Episode 7: Emotional Wellness with Meghan Cannon

Meghan Cannon

Welcome to the Wellness in Every Season of Motherhood podcast where we explore what it means to achieve total wellness. I am your host, Autumn Carter. This podcast is geared more towards mothers, but we try to be inclusive of all here as we learn together to get us out of survival mode and into thriving during life transitions.

This is episode 7. Welcome Wellness Wanderers. In today's episode, we will be joined by Meghan Cannon, a master student in school counseling and teacher of 15 years, to discuss the vital role of emotional wellness in our lives.

Meghan will share her personal journey and how emotional wellness impacted her career change and life choices. Our conversation will delve into the connections between emotional wellness and other dimensions of wellness

and how neglecting emotional wellness can have negative consequences.

Meghan will also offer insights on when to seek therapy as an adult and when it may be appropriate for children to do so. Additionally, Megan will shed light on Title I schools and their unique challenges, so sit back, relax, and enjoy our discussion on emotional wellness with Meghan Cannon.

I have Meghan Cannon with me. She has been a teacher for nearly 15 years. She is trauma-informed and a certified educator, and she's certified in gifted educational leadership. And she has a master's in STEM educational leadership, and she's working on her second master's in school counseling. Hi, Meghan.

Hi. I sound really interesting on paper. Wow.

Is there anything more that you want to tell us about yourself? Let's start there.

I mean, professionally, no, I think that sums me up pretty well. Professionally, I mean, personally, I'm a lot of things. I've always, you know, you get terrible interview questions like describe us in one word and I'm like, Renaissance. I'm just all the things. Anything that you could think of that you could put Meghan Cannon into a category of, I am that thing. And they're like, tell us more about that.

So I'm like, well, how much time you got? So yeah, professionally, that's it summed up. But there's a lot. I'm a complicated, multifaceted person. So on paper, I look real neat. Actually in person, not so much, anyway. And then you know the two kids, motherhood, all that jazz.

I was just going to say, part of that is you have kids. Okay, so explain to us,

I didn't know you could be a trauma informed certified educator along with being a teacher. I'm curious to learn about that.

So being a trauma informed and certified educator established because of the

professional development that you do and what is necessitated by the type of

school that you're in. I've been a teacher for almost 15 years and for 12 of those years I was in a type of school called Title I. And a Title I school is a type of school that is low socioeconomic status. Like there is a percentage that the school has to meet in order to be determined as Title I, which means that they get a lot of incentives and money from the government in order to function

and in order to improve test scores and all of that and have a lot of programming in order to move students along. Because a lot of education is not so much about where you are as it is about can you move forward. When we look at students and people in general who are of a lower socioeconomic status, when we look at people that are in poverty, they have so much trauma. Poverty itself is trauma.

And it became apparent to so many people, I want to say around 2011, 2012, that it would be really necessary to train teachers that are consistently in the thick of it to be a trauma-informed educator. And I did that for years. And eventually, I don't remember how this happened, but the Maryland State Department of Education was like, you have earned this many credits. You are trauma informed and certified now. And I'm like, well, I suppose I should be. After all of this training that I've done.

Tell me about your master's in STEM educational leadership. And then we'll move into our actual questions.

'Cause that really does go into your question. So like I said, I have always been kind of this Renaissance person who loves all sorts of different things.

And just from someone who doesn't know me very well, I would imagine that someone would be like Meghan flitz from one thing to another to another thing to another. And I can totally understand where they get that from.

I decided after teaching for a couple of years, I was like, look, I really like teaching science and STEM. And I decided that what I wanted to do

was pursue that as an educator, that I would rather focus a lot of my time and energy on becoming that.

So I wanted to mainly do just that, just teach science, just teach STEM with a mindset of kids should be working hands on in a project based environment in order to cultivate their understanding. And that's where that came from. It came from my own desire of, I wanna have fun during the school day. This is what I love doing with students.

