Say it Sister...
Lucy and Karen, two 40-somethings, are always chatting about life, and all that it has to throw at them, and now want to share their raw, honest conversations with you. Their journey of self-discovery and healing is something many of us can relate to. We all possess a unique power within us, but life’s trials often knock us off course. They have the tools, the courage to speak up and simply say it as it is, so you might feel seen, and understood and gain practical tools and techniques for self-discovery and personal growth during the changes we experience.
Say it Sister...
Wisdom Within: How Rest and Recovery Become Your Leadership Superpower
We explore how feminine leadership qualities like rest, recovery and collaboration serve as powerful antidotes to today's hustle culture. In a world obsessed with constant productivity and competition, we make the case for slowing down to access our deeper wisdom.
• Rest and recovery as essential leadership strengths rather than signs of laziness
• Personal stories of growing up with conflicting messages about rest
• How perimenopause heightens awareness of energy boundaries
• The importance of understanding your "social battery" and honoring its limits
• Learning to recognize physical sensations as intuitive guidance
• Why disconnection from self leads to disconnection from others
• The relationship between rest and accessing our deeper wisdom
• The power of listening to your body's signals
Use your voice - journal, speak or sing out loud. However you do it, we hope you join us in saying it's a star.
Hello and welcome to the Say it Sister podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm Lucy and I'm Karen, and we're thrilled to have you here. Our paths crossed years ago on a shared journey of self-discovery, and what we found was an unshakable bond and a mutual desire to help others heal and live their very best lives.
Speaker 1:For years, we've had open, honest and courageous conversations, discussions that challenged us, lifted us and sometimes even brought us to tears. We want to share those conversations with you. We believe that by letting you into our world, you might find the courage to use your voice and say what really needs to be said in your own life, whether you're a woman seeking empowerment, a self-improvement enthusiast or someone who craves thought-provoking dialogue, join us, as we promise to bring you real, unfiltered conversations that encourage self-reflection and growth.
Speaker 1:So join us as we explore, question and grow together. It's time to say Say it Sister, hey, hey, hey. Sisters, welcome back to another brilliant episode of Say it Sister. Now Karen and I are in the midst of launching and talking about why Women Lead our new leadership development programme, and we're going to talk today about some of those elements that we go into in our programme and we're going to be talking about the aspects of feminine strength that really do act as an antidote in today's culture. And firstly, we're going to be talking about rest and recovery.
Speaker 1:And you know, in the patriarchal system where work and push and drive and always being on, you know, becomes the norm, this hustle culture and anything to do with rest and recover is almost sort of aligned with laziness or even being a wimp and not committed enough. And you know that whole eat, sleep, work, repeat it's just, it's so unhealthy, we know it in our bones. So we're here to offer, I guess, that antidote and we're going to explore that a little bit. We're also going to explore other parts of this balance. You know we're in a cycle of constant information, these dopamine hits, instant gratification. There's something missing, because we're just jumping from one thing to another, to another and we're not actually able to give ourselves space just to process, almost like just switch off and just, yeah, process. All of that we're listening to, we're absorbing, that's coming into our sphere and just saying, is this useful to me, is this what we need right now? And we're going to touch on the power of collaboration, which is another anti-patriarchal um strength that we've got. And what we're seeing really now and you must see it um to listeners it's that personal drive, that personal success, which is actually quite lonely, and once you've got that success, there's no one really there to share it with, because it's all about competing against your peers. The competition, um, the next, you know client, and you know it's all about competing against your peers. The competition, the next, you know, client, and you know it's just this frenzy. And it also really really nurtures and grows that comparison which is so unhealthy for all of us. So we're going to explore that feminine leadership, what it looks like in practice, how collaboration and partnership can really really amplify our lives, resting and recovery.
Speaker 1:And it brought me to thinking about my own childhood, growing up, and I came from a family where we were up early and you know if you had a lie in, especially as a teenager, the hoover would come outside your door banging you on it to try and wake you up and and it was really hard and lazy wasn't allowed, because that's how it was termed. It wasn't rest and recovery, it was lazy. And yeah, it was also the tradition at the weekend because my, my dad worked really, really hard during the week that after lunch he would always go and take himself off for a quick half hour that's what he'd call it, but it was his half hour nap. So it was like that was scheduled in rest and recovery, but then, as soon as that was over, it was off to, you know, go to the gym or we're going for a walk or getting into action again. So it was sleep rest as opposed to actual rest, and I think it was during Covid that I actually gave myself permission to truly rest and recover and just sit in the garden and notice the flowers, listen to the birds, or reading a book, or even binge watching a series or some movies, without feeling ashamed that I was doing it at two o'clock in the afternoon, and so I'm really excited to explore the the idea of rest and recovery versus being lazy.
