116. Self-care made easy with Vanessa Wright

Today, we're joined by Vanessa Wright, a certified life coach who helps midlife mums find sustainable self-care practices through her FLOWS method.

Vanessa shares her journey to becoming a life coach, emphasizing the importance of self-care, especially for sensitive individuals. She highlights practical tips for recognizing when you need more self-care and taking action to prioritize yourself.

Remember, being sensitive is a superpower, so keep embracing it while taking care of yourself.

Chapters

00:00 - Intro
02:35 - Vanessa's Journey with Self-Care
05:52 - What Does Success Mean to Vanessa?
07:51 - The Biggest Challenge in Business for Sensitives
08:54 - Was There a Point in the Journey Where She Could Finally Say She Had Made It?
09:46 - What Is the Biggest Strength of Sensitives in Business?
11:16 - Why Is Self-Care Important?
13:15 - What Does FLOW Stand for in Self-Care?
16:54 - What Stands in Our Way for Doing Self-Care?
18:33 - Is There Anything Special for Sensitives When Doing Self-Care?
19:58 - How Do We Know That We Need More Self-Care?
25:17 - Vanessa's Final Message to Fellow Highly Sensitives
25:49 - Outro

Subscribe to her newsletter:
www.vanessanwright.com

Connect  on her social media account:
Instagram: @vanessanwright

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Transcript

0:00

But one thing I, I do like to tell people is like, you're in charge of your self care. Like you are, no one's coming to do it for you. No one's twisting your arm. Like at least my kids aren't being like, Oh mother, you should take, you know, a six hour nap and go to like, no, no one's doing that. So you really have to own up to it and make it a priority. And I always say, everybody has five minutes. You have five to 10 minutes a day. You do like you have it. Find it and start with, start with one area of flow, it doesn't, you don't even have to do all the letters, pick one letter, just start there, just start there, and it doesn't have to be in order, just pick one, that's why I say don't, don't overthink it, but just start with one thing. Welcome to the Sensitive Success Podcast, where we explore the unique challenges and opportunities that comes with being a sensitive changemaker in today's world. I'm your host, Frida Kabo, and I have spent the last decade recreating my life. I moved from Sweden to New Zealand and now live in the beautiful bush with my husband and two kids, homeschooling and creating a life and business that works for me with the help of my sensitivity. and support others to do the same. I'm excited to share conversations with experts, thought leaders, and fellow sensitive people who also see the world through the lens of sensitivity. Thank you so much for being here, because it means that you're creating sensitive success too, which is precisely what the world needs. Let's get started. Welcome back to the sensitive success podcast. I'm Frida Kabo. And in this episode, I'm excited to say welcome to Vanessa Wright. Welcome, Vanessa. Hello. Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. I'm so excited to have you here and Vanessa is a certified beautiful you life coach writer and speaker. She guides mothers in midlife to create sustainable self care practices with the signature flow method, so they can reclaim the time, energy and creativity. Her mission is to support and encourage mothers to take authentic action towards their goals and dreams and embrace the transitions and transformations of midlife motherhood. She's a longtime homeschooling mom to three teens. She loves hot tea, taking walks, overusing gifts, and eating dark chocolate. She can never have enough pens and journals. I hear you on that. She and her family live in Raleigh, North Carolina. Welcome, Vanessa. I'm so excited to have you. So, can you start to tell us a bit about your journey and how you come to do what you do? Oh, sure. Well, it wasn't anything I had ever planned on. I think even if you told me five years ago, I would be life coaching writing. I probably just would have looked at you and said me. No, like, I've had a coach, either a health coach or life coach since 2009. So it was something I'm a full, huge support of coaching. But really this for me stumbled into it because of a, some motherhood burnout I was going through, right? Of Just as I homeschool my kids and they're very close in age, they're 22 months apart. I have a son and then my twins were born 22 months later. So it was a lot at one time. And then, you know, I added, I stepped away from working full time to be home full time and then homeschooling. And I've always kind of struggled with different health things, hormone things. And then I just, like, I've had burnout, like, like, Burn up twice, like from a doctor, like said, like you are, you have burned and so it, this was 2018. And I was just like, I had a coat, my coach asked me at the time, she's like, so what's feeling like it's in flow, like, how are you flowing? And I just kind of looked at her and said, there's like nothing flowing. I am like on the side of the river bank, like flat out, like there's nothing. And it just kind of this, this journey into like really, truly taking care of myself and what that meant. Like, realistically, as a mom who was busy, like, I don't go to the spa, I don't have, like, lavish vacation, like, I just, that's just not how we live. How am I going to take care of myself and still do all the