That's why I love doing my own kid now, but this is what I like doing and it's fun

and why not look into that? So that's why I pursued it. And I came with like an educational leadership tag on to it. So technically I could be an administrator,

but I have no desire to do such things. (laughs) It was a really big kind of catch all. Like, yes, you can be, you could be a science teacher or you could be the STEM leader in your school building, because you have an administrative certificate on top of it.

Why do you think emotional health is important?

That affects so much of your processing. Having that solid emotional health

and being aware of how you feel and being able to name it and identify what that does in your body, it really does affect you physically. It ties to so many other things. And I see the effects of students who have not really had a great model of that. And I see students who've had a great model for that.

And the ones who haven't are by the time they're 10, 11 years old, gosh, they are just a mess in a way that I can't fix.

It really takes a toll on your body, that level of stress and constantly being in a state of fight or flight or fawn or freeze, but mostly it's fight or flight. And just how that affects, oh, your GI tract, how that affects your vagus nerve, which affects the rest of your cerebral cortex that just all of it is connected. And it's horrifying to see that in young children.

But then you see it in adults and you go, not what's wrong with you, but gosh, what's happened to you?

Well, it happened if we looked at people that way, what happened to you instead of what's wrong with you. I love that question. So let's go into the next question.

How has your emotional health positively affected your perspective?

It's cleared it. When I have emotional health that is, it's gonna sound redundant,

but when I know that my emotional state is healthy or is balanced, or at least that I'm aware of what it is, then it's like that song, ♪ I can see clearly now the rain is gone ♪ It just, it really is. You feel like yourself and like you have control over it. And so my perspective is not clouded or muddied by any of that emotional reactiveness because we could walk around all the time really just reacting to all of our emotions. But when our emotional health is in check

when we recognize what it is, what our emotions are and how we respond to them, then everything else just kind of falls into place. And it doesn't make our existence easy per se, but it makes it so that we can navigate it and feel confident about ourself as a person and well adjusted and just plain happier.

And then how does that tie into your life choices?

How doesn't it? (laughs) I can recognize the times in my life where I was

so unsure about not any of my decisions, but why I was reacting the way that I was. I didn't understand what that was. And I realized that I was having strong gut reactions to things to stimuli to other people. And that was really negatively impacting some of my relationships, be it work or personal. And I realized that in order for me to be able to change that, that I was going to have to step back and take time to really evaluate where I was emotionally.

Having that emotional health and being aware of where I was, I was able to get out of not that emotion, not that feeling, but able to get out of that strong,

really negative reaction to whatever that emotion was. And that I was able to be clear about what my intentions were, about what my needs were. And I was able to communicate that to the people who cared about me so that I could really be the best version of myself.

And then how has this affected your career, especially with you when you were in a Title I school for a while?

I am not currently. And that goes along with that. I could recognize that me being in a Title I school and being a parent at the same time and having so much emotional needs put on you daily, just as a teacher, there's so much has asked of you. The expectation is that your plate grows larger, not that you skirt anything off of it. They're just like, just put more on there and see how that goes. And I was in a state for a couple of years where COVID certainly didn't help, but where I was like, I'm not happy. I don't know why. And when I sat down and I really thought about it, I went, because I'm too overwhelmed with emotion.

There was too much that's being asked of me and I can't change the system, I can't change how it works, but I can change where I am. So having that emotional health and perspective and that time to go, why am I feeling this way?What's the antecedent to some of my own behavior? And realizing it's because of an expectation that's on me,or it's because of an expectation that I've put on myself that's not reasonable, or because I'm being stretched too thin emotionally. So let's take one of those burdens off and change my position. That's also part of the reason why I chose to pursue school counseling because I went, I don't really love the art that is teaching so much. That drains me. That makes me unhappy. Why is it that I do come to school every day? Why do I come to my job? Oh, it's because I like kids. So how can I do that still and still feel emotionally satisfied and connected and not overwhelmed by the end of the day?And I had to really evaluate what would do that for me. It took me a couple of years to figure it out. But when I did, man, it was just-- it was a light bulb.

Having the time and having a partner that was willing to say, take the time to figure out what it is that you need, or having co-workers who said, I think this is right for you and who supported my emotional health. It was really what allowed me to be able to move in a direction that I was happy with.

