Podcast Introduction:

Mentoring with Geraldine is a bite-sized practitioner podcast for naturopaths, nutritionists, herbalists, and practitioners. Responding directly to the needs of the practising natural therapist.  With interviews, herbal discussions, something business, something clinical … you’ll get the variety you need to enjoy and stay motivated in practice.

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Episode Introduction: Stress Management

Hello, everyone and welcome to “Mentoring with Geraldine and the Bite-size podcast”. How are you today? 

Well, today I thought let’s talk about stress management. 

We all have a bit of stress don’t we?

• Stress has changed over the last couple of years. 
• Things have changed dramatically in 
  • how we want to show up 
  • how we want to be in business
  • what we want to do 

If you’ve been stuck at home a lot with family, how you work with family has changed, how you want to be with your loved ones, has changed. 

It’s really interesting. 

The dynamics and the changes that we’ve all gone through over the last couple of years. And it doesn’t matter where you are.

Some people did it really tough. 

The Victorians did it really tough. 

They took one for the team, and how they managed, nobody knows!

But they had to manage, and they’ve totally worked out different ways of being, and different thought processes, just as the rest of us have, but in different ways, different timelines, and all the rest of it.

So I thought let’s talk about the stress management of ‘now’. 

Because it’s different to the stress management while we were going through all of that lockdown, and everything else, isn’t it?

It’s very different, how we’ve come out the other side, and we still haven’t finished with it. I’ve only just got over Covid – I’ve still got a little bit of Long Covid, tagging along – a little bit of exhaustion.

I’m lacking a bit of clarity that I had in the past, and there’s stress associated with that. 

There’s stress associated with illness, as we know from our clients. And it’s great…

• We tell our clients they need to exercise 
• But they need to relax 
• They need to deep breathe
  • This is how you do square breathing 
  • Choose your colours
  • Find 7 things … 
  • … all of the stress systems that are out there 
• Eat well 
• Slow down, take a break … 

We All Have Stressors

But for us – those of us running a business and doing something else as well – none of you are just doing one thing.

Nobody is just doing one thing. 

We all run a household. 

We are the man about the house or the woman about the house, we run a household.

We’re single – we’ve got a family – we run a household – we’re doing another job. 

There’s always another job. 

It might just be feeding yourself, if you are single, and you might find that a chore.

We all find different things a chore. 

And so stress management for us is different.

For every person it’s different.

Boundaries are So Important:

For every person who has a small business, it’s a big deal, and we try to ignore it.

But it takes stress home with us – and we have to place those boundaries. 

There have to be those boundaries in place. 

Otherwise, we really end up suffering – with the stress of it all – with everything that we’ve got to do – all the external parts of our business, as well as the internal parts. 

Lots of us are introverts, and here we are online doing all these things. 

“Oh yeah, Geraldine – you’re not an introvert”. 

We all have an introverted aspect to our personality. 

Even the person that you think is the most outgoing, still has an introverted aspect somewhere. They want to relax somehow, and be away from people. 

I find social media to be quite difficult, and yet I’m on there all the time!

Or so you’d think, but it’s actually very controlled (the amount of time that I spend on social media). 

My iPhone at the end of each week tells me how long I’ve been on everything. 

And then I touched on it differently the other week, and it gave me this huge breakdown of everything that I touch on my phone, which games I play, what I open first.

So Gmail, I open first – so I don’t open social media first.

Social media is a relatively long way down the list. 

It shows that I only watch TikTok on a Sunday evening. 

It’s very rare that I’m caught watching TikTok any other time. 

And my TikTok does not have dancers on it – it’s all political.

So I catch up on world politics on my TikTok, and my daughter shows me cats on hers.

We all have different ways of managing our stress. 

Sometimes we’re in denial about that stress

and how stressful running your own business can be. 

We need help and we need support. 

We need systems, and that’s the only way to avoid the stress

Make Time for Yourself:

We should be doing things like waking in the morning, and journaling, and meditating. 

And what is really good about those things is, when we think about them … 

If you wake up in the morning and think:

“Oh, I haven’t got time to journal. I haven’t got time to journal”. 

… it actually means that – yes, you probably should be journaling! 

Because why haven’t you got the time?

