Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Power of Words with Faith Cade

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

In this episode, Sharon and therapist Faith Cade dive into the world of mental health and self-care. While a conversation about bubble baths and spa trips would be fun, Faith shares something so much better - how to implement practical self-love into your life. Faith explains what self-care really is and how self-affirmation can replace the negative voice inside our head with a voice that is hopeful and empowering. As well, Sharon and Faith speak on the immense responsibility we all carry: the responsibility of our personal mental health. This episode covers how we can address the anxiety and overwhelm we may be feeling from the past year by setting boundaries, protecting our emotions and practicing joyful and meaningful rest everyday. For more information on this episode including all resources and links discussed go to https://www.sharonmcmahon.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Dyson OnTrack. Dyson OnTrack headphones offer best-in-class noise cancellation and an enhanced sound range, making them perfect for enjoying music and podcasts. Get up to 55 hours of listening with active noise cancelling enabled, soft microfibre cushions engineered for comfort, and a range of colours and finishes. Dyson OnTrack. Headphones remastered.

Buy from dysoncanada.ca. With ANC on, performance may vary based on environmental conditions and usage. Accessories sold separately. Hello, friends. Thank you for joining me today. Do you ever come across those Instagram accounts where all you want to do is save every single post? You're like, I love that. And I love that one.

And that one is also fantastic. You might already follow the Insta account Floor DeLee Speaks. It is the hand of a woman holding a scrap of paper. And on the scrap of paper is something to think about, something inspirational, something moving. That is Faith Cade. And that's who I'm chatting with today. She's a therapist. I just have all kinds of questions for her about her account, but also just about life in general. I think you're going to love this conversation. So welcome Faith Cade. I'm Sharon McMahon and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Faith, thank you so much for coming. I am absolutely thrilled to be chatting with you. Thank you so much.

Tell everybody what you do. The gist of what I do is I'm a mental health counselor. I see clients virtually through Zoom, obviously, because of the pandemic. Prior to that, I was a professional school counselor. I started out in Nashville and then moved to Atlanta. And I was doing that for about 10 years until I had a little pivot in life and switched to doing what I'm platform is all about is just being a source of light and encouragement to people. I know there's so much that we scroll through and we see all the time on Instagram that may not be so uplifting. My hope is that in just like scrolling through, if you just stop on my posts and get just like a smile or a deep breath or a sigh of relief. I've done my job and a mom. So that's a part of my job too. But I think I'll wear a lot of hats. You do. And if anybody is not familiar, your account

is floor Deli speaks. What you're known for are putting encouraging messages on a little scrap of paper and taking a picture of the message that you're meant to read is on the paper. And there's just something about that that I think is really special. It's eye-catching, but it also feels almost like a secret message that's meant for you. Like somebody wrote that little, and they like folded it up on a little scrap of paper and it's been just for me. I think what you're presenting is brilliant and how you're presenting it is also part of the appeal of it. So I have, I've been enjoying you forever. Thank you. Yes. Tell me a little bit more about your pivot, about how you moved away from being a school counselor into doing what you're doing now. Right. Well, it certainly was not voluntary.

Life came at me at warp speed in the form of a tractor trailer on my way to work one morning here in Atlanta and I was hit from behind. So from that accident, I sustained a concussion and a traumatic brain injury. And that was in January of 2018. And so at that time, I tried to continue working, but it wasn't feasible. I was trying to force myself to do something that really was not healthy for me to do. cleared by my clinicians or to essentially resign to be terminated. Those were a lot of hard choices to choose between. So I essentially had to choose to resign from my job of 10 years simply because I had not been cleared by my clinicians to return. I was seeing a neurologist, a neuropsychologist, physical therapist, orthopedic surgeon, all these different things. And at the time, very early on, I had not actually been diagnosed with traumatic

brain injury. So I was having all these symptoms of insomnia and headaches, memory loss, sensitivity to light and sound, all these different things. And yet I'm telling my doctors like something is off and I couldn't get anyone to believe me. So I was stuck in a place of having to really advocate for myself. Once I did that and was able to find an excellent neurologist to actually listen to me and believed me, that's when I got that diagnosis. I had to resign from my job. So, you know, my family went down from two incomes to one. That is where I found myself really being in a place of like, okay, Faith, what are you going to do? I feel like oftentimes when we're in those most desperate spaces is when we need self-care the most. Those are the times when we have the hardest time zeroing in on what type of self-care would actually work for us, especially me being