Speaker 1:Um, so at that point I'm going to bring in Karen. Uh, just tell me, did you manage to rest and recover over the weekend?
Speaker 2:I certainly did. I had a lovely siesta. Um, it's making me laugh because I've got two examples of it from childhood. So my dad would like try, and you know, in the mornings he'd be coming in saying, come on, I've got two examples of it from childhood, so my dad would like trying. You know, in the mornings he'd be coming in saying, come on, you've got to get up, you've got to get up, and so his way of getting me out of bed would be to turn the lights on. So it was always a shock to my system. So, and I still have that thing sometimes when I wake up and I think, oh, my god, I've got to get up and I'm, like you know, out of bed and there's no reason for that.
Speaker 2:Apart from, that was my, that was my routine from being, you know, probably around the teenage years is probably those times when it was, you know, I needed more sleep. So I'm remembering that. And then I'm also remembering my mom was the other side of the scale and my mom would be like why don't you have a little nap? Get on the sofa and she'd cover me up, you know, and I would go to school and I'd come back and have a siesta after school, honestly, and then I would still go. I still get a good night's sleep. I need a lot of sleep and I need a lot of rest. Even though I've got great energy and I can do a lot, I'm in that spectrum of like introverted extrovert, extroverted introvert I don't know which way and I know that by the time I get to eight o'clock at night, I don't want to talk. I need, you know, I need quite quiet times and if it wasn't for my husband, I would be in bed at half eight every single night. Um, and I know that about myself because that's how I lived my life before I met him and I've always been like that. Or I've been out party until you know five in the morning or whatever. Um, on the other side of it. So for me, rest is, it's a fundamental part of my life and my day, and I've just come back off a retreat, a leadership retreat, which was incredible and there was much more spaciousness for being and reconnecting and we were in nature. So it's like the perfect place really to sort of let go. Um, but I also look back on that and go.
Speaker 2:We did a lot of work, we did a lot of workshops, we did a lot of connection, we did a lot of work. We did a lot of workshops, we did a lot of connection, we did a lot of conversations. So, even in the space of recovery, as human beings, we're on it. There is always some kind of forward going action, personalization, or there is quiet music and we're journaling. There's stuff happening and we all start talking and we just can't help it and that's. I'm not here to make that wrong, because I think it's a really beautiful thing because we plug into each other.
Speaker 2:However, for us to access our wisdom, we have to be able to sort of turn all of that off, to come back inside and to go deeper into ourself and into our body and connect to our different wisdom centers, because it's not just in the head and we have wisdom in our heart, we have wisdom in our wombs, we have wisdom in our voices and in our throats. You know, the whole of our body is giving us different information and messages all the time. But we've desensitized that and we've shut down and we've focused instead on what's happening around us what people doing, what are they saying, what's their advice, um, and we've focused on what we're seeing and we've kind of shut down our senses as well. Like you know, we've got all the. We've got six senses that are available, available to us that hold so much wisdom.
Speaker 2:So, for me, when I am in my quiet spaces, that's when the information is coming through and it's coming, it feels like it's coming from left field, because it's almost like, well, that's a good idea, like it's almost like I'm having this conversation with my wisdom. Something will come up and I'll go. I have to write that down and I know it because I can sense it. So I'll write it down. And I've you know me, I've got books and books and books of thoughts. Um, some of them get activated, some just sit in the book because there's too many coming through for me most of the time, and it feels like it's such an important moment when these sort of this wisdom starts to rise.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I feel very much like it's very, very important for us as women, as leaders, as humans, to really think OK, there's all of this information out here, but what's the information on the inside? What is speaking to me right now? And the deep recovery? We do some of it in our sleep, so we know some of it's taken care of. But we can also be very conscious about it as we go through our day and taking moments to check in, listen to the body. What does the body need? Um, what's coming through from the left field, I would call it and slow everything down so that we can get very present in ourselves. And that's when, I think, that's when the true magic happens, you know, and then we can plug back into others and do all those things that we love to do, but without the introspection I really feel like we're not fully present.
Speaker 2:And just one last thing to say. You know, I've come back from the retreat. I'm more tired than I was before I went away. I'm also calmer and I have this deeper well inside me that I can feel. And I don't want to lose that. Even though I feel more tired, and I realize, as I was saying to you before, you know, I think I was running off a lot of adrenaline before. So I was less tired, I was very productive. Um, I was on it. I had all these like different things rolling at the same time. I was managing to keep all the ball, all the balls, spinning somehow. You know, I'm juggling them all and they're all sort of landing in the right places, which is always a nice feeling. However, I don't want to be running from anxiety and adrenaline. I want to be running from a different, deeper place within myself. So for me, that's what recovery is all about. Yeah, what about you?