things that I need to be doing every day? So that, that, and then it's just kind of, I started writing about it, and then people asked me questions, and one thing kind of led to another, and at age 45, a couple years ago, I decided, oh, I think I, I think I want to do this life coaching thing, and then it just kind of snowballed from there. Yeah, I love that story that I hear over and over again from my, both of my clients, but also from my guests here on the podcast that what has been our biggest challenge is something that we want to help others with as well, and really to use that and morph that knowledge that we collect into something that can really help others that we wish that we had when we were there. Absolutely. Absolutely. I would say like, I don't. I never want another mother to, like, have to feel some of the, you know, the, the, the overwhelm, the dread, the, ugh, that just, that I did. And I know, I know I can't solve that for everybody, but if, like, I always wake up in the morning, like, if I can just, like, wake one person, I don't know if, like, they read an Instagram post or my news, or one person that made a difference, like, that's enough for me for that day. Like, that's, that's enough. Totally agree. And yeah, it becomes so powerful as well when we have that story behind us and then, yeah, people need to know about this. That's why I do the podcast as well and all the things that I do, like people need to know about sensitivity so they don't have to do the same mistakes that I've done and thought that something was wrong with me or, you know. So yeah, this is the sensitive success podcast. So what does success mean to you? That's a really good question. I just want to say like, first of all, I love that there's a like sensitive and business because when I got into this, I'm thinking like, I, my energy is just very, like, I'm not, I'm not like, Boss, babe, go girl, like all that stuff. I'm like, I just like, I'm like a cranky old lady. So I just turned 49. So what, like as a highly sensitive person, like I have to be really careful of my energy. Right. And what does success look like for me? It's like, as I said, is it. Did I get through the day mostly managing my own energy and like giving back somehow to my community, you know, how am I interacting with, you know, I have three teens, my oldest did just move out, but my kind of joke for the last, I don't know, it feels like eternity is like, you know, perimenopause and puberty, like we were all at the same time. And I said, this is a horrible idea. Who thought this was a good idea? Because like, there was just like so many hormones in our house. Um, so, so sometimes successfully getting through the day was like only like one person crying, not like everybody. Um, but I think success, like in terms of my business. I'm embracing it. Like I'm really trying to step into I call myself a chief energy officer. I, because I, I have to manage my own energy. How's my energy going back out there? So success for me looks like, you know, how am I impacting people in my community and who I come across? And how am I building myself to be my truest version of myself as I just said, I just turned 49 and my life is very different now than it was in my early 40s, 30s, and I'm really embracing that a lot. So kind of slowly redefining what that means at age 49. Hmm. Love that. So what do you feel has been the biggest challenge in your business as a sensitive? Oh, like as a sensitive and as an empath, I'm an Enneagram too, which is the helper. There are days where I feel like I'm not doing enough because I want to literally help like every single person I come across and I, you know, that's obviously not realistic and sometimes I have to be careful to like, not let. You know, because when you're talking with clients, they're sharing really deep things with you. Right. And to not let that absorb it into me all the time. So I've been really mindful of like, after I'm done talking to somebody getting up and physically moving my body or like washing my hand or just doing things like that so that I'm not absorbed because I will hold something with me longer than I need to be doing. Right. So I think, I think that's a, you know, sort of the blessing and the curse of being a highly sensitive person. Yeah, definitely. And yeah, as a new business, it usually takes some time to get a new business up and running. Is there a point in your business journey that you felt like, Yes, this is it, it's working, I've made it? No, not yet. I mean, I think because I'm trying, I'm trying different things, which is fine. Like I don't get stuck on one thing. Like if I see if something hasn't worked in like six months or something, I have no problem being like, Okay, that was fun. Let me try something else. And so I love learning. I'm a lifelong learner. I really love connecting with other people and seeing what is working for them and trying it for myself. As I said, I'm like, I want, I'm a one woman show. It's just me. So I've also had to say, what is realistic for me? Cause I do have another job. Like I work Almost full time for another company, which I absolutely love and fills me up. So how can I balance that with what I want to be doing right now? And that's another reason why I also started the coaching process, the training when I was 45, because I didn't want to wait till my kids were out of the house and grown and then start. So I planted the seed at age 