Heather Jones

Challenge Your Inner Critic with Heather Jones

About the episode

In episode of the Mom Owned and Operated podcast, Rita Suzanne and Heather Jones discuss raising a family, running a business and remembering yourself.

Heather is a mom of 2, wife of a wonderfully supportive man, animal lover with many weird pets, Army vet and Army wife(retired), and as of this year a published author. Heather loves to bake, read, and create with many medium types.

She’s a native NYer living in AL. Among her many passions and hobbies is empowering other women to live their most confident life, so they feel inspired to claim everything they want for their lives.

You can find Heather on her website, on Instagram, on Facebook and on her Amazon Author Page.

Three things you can do to quiet your inner critic. Get the list.

Listen to more interviews by visiting momownedandoperated.com and apply to work with Rita at ritasuzanne.com/apply/

Listen to the episode

Show Notes

SPEAKERS

Rita Suzanne, Heather Jones

Rita Suzanne  00:01

Welcome to the mom owned and operated Podcast, the podcast about moms and for moms, where we have candid conversations about running a business, raising a family, and remembering ourselves. I’m your host, Rita Suzanne, a single mom of four, digital strategist and provider of no nonsense business strategies and tactics. Hi, this is Rita Suzanne. And today I have my guest, Heather Jones with me, Heather, I’m so excited to chat with you all about you, your family and your business. Please tell us all the things. 

Heather Jones  00:51

So yes, I am. Let’s see, start with the basics. I’m a wife. I am a mom of two. I have a nine year old boy and a seven year old girl. And oh gosh, there’s a million things I could share right now. So it gets hard to kind of break it down. What’s the most important stuff? I think that’s probably the most important stuff. But I’m an animal mom on top of everything else. And I am a life coach.

Rita Suzanne  01:17

Nice. What kind of animals do you have? Oh,

Heather Jones  01:20

gosh, okay, ready? Oh, yeah. So I’m an odd one. We have five guinea pigs. We have a crawfish. We have two hermit crabs, and we have three different types of caterpillars.

Rita Suzanne  01:34

Oh my gosh, how cute. I’ve never heard of anybody having a caterpillar for a pet. Yeah,

Heather Jones  01:40

I mean, I’m, like I say pet, you know, we’re there, we’re gonna raise them, they’ll turn into butterflies and moths, and we’ll release them. So that’s a temporary pet. But it’s a cool thing we like to do watch them change and all that good stuff. Yeah, I

Rita Suzanne  01:51

remember going to take my kids when they were younger, to the library, and they had the caterpillars in there. And they you know, we’re changing every time we would come in. And I think that’s a cool, you know, lesson for them to learn. So,

Heather Jones  02:05

yeah, it’s a really cool process for them to be able to watch. I honestly, I think I get more out of it than the two. But I keep telling myself they’re learning. I’m teaching them something.

Rita Suzanne  02:18

It’s all about the transformation. So tell us like what kind of life coach are you who do you serve all that stuff.

Heather Jones  02:26

So I officially certified as a life coach and a somatic coach. So somatic dealing with the body kind of bringing together the mind and body. Specifically, I work on confidence with women. And oftentimes moms so but not from a motherhood perspective, more along the lines of they have lost themselves somewhere along the lines, motherhood, marriage, something in life, right. And they’ve kind of lost who they are what they love. And I help them to rediscover that and take the action steps to follow it not just oh, yeah, that’s cool. I’ll do that someday. No, we’re doing that today. Yeah, so yeah.

Rita Suzanne  03:07

I love that. Because I feel like a lot of say, and I’m saying this all the time that as moms, we lose ourselves, right. But as women, we also lose ourselves. Typically in our careers, when we become wife or in our relationship as a partner, we lose a little bit of ourselves along the way, do you find that to be true? And unless you are proactively making sure you’re not losing yourself?