in a situation where financially it was not feasible for me to just, oh, I'm just going to take a trip. I'm going to spend a spa day at the vineyard. That's not possible. We're trying to keep the lights on over here. I'd always been a writer. I have always loved to write. I've always kept journals. I was an English major in undergrad. So I found myself trying to use writing as a way of therapy for myself. And so essentially that's what I did. I started this 15-day self-love challenge on Instagram. And I did it on Instagram because I know a lot of times I will flake out on myself. Like I'll like set a goal and then

get really weird about it. So then I don't follow through. But I said, I know if I set this challenge where I'm going to take five minutes every day to write myself in a positive affirmation or a little love note or something, and then I'm going to post it on Instagram for accountability. Then if I do that, I'll have to do it every day. And I started doing it. And within a few days, really, it was like, it really caught on. People were very receptive to it. They were receptive to the transparency, to the authenticity of me telling my story, the struggle that I was having, me not trying to cover it up, but being like, this is hard. And I think in doing that, it gave other people permission to also be like me too, right? Like I'm having a hard time this too. Like maybe I don't have a TBI,

but I'm a first time mom and I'm having a hard time. I feel like I'm drowning. That's really where the pivot happened. It happened from a space of necessity, but also from a space of almost desperation. Like I am in a dark place and I am drowning and I don't want to stay here, but I don't know how to pull myself out of it. And at the time, having lost my job, I lost my health insurance. So I didn't even have the means to use a therapist. And so I had to find something else that worked for me. I didn't have a whole lot, but I had pens and I had paper and I had my thoughts and that became a therapeutic breakthrough for me that I think then empowered so many other people to do the same. Yes. I think so many people can relate to exactly what you're saying, that

we're encouraged to take care of yourself, give yourself self-care. And many, if not most of us are like, well, what exactly am I supposed to do? Do I need more baths? You know what I mean? Is that going to fix it? If I get some candles, I know that I have struggled with this idea of like, what actually is self-care? Like, I don't like baths, you know? And I have little kids and how am I supposed to be like girls trip, you know, like we don't all have the means or ability to do what society has decided is self-care. I think so many people relate to that struggle of what exactly is self-care. And also you were saying that the more we need self-care, the harder it is to actually muster the energy to give ourselves self-care. I would love to hear

from you, a professional, what are some things that the rest of us who are riding the struggle bus can do that aren't like, you know, I'm just going to check into a spa in the South of France for the month of July. You know, for me, practical self-care is the best type of self-care. It's the self-care that allows you to zero in on what it is that refills your cup or what pours back into you. And a lot of times for most of us, we have spent the majority of our adult lives either taking care of other people or doing the things for ourselves that people have told us we should be doing for ourselves. Like you're really good at this. You should go to college and major in that.

Or you're really good at this. This should be your career. You should check out a career in journalism or whatever the case may be. And we've gotten so far away from ourselves, from like our center point that when it's time for self-care, we don't know how to circle back to who we really are. That is really the gist of what self-care is. It's returning to your true self. So if you could close your eyes and take a deep breath and think about when I am in my happiest space, what are the things that I am doing, that I am hearing, that I am seeing, that I am tasting, that I'm enjoying? Like, those are the things that bring you back to who you are.

And for me, it was I've always loved writing or I've always loved reading. Like, my entire life I spent before I had to start adulting, right? I spent before I had to start adulting, right? I was either writing in a journal or working on a blog post or reading a book. Like that was an escape for me. It was something I truly enjoyed. But then when we start real life and we have responsibilities, we lose sight of those things that used to pour back into us and make us feel alive. A lot of us like to be outside or just be in nature. Like those are things that when we really think about it, we zero in on the things that have formerly brought us joy and poured joy back into us that kind of fill our hearts and our minds and our spirits with good feelings. Those are the things that we use for self-care because truth be told, if someone says, oh, self-care should be a spa

day or a massage, but you don't like people touching you, you're not going to enjoy a massage. In which case you've wasted money. You've wasted precious time and resources on a self-care practice that does not work for you. Everything is not going to work for everyone. And so I think getting comfortable with that and being like, actually, no, I don't like massages, but I do like this really nice park near my house that has a nature walk or nature trails that I can do. Like I enjoy that. Or I love fresh flowers. I'm going to go and gather some of those up and put them in my house and my desk so that they're a reminder for me. So it really is all about bringing you back to yourself and your center point, your inner truth of this is what I know will make me happy,

even if it's in small spurts. And I'm going to do that regardless of what anyone else thinks. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve!

