Journey From Mom Burnout to Rediscovering Your Passion

Amy  [00:00:00]:
We're here with Shelly Meche'tte today, and Shelly's going to share some of her information on being a mom and taking care of yourself through that mom journey. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Shelley [00:00:13]:
Yes, absolutely. As you said, my name is Shelley Meche'tte. I am the mom of two, and I have older children, I have adult children. And through that journey of being just being a mom and a stay at home mom, I myself lost me completely. You know, I had to end up going on a self awareness journey. My kids were probably around five and twelve when I did this because I was that one who was in the mirror in the bathroom bawling and had a complete emotional breakdown because I did not recognize the person who was in the mirror. You know, I know it may be a lot of moms that understand that fetal position with your hand in your head and you cannot your head in your hands and you cannot control tears coming down, but it was at that moment, Amy, that I realized something had to change. Something had to change.

Shelley [00:01:06]:
And that's when I went on a self awareness journey. And through that journey, I was able to rediscover who I was, rediscover the woman, rediscover my confidence, my voice, and some passions that I have put on the back burner. And through rediscovering those things, I became international speaker. I became a best selling author. I became a mom life strategist, and I became a coach. But it's after I began to understand that I have to be able to have a life and being outside of my title of a mom. And once I get myself permission to own me and my happiness, that's when some blinders came off.

Amy  [00:01:51]:
That is beautiful. I know our listeners are asking right away, how do you start that journey?

Shelley [00:01:59]:
Yes. For me, it started from chaos. Y'all, let's just be real. I didn't wake up and be like, oh, let's go on this wonderful self journey. No. It started because I wanted to be a stay at home mom. I had an older daughter. I was a single mom at first.

Shelley [00:02:19]:
I had an older daughter. She was in daycare. And there were some things that happened in daycare that I did not, I did not like, you know, that I found out later. I dealt with the mom guilt. You know, I was up at five in the morning. I dropped my child off at six in the morning. I was at work by seven in the morning. I saw her again at six in the evening, you know, and so there was all of this guilt that went along.

Shelley [00:02:40]:
Plus, when things happened at the daycare. I felt like this horrible, terrible person that I didn't catch this and just all of these things. So when I got married and became pregnant with my second child, I said, I can't do it. I can't go to work and. And be the best mom because I can't even concentrate because of the experience that I have. So after me and my husband had talked about it, we said, okay, yeah, it would be a good idea for me to come away from my job. I had a job in entertainment at the time, and I came away from my job so that I could be a stay at home mom. When I left that job, though, I didn't know I was leaving me.

Shelley [00:03:17]:
I thought I was bringing some of me with me. But my days became spit ups, diaper changes, errands, homework, you know, sibling rivalry. Yeah.

Amy  [00:03:30]:
Oh, yeah.

Shelley [00:03:30]:
Running. Running around, cooking, cleaning. There was no time for me to indulge in myself. There was no time for me to realize who I was. There was no adult or very, very limited adult conversation. I didn't even know if I liked Cheerios, you guys, or. Or if I just ate it because the kids left it. That's how much.

Shelley [00:03:50]:
And so I began to look at myself and say, well, who are you? Who are you? I was in the bathroom. That was my secret place for crying. At least I thought it was until my kids were like, why do you cry in the bathroom? We hear you crying in the bathroom. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, now I'm an even worse mother, because now I've let out the secret that I'm not happy all of the time. And it just began snowball and snowball and snowball. So, in all honesty, I wasn't aware that it was time for the journey. I had reached the point of no return. And I felt like I was losing just everything.

Shelley [00:04:32]:
I was losing my mind. I was losing control. And then I felt guilty again. Because you have a wonderful family. People would tell me, you're so blessed to have these children. You're so blessed to stay at home. So now I feel guilty that I'm complaining. So all of these things morphed into that, into that breakdown.

Shelley [00:04:51]:
And so when I started that journey, I started the journey because I needed to be able to smile, and I needed it to be a genuine smile. And I wanted some true happiness. I didn't want to wait until I was 50 or 60 to finally find some happiness and joy. I wanted to enjoy all of it. Me and my children.

Amy  [00:05:17]:
Yes. That's what it's all about.

Shelley [00:05:19]:
Yes. Why do I have to choose? Exactly.

Amy  [00:05:22]:
Now I'm curious, because people, you know, were telling you, you have this great life and this great family, and you're feeling guilty. Did anybody say to you, we notice you're struggling or.

