Client name: Jessica Shephard
Website links: https://www.jessicaruthshepard.com/
About page link or bio listed elsewhere: https://www.jessicaruthshepard.com/about
Listen Now:
Transcript of Our Interview:
Jess:
So I’m really excited to talk about wellness for entrepreneurs and business owners because we are all so busy and I feel like one of the first things that get put aside and put on the back burner is our own health, both mentally and physically. We tend to neglect that while we are trying to take care of our business and trying to keep up with everything. So I want to talk to you today about that experience and what you’ve seen with other entrepreneurs and business owners, particularly some of the results you’ve seen of neglecting our health and wellness. So what do you have to say about that topic?
Jessica:
Which part? The neglect. Yeah, that’s a big one. It’s very common. And I worked with a lot of high achieving creative people who feel shut down in their bodies because of the fact that they’ve, it’s almost like they used to know and then they sort of forgot and then by the time they forgot, they’re like, how did I get here? When did this happen? I’ve been in this whirlwind. I didn’t even realize until I looked at myself or I have this health condition. Usually, it’s taken something, either extreme like they get their blood work done and the numbers are crazy or they’re not feeling well in numerous ways, whether migraines or exhaustion or thyroid issues or their digestive system is totally screwed or their sleep has gotten really challenged.
I mean there are certain things that happen more with women than men in a way, but I would say that they’re not managing the anxiety and that’s a form of neglect too. Or they’re getting things like, they can’t focus because they’re just so overwhelmed, so I’ve seen all of those things. What else have I seen? I would say the top things are sleep, digestive health. focus or just like mental, like disease, meaning like just they’re scattered and or when I say weight gain, I kind of mean more like an inflammatory response then they’re making fast unthoughtful choices based on just not thinking and they’re going on like feast or famine or their cycles have gotten so far off that they’re just eating like they didn’t even know how to eat anymore. And so like next thing I know they’re like, how’d this happen? Or some people where they get really depleted, like their iron levels are low, they’ve lost weight because they are not taking care and their energy is totally tanked and they’re living off of stimulants that aren’t serving them well and they know it. I mean those are all the top ones, I would say for sure.
Jess:
All the different ways that your body can be telling you that something is off.
Jessica:
Yeah. You’re absolutely right.
Jess:
So how do you see these different physical and mental symptoms of neglecting our health affecting our work that we do as entrepreneurs and business owners?
Jessica:
How does it affect the work? Well, I think that we think we can do more, be more, more and more and more by pushing harder or overextending when the reality is, that doesn’t really work either. Like eventually something’s got to give and then you have a bigger problem. So, yeah, I mean I think it, especially because of the culture that we live in that’s so about pushing and achieving, shoving and getting too caught up. I mean those things are all, wait, say the question again. So I’m making sure I’m answering it the way I wanted to.
Jess:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that you know, these different physical symptoms and mental system symptoms that we have from neglecting our health, they come into play in our business and actually affect our performance and our work. And you’re saying we tend to try to just push through that and keep trying to force it more and more and more, but then it’s going to create even larger health issues.
Jessica:
So the way that it affects our performances, we think that if we, you know, drink the 16th cup of coffee or something, I’m just using a very basic example, that we’ll be able to do more of the whatever. And really like A. the quality of the whatever isn’t really even authentic cause you’re just running on fumes and also you’re shoving something out but you’re self-sabotaging yourself cause you’re harming yourself so that you can’t even perform the job later on that you want to be doing for the long haul because you’re causing damage for future. I mean damage sounds very dramatic but you’re, yeah, so you do things in the short term that seemed like a great idea cause it’s so acceptable. But in the longterm, you’re just adding insult to injury because it’s not going to serve anyone if you’re not doing those things that are actually small habits every day. But later on, they’re harder to reverse. The more accumulation of this stuff over time it gets harder, it builds, builds, builds. And then the idea is that you do things hopefully that counteract the stressors by every day that are small things that don’t take much time actually.