It's Steve Carell in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from The Office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there.

Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. So set aside the magazine articles and thinking about your own experiences. What was I doing at a time when I felt peace? Or what was I doing at a time when I felt peace or what was I doing at a time when I felt contentment or happiness and looking for ways to recreate even a small little piece of that. Obviously we can't have Christmas morning 24 seven, but what is it about that experience? Is it spending time with your family? Is it giving gifts to others? What is it about that? And how can I recreate that in small ways? Absolutely. That's perfect. And it's absolutely true. Sometimes self-care doesn't

necessarily mean doing something specifically for ourselves, but it could be in service. Like my church has a food pantry. We give out food to the community with free groceries and things every Wednesday. That is by far one of my family's favorite things to do because you meet so many people, you're hearing their stories and that gratification from seeing a smile on someone's face, providing them with meals for the week. It's incredible. And so there are times when I'm completely swamped and I have so much going on, but I will carve out a few hours on my Wednesday

or the whole day if possible to go there. And people will be like, you already have so much going on. You're so busy. Why would you do that? Because that fills me. That gives me faith in humanity. That gives me faith in myself, that I'm doing something good for someone else. And that is enough to give me what I need to get throughout the week. I love that. I love that self-care can also look like being of service to others in a way that fills your cup in a way that is gratifying to you. And everybody will have something different in that regard, but it's not just about buying stuff for yourself. Helping others can be a form of self-care under the right circumstances. What are you finding the mental health of humanity over the course of what we refer to on social media as a panera bread

or a panini sandwich or, you know, like all of the P-A-N words, pandemic. What are you finding about people's mental health during this time? On a larger scale, more so than ever, it's suffering. My caseload as far as private clients has doubled just in the last few months. I think that people are really, really struggling. At first, we were very optimistic and ambitious, right? Like, oh, this is going to be an extended spring break. Everything shut down. Kids are at home. Over the summer, same thing. Kids are starting virtual school again for a whole new school year and throughout that school year. And so I think what we thought was going to be just like a little break or a pause or a much needed downtime turned into way

more than we could have ever imagined it would be. The repercussions of it, the sheer devastation of losing family members and friends and loved ones that were close to seeing how it's affecting different populations, all the different racial and social justice things that have come up out of it, teachers feeling even more underappreciated and undercompensated and all of these things. I think it just brought to light a lot of things that people had been repressing. And when that happens, when those things start to bubble up to the surface is when people really realize I'm not okay. What should somebody do if they are feeling that incredible amount of overwhelm or anxiety that you're hearing from people in your community or people that are your

clients? What should somebody do in that scenario? Absolutely. Seek out help, seek out professional help. If you can, if you have the means, absolutely seek out professional help, whether that's a counselor or a psychologist, a psychiatrist, if finances or resources is an issue, then I would highly recommend maybe doing a Google search or asking even your doctor in your community or your area for affordable resources, because I'm all about accessibility. It doesn't help to tell someone who is struggling financially just to feed their family or to keep the lights on that you need therapy, like you should see a therapist. If I have to choose between feeding my child

or paying $150 for a therapy session out of pocket, I'm going to feed my kids. Of course. I've been there where I have suffered mentally and emotionally because my priority had to be taking feeding your kids absolutely yeah and so accessibility is extremely important to me and so I always encourage people to reach out and find community organizations that offer those services on a discounted rate but also even if you find a private therapist many private therapists have so many clients that are paying the full rate that even many of them will offer sliding scale rates for people who cannot afford that and have it based on your income. afraid to advocate for yourself. Don't be afraid to say, I know that your regular fee is this, but honestly, this is all I can afford to pay. Is this something that you're willing to do? That's a great, that's such a great suggestion. And I am friends with a couple of therapists who

have been given grants by organizations or by government. And the grant is just kind of sitting there for people who can't afford it, but it's not like it's on their website. Like, and we have this grant, you know, so you need to ask, you need to say, I'm wondering if you have any kind of program that can assist somebody like me, because some would, or they might know where to refer you of like, I don't, but I know that that clinic got that grant and they might be able to help you. So asking is the first step. Love that.