I don't see anybody being able to listen to this and not be able to relate in some way because we have all been there no matter our career or where we're at in life, where something doesn't feel right. Something needs to change. I'm not happy. I need to step back and think about what this is really evaluate and go to people who I trust who will hear me out all the way. So I really, I love your vulnerability with it.

It also made me think about last week interviewing Thania about environmental

wellness and how if our environment is not healthy for whatever reason, what can we do to change it?And you were in a healthy environment to then change things.Like at home, you were in a healthy environment with you had a supportive spouse, just like take the time, figure it out. So that definitely made me think about environmental wellness.

And that goes into my next question. How do you think it ties into other areas of wellness?

I mean, how doesn't it? When you are emotionally well, that affects your intellectual wellness, positively, your social wellness, your physical wellness, your spiritual wellness. When you are emotionally stable and aware of how you are emoting and reacting to your body. Then that percolates into everything else that you do.Because when you are aware of that, like we said before, that affects the rest of you. It affects how you react to situations. It affects your body and what it's doing. We all have felt those negative effects of stress.

I don't know how your body responds to stress, but mine's not good. And it really just, it does, they're all connected through this gigantic spider web.

And I don't want to say that it's the one that's in the middle, that's in the center

exactly, but it's certainly not a string that you can cut and be like, all right, well,

that one, forget about emotional wellness, I'll be all right without it. You you will not be it really will affect the rest of you. Especially physically and mentally that's not good. If you can't figure out why you're feeling what you're feeling the rest of these kind of shot.

Well, especially learning about in my drugs abuse and abuse class, yes, you know, where I'm going... a lot of people use drugs as a crutch as a coping mechanism because of mental health issues, especially because of trauma, their way of escaping, their way of just cutting a little bit of the tie. So they're kind of just floating instead of dealing with whatever or living in whatever muck that they feel like they're living in. As you know, I just came from swim class. I almost drowned as a child. I feel a lot of anxiety when my nose is underwater. When you're talking about the feelings that can happen with emotional health and it's like, yeah, the anxiety that I was feeling just a little bit ago. I definitely felt the physical effects of that while I'm trying to swim some laps and have my face underwater. And I have another with my lungs. It's okay. So yes, totally feel you on that.

I mean, how we respond to so many situations is our own trauma a lot of the time. And that's our emotional health right there. You know, as mothers, we think back at how did my parents respond, you know, sometimes when they were angry? Is that how I respond now? And what does that make me feel in my body when I'm angry? And it's so much of it is generational. It's really, really, really hard to change some of those patterns. And so being aware of how you respond to those big feelings. Sometimes that could be anger, or other times that's just sadness.

But it could also be like elation. How do you respond when you have

a really big, overwhelming feeling? Because that could be how someone responded when you were a child. And maybe now you can be reflective and go,

I don't know that I want that response in my body anymore. That makes me feel not so good. That makes me react in a way that I don't really like, or that makes me feel out of control. And so much of how we respond emotionally is connected to our trauma. It doesn't always have to be like the big trauma.

We unfortunately are always thinking about that of did something happen to me?

Like, yes, but it doesn't have to be the big stuff. It doesn't have to be the abuse.

It could be the little stuff. It could be unintentional neglect. It could have been parents who were emotionally unavailable. It could have been myriad things.

It doesn't have to be that big stuff, but it still could trigger responses in our body

that then make us respond emotionally a certain way that then affects our body.

And it really just is all connected in a way that's kind of amazing, but also really terrifying when you think about it.

But it sounds like if we are taking the time to, as I said in so many other episodes, be curious. What's going on in my body? And we slow down. We have a lot of the answers, what's going on? And then taking the time to piece it together and okay,when this happens, I typically respond in this way.how do I want to change it? Like you were saying, your body starts to tell you things before you have a trigger, if you take the time to pay attention.