Speaker 1:deeper place within myself. So for me, that's what recovery is all about. Yeah, what about you? I? Yeah, I have, um, this real awareness about my social battery nowadays, and and again, I think I started noticing it around the first symptoms of perimenopause, where being around people for an extended amount of time would make me feel jittery and I started to wonder is it social anxiety?
Speaker 1:What is it? And then, obviously, with um covid and the lockdown, you were actually forced to be quite silent, um, and to be detached from people, and that was really unhealthy for me. Um, I need people in my life, but I also get really exhausted by too many people, and so what I started to realize that I was in a pattern of was that, because I need people, I would sit, and you know, we were all so excited to be back in society after the lockdown that there seemed to be a gathering or a party or everybody was trying to do things together and I would say yes to all of them, and the only way I'd be able to sustain myself was to turn to alcohol. Really, you know, because it was like I've got to power through it, and over the last two or three years, I rarely drink now and I'm really comfortable with saying no to social activities that I don't want to go to. Also, I notice where my social battery is being drained. So I then say, actually I'm going to head off now, I've had my fill. But I've had usually a wonderful time and you know, after an hour or two I need to go. But I notice it a lot with my children as well.
Speaker 1:They are the same and so often we'll get in the car and come back from whatever event it's been, and we'll sing or chat in the car and then, as soon as we come in, we'll say what do you want to do? Do you want to go to your room for a bit? Do you need some time out? And we literally have maybe half an hour, an hour where we don't talk to anybody and we just are with ourselves, just to restore the energy.
Speaker 1:Because, of course, when you're with other people, your vibrations all like you know, your energy all gets busy and fizzy and you just can't stay on that. And so, yeah, there's that just like. Oh, and it might be that I just sit on the sofa and watch some TV or look at my phone or do a bit of crochet potter in the garden, whatever it is, I just need to do it alone and that that restores me. And yes, this is new for me because I've always been the bouncy tigger that just says yes to everything. But yeah, just physically and emotionally I just can't do it. I don't want to do it anymore.
Speaker 2:No, I'm with you on that. It and I even said to my husband last night he was chitter-chattering, he was just literally like we came down, we watched. We've been watching succession on the tv. Um, I don't know if you've seen that, but it's. I mean, it's all full of intriguing drama and there's a lot of backstabbing that's going on and it's like this family that are so incredibly toxic, um, all trying to sort of undercut each other, and it's actually when you watch it you're like I mean, my attention in my body is quite extreme, so it's obviously not good for me. However, it's the you know that human condition and watching something unfold, it's quite addictive. So we we watch it every now and then and we put it on last night and he was.
Speaker 2:He just did not stop talking like all the way through. He's talking, talking, talking. And I said to him there's nothing left inside me. He's just looked at me and he still kept talking and I was like I have nothing to give and he was like he still kept talking. And then I was like I love you, though. I was like I love him because he's just he just couldn't help himself. He was like on a high and I was like in this, like very sort of you know, melodramatic internal space. And then I said to him I think it's perimenopause. And then I said and I'm going to bed, so off, I went to bed and you know, in the evenings my anxiety can rise before bed and I know that about myself and I have this window and, like I say, I always stay up a bit later to spend time with him.
Speaker 2:Um, but I said to him this morning, I was like it's really hard for me in the evenings. I, I just can't, like I can't talk, I can't describe how I feel. I know I'm staying up way later than I should for my body and perimenopause doesn't help and you know, the anxiety and the overthinking starts to kick in and it's such an internal place and I need to switch off. And the only way I can do it is to go upstairs. I do like a releasing body ritual that releases everything from my body. Um, sometimes I'll do some tapping, um, I do a lot of like deep breaths and then I'll sort of go to bed and sleep and when I wake up in the morning I'm like happy as Larry, you know, like I'm back to me. And this morning I said to him. You know, I love you so much. Um, sometimes I just can't talk and he just, he gets it, he gets it.
Speaker 2:So, you know, I feel like there's a space as well for us to be very, very clear about our needs and to know that when our body is saying I don't want to talk, I'm not, there's nothing available here, it's okay to say that out loud, you know, with the people who know you and trust you and love you, and it's okay to take yourself away and, and you know, do what you need, and then it's also okay to talk about it.