But, but anyway, that’s how it starts to impact people. Is it like it’s not really, it does actually not impact helping your business or your productivity really in the bigger picture and again maybe and usually it’s for things that aren’t even really that important. Like they seem like they are, but it’s probably not worth it to do the all-night, or let’s stay up that much later or get whatever the thing is that’s causing you to totally neglect yourself or to get super depleted or whatever. It’s not really worth it once in a while here, like randomly, once in a while it’s fine. We’re resilient. You can do okay, but over and over and over to stuff that we do over and over and make the biggest impact stuff we do once in a while just kind of gets swept. But the stuff that we do over and over and over, it’s the stuff we do over and over that becomes patterns and habits for better or for worse.
Jess:
Yes. So this is for the self-care and the not self-care, whichever you’re doing regularly is going to make a big difference.
Jessica:
Yeah. And self-care has become a real buzz thing now and self-care doesn’t even necessarily mean walking out to go and get yourself a manicure but that’s nice you know, certainly has a place. But self-care is so much about what goes on inside of the internal messaging system, that goes on inside of you and your thoughts and the words you speak and it’s just moment to moment. It’s woven into a lot of things in the day, There are multiple versions of what self-care really means, I think.
Jess:
Yeah. That sounds great. I do want to talk about, one of the biggest issues surrounding this topic for me is that we don’t even notice that something is wrong. I feel like we are so busy that we lean into the busy and try to find substitutes for why we don’t feel good and tend to think that why we don’t feel good like our crappy diet or our, our lack of focus it’s just how life is right now because we’re busy and it can’t be any different. So do you have any suggestions or you know, checking assistant to check in with ourselves more on a regular basis or be aware of these imbalances?
Jessica:
Yeah, it’s a really great question and a great comment because its easy to ignore those messages. And for those of us who have gotten really used to listening to the messages sometimes take for granted that when I remember and I’m working with clients and I’m like, Oh yeah, they really aren’t paying attention. They really don’t know. I call it overriding the system. You know, like you’re in a car and it tells you to accelerate or slow down and you’re ignoring the car saying slow down or you’re ignoring the yellow light and you just go ahead anyway. Like you ignore, you’re overriding the system. So you’re ignoring messages and we get messages all the time that we really ignore and also ignore them cause we’ve been taught to, our parents did, people around us do, our culture is so about that in a way of not feeling and not paying attention. And so are you saying tips or suggestions to very easily tune in fast?
Jess:
Yeah. And, and maybe having a system for reminding ourselves to check in.
Jessica:
Yeah, so there are different personality types. The people who do really well with mental and emotional ways, physical ways, whatever they are. So for example, a physical way might be that they have, okay I have this bottle of essential oil in front of me that I call focus. And if I see it and I’m feeling spacey and I’m not remembering what to do, whatever, and I see it and I’m like, Oh right, I need to focus like I’m not focusing. So I see something physically. So there’s the physical and so then I can put them in the palm of my hand, take a deep breath, do something physically that activates a bunch of other stuff. So that’s the physical, I see something visual.
Spiritual might mean for someone who is into this stuff, they might have a mantra that they just have written down in front of them to repeat every day. It could say all kinds of things, everyone’s got a different thing they need to have for there sort of mantra or many of them or whatever. So someone could have a mantra that really helps them to remember to check in with their bodies or remind them to rest. I know people who get what I call “tired and wired.” They’re tired and wired, so they’re really wired all day and so they have, I’ve told them to put a note that says, when you start to feel like you can’t stop moving and there’s just more to be done, more to be done, you just keep doing, doing, doing. That’s the signal that they have a note that says, “if you can’t stop, then go lay down and set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes.” I don’t care what is going on unless it’s something that’s like a critical dead right. You know, if you’re an emergency room doctor there’s something really critical. Otherwise, if you’re spending that much most days and you just sorta like, can’t stop, I’ve got more, there’s always something more. I’ve got this and this and you can’t stop. I promise you, I don’t care who you are or how accomplished you are. You will benefit if you stop. And it might, I’m not saying you’re gonna fall asleep, but if you have a note, a physical reminder, it says, stop the spinning. Go lay down for 10 minutes, five minutes. And I cannot even tell you how many times that has saved me and countless other people I’ve worked with and they were like, they don’t want to, they want to fight it, there’s always something else.