• What is it that you need to remove, or change, or replace, 
  • so that you have got the time for you? 
  • so that you have got the time for your partner? 
  • so that you have got the time for your children? 
  • so that you have got the time for your animals? 
  • So that you have got the time for you and the things that you need to do? 
• Where is that time going?

How do you Track your Time?:

So lots of coaches and mentors, they will say:

“Get a time diary. What are you doing every 20 minutes of the day?”

And if it’s too much to try and do every 20 minutes, either cut it down to 15, so that you’re doing it more regularly, or expand it to every half an hour. 

But don’t say, what should I do in the hour.

Because in the hour, you might have spent 45 minutes doing social media, and then you do 15 minutes of sitting down, writing the blog, and then you’re like:

“Oh, how long was I on social media for? 

How long was I writing the blog for?

I don’t know, because it’s an hour.”

So we really need to break it down into – the longest period would be half an hour – 20 minutes is good – or 15 minutes if you think, well, I can’t do it.

And then you can really decide: what it is that you’re doing. 

How are you spending your time? 

What you’ll discover, and what I discovered the first time I tried to do it, I was like:

“I haven’t got time to do this”. 

And so I did it over a week, because I would find: 

• I’d be able to do it for a couple of hours 
  • and then I’d go off on a tangent
  • I’d forget I was doing it 
  • or I’d go out 
  • or I had to go and pick up children, or something. 
• So it was just like 3-hour blocks were gone, because I had to run all over the place, and do things
• So I didn’t have those – that time would become something else – so it’s kind of crossed out – there would just be a line through it, saying school run or whatever it was 

So I had to do it over a whole week, rather than over a 24 hour period. 

Because normally it’s recommended to do a 24 hour period – see how you go. 

But I had to do it over a whole week, because there would be huge gaps. 

• It would just say school because I’d be like: “Well I did like 300 things!”
• I tried to drive here – do that – do this – do that – do the other thing.. as I dropped off – picked up – went to the sports – then came back.
• You know what it’s like – those of you with children.  
• They need running everywhere. 

Figure out the Best System for you:

So it’s a really good idea to chart out – use whatever system you want. 

You can use a spreadsheet – and you can use a spreadsheet on your phone.

Don’t use an app, because there’s a lot of tracking of these apps, as it turns out.

I keep seeing that on Tik Tok.

Don’t use period apps. 

Don’t use those apps, because they’re tracked. 

And, and so that’s ‘Big Brother’ watching, and all the rest of it. 

• So it’s a good idea with these (systems)
  • if it does go on a piece of paper 
  • or that does go on a spreadsheet on your phone
  • that is therefore in Google sheets, if you’ve got Google Workplace 
    • that’s supposed to be behind firewalls 
    • and not part of anybody else’s information 

Schedule in You-Time as Well:

So when we think about: 

“How am I spending my time?” 

“How could I use it more productively, but 

How can I enjoy the things that I’ve got on there?”

I like going on to Tik Tok. 

I like hearing all the politics. 

I like watching these people. 

I found myself on American TikTok quite a bit, or in an Australian American Tik Tok, where one lot is saying the other doesn’t exist. The Americans are saying the Australians don’t exist. Australia’s not there. It’s not really a place. 

And Australians are saying: “Yes, we’re actually upside down” and showing pictures of everything upside down and saying “Yeah, we are on the other side of the world”, especially for the Americans who don’t understand what gravity is. 

I enjoy that time.

I enjoy watching that. 

I find it fun. 

So it’s designated to a time so that I know I’m going to enjoy that time. 

It’s like in the mornings, I have a coffee – I have a dirty chai every day. 

I really enjoy that dirty chai – I make it and I sit down and I enjoy it. 

This morning, I discovered we didn’t have any oak milk or almond milk or anything else.

I make it with a nut milk alternative. 

And so I didn’t have any, so I had to go to the supermarket, and the supermarket that I go to is Foodland. 

If you’ve not been to Adelaide, then you don’t know what a supermarket is really. 

So we have the best supermarket in the world. It literally is. 

It wins awards, being the supermarket in the world.

And there’s a cafe and I go in there and there’s all the organics.

And so I went this morning and I had my Almond Dirty Chi made for me.

I then went and got all the ingredients for muesli, because I was like: “Oh, well I’m getting my oat milk and everything else”. 