Yeah, the body doesn't forget what it's been through. And it stays in there, those emotional reactions. And that could be that little T trauma. It might just be remembrances from childhood or from early adolescence, or even from previous relationships, be they were romantic or not. Yeah, the body just doesn't forget and having that awareness of this is how I respond is going to impact you differently moving forward.

Well, this is the way my family expected me to respond because of the generational trauma, like you were saying. Absolutely, this is how they expected me to respond. And so I did it because I wanted to be compliant. And now you realize, I don't know that that's what feels right in my body anymore. But those things are hard to break. So in order to figure that out, you do have to be aware and be honest with yourself.

So what do you think the signs are that you, Meghan, are neglecting your emotional health?

I have a lot of them. But some of my biggest ones are that I can't stop being busy. Because for my own self and my own trauma, I know that as a child, a lot of my feelings, a lot of my really big feelings were not validated. And so when I have them, I just try to avoid having them. (laughs) And just like, I'm busy, and I will sort of, flit around my house or environment as if I have, I don't know, as if the world is on fire. And so that's when, again, people that care about me go, something's up. What are you feeling? What do you need right now?

My husband especially, 'cause we've been together for almost 20 years, It's like, you know, something's going on there. You need to take a minute. And as moms, of course, sometimes we're like, I can't, I can't take a minute. Too much to do, leave me alone. Just let me do the things and I'll be all right. But that is one of my telltale signs of something emotionally is not right. And I have to figure out what it is. And giving myself even just 10 minutes to just sit and be still can help me figure out what it really is and get down to it. So that's one of my signs.

Another one is that I can't find enjoyment in anything. Like there's satisfaction and then there's just enjoyment. And when I go and look at things that I know or think about things that I know, I would usually enjoy. And I just can't really sit with any of it. Or just I'm like, nah, I don't wanna do that. Nah, I don't wanna do that. Nah, I don't wanna do that. I go, "Hmm, something's here. "There's something that's going on right now."So for me, that's my two biggest things,

flitting around as if I have, like I'm a bee with a million things to do, or just cannot find enjoyment, different from satisfaction, but just nothing, nothing makes me feel fulfilled. Those are my two big things.

What do you think it is for others, the signs that they're neglecting their emotional health.

It really is different for different people. For children, I see them as becoming

wholly disengaged socially. So children who are neglecting their emotional health or have no awareness of whatsoever disengage. We all know what a shy child looks like, but this is a child that really is not connected to their emotional wellbeing at all, has no interest in engaging socially. whatsoever. And that's for a neurotypical child because certainly children with autism or with some other neuro divergence, it might look different for them. But if you know that your

child is pretty neurotypical and yet they have no interest in engaging socially and are also like, "I don't know what to watch. I don't know what to do. I don't want to read. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do that." Something's up. Something's up. That's a pretty telltale sign for a child.

But for other children who are really struggling emotionally and just don't,

it's just not healthy. They can't pick an emotion. They don't know what to feel. So when they are mad one minute and then sad the next one and then they're hangry and then they're happy and are seemingly like quote unquote hyper, they don't know where they are. They don't know up from down and they need a minute to process.

I think for a lot of adults, it's that social disengagement of I'm not interested in talking with anybody. I don't want to do anything with anybody and it's not just like I need a minute to be to myself, but just the idea of connecting with anyone or choosing anything that would give you enjoyment or connecting emotionally sounds so taxing. When adults get in that state, something is off emotionally.

And for moms, I feel like when you're like, no one touch me, no one talk to me,

no one, I just, I just know. That's when you need to know something is off emotionally. Like sure, you probably are over-stimulated because you are around small children and you've been called mom 600 times and probably can't close the door without anybody peeking in on you after about 30 seconds.

But you also probably not in touch with yourself emotionally. And you need to identify like, what really is this rage that I'm feeling? Is it really rage? Am I actually just overstimulated? Am I just tired? Am I hungry? Did I eat today?

You know, when you just can't put a pin on it and nothing seems to bring you joy, sums up. Well, I do think it looks different for different people. That idea of like, I can't pick what I'm feeling, or I don't want anything to do with anybody

or anything like ever. Yeah, emotionally something somethings a little off there.