And then they’re like, Oh my God, I was actually tired and I could regroup, recenter. And I am so much better. I am paced better. I’m more focused. I’m able to actually, you know, it’s like stops a cycle. And these things are things that stop a cycle not just for in the moment, but for the entire thing of what happens for your whole day. Because if you’re someone that’s like, go, go, go, go, go. And then you hit the pillow and you can fall asleep, but then you’re going to wake up five more times because you never did that thing earlier in the day. It helps you slow down and pace herself. Like these things will show up later on and you don’t even think about it. So anyway, so those are the physical, the spiritual. It’d be like a mantra, a note that gives you some inspiration to take a break and take a go, go sit and meditate for five minutes or lay down or breathe one of those things or take a walk around the block one time. It doesn’t have to be a whole massive thing.
Let’s see. An emotional. So there are specific things like there are people who I work with that are, there’s a phrase that I use with a lot of my clients when they have habitual things that aren’t serving them well, when they’re neglecting themselves or not taking care of, they have acronyms that help them with the emotional, like asking themselves a fast series of questions when they know they’re into a habit that’s not feeling good, that I call “halt”. I don’t just call it, a lot of people know this one. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, but it stands for, it’s a check-in that you can ask yourself when you’re needing a stopping point and you can ask yourself if you’re going for food or you want to go for a glass of wine and you know, it’s not the best time of day to do these things or something.
This is more for people who have more chronic, habitual challenges with this stuff. This is not necessarily for everyone, although it might benefit a lot of people who are high achieving and busy, busy, busy, and don’t know how to stop or don’t stop well or whatever is you can ask yourself, “halt” which is am I hungry? Like asking, are you actually feeling hunger? Are you feeling and the a is for angry? But I also say, or anxious or any other emotion or feeling state. And the L is, are you lonely? And the T is, are you tired or thirsty? And you can do that. Even if you’re not having the habitual thing that I’m talking about or addicted behavior, it’s still kind of a nice check-in because you can stop and it’s a way to listen to your body.
This is a really fast assessment and there’s other assessments. I have lots of other acronyms but that tends to be a go-to and a favorite because it’s easy to remember because it’s “halt”. It makes you stop and ask yourself those questions really quickly. And you know, a lot of people who aren’t used to doing this stuff will say I don’t even know what those things mean or what they even, they don’t even know what those things actually feel like, so it practice and asking yourself those questions, what that one is.
Jess:
And I think the more you practice listening to yourself, the easier it is to hear what your body’s trying to tell you. But I think it is something that takes practice. And for me in my experience as, as a business owner, I have had to deliberately carve out time in my day. Like the same way I do where I set time aside each day to answer emails, I set time aside as you said, five, 10 minutes just to check in with myself. And the more that I do that, even if I aim for five days a week and I do it two days a week, I’m a little bit better at checking in with myself that week because I set that time. But making it as important as the other tasks in my life, I feel like it’s kind of the key component for me.
Jessica:
It is just as important if not more so. Because if you’re not taking care of yourself, it’s you know that saying of “if mama’s not good, no, nobody’s good” like if you’re not taking care of yourself, you’re not going to be able to be of service in the way that you want to. And less is more, I mean the less of the doing is more. So there was something I was going to say about what you just touched on, which is, that some people say to me, like this friend who is always saying to me, “Oh, I know you’re busy, I know you’re so busy.” And I was like, well, I think of it, first of all, I think we have to reframe things sometimes as busy as people who are quote-unquote busy, to thinking of your life is full. How full do you really want it? And what does fullness mean to you? Not the busy. The busy might not even be meaningful, but what I say is to you, I might be busy, but I carve out times that are very much in quiet or stillness or stopping or stepping away and that no one has to know about that. It’s all just for you, it’s for you. And it’s sacred. I consider it really sacred time to have that. And I noticed when I don’t get that, and I think most of the clients that I’ve started out with when they start out, they don’t notice. And then later on once they have that like, Oh my God, what was I doing all this time? Like a crazy person without that, what was I, how was I functioning that way? And I was like, well here you are now with these challenges that are a result of not doing that. So let’s course correct.