Heather Jones  03:35

Yeah, and that’s the thing. I, I think that I found that personally to be true, which is what led me here. I think most life coaches will tell you, the people they serve are the same people that they were five years ago, or however many years ago and that’s definitely true for me. I was a self starter, left the house at 18, went into the military, left the military, got my own job, always supported myself as a young adult. And then met my husband while I was in the military, I got out I’m gonna give you the really quick rundown. We got married, he stayed in, we had kids and I was like, I’m not going to find a new career every three years. I want to stay home and raise our kids. That’s the thing that makes sense. And in the process, I did lose so much of myself. Like you don’t I go out and I see people but I don’t engage in the hobbies that I loved. I don’t have time for a lot of that stuff anymore. Over the years those things started shifting and my loves and passions changed but I didn’t even know what they were anymore. You just get so wrapped up in being all the things to all the people and then you look inward one day and you’re like who am I for me now?

Rita Suzanne  04:45

Yeah, you don’t know what you enjoy anymore. I remember being you know, people saying like, well, what are your hobbies? Like I legit have none. Because I spend all my time at home with my kids and or working on my business, you know, so I’ve lost so much. I now have I’m just saying, like, I remember being in that place. When people would ask me, What do I like to do with my spare time? And it would be sleep? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we’re exhausted. So that’s fair, right? I know. But I had no other answer. Even if it wasn’t sleeping, even if it was just like, that was the thing. I would say, I’m so tired. That’s all I have time to do is just sleep when I have spare time, you know, because I didn’t know what else to say.

Heather Jones  05:36

Yeah, yeah. And then we get we say that enough that it becomes our story. And that kind of is just who we are now.

Rita Suzanne  05:43

Right? Because your work so much. So what do you think is one of the biggest factors that causes that loss? And or like the lack of self esteem? Or, you know, confidence? Hmm,

Heather Jones  05:56

that’s a really loaded question. So can I start with, I guess, like, kind of how we lose ourselves in the process was this will that work? Okay. This may sound a little controversial for some people, but I’m putting it on society. Right. So when we become a wife, when we become a mother, when when we become an employee, or when we become anything other than just who we are at the core, all the other things, we’re supposed to be something in this role, we’re supposed to be doing something, we’re supposed to be acting a certain way, we’re supposed to be rising to a particular occasion, all these things that we’re supposed to be and it gets heavy. And we take on a lot of that, because we don’t want to let people down. Right? We don’t want to feel like we’re failing. So we take on that. And then what’s left at the end, we’re exhausted. We have nothing left to give. So we we don’t have the time for ourselves. And that’s the thing that takes the backseat. Because we’re so busy pleasing everybody else, trying to make something of ourselves trying to prove to everybody that we can do it, we can do it all. And to show up in our as our best self outwardly. But inwardly we’ve all gone through that process. We’ve lost who we are, and what we love, and we’ve not made time for it. And that’s just the thing we’ve come to accept.

Rita Suzanne  07:14

Right. But as long as everyone else thinks that we’re doing a good job, that’s all that matters.

Heather Jones  07:21

Yeah, supposedly, right? Because on the outside, we’re all smiling. Yeah, I’ve got it all together. You’re looking at me like I’m holding it together. I love that. And then we go home and we cry. Cuz it’s not true. For any of us. feel so alone? Because all of us are smiling outside. And we don’t know, we’re all going through the same thing.

Rita Suzanne  07:39

Exactly. We got to put on a brave face. You know, success, I

Heather Jones  07:45

guess. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So let’s break that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess that would kind of lead me into talking about maybe how we can shift that. Is that, yeah, good place to go. Okay. So there’s a lot of things that I do on the process with clients with my own clients. But the very first thing that I would tell people is just becoming aware, like, you don’t have to do anything at the beginning. You don’t have to take any steps. You just have to start becoming aware. And sometimes that’s hard. It sounds like all you have to do, right? I say you just have to, that’s all you have to do. But that’s, it’s easier said than done. And so, as part of that process, you know, maybe you have to take steps initially set reminders on your phone to check in with yourself. You don’t have to make any more time than that to start just hey, Heather on my phone. Am I right? Hi, there. How are you? Hi, there, what is on your mind right now? There were your feelings? What are you feeling? Check in with yourself? And that’s no, that’s it’s Yeah, step one. Just become aware of what’s going on internally.