So I did all those things. So it was a bit different this morning, but …

Normally that time with my chai – it’s like I say to my clients: 

“If you’re going to drink coffee, make it worthwhile”.

“If you are going to eat cake, enjoy the cake”. 

Don’t think to yourself it’s a guilty pleasure, but I don’t see why there is guilt. 

If you’re going to enjoy something, enjoy it properly, relax and take that moment and enjoy that moment properly. 

And if you know what you are doing with your time, and how you’re spending your time, And if you allocate time to enjoying yourself – time on TikTok, or getting a massage, or whatever it might be …

I allocate my massage.

I see a massage therapist – I might see them every 6 weeks or so.

I designate those things in my diary and they absolutely can’t be changed. 

They are everything to me. 

And so we have to think to ourselves:

“How can I fit these things in to support myself

 … to support my stress levels, or reduce my stress levels, and to feel good”

“How am I going to do these things?” 

“How am I going to make my life fulfilling as well as supporting others?” 

Clients are empathy suckers. 

It’s as simple as that. 

So we have to have time when we can be replenished. 

If you think of yourself as a battery, you need charging – simple as that.

You’ve gotta be charged. 

And if you don’t charge, then you’re stressed – you’re exhausted

And everything just becomes too much! 

I’ve particularly noticed my level of exhaustion or battery depletion over the last 2 months since I’ve had Covid.  I’m exhausted every afternoon. I have to really think about how I’m going to use my energy – how I’m going to spend my time – where I’m going to put my energy.

 I’m now thinking:

“OK. I need to work with other people who are going to do more for me 

– who are going to run my Facebook ads for me 

– who are going to do these things for me 

– who are going to help me do things 

– not just get me to do them 

– not just say, “Yes, this is how you do it off you go”

–  I need more support” 

And that’s something that has become very plain.

I need to change the way I do things. 

So, next year, The Graduate Mastery Program is going to be formatted differently. 

There’s going to be an intensive period, and then there’s going to be the group work.

So that they just slot in with the other things that I won’t be changing. 

Be Open to Change to Support Ourselves:

So we have to make sure that we are willing to change.

We have to make sure that we’re willing to look after ourselves, and think about it, in the long term. 

Think about how can we support ourselves? 

How can we do things for ourselves to support us, in that longer timeframe

So in The Academy in November, we have the virtual retreat. 

This is every year – we have the virtual treat.

This year we’re going to have 3, but we (normally) have 2 longer activity days. 

The third one is in September this year – we’re going to have a 3 hour session on ‘Discovery Calls’ and getting your clients back, and speaking to your clients.

But that’s sort of an extra 1

The 2 big ones at the beginning of the year. 

We have “Programs in Practice” and that’s a study day. 

Then we have implementation following that.

That is getting your program set up in your practice. 

That’s figuring out what it’s going to be – who your avatar is – doing all the things to have that program set up.

It’s $47 a month to be in The Academy

So it’s really cheap.

You could just go ahead, pay for somebody’s really expensive course, do that. 

They’ve literally done the courses that I have done, to be delivering what I am delivering. So same, same, different, different, however you want to do it.

Anyway it’s all there. 

So we do “Programs in Practice” at the beginning of the year.

It’s all there for the rest of the year – it’s just that I deliver it live then, and I’m there making sure those people who want to be doing that at this point in time, that I’m supporting them through it, and they get an extra appointment with me, if they’re doing it.

Then at the end of the year, every November, we have virtual retreats. 

So we’re onto our 3rd one now. 

The 1st one was hilarious, because every year (I can’t send it to people in New Zealand, and I’ve never tried to send it to WA) but I send out a smudge stick. 

So Louise Kerwin makes smudge sticks for me.

And the first lot she made were really big, because that’s how she normally makes them. 

So she made these smudge sticks and they were huge. 

I was like: “How am I going to send these things?” 

And I ended up getting cylinders for everybody’s gifts, and I put them all in the cylinders, and I had to make everything exactly 5 kilos, including the cylinder, so that it could be posted at a particular price in the cylinder. 

And I sent to however many people I sent them to, and it was a nightmare. 

Not only the day that I had to pack them, because I had to pack and send them within 2 weeks ….but this particular day was the only day I could do it.

And they were re-tarmacing the road outside my house, which is also my office. 