Jess:
That’s great. Yeah. And once you have it, you know how valuable it is. That’s absolutely true.
Jessica:
Yeah. Oh my God. Yes.
Jess:
So you had talked a little bit about self-care and how self-care is a buzzword now, but I feel like a lot of people have a misinterpretation of what that means to have self-care in your life. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that?
Jessica:
Yeah, I think they do too. I think it’s gotten to be very funny and it’s almost like gotten little like a cheesy hallmark party or something. And yeah, I think there’s a misperception that self-care only means getting a manicure and buying yourself some flowers or something. I don’t even know. I mean those are, there’s nothing wrong with those things at all. Those are nice things to do. I think self-care generally is deeper and just more about things like setting healthy boundaries with people and with your time or again, the thought patterns that you have that are negative, that create stress in your body. If you’re constantly thinking, I’m not good enough, I’m horrible. All that’s not self-caring. And so in order for it to be self-caring, you have to be willing to catch those thoughts and really look at them and transform them into what truth is. And also to what’s going to actually make you feel, not just better, but rewrite your story. Because our stories are those thoughts that aren’t self-care. They’re usually lying. They’re old. They’re based on outdated stories from the past. They’re not really in the present. So self-care has to be about course-correcting your thought patterns and catching them. And self-care has to be about saying no to people or situations when you’ve always said yes, but you know, saying no is killing you or really not something you want to do, and stop shoving it down. And because if you don’t catch those, things lead to other things later, you’re not using your voice, you’re not being authentic. You’re not saying no, you’re not having healthy boundaries. But instead, you are up late at night and you’re bingeing or you are numbing out to something else or you’re whatever because you’re not willing to use your voice.
Well, it all comes back to that self-care that could have been implemented by saying, no, that’s actually not, I can’t do that. And no explanation. You can just say no thank you or whatever. It could be so many things. But so self-care I think is about those things. I’m leaving lots of things out, but I mean, maybe you can think of some other example. Usually, it’s about time or space or the way that you’re treating yourself. And again, I’m not, obviously, I’ve been doing bodywork for many years, carving time for yourself to receive something like that. Even so much as don’t just do it because someone says to do it, show up and then be present, that’s self-care, to receive what you were given. That’s self-care, being present, and allowing yourself to receive a compliment, that’s self-care. So it’s, it’s interesting how it can show up in different ways. Not just like go buy flowers and having a Manicure and we’ll have a nice dinner. Although those are great things too. So does that make sense?
Jess:
Yeah, and I think the biggest idea in this that you said that I really loved was that it’s about the small little decisions. It’s not necessarily, I feel like people put self-care off because they feel like they don’t have time for it. But it’s little things that you can insert into your life.
Jessica:
Yes. In fact, those things are more important than you going and doing these big things you think you don’t have time for. And it’s much more integrated into your everyday because let’s face it, people have full lives, as someone said to me today, I just want a break. I can’t seem to get a break. And my other friend was like, what breaks? She’s like, there’s no, what does that even mean? Life’s happening. So because we don’t want to take the break or you have to be willing to catch those moments and take the breath. I mean self-care again, it’s about three seconds of taking some deep breaths. That’s self-care. It’s not a pointed thing. It’s like being that present-minded that you’re willing to walk into the bathroom, you have a difficult conversation instead of going into some crazy spin out in your head, you walk into the bathroom. You remember what you love about yourself. You look at your hands or do something that reminds you of your humanness, then take five deep breaths and carry on. That’s self-care and it didn’t take an appointment or set aside hours of time. And you could do that 15 times a day if you needed to and that’s self-care.
Self-care is also calling a friend when you’re walking down the block and you’re like, I’m going to lose my shit. I need to hear someone’s voice who knows me, who can hear me cry, and that’s okay. Or who I can, maybe I can listen to them instead. And that feels self-caring because I’m getting out of my own head and I can be there for somebody else. That’s self-care too.