Rita Suzanne  09:01

Yeah, for me, I had to do. I always say, I used to say this all the time that as in entrepreneur, there’s a lot of growth, right? Because if you don’t deal with your stuff as an entrepreneur, then most likely you’re not going to be able to move forward. Right? Because it’s really all that stuff is just gonna weigh you down. And likely, you’re gonna you’re not going to be able to continue with that mask on, right that you’ve created. And so for me, there was a lot of self discovery in the process, as I became an entrepreneur, so it was been eight years ago, and I remember my coach telling me, you have a mindset, you have mindset issues, and I first of all, being from corporate I had no idea what that even meant. You know, I was like, What do you mean like what It’s so she had me doing like affirmations and journaling, and all of these things that were so foreign to me, but really helped me to come out of my own little shell of not knowing who I was, I still, though to I go to like a therapist, and I still go to there and tell her like, I still have a problem expressing what my current emotion is, right? Because I’ve disassociated that, because of all the traumatic experiences I’ve had in my life. But you know, the rest of it, I am so self aware you No. And I think that the journaling helped me because if I would have set a timer and said, like, how are you feeling? I’m great, you know, like, because I’m so used to being in that people pleasing? Feeling, I think, do you find that that’s ever an issue with some of your clients, where they just like, cover up and say, I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m fine.

Heather Jones  10:58

Totally. Totally. Yeah, yeah. And in what’s at this is how deep rooted it is. I’ve had clients even, you start to really get like this intuition working with people, right, you start to really listen to what they’re saying. But you really start to listen to what they’re not saying. And I’ve even had clients give answers that I knew, I got to know them. And I could tell they thought that was what I wanted to hear. And they got into that. And it’s not their fault, right? It’s just, it’s a habit that needs to be broken. But they got so into that habit that even within the safe space that they were in knowing they could be everything that they were without judgment and that space with me. The habit broke through and they’re still doing the people pleasing thing. And so yeah, I very much find that to be true, it gets really, really hard to move out of that and start the exploration. And then we continue to go back to those habits. It’s just a process. It takes time.

Rita Suzanne  11:55

Because I know that a lot of times when I’ll do like the introductions for the podcast, I’ll say like, I want us to be very candid, very honest, and very real. And everybody’s like, yeah, yeah. But as soon as you press record, that fear of judgment or not being like presenting yourself as a success, and turns on, and then that ability to be candid, like kinda switches off, I think.

Heather Jones  12:21

Totally. Yeah. So like, I relate to that. Absolutely. I’m a, I’m at let me let me rephrase, let me reframe here, I am a recovering, perfectionist, I don’t ever want anybody to see. And I say I don’t, this is a thing I’ve worked through. And I’ve kind of overcome to some degree, but I don’t want people to see my mistakes. I want people to see the polished version. Right? It’s scary to me, what are they getting?

Rita Suzanne  12:50

I’m not I’m not 100% successful. So how can they trust me to do this? Because I’m still not cured of whatever the thing is, right?

Heather Jones  12:59

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Right.

Rita Suzanne  13:03

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t teach people to and I find that, especially when I was doing design, I would say, Why would anybody listen to me about this? I feel like such a hypocrite. Right? Because I’m practicing what I preach. Like, I know, I know that you should be marketing yourself all the time. I tell them to do that. But I don’t do it myself. So how can I tell them to do that? You know, yeah.

Heather Jones  13:26

Yeah. A little bit of the imposter syndrome sneaking in.

Rita Suzanne  13:30

Sure. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, that was when I was doing the design. And I think that there’s so much like introversion, like when you are a service provider, because you’re just so like, caught up in the in the work. I guess I don’t know. It, but it’s really hard to practice what you preach when you’re so busy, pleasing other people.

Heather Jones  13:56

Yeah, yeah. When you’re, when you’re trying to teach lessons, as well, you, you want to set the example. And so you’re doing your best to show up as your best. You don’t want them to see the maths because you think that doesn’t teach them anything. And the thing that I’ve found about that is, is when you’re human, when you’re making the mistakes, that is when people tend to connect with you the most. They can relate to you. Oh, they screw up just like me. Okay, and now you’re suddenly so much more relatable.

