huge launch. So if you need glass containers, and you prefer that, make sure you get it now and use your discount code wise five and like Christine said, I love how you said Give yourself some love. You know, that’s actually one of the most surprising and one of my favorite things about this company is it’s not just about making money and shea butter. It’s about caring more for yourself. And testimonies about the improved the emotional and mental well being the improved social connection with different generations with friends and family that’s been so beautiful to experience and a witness. So yes, use your discount code. And I will send your I will send it out in that like Christina her letters. Send it out to you within two to five business days.
Christine Gautreaux 44:09
I love that. I love that so much.
Shannon M. 44:13
Yes and thank you again ladies for listening to our 39th episode, social wellness. And don’t forget
Christine Gautreaux 44:20
be well be wise and the whole mind looking forward to it.
Unknown Speaker 44:32
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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