Jess:
Yeah. And in the same realm, I think that the physical side of health is applicable here in this same kind of idea where we think a lot of the time that eating healthy means going on an extreme diet and physical exercise means exercising for three hours every single day. Those ideas can also be worked in small ways in our lives and it comes down to a decision.
Jessica:
Much better. Extremes are that they’re extremes and they’re very easy to, if you can go to that end of the pendulum on one extreme to thinking I have to work half as long or I have to be on some extreme doc, then you are going to just as easily fly to the other extreme of the other end of that pendulum when things, just the moment that something doesn’t go right, the moment that it’s not working perfectly for you, the moment that you’re kind of over the extreme cause it’s extreme and you can’t maintain that in real life. So then you fly to the other end of the spectrum or the pendulum and then you’re there on the other end and just as an extreme if feeling crappy and saying, Oh I better start that over again and there you are creating a vicious cycle.
It’s a lie, I believe the extreme stuff like that is a lie. And we think that there’s some magic bullet that way that you just do this thing and you may have results right away. But in terms of lifestyle, and I’m having them like actually last for the long term and actually integrate, it actually helped me heal. No, I think you’re just talking about again extremes and like you said, integrating, it’s better for someone to do, I mean, someone might differ, there’s no black and white here. Like there might be someone who’s like, no, no, I go my extreme, this and that and it works and I’ve done it for 50 years and I’m fine. I’m great. I mean who knows? But yeah, thinking that you need to do those extreme things is sort of disordered thinking in my opinion.
It’s like, so the all or nothing is not really, there’s something else behind it that needs to be looked at and that you’d be better off taking three short walks in a day, getting out in fresh air and spreading it out for the day then getting one full out crazy extreme workout and then sitting for the entire day. Do you know what I’m saying? And then what are you doing? You’re sitting all day after you’ve just moved your body and your body gets stiff and sore versus just getting up a few times, walking around the block, continuing on, getting up again, five minutes walk around, you know, something like that and your body’s like, Oh, okay, I’m getting this regularly. It’s not feast or famine. So giving your body the message it’s not feast or famine, that it’s integrated. Its part of normal life is a much better message to send then feast or famine.
Jess:
Yeah, I like that. And if we are practicing listening to our bodies and what everybody needs, I don’t feel like our body is ever really calling us to go to these extremes. It’s usually panic in our minds.
Jessica:
You are right, our bodies are not for that extreme. You’re absolutely right. In those of us who have seen the light of that after going through really difficult things sometimes of whatever it is, we have learned to see that it is definitely not our body. You’re so right. Our bodies are much more, much different than what our minds say to do.
Jess:
So we’ve touched on a few of these already throughout the interview, but can you just kind of pull out some of these small steps that you would suggest to just start incorporating into our lives. The way ways to take care of ourselves while we’re busy.
Jessica (26:05):
So there are so many. Let me think about my top. Maybe I should just test it to tell you the top ones from the day of just like today. Let’s see. I think it can be some very simple things that are not, I’d love to keep it simple so it’s not like, Oh my God, how will I ever do that? For anyone listening that would be thinking of being mindful of all of this, but getting some movement in your day that could be through your breath, that can be taking the walk around the block, that could be going to yoga class, that could be doing a few stretches that you get to do a couple of times throughout the day.
Movement is pretty important to break up the flow and not be sitting the whole time and not be, or to not be running around for someone that’s running around a lot. Then for those people, it’s that the important practice would be to stop and lay down for a minute or stop and breathe and slow and not keep going, going, going, going, going, going and then crashing later. So that would be one thing that, I think was important.