Rita Suzanne  14:24

Right? And that’s why I said, you know, I feel like I was good at design, but it’s not an I just don’t love it, and I never I never loved it. But what I am good at is knowing when somebody is burned out because I have been burned to the ground and back and gotten back up. And you know, and so I think it’s really about finding that ability to like you said like push past the the imposter syndrome push past the inner critic push past the lack of confidence that you may have. And so what are or like some things that you recommend? Like because you say, you know, you help people with their confidence? What are some things that help people with their confidence? Because I find that a lot of moms struggle with this.

Heather Jones  15:10

Yeah, you already touched on a couple of them yourself when you’re talking about your own journey. To the prominent things I have people too, is the affirmations. And journaling. Those are two huge things. The affirmations, can I dig into that a little bit? Yes, I love Yeah. So I think when people think of affirmations, they think that it’s supposed to be done a certain way to work. And the problem is, if you do it a certain way, the way that you know other people are doing it, that is when it doesn’t work for you. You have to, you have to do it your way. So what I say is, go out to Google, find some good affirmations, find some ones that resonate with you, but change them, make them your own terminology. Only use them if when you say them, your mind doesn’t go that well, can I be asked, okay, your if your mind is telling you, that’s bullshit, don’t use that one, you need to find the ones that truly resonate and ring true in your heart. And just one more tip on that is when you come up with the affirmations come up with a proof at the same time. So I am good at this because and this is why you know it’s true, you have the proof so you can truly believe it. And you can carry it forward, your mind is not going to be screaming at you be SBS BS,

Rita Suzanne  16:40

because if I say I’m a millionaire, then my mind is like, No, you’re not like stop.

Heather Jones  16:46

Right? And some people will tell you to have that. And if it works for others, great. But if you find that it’s not working for you dump it,

Rita Suzanne  16:53

right, like it Come back to work for you. Like I maybe what is it like a feeling of heaviness or something? If if that is the feeling that you’re feeling like how do you know that you’re feeling impostor a with it, you know, like I’m making them words as I go. I love it.

Heather Jones  17:10

I always make up words, and I mix metaphors. So it’s my favorite trait about myself. So this is where I start to do bodywork, the somatic stuff with my clients, we bring, I bring people in tune with what’s going on with their body, we don’t realize that our body is usually going to signal to us before our brain does, even before we even have the thought our body is doing something, it’s ramping up. And it’s doing exercises. And it’s going to be very different for each person. So I wish I could say, here’s an example of how you do it. But some people are better with visualization, some people get immediately into the body, and that’s just natural for them. So it’s really going to depend on the person. But we start I start going okay, when you’re when you’re feeling anxiety, for example. So if you know that something isn’t ringing true in your head, you may feel anxiety, maybe you feel fear, maybe you feel sadness, I don’t know, it’s gonna be a little different for everybody. But when you feel that emotion, feel into it, don’t try to get past it, sit in it. What is your body doing right now in this moment while you’re in this emotion. And then when you’re able to identify that thing, then you start to combine that with the thoughts that you’re having and recognize it and that’s where you can make the shifts and that’s where they become the most powerful you your, your body signals to you. That’s no, that’s not honest, I’ve got a little bit of a twitching in my, my muscles, I’ve got a tightness in my stomach, your body is going to be signaling that stuff to you.

Rita Suzanne  18:40

Yeah. And I remember. And this is probably similar technique. I remember one of my therapy, and one of my coaches, it was like a session that we did. And she, we were talking about a really, really like painful situation that before this before this time, I used to cry every single time that we would discuss or I discussed it, and this was from childhood. But we did this technique where she was like, Okay, so where in your body? Do you feel this? Well, how do you describe it, and she did this exercise with me. And then you know, the next thing was like, we’re gonna replace that feeling with this, you know, we’re gonna take it out of your body and replace it. And so is that similar to what you’re saying is kind of like you’re just basically eliminating it from your body after you recognize where it is, or is it something different?