Shelley [00:05:32]:
No, no, of course not. And not be a good mom? Are you kidding? Oh, you know, absolutely. I would never. My bathroom was, was the time for me to get myself to together. I remember taking my youngest to daycare, an to daycare. To school. I used to walk her to school in the morning because the school was literally, like, next door. And so I would walk her to school in the morning.

Shelley [00:05:56]:
And I remember coming back home, and I don't recall doing anything that day except laying on the floor next to her bed. I think I had gone in there to clean up or to do something, and I just looked around like, is this my life? You know, just, just coming home, cleaning up, doing laundry, you know, having dinner. Is this my life? And I just remember laying down on the rug next to her bed and just crying. And then, you know, when it was time to go get the kids, I picked myself up, I put on my face, I made sure everything was good for them, you know, and I went. And happy mom went to go get her kids.

Amy  [00:06:37]:
Yes. That reminds me, when I went through a divorce, and my daughter now, who's 13, she was just about one or two at the time, and my ex husband brought her home to drop her off. And it was the day we had got the final divorce decree. And I was living with my mom at the time because I had just moved out of my. And so I was crying to my mom that I wasn't happy with the decree because it split up our parenting time and wanted her to move back and forth. And as soon as the doorbell rang, my tears dried up, I wiped my face off. I opened that door and I said hi.

Shelley [00:07:17]:
Right? Right.

Amy  [00:07:20]:
Yeah.

Shelley [00:07:21]:
Right.

Amy  [00:07:21]:
Mom said later. Wow, that was impressive. So did you seek any help or did you just decide things have changed?

Shelley [00:07:34]:
You know, that's kind of twofold years before, I had fallen into a heavy depression when my oldest was, was a child, and I didn't understand that when she was a child. When she was young. I didn't understand depression at that time. And I come from a christian background, and so being depressed, you, girl, you're supposed to pray that away, you know, and so. And I'm all for prayer, do not get me wrong, but I, but I also needed a little extra that I didn't know at that time. And so I ended up walking through that depression by myself at the time when my oldest was. Was very young, probably around two. And so I didn't recognize it then.

Shelley [00:08:17]:
And it was a horrible journey, horrible journey to walk through alone. And God, really did, you know, bring me through that journey. So when I began to fall into the depression for a second time, when I became a stay at home mom, when I began to fall into that, by the time I broke down on the floor, that's when I said, oh, I think I might be in a depression again. There was no clue. There was no clue. And at that time, I wasn't. I wasn't heeding the signs. You know, I was just going, if I could do this or if I could do that, or, you know, you should feel blessed to be.

Shelley [00:09:02]:
To be at home. And the breakdown was the ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So when ding, I, ding. Finally looked at myself, you know how ding we all look at ourselves afterwards, and you ding know, we would. We had that real ugly cry, y'all. So after the real ugly cry, y'all, that's when I looked. And I was like, so what do. What do you want? Tell me one thing that you love about yourself.

Shelley [00:09:28]:
Because it had gotten to the point where there was nothing I even liked about me because I couldn't separate me. And so I stood in that mirror after the episode and said, you know, what do you want and what do you like about yourself? Just name one thing that you love about yourself, Amy. That started a whole new set of tears because I couldn't figure out, because everything that I liked about me was associated with a title. You know, I was a mom, I was a wife, I was a daughter. I was this, I was that. I was an employee. You know, at one point in time, I was going to be an actor, so everything was associated with a title, and there was nothing that was just, what is it about you that you love? And so when I began to ponder on that, and it took me a minute because I went through so many things, and I finally looked at myself in that mirror, and I began to smile, and I looked and I said, ding, ding, ding, I love your smile. And that was the beginning of me pouring life into myself that had nothing to do with my children and going on that journey of self awareness.

Shelley [00:10:40]:
I was aware of something that no one had to tell me, no one had to validate for me. I loved my smile, and so it didn't matter to me whether you loved it or not, because it's something that brought joy to me, and it had nothing to do with me being a bomb. So that was my step in going, hey, this thing brings me joy. Honey, I was cheesing all day long, okay? I was cheesing at the grocery store, cheesing at the laundromat. Like, hey, look at my.

Amy  [00:11:10]:
You do have a gorgeous smile.