I think the other thing is just making sure you really get proper nourishment in terms of your food. And so everyone’s different there. Everyone has different needs, but paying attention to not, again not extremes, you want to keep your blood sugar balanced. For some people that means eating small meals throughout the day at different times. It’s better if you can keep it fairly consistent around timing. And then for other people, it means just they do really well with two or three solid meals and they know what they are. But just that’s about planning and making sure you have things on hand. And if you don’t have things on hand that are super fresh, keep things in your freezer that are easy, super simple to make. Like it can be frozen vegetables, it could be something that you’ve made a big batch of like some kind of soup that you keep in there. It could be smoothies you like to make on the fly so that there you have the ingredients available with the berries and the different mixtures of things. I’m not going to get into too much detail about the food part, but that is important to make sure you have really great and or and have snacks with you.
If you’re on the road a bunch and you’re traveling and you’re in airports or you’re in transit a lot to make sure like some clients are like, Oh, I had nothing with me, I didn’t eat for hours. I feel lightheaded, my blood sugar crashed and then I ate blah blah blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, well, wouldn’t it have been nice to just take a minute to put those bags of nuts and sunflower seeds or whatever in your bag and have it there always. I make sure there’s always something in my bag, I call it back up even if I don’t touch it, it’s there for backup, emergency, whatever. And it’s just like once you get in that habit, it’s really one that’s important. I think hydration’s really, really important. Keeping your water or your tea with you all day to be drinking, getting up, and going to the bathroom again.
The breathing thing is really important. I use essential oils because I think they’re really easy and they’re super effective and they’re fast and you can put a couple of drops and it reminds me to breathe so you can do deep inhales. In my palms and put at the back of my neck. Really good high-quality ones are good but depend on what your personal preferences are, what your needs are. As I said, I have that “focus” one right here. I have other ones I use first thing in the morning, some before bed for unwinding. You’ve got to have a routine or ritual that helps you with your waking up and the ones that help you unwind and go to sleep and sleep soundly.
I also think that supplementation, like really high-quality supplements are key because we can’t get everything we need from food every single day, so you’ve got to optimize your health. So you want to keep your energy levels in a good place and you want to keep yourselves healthy and vibrant. You want to have some supplements that really, really nurse them deeply and you want to have high quality. So quality does matter. You don’t want to buy just anything. I can always talk more about that. But quality does matter. Cause we have a lot of junk in our environment and a lot of crap. It’s sold at stores that you know nothing about.
And so those are all really important things. Again, connection too with friends or loved ones that aren’t just the people that you work, tho people you work with are great. But you have to have outside support people that you connect with that you can just laugh with and have fun with and who really know you so you don’t feel isolated. Like, if you’re an entrepreneur and you work alone all the time and that’s not really your nature, but you’re alone and you have to be able to walk out and connect with real people and have something that’s meaningful to you to do in that regard. Whether it’s a group or community connection means a lot with lots of people. A community can mean one person. So it doesn’t have to be anything Epic and massive. Just to have those things out consistently is really, really, really important. And to not be alone with your the voices in your head and the challenges, like really being able to share about those things honestly and openly, not venting, and venting has its place, but in a way that’s constructive. I think that that’s really, really key to, to dealing with these is the busy factor in the overwhelm, the overdoing it and these things are really, really important.
Touch is important also, like to have your own body to receive touch and hugs. Like those things sound so silly, but it’s really true. We need that. I’ve watched people completely change their entire energy level just by getting that kind of fulfillment too.
Those are the top off the top of my head. Without going real nitty-gritty detail, I can get really detailed about all this stuff. And again, I can get real specific about either the supplements or the oils or the timing of eating or bedtime or just all the stuff that you can do or kinds of meditation or kinds of breathwork or kinds of books or whatever that help with all this and help with the busy help of the overwhelm, help with being not the, not overdoing it with full lives, and they’re all really important and you just have to pick what really fits you and, and use them. And consistency is key.
Jess:
Yeah. Because of course people are different and people’s lives are different and they’re needing different things. And so so I’m kind of taking from all of this, the overall point is that since people are different, you just kind of have to listen and practice listening to yourself to figure out what you need and make time for those things. Even with your busy schedule, and that you’re busy is going to feel so much better once you do take the time to do that. But that if you’re, if you’re feeling busy and you’re feeling or you’re feeling unhealthy or overwhelmed, that there is something wrong and to be able to stop and pay attention to that.