Heather Jones  19:32

Yeah, I don’t necessarily approach it from the, from elimination. It’s more like the lines of making it work for you. So recognizing that it’s coming up and then giving yourself a tool to work through it. So for example, and this can be for anything, it doesn’t have to just be, you know, when you’re doing the affirmations for anything, any moment that a uncomfortable feeling comes up. People a lot of people say negative I try to stay away from negatives and positives. That’s just a title we assign them but When the uncomfortable feelings come up, what is your body doing? So maybe I’m anxious and I’ve got butterflies in my stomach, but they’re really uncomfortable, kind of the excited, kind. Okay, so usually the eyes are closed, where deep breathing, you’re really truly in the moment and present in your own thoughts in your own body, you’re not worried about what’s going on around you in these, you know, during an exercise like this. And so maybe you’ve got that kind of uncomfortable fluttering in the belly. So I might ask, okay, what does your belly want you to do for it at this time. And so it sounds a little woowoo. But my experience is that most people are able to feel into that. And so it may be, it just wants deep breaths right now it wants deep belly breaths, maybe it wants you to put your hand there and show it a little love. For different people. It’s going to be different things. So but those are just some examples.

Rita Suzanne  20:50

Yeah, I love that. Because with her, I always consider myself to be like a little bit more logical. So even saying that that technique. I mean, that technique has worked for me eight years plus now. And that was something I didn’t know how to get rid of. Right. But it worked for me. And I’m not very woowoo. But, you know, there’s certain things I embrace. But there’s other stuff that I’m like, Oh, I’m not there yet. You know, but let’s talk a little bit. I, you know, I guess my point is, is that we all have to do whatever works for us, right? And figuring out what is best for you in sometimes you need assistance to make that happen. Because there’s been times where I’ve tried to do things on my own, and it’s just not getting myself there. Right?

Heather Jones  21:42

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think sometimes it’s just a matter of hearing the question and might be the same questions. You’re asking yourself, but hearing somebody else’s voice, maybe there’s a little bit of a different tone, maybe they use a word that’s synonymous, but it just hits differently, right. And so sometimes just having somebody asked questions that you haven’t considered, or that just sound a little bit different, it’s going to trigger something that you couldn’t even imagine was in there until it comes out. And that’s where people get those. Aha, it’s like, holy shit, I didn’t know that was there. How did you do that? I didn’t you did? I just asked the question in your mind did the thing.

Rita Suzanne  22:19

Right. And you led me there, and you didn’t even realize it. I used to feel that when I would do branding exercises with my clients. And you know, they would try to do it on their own. But then you know, when we would do it together. So let’s talk a little bit about inner critic, because I find that as I’m transitioning away from design into this new thing that I’m doing with, you know, helping moms with burnout, it’s, there’s some critic in there as the inner critic is just really kind of tearing me up sometimes.

Heather Jones  22:52

Yeah, that inner critic is killer, right? Yeah. So I like to do I have a few fun things I like to do with clients. The initial part, it’s, it’s all very much the same. It’s the awareness that it all comes back to awareness. When is the critic coming up the most for you? What is it saying? So this is we kind of just briefly touched on journaling a little bit, but this is where I might integrate some journaling, write it all down, get familiar with what it’s saying. And then we dig into why, why is it saying that inner critic comes up when we’re fearful of something? And it doesn’t always feel like fear? And that’s the tricky part. Sometimes it’s like, oh, no, that makes good sense. It’s trying to protect us from something that it’s fearful of. Right? So it’s about asking the questions, what is really under there? What’s that fear? What are you trying to protect me from? And then once you know that, okay, now I can come up with something that is that feels a little bit more powerful and less like I’m, you know, beating my own head against the wall to get through it. So it’s, it’s about embracing what the inner critic is trying to tell you. But then turning into something, reframing it and turning into something that feels better. doesn’t feel like it’s putting you down and calling you names.

Rita Suzanne  24:08

So you should you should listen to your inner critic, but then analyze it and kind of work with what they’re what it’s saying so that you can move past it. Is that what you’re saying? Yeah, absolutely.

Heather Jones  24:20

Absolutely. If you ignore the inner critic, it’s just gonna keep getting louder with you. And potentially a lot meaner. Listen to it, listen, listen to it. Just don’t buy into it.