And so I’d ended up in the morning – because they came by at 7.30 in the morning – so the night before I’d put everything into the boot of the car. 

And then when they came and knocked on the door – I’d parked the car in another street, like two streets over.  

And then when I’d done what I needed to do, and then walked to the car, and proceeded to drive to the post office. 

And in the car park at the post office, I packed everything into the envelopes, stuck everybody’s address labels on that, and then went in to the post office with all of these bags of cylinders to be posted around the world – around Australia, and to New Zealand and the UK, and all sorts of places. 

Some made it – some didn’t – some people never got theirs – but I definitely posted to everyone.

Then last year we’d made smaller ones, and they all went into squashy envelopes. 

And this year they’re even smaller. 

They are the perfect size this year, and they will all fit into the squashy envelope. 

There’s always lots of things in there, and this year it’s going to be on the theme of self care.

Because stress is big 

and we’re not caring for ourselves

We seem to think now – that we’ve had this break of 2020 – when we had our designated “you have to be closed down” breaks – and that we’ve had our rest. 

And yet I think we need to look again and say to ourselves:

“I learned a lot in 2020

… about myself, 

… about my business, 

… about how I was doing things”. 

And for me, I ignored it through 202, and it was only because I got Covid in 2022, and I’ve now been having afternoon ‘nana naps’ every day for the last 2 months that I’m like:

“Hmm, things need to change in the way I work”.

“Things need to be different” 

And I need to activate those changes, rather than just thinking about it, or being overwhelmed by it, and ignoring it. 

So my challenge to you, if you choose to accept it, is:

• to make yourself a little spreadsheet 
  • or use diaries available online 
    • (you can just download them, and use them, that have times on them) 
  • and to say: 
    • What are you doing?
    • How are you spending your time? 

You know, if you do 24-48 hours, great. 

You might have to spread it out over numerous days, because there are big gaps where it’s just like, “I can’t be stopping the car every 20 minutes to write down:, ‘drove one child to ballet, the other child to ballet at a different place, gymnastics’ or something”.

So if you should choose to accept the challenge – I strongly suggest that you do – especially if you’ve got things in your diary (such as my Tuesday morning finances, where I would actively do something else).

So it’s like on a Tuesday, every week, it comes up at 1230 in my diary, #Training Tuesday, but at 12.30 on a Tuesday, I’m always doing something else.

So it always happens on a Thursday. 

We can have things in our diaries and then we need to reassess and go:

• Is this really the right time?
• Is this the right day? 
• Is this the right way? 

For me … 

• “do finances on a Tuesday morning” 
  • which never happened 
• culminated in”get a bookkeeper”. 

So I have Marie’s bookkeeping and she’s great because it’s all online.

There is Karen – she’s another one in New Zealand that I know of, if people need a mobile bookkeeper. 

So I will tag both of them in the footnotes of this, so if you need a bookkeeper and a mobile one here in Australia who understands about GST-free consults and all the rest of it, then Marie’s bookkeeping.

And if you are in New Zealand, then Karen is a great online bookkeeper as well. 

So you don’t actually have to do it yourself. 

They do it for you, which was a major stress relief for me. 

We Need to Practice What we Preach:

So we know how to help our clients with stress.

We do it all the time.

But are we helping ourselves? 

And I want you to really think about how you are helping yourself get through stress, right now.  And what you’re doing with your time, and how you can allocate it better, so that that battery of yours doesn’t become empty, and you’re able to refuel on a regular basis.

Don’t let it run out like a Tesla in the middle of the desert.

Signing Off:

So I’ll leave it there today. 

It was lovely catching up with you, and I look forward to seeing you on the next one. 

And you know, the usual things – you’ve made it to the end – if you can, I’d love a 5-star review and a comment. That would be absolutely brilliant because that supports me in my small business, just like I’m trying to support you in your small business.

I’ll see you soon. 

Bye. 

Thanks so much for joining me today. Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast, for the weekly episodes. If you’d like even more support and learning, then The Academy is for you. Here, you’ll find part 2 of the herbal discussions, more clinical learning, and case studies, to support your clients in practice. Bye for now.

Links as promised:

Australia: Maree’s Mobile Bookkeeping: https://www.mareesmobilebookkeeping.com.au/

New Zealand: KD Bookworks: https://www.kdbookworks.co.nz/