What do you routinely do to check up on your emotional wellness?

Even at my own like personal detriment in terms of like production, like work production, be that as a mother or as a professional student or like a professional facilitator, I will take time for myself every single day so that I can just be aware at the end of every day, what did I feel, why did I feel that way? and process it out loud.

For me personally, it can take me days to process a really big feeling. And I communicate very clearly with my husband especially when I know that there's a really big feeling that I have, that I'm not quite sure what the antecedent actually is. Because then he'll know she needs a little bit more time right now to figure that out. And I need to give her the time and space when she asks for it.

So that's what I know that I need to do in order to check in on myself. When I'm, I can't process that feeling, taking a little bit more time, but also making sure that I take a little bit of time, end of every day to verbally process it out loud because I am a slow emotional processor.

Like I said, sometimes putting other things off to the side because my emotional wellness matters more then sometimes completing one task. 'Cause if I'm not emotionally healthy, everything else, like I said, it's just a string I can't cut. If I do, it affects other things. So I really do need to be aware.

That made me think about sleep.

Yeah.

With you answering this question and the last one is just sleep came to mind both times, how much we need sleep and how that affects our physical and our emotional. For me, it's like, you know what? I'm not getting enough sleep, that's my problem.

And I feel so much better that with all the education you have, it takes you a few days to process emotions because I feel like I'm broken because it takes me so long. But that's also due to trauma from childhood all the way through to until I cut parents off.

When is it clear that somebody should see a therapist?

When it is impacting any of your wellness. When you're realizing that, you know, that maybe you're not sleeping well, see a therapist. When you're realizing that you are having strong emotional reactions to low-stakes scenarios, see a therapist. When you are noticing that you're having unhealthy habits, be that unhealthy eating habits, unhealthy substance abuse habits, unhealthy other addiction habits, see a therapist. I'm of the mindset that a therapist is not,

you know, they're not a fixer. They are, they're like a workshop guide. You know, they are there to help you unpack things or sounding bored, and they are someone not just to listen, but to help you guide your own healing. And so if you're interested in healing, they're gonna guide you through it,and a good therapist will tell you, not tell you, will ask you, so what do you want?

Like, what do you want out of this? And if you are ever like, gosh, I really just

wish I had someone to help me through XYZ problem,then go see a therapist.

Don't know that there is a specific thing that should make anyone go see a therapist. I think that at so many points in our lives when we're having difficulty processing, either emotions or reactions or just noticing an unhealthy habit.

Like Dolly Parton says, if you don't like the path that you're walking, then choose a different one. But a therapist is probably gonna help you figure out what that path is and get you to where you need to go and retrain your brain. So I'm of the mindset that pretty much everybody should go to therapy. Not for their entire life because at a certain point, is it really necessary?

You gotta try some things out on your own. But should you at different points in your life? Yeah, yeah you should.

I think a lot of kids should, I think adults should, I think adults at various stages of their life should. So I don't know that I can pinpoint it and say, this happens to you, see a therapist. 'Cause I mean, like I was saying, like that big T trauma, we say, oh gosh, you know, if you were abused, you should go to therapy. But what does that look like? There could also be that little T trauma of abuse, where you had an adult who met all of your physical needs, but they just weren't there for emotions. or an adult that showed up for things but really wasn't engaged in your life and therefore you're always seeking validation from other people.

Well, that's still trauma. So, you know, should you still see a therapist to figure that out? Yeah, you should. So there isn't one thing, it's when you realize something's not right here and I gotta figure this out.

And then as a parent with children, sounds like I have the answer just in your last couple of sentences. If something just doesn't seem right, that that would be your answer as well.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, full disclosure, my child is in therapy. I feel like...

And he is very happy, healthy, and best friends with my oldest. So yeah.

I will put that out there.

Yeah. And that I could see just the amount of unhappiness that he had due to disappointment and not really knowing how to manage it due to like his

school structure because of COVID.

Why can others do to strengthen this area if they are in a deficit?