Rita Suzanne  24:31

Right. Don’t believe everything. And I think that’s where the affirmations come in place, right? Because it counteracts the maybe the negative self talk that you might be hearing. Yeah, yeah, it’s

Heather Jones  24:43

all a process. It’s all about learning to talk to it, setting up all of the habits that we can to succeed in Kinder speak to ourselves and thoughts about ourselves. So, you know, shifting the just just shifting all of the ugliness so that we would never allow somebody else to say to us that we probably would never say to another person, but we say it to ourselves, the person who we’re supposed to show up for the most, we beat down the most. So it’s shifting that habit. And getting in the habit of saying things that will get you to where you want to go not beat you down further. So one of the things

Rita Suzanne  25:18

that I used to do all the time, and I’m wondering what your thoughts are on this is, I had a million brilliant ideas, right? A million, and this is what I was doing web design. And so then I would be like, Okay, this is what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna start doing this. But then I would, after in the midst of the process, I would stop and not do it anymore. Do you think that that inner critic were or is like fear of something like, Do you know what I mean, when I say that I would start these things that I just would stop them because they wouldn’t be good enough.

Heather Jones  25:59

Okay. I was initially I was like, Oh, I’d have to ask you so many questions to be able to say, give a perspective. Yeah, I don’t give advice as a coach. But, you know, to get a better perspective, but when you said it’s not good enough, I heard my own perfectionist voice in that comment. And I’m like, oh, there’s, to me, if we were in a coaching session, I wouldn’t tell you have you do you have perfectionist showing up? I’d ask you questions to get, you know, for you to find the answer. But when I hear stuff like that, I’m like, Oh, I relate to that. Yeah, that’s a perfectionist going. You’re not done. You got more work to do. It can be better. Right? Don’t you can’t put that out. That’s not good enough.

Rita Suzanne  26:40

And I would always say like, perfectionism is just like a sign of procrastination. Right? And why are you procrastinating fear of what? Yeah,

Heather Jones  26:49

fear of failure, fear of fear of success, which sounds odd, but it’s totally a thing. Fear of being seen fear of being judged fear of whatever not being good enough? Fear. It’s, it all comes down to fear.

Rita Suzanne  27:00

Yeah. And I think that that’s where because I wouldn’t I’ve never like verbalized in my head, these things. And but as we talk about inner critic, I feel like that’s what it is. It’s like, almost a sign of the inner critic, right? Because I am starting these things. And they’re such great ideas. And they’re so they’re so amazing. But then by not finishing them, I think it’s like, unspoken, inner critic, right? Because would you think that that’s the same thing? And with a little bit of perfectionism tied into that?

Heather Jones  27:34

Yeah, so perfectionism, it definitely don’t really sounds like it’s playing its part there. And even if it’s not verbal in your head, it might just be so much of a habit, that it’s kind of just your natural go to.

Rita Suzanne  27:47

I know, I know, so many other people that do the same thing. And I think that they’re experiencing burnout, because it’s like a way of escaping their current situation, I have this fabulous idea. I’m going to do this, this is my escape plan, right? But then it becomes too much work. And then they don’t do anything. And they stay in that same pattern in that stuck pattern in that pattern of burnout. And when I say burnout, I mean, I worked for eight years straight without a break. I worked every single day. I did not take a vacation. I worked on the weekends, I worked on the weekdays. I was addicted to try and make sure that this would work. I needed to make this work. Right. Yeah. I’m telling myself, I’m doing this for my kids. But yeah, my kids, I’m not even present for my kids. So, you know, so many so many nuggets in here of my own journey. And I love

Heather Jones  28:48

it. And I so appreciate you sharing it. Because again, it comes down to every anybody who’s listening, going, Oh, she’s like, She’s real. She gets it. She lived the life. She’s been there. She’s like, I vibe with her. I understand that. So yeah, that’s burnout. You, you don’t build in self care. At some point. It’s inevitable. You are not I don’t care how good you think you are. I don’t care how good people are telling you. You are at some point, you are gonna burn the fuck out. And you’re gonna crash. Yeah. And that’s gonna be a really, really, really hard place to be. So,