Speaker 2:So for me, like the deep permission that you said, like you know, it's almost like giving ourselves permission to say don't want to talk. You can keep talking if you want, but I can't give them anything back. And it's okay to go to bed early and it's okay to um say no, I'm not going to that because I just, I just know before I go that it's not going to serve me in any way, shape or form, because I'm tired and it's not personal, you know. And when we sort of start to listen to our bodies in that way, I feel like we can also access the higher level information that comes through without giving that a class. Or you know, this is high, this is low. You know, when we get very truthful within ourselves, we listen to our body's natural wisdom. It's like tired, need to eat, need to sleep I'm talking basics here Need to go to the toilet, need to close my eyes, need to take some deep breaths. When we start listening to those very basic prompts, our body goes oh, you're listening to me.
Speaker 1:And then most people aren't listening.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and it's so important because when we're not listening to our bodies and the small things, when the big occasions happen in our lives, the good and the bad, we can be disconnected. So something wonderful is happening, like it was Mother's Day yesterday for both of us, and I was able to stay very present with what was going on and also take time for myself and do some resting as well, and it just felt wonderful. You know, maybe that's why I was more tired, because I was more present. Um, there was that side of it. But then also, if there's a danger outside, there's a danger on the street, or we're traveling somewhere, we don't feel safe and we've not listened to the basics, we're not going to listen to those signals either, so then we're in danger. So for me, it's like we have been given these beautiful bodies for so many reasons, and one of them is to listen to sort of take care of our own needs, what's coming up for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was. I was thinking about myself in my in my 20s, well, and early 30s. So I had got the career and I got quite a lot of balance with that. I was quite good with my boundaries about what time I was finishing, because I'd got a young family, but equally I would. I would tend to be in the office for seven, half seven in the morning, so that I could finish around half three, four and then spend some good two or three hours with my children, and we would always do something which was about being present. So we'd go and walk down the canal or feed the ducks or play in the garden, whatever the thing was.
Speaker 1:It wasn't just coming in and oh you know, I've got too much to do, I've got to cook. Whatever the thing was, it wasn't just coming in and oh you know, I've got too much to do, I've got to cook. And then we would actually cook together, you know. So, whether it was them sat in a bumbo or you know they were in the kitchen as we were doing these things. We were always together, but I don't remember ever really just resting, just sitting and being. We were always active in our being together being. We were always active in our being together and equally, because I was so often so busy with the kids doing this, that and the other.
Speaker 1:I have lots of memories with my ex-husband. He loved sport and he loved his I think it was playstation. He had gaming. That was his release of his downtime, but I would come down after putting the kids to bed or you know, because I'm breastfed so therefore it was only me that could do that job and I'd come down and he was so absorbed in his thing that I then would just take myself off and run a bath and I would do my thing.
Speaker 1:And it's just that awareness of because we were both always on, yeah, there was never actually any being together just as a us in our relationship, we were just, yeah, almost numbing or too busy, and so I think that's something that is really powerful, that I've learned the minute you stop with your rest and recovery and do it purposefully, you actually disconnect not only from yourselves, but you disconnect from the people who are the most important people and, as a leader, you do that with your team. You disconnect from your team and you know people talk about disengagement. That is a symptom of it Leaders not slowing down, always being on, always keeping people busy pushing and driving. It's just not sustainable. It just disconnects us all. That's where, that's where my mind went yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you know, I think we can go from one role to the next role, to the next role, to the next role. You know, before we know it, that role's complete and then we've got another role coming in. You know, and that is the danger, I think, because and I used to feel it really strongly, because I am someone who is quite a deep person and I like to, I like, if I'm going to understand, I want to understand things, if I'm going to understand, it have to go deeply in and it can't just be an intellectual understanding for me, because that I know it in my head, I go, I get that and I understand that in my head, but I don't know it inside my body. I don't know it inside my body, I don't feel it in my body and therefore I'm disconnected. And I've always had that, and I don't know why or how, but it's always been that search of, like, a deeper understanding from within my body and a feeling of something that comes from in my body, not from in my head um, that I can then connect my head into to then create things and make them happen. And I've done that all the way through my life and especially in my corporate jobs it was like I've got a feeling for something, something's happening, there's a movement. Sometimes it can be nerves, even like it's excitement, and I start to get sweaty hands. I know there's movement. I'm like whoa and I used to be so embarrassed about it because it, because it's so physical in me that I would almost be thinking, oh my god, I'm getting this. These feelings are coming over. And I've been a meeting and I, my hands are start sweating. I'm thinking, oh my god, please don't notice how hot I'm getting and I start to get a bit fidgety in my body. And it's because there's a movement, something's, something's happening and I have to. I had to learn to channel that and now I'm older I can channel it and it. And now I'm almost like I get that uncomfortable feeling.