If you are noticing that you're having really strong reactions to pretty much everything, where you feel like you're constantly in survival mode or just angry or just feeling so many strong reactions all the time, then you are in a deficit. And what you need to do is schedule time, not a lot of time, but schedule time for yourself every day and communicate that with whoever is in your life that also is in charge of your schedule. For me, that's my spouse. And for You too.

But that could look different. That could be for an adolescent.

That could be their parents. For a single mom, it could be for their daycare person. They might need a little bit of extra time just to have time. It doesn't mean time to yourself to do whatever you want, but time to yourself to just, why am I feeling this way? And start writing some things out. So taking the time to sit down and either verbally process it out loud, call someone and talk about it and just say, I just wanna talk, just let me talk for a minute or start writing it out, take 10 minutes. Beginning of the day, end of the day, I don't care when you do it. But if you're noticing that that's the reaction that you're having, then that's a step

that you need to be taking. And it should give you a little bit of clarity about what's going on in your brain.

The biggest reason why coaching works so well is because coaches show up

and the biggest thing they need to do is listen and listen with full interest.

And without any, I'm listening because I wanna fix you in this way or anything,

any agenda.

When you have people that are in your life that really want to know that answer

and don't have any expectation that they are going to get to insert anything, then you're like, hold on to those people. And hopefully everybody's got a couple of them, but I know most people don't. They have maybe one, and hopefully it's not just your spouse, but for a lot of people it is. It is just their spouse, if even that. I think women especially are often married to men who are fixers, and they're like, "All right, well, here's how you fix the problem."

No, I don't want you to fix the problem. I just want you to listen to me talk about the problem. But just having someone who's in your life, be it a coach or a teacher or a spouse, a friend, who you can just say, just let, just sit with me

and my feelings for a little bit and just let me have them. That is a really powerful one moment for you and a really powerful connection that you can build together.

When you let somebody come up with the answer themselves, they are more likely to do it and have success than if it is fed to them.

Absolutely.

And I think about that a lot as a parents when our kids automatically, well, how do I do this? Well, I didn't do it. Did you actually try it? Well, no. Well, go try it first, you know, or what do you think? How do you think it works? How can others be preventative in this area?

By having a really good communication from the get-go when you're in a relationship, be it romantic or not, that could be a friendship, that could be any kind of partnership, or even, you know, with your siblings, with your parents, and just communicating about what your feelings are without any sense of shame.

So if anyone made you feel shame for your feelings, which is a whole other topic, but knowing that no feeling or emotion is wrong, they're all right, just depends on how you react to them. Even that, like having your emotions is fine. And starting there and knowing, I'm allowed to have feelings, darn it. And expressing with the people around you, in your life, what they are just by simply stating them, not by judging, but just by talking about it. As often as you can and narrating your emotions is really, really preventative. And as a parent, doing that also for your child.

So doing that for them when they are having really strong negative emotions, saying you are really sad, you are really disappointed because this thing that helps your child navigate that very murky water of what am I feeling? That's very helpful. Of course, for those tiny brains who have no idea what they're doing. But as an adult, narrating, you might sound really silly or might feel really silly to you to narrate your feelings of, I'm really happy that we're doing this today. But then you are, then you are really happy. Then you own it and you feel that in your body. Or I'm really upset. I'm really mad that this happened the way that this did. And it allows you to process as out loud, you know? And so doing that frequently and making that habit is going to be so much more preventative than I think people realize it will be.

There's so much relief from having that instead of just trying to repress that feeling because then it just stays in your body.

Absolutely.

'Cause otherwise you kind of ride the wave and it exits your body and you're good. Unless it's joy, can we hold on to that. And then what I thought about when you were talking about naming emotions for children and explaining why they have that emotion, it can feel like you're feeding it to them. However, as somebody who grew up with a lot of trauma and I have a very empathetic, amazing spouse, there are times when I don't fully understand what I'm feeling and he will start to name things for me. And sometimes it's, "No, it's not that," and then I can explain how I'm feeling a little more. It's the same thing with our children. That is how it should be where, well, you're feeling this because this is this and they can say, no, it's not quite that.