Rita Suzanne  29:24

and that’s what happened to me. I mean, I, when I crashed, I was like, goodness and months of recovery. But then I said, You know what, I’m never gonna go through this. Again, this is never going to happen to me again. I’ll burn this whole second down before this will happen to me again. And now like building up a new business. It’s like starting over because I just want to make sure that I don’t fall through the same traps that I was in before. And so I have boundaries and I have self care and that’s the reason why I started this podcast is so that I could talk to other moms. I’m sitting here like, because before I started this, I was in really good shape, I was going to the gym all the time was like, I just knew when I started my business where I was gonna be in the best shape of my life. Life, I was gonna, making great food choices. I was gonna, you know, before that was working out, like, a couple times a day, you know, I was like, you know, and I thought it was going to get even better once I once I start my own business, because I’m gonna have so much freedom. But that’s not the business that I created. I didn’t create that business. And so when I started this podcast, it was to talk to other moms and figure out like, how are you guys able to run a business and raise kids and take care of yourself? Right? Because this, the, the self care is so important. And I think that when we talked about things that get left out, it’s often the self care, like, we make sure we show up as a mom, we show up in our business or our jobs. But when it comes to ourselves, no, not so much.

Heather Jones  31:04

Right? So when we, when we show up as a man, when we show up as a wife, we show up as a great employee, we show up as all the other things right? The daughter, the sister, the whatever, the best friend. We’re being selfless? Well, we show up for ourselves, what’s the perception, even if it’s just our own internal perception? Oh, that fish? Other people need things from me, why do I have a right to stop and take care of me? That’s selfish. So let’s put a plug in that right now. That is not selfish, you cannot care for others when you are burnt out. You cannot care for others when you were burnt out, you have to have self care if you want to care for others long term.

Rita Suzanne  31:44

Yes, I agree. I think then, and that’s why I love to talk about self care so much. And it’s you know, it can be going to get your nails done or getting get your hair done or whatever, that makes you feel good. But I like to do something every single day for myself, now, I cannot go and get my hair done and my nails done every single day.

Heather Jones  32:05

That would be fabulous. Right.

Rita Suzanne  32:08

You know, I there’s other things that I like to do. And you know, it goes back to like the journaling affirmations going for a walk or something like that. So what are some things that you do and or recommend for self care?

Heather Jones  32:22

Yeah, I’ll, I’ll start with what I do for myself. I get up an hour before my family, most days, so weekends, different to like I sleep in I lounge, whatever. During the week, when my kids are going to school, and then during the summer, when I know I have work I have to get done before you know the house gets rolling, I get up an hour before everybody else, I do journaling, I do actually do two different types of journaling. So I do the gratitude journaling just to remind myself, you know, what I what I have to be grateful for. And then I do journaling of anything else that’s on my mind, it might be about a dream that I had that I want to kind of dissect it might be about a feeling that’s coming up for me, it might just be just like just writing just to see what comes out with no aim. And I do meditation during that time. So if nothing else during the day, I’ve gotten that hour that was just for me when there was it was quiet. And there was nobody else, you know, interrupting and giving me their stuff on top of my plate. So another thing that I do after I dropped my kids off from school is I work out like five days a week. And sometimes I work out that’s just a walk around the neighborhood. But it’s a workout, it counts. And I you know, and I say that to say that. If that’s the thing that you do, celebrate it, don’t go away, only walk for 20 minutes, go walk for 20 minutes today and celebrate it. Yeah, that’s a win, that’s the thing you get to check off is a win for yourself. So exercise is a big part of my mental and physical health. And when my kids are getting completely out of control, they’re old enough now that I can walk away, the house is probably not going to burn down. So I go out on my back deck. And I just, I mean, they follow me but in my Alec 10 seconds of peace. It’s separating myself is the point though.