Speaker 2:Doesn't feel very nice at the beginning sometimes, or like my body starts to speak um, especially when I'm doing my coaching work, I'll be feeling what the other person's feeling and I'll name it and I'll say, oh, there's something in my throat. Is that mine or yours? And they'll be like I've got it too, you know. And that's when we then go into the throat area and we start to unpack that. It's like what does the throat want to say? And so for me, this is very, very physical. It's not like cold, you know. There's a movement happening on the inside, even if I'm still, and I've learned to just go with that, because that's how I pick up, pick things up and I think the sadness comes for me. In all the years I tried to suppress it.
Speaker 1:Well for me, in all the years I tried to suppress it, and well for me, it wasn't suppressing, it was. I was a reactor, so I'd get these feelings coming up and I just react and I wouldn't take that pause to say what does this mean, what's the deeper awareness or what's trying to come? But I'm getting a feeling, I've got this energy moving, so I'm going to move even quicker, and so I think both of us have been on this, this journey, haven't we? About this deepening awareness of what are we sensing, what does it mean, what are we going to do with that?
Speaker 2:and holding it so that it can you know, move through, because if we move too quickly we don't really know what we're moving from.
Speaker 2:To be honest, you know to me, and you're just pushing it out there onto other people there and the thing, the thing with intuition which is what I learned through CTI so beautifully is that you've got a room full of people and you've got people at the front of the room doing a training with you and they want to get you into your body. Fundamentally, it's always like get people into their body. Get them into their body, because that's when things open up. The space changes. So everyone's going into their bodies. They're all having their own experience of that.
Speaker 2:I like this. I don't like this. I'm bored.
Speaker 2:You know all of these things can be going off in every single. You know different people's bodies, but there is a feeling around that is in the field of the intuition. You know Rumi talks about this I'll meet you in the field and that is where it's happening. And so when I was doing my training, I meet you in the field and that is where it's happening. And so when I was doing my training, I'd start feeling stuff before it was going to happen and I'd like as in quite a way ahead. And so I would say to somebody sitting next to me something's coming that we're not going to like. I've got a really strong feeling. It's all very nice and peaceful and everybody's, like you know opening up, and then you know the next exercise we do.
Speaker 2:An hour down the line we get a big shock and then everyone goes into their triggers and that's when we get the learning. But I could sense it was coming because I'm up from the field, um, but I didn't understand that at the time. I just got these strong sensations and and then I started to learn how to. I was like oh, I'm picking things up. You know, there's a wisdom around me that's from the leaders that something else is coming and they're preparing us. I am ahead of the game on that one, so it's a real skill. But there's also this thing about learning to. You know, I would I just have to name it. I, you know there is uncomfortableness coming, you know, and or whatever it might be, so that because if I don't name what I'm feeling or what I'm picking up on, it gets lost. But I'm still left in the uncomfortable feelings of going one's really peaceful. But why do I feel so deeply uncomfortable?
Speaker 1:now, I may be picking up wrongly, that is a possibility, but most of the time I would say I'm not and you know what that for me, I I have all my senses and I'm really attuned to reading the yeah, reading the words that aren't being said, or just reading the vibe, and you know, everybody can do well, I assume everybody can do this that you can walk in a room and you can just notice the atmosphere of the room Maybe somebody has had an argument before.
Speaker 1:You've walked in and you can feel the energy in the air and I'm really really good at picking that up and then just adjusting myself based on whatever is there. You know I can walk into a room and I know whether my child is happy or sad, even if they're just sat there, um, and I think we're all attuned to it, but most people don't stop to really nurture that and it's almost for you, it's almost like a premonition. You can see what's coming ahead, whereas I'm really good at seeing what. What's here now? What, what's? What are we speaking to? And each one of us, like you say the six senses, each one of us will have something.
Speaker 2:You know whether you smell, taste, hear something you know whether you, you smell, taste, hear something, um, you know whether the deep for me, the piece that I am, I've learned to trust, that I feel is a superpower is that deep, deep, intuitive, instinctual knowing that we all have, that we just know something and you know it shows in many different ways, even from like I'm thinking about somebody and they're thinking about me at the same time, so you become telepathic and my intuition tells me that this is a great place to end this episode.
Speaker 1:We will be carrying on the conversation next week, but until then, please like, share, comment and help us share the message that wisdom really does matter and we all need to practice connecting to it. So thanks for listening and we can't wait to welcome you next time.
Speaker 2:Until then, use your voice journal, speak or sing out loud. However you do it, we hope you join us in saying it's a star.