45, knowing like, I just want this to be a slow and sustainable growth, and that's kind of what it's been. And last year, I set a goal to support 10. Mud like to 10 mothers in midlife. And I think, I think by the end of the year I had 15 and it was just this slow, beautiful growth. And that's just kind of what I'm leaning into this year also. That sounds like a beautiful way of doing it, like not putting the pressure on you or the pressure on the business to become something, but let it be that exploration and not having that be the main source of income just to start with, just explore and see where it comes. And as you say, not standing there, okay, where's the kids? The kids are gone. What to do now? Exactly. And I, you know, cause I think that's, that's one thing I try to talk, especially a lot So. You know, midlife and their kids are starting to get older. I mean, I get a lot of questions are like, oh, what do I do now? Even even if these are mothers who have been working or or not, it's just that your life shifts and changes and your kids need shifts and change. But you have to look back in for yourself and say. You know, being 50 now is not like, you know what it was like 20 or 30 or 40 years, right? It's just very different. There's just so much wisdom to be had and shared. And I'm here for it. I actually love this age and stage. So it's been really good. I love that. So what do you see as our sensitive? What is our biggest strength in business? Oh, I think it's the ability to connect with others, especially if you are in a service based business. It's like tuning into people and really hearing what they're saying and empathizing. And I, I also feel like there's this non judgmentalness around the height, like with highly sensitive people, like, because we are just so wanting to help others. We really just kind of are just this beautiful container for people to come to. Um, I think that's a huge strength, a huge strength of being a highly sensitive person. Love that. Yeah. So tell us a bit more about self care and why is it so important and what does it mean to you? So I was actually laughing because a couple days ago I was looking back through old, um, something, a memory came up on Facebook and it was my word of the year for 2016 was self care. And this was in like, You know, a really, really hard season of like, 2015, 2016, I just would never want to repeat those and but I kind of knew it was like, this weird foreshadowing. Right? But it took 2 years for me to, I, from 2016, 2018 to actually realize, like. Oh, I need to be doing like actual self care. I'm not so when people see what I'm doing now, they're just like, Oh, she's always done that. I'm like, no, it's been a journey. And so for me, sustained self care has to be sustainable and it's little tiny things. And that's why I created my. Flows self care method because I, I created it for myself because I love words. I'm a writer also. So I'm like, I need an acronym. I need something I can remember and then I, it just again, I just kind of snowballed. I started sharing here, sharing there and and everyone's like, oh, yeah, that's so easy to remember. And it's, it's a gentle enough structure around it, but it's, you can tailor it to yourself. I can tailor it to myself. So it's just been kind of this fun play on words and way to approach self care. Hmm. So, so what is flow? Tell us more. I will. Um, so F stands for feed your mind, body and spirit. So what are you feeding yourself? What are you feeding your mind? Like, what are you reading? What are you listening to? Who are you hanging out with? Like, who are you getting your energy from? And then like your spirit can be, you know, anything. Is it like prayer? Is it meditation? Is it going out in nature? So that's F. It's kind of like the foundation is feeding your body, mind, and spirit. L is loving yourself and leaning into your season of life. This one's always the hardest when I'm coaching people, and I ask them like, Tell me one thing you love about yourself. And so many women have such a hard time saying one thing that they love about themselves. But I, I am also the oldest child and a little bossy. So I make them do it. Ha, ha, ha. So I've been leaning into your season of life. So I think that's really crucial when we're talking about self care because. My season of life with one kid out of the house and two teens, like I have a lot more flexibility now to do self care things I couldn't do three years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. So just being realistic with where you are in your season of life. O is owning your time and space. How are you showing up in your actual physical space and your mental space? Your schedule? Is it cluttered? Are you weighed down? Are you overworking yourself? So it's really just self care. It's talking about owning your time and space. And when I talk about your time, it's, you know, do you have too many things on your kid's schedule? Like if you're a mom, like are you over scheduled with your kids? Are you over scheduled with, we were talking about work, because that can be a real energy joint, especially for highly sensitive people. And then the last thing is W, which is my favorite. It's to weed out anything that's not working so you can welcome something new. Because you have too many, you know, I say like weeds in the ground. Like you're, you're, you're choking off anything that can grow. So you've got to like, and that kind of