You need to give them room for that exploration. And I can tell that's exactly where you were going. So I just wanted to emphasize that just a little bit more because I know that it took me a little bit to kind of sort that out in my head, what it looks like and really think about, well, it's the same thing that my husband does for me and how helpful it is that he does that for me so that I can label more than just anger, sad, and happy because we have a whole rainbow with all the different little shades as they blend into each other. And anyway, I can share that with you later. (here is what I was referencing)

How to label emotions

Do you have any last thoughts before we close out?

I have a lot of thoughts. But so many of these things, I mean, could be their own, could, Oh gosh, are there own topics in and of themselves? And this is just barely scratching at it. But I think that we as adults have been, especially I think our generation too and who we were raised by. Really the emphasis was on you are worthy and you are worthwhile if you are productive. And as mothers, we feel like that sometimes about you are only as valuable as what you produce and create and what you're able to maintain. And I think that our, the generation before us or the generation that raised us, I should say, did not put value on talking about feelings because it was soft and it wasn't 'productive'. Whereas that just is not the truth at all. It can be so productive for us to be able to have meaningful conversations about how we feel. And it isn't counterproductive to sit down with your spouse or to call your friend or just to yourself at the end of every night, have a cup of tea and say, "I felt like this today because of these feelings." That's not woo woo stuff, that's taking care of yourself.

And it allows you to move through your day and the days afterward, feeling like you can do it. Like you can make meaningful connections and you can be in charge of the person that you wanna be and you can be healthy and you can have great relationships with your kids and you can be all of the things that you wanna be. But you have to know what you're feeling and why you react the way that you do. You have to take time for yourself to do it. It's not counterproductive, it is productive. And that's unlearning that I had to do for gosh, years And since I know that you talk a lot to moms and that you coach them, like if that's a message that I could send, it's that one right there.

What it made me think about, and I'm sure that you have seen these studies too, is just how loneliness has gone up over the years, over the generations. No wonder why, because we aren't taking the time to form these connections. Thank you so much for taking the time for me, especially during your spring break when you only have a tiny break in between school and work and you don't ever have a break from mom life. So thank you.

You do not, but you know, at least with kids like ours, like they're pretty enjoyable most of the time. So, yeah. (laughs) Yeah, so I'm happy to do it.

Here are some of the National Wellness Institute questions for your self-assessment. One is almost never, two is rarely, three is sometimes, four is often, five is almost always. Recognizing both my strengths and my weaknesses, I love and accept myself as I am. Your agreement score.

When experiencing strong emotions, I have the ability to express how I am feeling. Your agreement score. In the midst of life's challenges, I am able to focus on the positive aspects of the situation. Your agreement score.

I proactively seek help and support from others when experiencing difficulties.

Your agreement score.

I regularly engage in mindfulness practices and stress reduction activities.

Your agreement score.

I intentionally practice gratitude every day. Your agreement score.

On a scale of one, low, and 10 high, how would you rate your overall satisfaction

with where you are in this dimension?

Here are some of my coaching questions related to emotional wellness.

What can I do to check in with myself each day?

When do I want to check in with myself each day? It may be helpful to set a time here.

How can I nurture my emotional health?

What can I do to protect my emotional health?

What do I need to add to my self-care routine?

In summary, I spoke with Meghan Cannon, an elementary school teacher of 15 years and current student working on her second masters about the importance of emotional wellness and what neglect looks like. She also discussed what steps she takes to check in on her emotional wellness, as well as what being emotionally healthy looks like.

Next week, we will have another special guest discussing financial wellness, so be sure to subscribe to this podcast to stay updated.

Thank you for joining our wellness discussion this week with Autumn Carter. If you liked what you heard, follow me on Instagram @momswellnessineveryseason to keep up with the latest wellness tips for moms. Please share the podcast love with others by sharing, subscribing, and leaving

a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you want a topic covered in more detail or a free coaching consultation, please DM me on Instagram or send an email through my website wellnessandeveryseason.com.

I look forward to connecting with you. Please join the discussion next week.