Episode 4: New seasons, New Expectations with D’Ann Wells

Women in your 30’s and 40’s juggling a career, partner, kids, friendships, and finding a minute for yourself, take heart.  This week’s guest is doing all of that too, and has some great insight on how she’s navigating this that I think you all will really find helpful, encouraging and supportive. Twenty somethings, listen and take notes, Fifty somethings and above, find a woman in this season of her life that you can support and lend an ear and some encouraging wisdom to, and I think you’ll hear some good insights for your own life as well.

My favorite thing about this week’s guest, D’Ann Wells, is that she is great at taking and accepting people right where they are at in that very moment, and creates a safe place for people to land.  She is a person you feel right at home with immediately, and is one of the most genuine people you’ll ever meet.

D’Ann has learned by listening to her own body, and recognizing from her environment growing up, what is serving her well, and what needs to be changed, and has done it in a way that still feels respectful and accepting of the past versions of herself, while fully owning that change became necessary to allow her to be the best version of herself today. 

We discuss how her physical body gave her indicators over the last few years so that it was necessary to utilize self care, and that starts with basic things like enough good food, water, and body movement incorporated into her day. We touch on the fact that you can be doing “good” activities but not have it feel like self care at all if you’re not present in that moment, so make sure to stop and breathe and ground yourself so you can actually benefit from that time. D’Ann brings up that she had to change her thinking about Self Care as she was raised in a culture where it was put on the back burner by the adults around her with a “we’ll stuff this and deal with it later, in retirement, when not taking care of everyone else” attitude.

For D’Ann Boundaries are like a guardrail, giving her protection from taking on or doing too much. She points out that boundaries don’t have to be big extremes, they can be smaller things, like “how am I making space for myself today”. D’Ann has a great practice in place that really sets the tone for her boundaries that goes like this…If someone asks her to be part of something, she does not give an answer for 24 hours so she can think it through to make sure it's a good fit or not. That gives her time to assess and evaluate before committing to something, and is a great example of one those “guardrails” she has in her life.

Regarding Emotional Health and Physical Health, we talk about how the basic things we need most tend to be what gets put on the sideline first…Getting good sleep, drinking water, nourishing body with good food are all practices that help us process emotions in a healthy way, and really inhibit us from doing so if we don’t have those practices in place.

D’Ann is an external processor so uses journaling, thinking through, and naming emotions as tools so she has a handle on what it is that needs to be worked through.

We discuss how she’s now seeing mindfulness and meditation showing up in her kids as those things are talked about in school now versus not being discussed when she was growing up, and how empowering that is for all of them.  She’s also recognizing how seasonal changes affect her and being ready to deal with that when that season arrives.

D’Ann is a natural at supporting herself and other women in living unapologetically. She’s adamant about making sure she doesn’t put her relationships with other women on the sidelines, and recognizes how nourishing it is for her to take the time to think about how she can affirm and lift herself and others up.  That may sound like a lot to take on in this busy season of life that she is in, but states it can be as simple as being clear and kind on where she’s at, and asking how she can support the women in her life in this season. This can be by sending a check in text, or making a phone call. It's also important to make sure we are not the first to help but the last to ask for help, and that if you can mirror being willing to ask for help, it gives others permission to feel safe doing the same.

D’Ann believes you need to set a few core values in order to create the life you love. You really get 3 big things that you can realistically live by, and these will change in different seasons in life. That change can be disorienting but is so important to understand and know that it’s ok for these to be fluid. Two to three core Values give you a framework to determine what does and doesn’t fit, provides a good scaffolding, and the structure of them really actually provides freedom, and shared language and framing with your partner as you are moving through life.

As D’Ann has worked through living out of her own expectations versus others, she has found her way by sifting through others’ cultures and expectations and determining which ones really belong and align to her and her partner and children. She’s learned there can be resentments waiting to happen if you are living by others’ and not your own, and that it’s necessary to have clarity of what your own expectations are. This then sometimes forces you to define where boundaries are needed based on what your expectations are versus some others in your life. This can feel heady and weighty to take the time to evaluate, but it’s so beneficial when you do.

In Accepting the Layered Aspects of herself, D’Ann is recognizing her growth over the years, and points out the importance of giving our past selves grace knowing that we were doing the best we could at that time. That can mean recognizing our Shadow self, how we think about ourselves and talk to ourselves, and owning that and making adjustments through therapy, and setting new habits when necessary.  We discuss how when we were both growing up we did not see women having these conversations, and are realizing how we’ve shifted from belief systems we grew up with, but that does not mean the people we love have shifted too, but learning to still being able to love and accept ourselves in that former way of thinking and those that are still there. We also touch on how acknowledging our own growth and changes allows us to have grace and understanding for others and their layers.  When we can do this with ourselves it enables us to go deep and keep finding different layers and connections with people currently in our lives, as well as the new people we connect with.  This also allows us to take the space to evaluate our relationships and where they’re at.  We talk about how during this pandemic time we’ve really been invited into that, as well as assessing what do we actually want now and what and who are we willing to give our time to.

This was such a far reaching, authentic conversation that I think women and people of all ages are going to be encouraged by, and I think you’ll learn some great nuggets of wisdom as well.  I hope you will join us to hear from my friend D’Ann Wells.