goes right in with owning your time and space, you've got to pull stuff out so you can plant some seeds so that you can welcome something new in that. You may not even know what that is, but be open to seeing what that could be. So that is flow in a nutshell, and it can be, I tweak mine every season. So I do winter, spring, summer, fall, and you could do it monthly and you can do it for however works for you. And I've just been talking and writing about this for the last 5 years, and it's been, it's been a blast. Um, I love that. So is that kind of, um, like a workshop you do once in a while, or is it like the routines you have every day or both? Um, yeah. So for me personally, like I will sit down at the beginning of each season and say, okay, well, what do I want like for winter because it's winter North America right now. So what do I want to be feeding myself? Like my winter foods, like looking for recipes that were being nourishing versus like in summer when, where I live, it gets extraordinarily hot and humid. For like five months. It's not pleasant. I don't like it, but it's just very, very hot and humid. So my, my food has to change my, my energy levels change. So I just tweak it. And then when I'm coaching people, right, what I will sit down with them and we will go through and create a flow for them. That they can work on either, you know, once a month or seasonally, and it's just, or in a workshop setting, I've done this in a workshop setting, so I just, it gives a little bit of structure, but your flow, again, would look different than mine, would look different from my friend or different from a client, but it's just a great little foundational starting point to put some fun ideas in place for yourself so that you can just remember to do them and you're not having to overthink everything. I love that. So what do you think, what do you see is the most important thing that stands in our way for doing this work for ourselves? I think it has to do with, do we deserve it? I think I'd run into a lot of that, you know, Oh, well, I'll get to it after I get everybody else's needs met, and then I'll do mine. But that's, that's the thing. You know, that's the, that's the surefire way to go straight into burnout, right? Again, and talking to other highly sensitive, like raising my hand, that's, that is how I went into burnout multiple times because it was do everything for everybody else. And then I'll get to myself at 1130 PM, you know, when I'm flat out exhausted and trying to sneak in a bath or a yoga and it didn't matter. And none of that mattered because I was so tired. So I wasn't really helping myself. So I think that's. And I think we also tell ourselves that. Oh, I'll get to it. I'll get to it. But one thing I do like to tell people is like, you're in charge of your self care. Like you are no one's coming to do it for you. No, one's twisting your arm. Like, at least my kids aren't being like, oh, mother, you should take, you know, a 6 hour nap and go to like, no, no one's doing that. So you really have to own up to it and make it a priority. And I always say, everybody has 5 minutes. You have 5 to 10 minutes a day. You do like, you have it. Find it and start with, start with one area of flow. It doesn't, you don't even have to do all the letters. Pick one letter. Just start there. Just start there. And it doesn't have to be in order. Just pick one. That's why I say don't, don't overthink yet. But just start with one thing. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And so do you think there's something special that we as a sensitive need to think about regarding the self care? Yeah. That in order for us to lean into our superpowers of being Thanks. beautiful empaths and sensitive souls and intuitives, you have to take care of yourself. Like that's like, I feel like now I have to like guard my energy, guard my intuition so that I can tap into it. So I can show up how I want to for my clients, for my friends, for my kids, for my coworkers. Um, because I find that when I'm constantly outward looking, outward looking, outward looking, um, even though I'm highly extroverted, I also love being by myself. I love my own company. I am my own best friend. I've always been, I've always been like that. My mother has said that since I was little and because I need that restorative time. So you have to call it whatever, if that's, if you want to call it self care, if you want to call it restorative time, you've got to put that in place if you are in this, in the long term game of being this highly sensitive person who is in a healthy space, right? In a healthy, highly sensitive space. Yeah. So if there's someone feeling Or how do we know that we need more self care? How do we know that we need to prioritize that? Do we always have to? I, I think it depends, I think, on where you are sort of in your journey. Like one thing I know for me is when I'm not taking care of myself, I get Very defensive, I get very snippy, I get very demanding because I'm tired or drained or I feel like I'm carrying the weight of everybody on my shoulders. Right, I think for like, and so I, I'm, I'm actually calling out for somebody to please take, take something off, you know, take something off of me. But, but in reality, I'm the one that has to like, put the stuff down and say no and say no to people or no, I can't do that right now. Or I'm taking this off my schedule, right? I'm owning my time and space. I'm saying