Shelley [00:11:13]:
Thank you. And that was the beginning. Just one. I recognize that I don't need to try to find five things. I don't even need to try to find three things. What's the one thing that brings you joy? And the only thing that I had at that moment was I love your smile, girl. I love your smile. And I was able to take the journey from there.

Shelley [00:11:38]:
My confidence was built in the fact that I loved my smile. So if I can love that about myself, then, you know, what else is there about me? And then it turned into, what are some of those things that you love to do now or that you used to love to do that you don't do because you feel like you couldn't do? And then it was the confidence for that. And then it was the confidence. Well, you've always enjoyed speaking. What would happen if you did this? Or this? Or this? Well, what happened was a brand new life for me and an opportunity for me to regain genuine happiness, self worth, confidence, and to reignite dreams because of my new voice that I have found again. Wow.

Amy  [00:12:26]:
That's incredible. So what, what did you do to find the time to incorporate those new things?

Shelley [00:12:33]:
I began, I'm really big on scheduling that, that's, that's my superpower. I'm very big on that. I love lists. And for me and for most of the, the women, most of my clients as moms, we get up and do. That's what we do. We get up and do. A lot of times what we don't do is sit down and understand our day. I literally sat down at probably around 1030 at night and said, what does your day look like tomorrow? Because I'm always saying I'm too busy.

Shelley [00:13:04]:
I'm too busy. And this doesn't negate the fact that I'm busy. But I had to understand, is there, what does my day look like? What am I doing? So from 06:00 a.m. To 06:00 p.m. What do you do every part of the day? What are some solids in your life? The things that just don't change. You know, you're up at 06:00 every morning from six to 730. You're getting kids together. You know, from 08:00 to 830, you're dropping kids off, you're back at home at nine, from nine to this time, you feed the baby, what do you do? And so when I began to look at what the solids were in my day, I began to see, oh, I really only have maybe about two to 3 hours a day that's really open.

Shelley [00:13:46]:
What can I plug in in that day? Can I plug in ten minutes of self care? I want it to act. Can I plug in looking for some acting opportunities? Can I plug in a bath? The answer was really no. Usually I had to wait for my husband to come home, be like, please let me just take a bath.

Amy  [00:14:11]:
But you make such a valid point. It's such good advice, because until you sit down and see what you really are doing, how do you prioritize?

Shelley [00:14:20]:
How, how, how do you do it? We have a 100% bandwidth. That's it. Not an ounce more. But what we love to do is put 300% activities into that. And then we wonder why we're spinning. And then we wonder why life is chaotic. Life is going to life, so there is going to be chaos in life. But can we limit the daily chaos so that we'll be more prepared mentally for the life chaos?

Amy  [00:14:50]:
Yes.

Shelley [00:14:52]:
And so that is my thing, being able to show ambitious and busy moms how to successfully balance motherhood and life passion and goals so that you could create, create the life you desire to live without guilt. And the only way that you can create that life is, first you need to understand, what do you want that life to look like in here? Not just the attributes, not just the goals, but what do you want your life to look like? Because if you obtain every single goal that is on your list, but you do it in unhappiness, did you really win? That's a good question, you know, and so I wanted to be able to incorporate what meant the most to me in here with everything that was out on the outside. How do we balance those things? And what I found out, like most of us, is balance in and of itself, doesn't exist, for the most part, is unrealistic. And when we even come into balance, we come into it with a negativity. Why are we trying to balance? Because everything is chaotic. So we even enter into balance with a subconscious mindset of negativity. But when we replace balancing, quote, quote. Because everything is chaotic, when we replace that and say it's not about me giving equal balance to everything, it's about me seeing how can I harmonize, how can I harmonize my activities to bring better peace to my day.

Amy  [00:16:28]:
Yeah.

Shelley [00:16:30]:
Yes. And we do that by, number one, understanding our day, you can't harmonize what you can't see and what you can't put together. So the only way we could do that is by first understanding what does my day even look like? What are the solids in my day and how much time do I have per day to plug in something?

Amy  [00:16:51]:
What do you recommend to someone who's struggling right now and maybe they don't know it yet? You mentioned that until it went ding ding, you didn't know that you had reached that level.

Shelley [00:17:04]:
I did not.

Amy  [00:17:06]:
Did you see signs?

Shelley [00:17:08]:
Absolutely. The first sign was really being short tempered. Everything was a, uh uh. Because I didn't know how to manage those things. I was taking the internal and throwing it on the external. And so the patience really wasn't there. So when someone was getting on my nerves, she was getting on my nerves really quickly. Versus the understanding being there, that's one of the signs of you burning out and getting ready to head into an area that's going to overtake you.