Tell me about how affirmations and your messages that you post on Instagram. Tell me how that has helped you. They've helped me really since the very start of them because I was writing them for myself, right? When I started out writing these notes, I literally was writing them to pull myself out of a very dark place that I was in. And it was really, I felt like the only resource available to me. I've always been a writer, always been a reader, and I've always believed that words have power. I've always been a writer, always been a reader, and I've always believed that words have power. But it wasn't until the words and the voice in my head that was so loud was more negative than. Like you'll never get out of this. You'll never get better. You'll never heal. You'll never get another job to help, you know, contribute to your family. Things will always be this way. Those never and always statements can get you in a very,

very, very dark place. And it was then that I realized that voice that's on repeat is what is informing and influencing my mood every single day. What I hear and what I believe about myself all the time is essentially what I'm going to fulfill, what I'm going to produce throughout the day. And so in writing those affirmations, I was able to change the narrative and change the content of the voice. So a lot of times my clients, they'll talk about, oh, I've just been in a bad space or I've been thinking these thoughts or whatever. And I said, well, why don't you write them down? Or why don't you say them out loud? Because when you write it down or you say it out loud, it takes it from being a theoretical thought to being a reality. And you most of the times

would never, ever, ever say to your child, your spouse, someone that you love, a best friend, the thoughts that you think about yourself in your head. But because they're in here and they're kind of silent, it's easier to accept them and to let them like grow and breathe in your, but if you were to write them down or like say that thing out loud to yourself that you keep hearing in your head, you would change it very quickly. And so I always encourage people to write or say whatever it is that's coming to them and feel how icky and awful it feels. And that is the first step in changing them. So once I started writing out those things that were coming to my mind, but then countering them with a positive affirmation,

which is what I would post, the more I did that and the more regular that became, then those are the thoughts that started replaying in my head versus the negative ones that had been there before. Yes. It's such an encouragement for people to hear that this is a practice. This is not a light switch. It's a habit that you can form, but it does take work on your part and that this can happen to anybody, even a trained counselor. Knowing how to do a school counseling, knowing how to work with people with mental health challenges doesn't make you immune from having your own struggles. Everyone struggles. I really resonate with this idea that

you can be in control of the narrative in your mind. You don't have to accept all of the negative things that you are thinking. And I think that's so powerful. What you just said that try writing that down and looking at those words that you are thinking on a piece of paper and feel that kind of like shock of like, why would I be thinking that? Exactly. For me, a lot of times it's even more potent when I think of it in terms of being a mom. Yes. If Bean came home and told me that somebody said this to her, I would lose it. Lose it. Absolutely. And because the mama bear in me wants to protect her frame of mind, wants to protect her self-concept, wants to protect her self-worth. We absolutely deserve all of the love and grace and empathy and compassion that we try to pour into everyone else every day. We absolutely deserve a portion of that. But oftentimes,

because we're so busy spreading ourselves thin and giving that to everyone else that there's not any left for us. We're depleted. And that is where self-care comes. Self-care. Yes. So you have the resources, the mental capacity to be able to take care of yourself. I'm no mental health expert like you are, but you know, I talk a lot about current events and I hear from people how much anxiety current events, like what's going on in the world brings them. Like that literally keeps them up at night. It's like a hamster wheel of anxiety. One of the things I say frequently is that nobody is going to take care of your mental health for you. It is your responsibility to guard your own heart, to know what you can handle and what you can't, and to build those protections in place, boundaries in

place so that you can take care of yourself because you're of no good to anybody if you are incapacitated. Absolutely. And also we have to set those boundaries because no one else knows what our capacity is. We've spent so much time and have done such a good job of pretending to be okay and being the yes person. person? Like, sure, I'll do that. Of course, I'll take that on. Of course, I'll add that to my plate. But people only know what they see. They only know that Faith's very dependable. She's very reliable. I'll get her to do that. And they don't know that while I'm saying yes to them, I'm saying no to Bean for playtime. I'm saying no to my husband for date night. I'm saying no to this person for this, that I would rather, I'm saying no to myself, to things that I would rather do or read a book or write or sit and watch Grace and Frankie on Netflix. It becomes a situation where we can expect people to inherently know what we need. We cannot expect anyone outside of ourselves