Rita Suzanne  34:14

And as change of environment, right, you’re going to a different environment. Can we like backtrack a little bit on journaling? Because there’s so many times that I’ve recommended to people that they journal and my the biggest thing that people say to me is I don’t know what to write about. Do you have any suggestions on helping people like start their journaling process? Like what would you have them start with? Yeah, so

Heather Jones  34:41

I have I have two answers for that. One is you could just free flow. Honestly, you could literally just write I woke up this morning at 5am. It felt amazing or it felt like shit, whatever it felt like for you. You can literally just write the facts and if anything else comes up during that time, write it down You don’t have to have an aim. It’s just getting into the practice and the kind of getting the feel for it. The other thing is that there’s a number of fabulous prompted journals out there. So you don’t have to come up with anything. The questions are, are the ideas and thoughts that you can vibe off of are already written out for you. So you can go snag one of those, if that, you know, kind of resonates.

Rita Suzanne  35:24

I feel like a lot of times, it’s like, well, I don’t I don’t I don’t know. That sounds kind of like too woowoo. For me, you know, the the prompted journals and things of that nature. I just chalk that up to maybe you’re just not ready to tackle, you know, whatever’s bothering you.

Heather Jones  35:43

Perhaps, yeah, perhaps doing the emotional stuff is hard. Nobody wants to feel crummy. Nobody wants to cry and a lot of times, so that’s what we’re digging into. That’s what happens. Right? Yeah, that stuff is hard.

Rita Suzanne  35:56

Super hard. Okay, now, let’s get back to what things you recommend for self care.

Heather Jones  36:02

Yeah, so self care, there are four areas of self care, right. So it’s like you said, it’s not just going to get a pedicure, get your hair done, or, you know, any of that stuff. It’s, there’s the personal care, the physical stuff, right? Then there’s the mental self care, there’s the emotional self care, and then there’s spiritual. And so on spiritual, I don’t necessarily mean religion, just connecting to your higher power, whatever that might be. It might be Dad, it might be nature. But something that’s bigger than you that can look like, you know, time just being quiet, it can be part of your journaling process, it can be meditation, it can be sitting outside and digging your toes into the grass, or if you’re lucky enough to be on the beach, because that’s my dream. So making sure that all four forms of your self care are incorporated somehow, some of them daily, some of them weekly, but make and some points, you may need more physical than spiritual, or vice versa. But always making sure that each of those things is attended to. So there’s some kind of peace. Some people hate the phrase, the word balance, I like balance, but maybe cohesion works better for others, either way, making sure that there’s a flow.

Rita Suzanne  37:20

Yeah, I like to I think the reason why people don’t like the word balance is because they’re thinking of it as like the scales, right? And so well, right, my and my new program is business with balance. And so obviously, I like it. But the way that I’m looking at it is more of like a pie chart. And so that doesn’t mean that it has to be equal, it means that I have made space in my day, or in my business or in my life for these things. And they don’t have to be equal. There’s just space in there for them. Yeah,

Heather Jones  37:56

I love that. I love that. And then enough space that that thing gets its due time. And that’s it doesn’t have to be more or less. So. Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel balanced. I love that.

Rita Suzanne  38:10

Thank you. You’re welcome. Okay, so where can everyone find you if they are looking for someone to help them with all this stuff?

Heather Jones  38:20

Yeah, so I’m all over the place on many social media platforms, but probably the place that’s the easiest, is just Heather. Heather Jones coaching.com.

Rita Suzanne  38:31

And then you’re on all the social media platforms?

Heather Jones  38:34

Yeah, not Twitter. But yep, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. I know I’m forgetting one. But yeah, all those primary ones.

Rita Suzanne  38:43

You said Facebook, right.

Heather Jones  38:45

Facebook, Heather Jones coaching, Instagram, it’s Heather underscore Jones underscore coaching.

Rita Suzanne  38:52

Yeah. Somebody had your name. All right. Well, thank you so much. Others been such a pleasure chatting with you.

Heather Jones  39:00

Thank you for having me on. It’s been awesome chatting with you today as well.

Rita Suzanne  39:05

It’s been such a pleasure. And there you have it. I want to encourage you to remember that being a mom who runs her own business is not easy. We all struggle, but just keep moving forward. And don’t forget to make time for yourself. As moms we are usually the first thing to go to the bottom of the list. If your business is overwhelming you and you need real solutions, not just some sugar coated suggestions apply to work with me at ritasuzanne.com/apply

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