Shelley [00:17:43]:
Too many activities was another sign. Not understanding my day and continuously taking on activities, that was a huge thing to do that, not understanding the boundaries, not being able to say no to certain things, that was huge as well. All of these were little signs that ended up being huge, feeling overwhelmed and at a fast pace all the time. Again, life lies. So everything is not always going to be calm, but it shouldn't be a daily where I constantly feel like I can never catch up, I can never catch up, I can never do this. And then the negative talk at the end of the day of everything I didn't get done, everything I didn't do, that is a slow, a slow, quick, slow, quick, slow pace for you. Absolutely falling. Because you go on this high of, oh, my gosh, let me do this, let me do.

Shelley [00:18:40]:
And then you crash.

Amy  [00:18:42]:
Yeah.

Shelley [00:18:42]:
And then you try to make up for it and you go on this high all over again. Let me make up for what I didn't do. So now I didn't do this. This is it. And at the end of the day, now I crash. And then I look at everything I didn't accomplish. One of the things that I tell my clients all the time is when you go to bed, thank yourself, give gratitude to yourself. If you had a list of five and you were only able to do three of them, give yourself grace and say, you know what? You know what? Thank you, Amy.

Shelley [00:19:09]:
Because there was a list of five and you were able to make sure that you got the dog to the vet, that you were able to get to the grocery store, and you still were able to answer three emails today. Thank you for understanding your limits, Amy. You did an amazing job. Have a wonderful rest.

Amy  [00:19:26]:
Oh, I like that.

Shelley [00:19:28]:
It's so much better to go to sleep that way than to go to sleep going, I. There's ten dishes. I didn't take them out there. Da da da. But you know what you did do? Wow. Thank you, Amy. I was able to have a conversation with my 13 year old, and even though we didn't completely see eye to eye, those dishes had to sit there because I needed to take time to connect with my. With my child.

Shelley [00:19:54]:
Thank you, Amy, for seeing where the dishes could sit so that you could connect. Great job. Have a wonderful rest tonight.

Amy  [00:20:03]:
That's great. So tell me about how people can find more information about your coaching.

Shelley [00:20:11]:
Yes, absolutely. You can find me on my website, which is shellymiche.com, and that's shelleymechette.com. You can also connect with me on Instagram and Facebook under my same name. And also you can grab my free gift, which is seven powerful ways for you, too. It's so many free gifts, y'all. I be forgetting for you to fulfill your goals and be a great mom, too. And we can also connect that way where I offer tips, where I offer tools, where I offer an opportunity for us to get together for. For classes and just for meet and greet.

Shelley [00:20:51]:
In fact, y'all, if you go ahead and get on my email list, I am going to send you an invite for the meet and greet that's happening this month for all my amazing moms.

Amy  [00:21:02]:
Oh, that is amazing. And I have to say, when I was looking at your website and I saw your freebie that said, pow. Hurful.

Shelley [00:21:08]:
Yes.

Amy  [00:21:09]:
W a t r f u l. I loved that.

Shelley [00:21:13]:
Yes. Thank you. I have to update that freebie, Amy. I tell you, they just. All over the place.

Amy  [00:21:18]:
Oh, that's great. Well, is there anything you want to leave our listeners with today?

Shelley [00:21:24]:
Absolutely. I really do. As. As moms, as people, what we do is we get so caught up in our titles that we forget that we don't have to choose. We don't have to be the title or this, we don't have to be this or that. And so I want every mother to know she never has to live a life of or you never have to be a mom or a wonderful podcaster. You never have to be a mom or a nurse. A mom or, you know, a journalist.

Shelley [00:21:59]:
You don't have to do that. A mom or a CEO. You can always be a mom. And. And you get to dictate what comes after that. And.

Amy  [00:22:10]:
Oh, that's great. A mom and.

Shelley [00:22:13]:
Yes.

Amy  [00:22:14]:
Use that.

Shelley [00:22:17]:
All right.

Amy  [00:22:18]:
Well, Shelly, I really thoroughly enjoyed talking to you.

Shelley [00:22:21]:
Yeah. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. It has been a pleasure.

Amy  [00:22:27]:
All right, well, you have a great weekend.

Shelley [00:22:29]:
You, too. Bye.