to know what we need and to prioritize that over ourselves. We need to be the ones to say, this is my capacity. This is my bandwidth. This is what I can handle today. Anything outside of that, we'll have to wait for another time indefinitely. I cannot take it all on. You're right. We cannot expect anyone to prioritize or take care of our mental health other than ourselves. It's really not fair. And we set people up for failure when we expect that of them, when we don't do it for ourselves. And we set ourselves up for disappointment when we're like, well, they should know. They should have known better. They should have known that that was my boundary, but yet you've never communicated it to them. And then you feel really disappointed that they violated your

boundary that they didn't even know existed. Before we go, if you could offer somebody who might be struggling today, just like a little practice or a little piece of hope that you could leave somebody with, what would you say to somebody who is really struggling here and now today with their mental health? Absolutely. I remember one of the first notes that I wrote about three years ago, it was something very simple. And it said, today, I affirm that I will save some of me for me. And in a nutshell, that's it. Choosing, making the choice to save some of you for you is life changing. I literally had doctors telling me, Miss Cade, we need you to slow down.

We need you to stop doing everything for everyone because if you don't, you will not recover from this. And I was in a critical decision-making point where I had to decide, do I want to preserve the facade that I have right now, doing everything for everyone and damaging myself in the meantime? Or do I want to take that mask off, put that aside and preserve my energy and my resources and my wellbeing for myself so that I can be the best person that I need to be in the future. I had to choose between my present facade and my future reality. I had to make a lot of hard choices. I lost quite a few friends for setting those boundaries and my whole self-concept shifted in that my worth and my value is not tied up in how much I can deplete myself for someone else. inflated and overwhelmed and stretched completely thin and being a martyr does not make me a better person. It doesn't, it doesn't give me any more value as a human being. What it does is it exhausts me and it makes me literally doing things from a place of obligation and then feeling resentful

about it versus doing things out of my overflow of joy and willingness. And I think that's the crucial thing, that if you can just make the choice to save some of you for you, not at the end of the day when you've already given everything you've had to give. And now you don't even feel like reading some of your favorite book because you're so exhausted. I'm talking about the best parts of you. It will change your entire life. One other thing I want to ask you about, which is rest. As a person who has difficulty resting, I love that you talk on your page about you don't actually need to earn rest. Yes. You don't have to pay for it with completely sacrificing yourself and then being like, have I earned a chance to sit down?

Have I sabotaged myself enough to sit down? It's the most ludicrous thought ever, but that's what many of us have been conditioned that we don't just naturally deserve rest because we are human beings and our bodies are not meant to go a hundred miles an hour, 24 hours a day. to go 100 miles an hour, 24 hours a day, we are taught to believe that until we are experiencing burnout, we should not require rest in our lives. It's a tragedy because if we use burnout as like the measure of when we're supposed to rest, then we're already burnt out by the time we realize that we need rest. Rest is something that is required for us to live happy, healthy, fulfilled lives. One of the side effects of a traumatic brain injury is chronic insomnia and fatigue. Over the past three years during my

recovery, I have gone four to five days straight without sleeping. And if you look up the effects of sleep deprivation or chronic fatigue, you will see that you experience psychosis. You experience what you think may be a mental health issue that really is not, but your body hasn't had time to recover. Anxiety, depression, irritability, all these different things, chronic headaches, migraines, stomach aches, all these things. So there's lots of physical symptoms that become manifestations of a lack of rest. And it's something that we really can't afford to deny ourselves anymore. This is so fantastic. I'm so grateful for you that you were willing to take the time to chat with us. I really could talk to you all day. Tell everyone

where they can find you and tell everybody the names of your books. Oh, sure. So I have two guided journals. They're available on my website, which is where you can find me at www.flutterlyspeaks.com. My first journal was called Because You Are Worthy, and it's 90 days of my notes and spaces for you to write and reflect on your notes and set an affirmation for the day. And then the other one is because you have purpose. It's a similar setup, 90 days of notes, a space for you to reflect and set your intention or your reflection for the day. Those are both found on my website. And then you can also find me on Instagram, which is where most of my people are at Flirterly Speaks. Thank you again so much.

Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. I cannot wait to have another mind blown moment with you next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.