no, so that I can have a break. I did that this summer. I will tell you, uh, spring was really, really challenging and hard personally. And. For a variety of reasons. And then I decided, I'm like, I took three and a half months off social media. I've never done that. I said, I just, I, I archived a bunch of stuff. I put up a, you know, and I just logged off everything. And I just was, I spent the whole summer just completely off and only engaged in my newsletter and some clients and, and I just really needed that downtime. And it was probably the smartest thing I could have done. Yeah. Yeah. How did that feel? It felt scary at first. I've been on social media since 20, I mean, in Instagram space, doing, sharing stuff since 2015. Uh, and as a one woman show, you know, like I have my, I have a, like a small newsletter and my, my Instagram and that's where I've been. That's where I connect with people and, but I was so just not in a good space and just dealing with a lot of stuff. And I'm just like, I, the coach I was working with at a time, she had taken a year off social media. And I'm like, you know what I'm doing? I'm doing it for all summer. And I did. And it was the best thing. I read a ton of books. I journaled every day. I took walks. I laid in, I, it was just what I needed to restore myself. And you just have to recognize that in yourself and not be afraid. To lean into it, I think, also. Mm. Beautiful. I love that. And just love how you stand for really tuning into what I need, not, this is the routine that everyone needs to take care of themselves, but what do you need and what do you need in, in the season you're in right now? Like before kids, I had so much downtime. I realized after I had kids and then things, as you say, shift while the kids grow and they need you more or less or in, in a different way. And. Yeah, homeschooling, starting a business, all of that. That's a juggle. And then finding yourself and finding time for, for only yourself and not, not just for the business, but also yourself. It's, it's an interesting journey, right? It is, it is. And I think what I, during that time this summer, I had to really look at What was I doing that was just for me? Because I, I'm naturally this like helper person, problem solver by nature, but I'm like, I need to just be like selfish. And like, I hadn't read hardly any fiction in, I don't know, like two years. I was just like, I'm getting the fiction books. I'm getting stick. I really got into my stickers and my markers and just like, kind of like kid, like stuff that I really loved doing when I was. young, a lot, a lot younger, you know, and, and, you know, I, I'll share this like kids in the summer was like, I went through menopause the summer and I was really excited that it finally but it was a rocky, you know, I knew it was coming, but you Just the physicality stuff that you kind of go through. And then my son grudge was graduating and there was just a lot happening at once, and I knew, like in the, in the high energy of the summer, that is my lowest energy. Like I don't, like, I'm not a summer person. Mm-Hmm.. So I had to retreat. It's almost like winter for summer is like winter for me. And so I just like really went in. I, I didn't do a whole lot. Absolutely needed apps and I came back like a different person, totally refreshed with ideas and creativity. And I think that's also as a highly sensitive, like, tend to be creatives also have that creative energy. But if you're constantly putting and helping, like, you. you're going to tap, you're going to tap out of that at some point. Yeah, definitely. I love that. So if someone wants to know more about your work, where can they find you? I keep things simple. I'm only on Instagram or my newsletter. So I don't, I'm not on like a bunch of social media platforms. I don't have the patience or the energy. So I'm on Instagram at Vanessa Wright. And then my website is vanessawright.com. And that's my newsletter. I send out twice a month and I, that's where I kind of do more deep writing and self care tips and ideas and I love connecting with people in both spaces. Beautiful. We'll put the links in the show notes as well. So is there anything else that you would like to say to those sensitives that are listening? Oh, just that keep being sensitive and don't, don't let anybody tell you that being sensitive is not of a value. I think in our world today, we get inundated with so much quick and fast, like, movement and energy that As a highly sensitive person, it can feel very alarming sometimes, but just lean into that. It is real. I love how you phrase it with that superpower. It really is, but take care of yourself doing it so that you can keep being a highly sensitive person in a healthy space and doing all the magical things you need to do. Yes, love that. Thank you so, so much for, for being here and sharing your wisdom and your flow with us. Love that. And thank you so much for the work that you do in the world. It's so important that we take care of ourselves more. So thank you, Vanessa. Thanks for having me. It was an absolute pleasure. It was. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Sensitive Success. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this message. And come over and connect with me on Instagram at Frida Kabo. And remember, sensitivity is neither good or bad. It's what we make of it. Embrace your sensitivity and use it to create sensitive success your way.