347: Managing a Crisis with Cheyenne Williams
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Have you had to handle a crisis in your business? From personal issues to extreme weather, we’re tasked with handling whatever comes our way. We often don’t recognize the toll it takes on us mentally, physically, and emotionally. Cheyenne Williams, owner of Shiney Day Specialized Pet Care, shares how she tackles the mental toll of natural disasters, why paying attention to your mental health is crucial, and resources available for those struggling.
Main topics
Hurricane Ian
Addressing burnout
Mental Health
Main takeaway: Burnout means that something needs to change.
About our guest:
My name is Cheyenne Williams I am a pet care professional in Sarasota, Florida. My husband and I have two daughters who are being raised to have a passion for animals and technology. We also have 3 dogs and 3 cats, all of which are special needs pets. In the very beginning, while working in the local emergency hospital, I would often witness owners facing not only the stress of their beloved family member's diagnosis, but also wondering "Who will watch my pet while I'm away" and who can I trust. We started with two pets who needed specialized care. I grew a passion for knowing my patients were safe away from the hospital. April 4th, 2015, Shiney Day Pet Sitting was founded. I am continuing in my Bachelors for Veterinary Medicine, I am a Certified Professional Pet Sitter through PSI, and am keeping up on CE in animal welfare. While I take this journey I am also educating other sitters and pet parents about pet preparedness. Where does the name Shiney Day come from?While in school, I participated in a duel enrollment program that allowed students to obtain a higher degree and was able to complete the program as a Certified Veterinary Assistant before graduating. On November 11th, 2011, I was placed in a Veterinary Practice for my internship, the doctor I worked for insisted on calling me "Shiney" instead of Cheyenne because I was very outgoing and was the "sunshine" to everyone's "day." 9 years later, I have grown into a technician at a 24 hour Emergency and Specialty Hospital and the name stayed with me.
Links:
Previously on https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/062-specialized-pet-care-with-cheyenne-williams
Shiney Day Specialized Pet Care: https://www.instagram.com/shineydayyy/
Her website: https://shineydaypetsitting.com
TALK to 741741
The Body Keeps the Score: https://amzn.to/3CMNHiX
Florida Disaster Fund: floridadisasterfund.com
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet, clients, hurricane, home, natural disaster, trauma, business, people, care, anxiety, florida, impact, burnout, mental health, feel, resources, animals, preparation, recognizing, appointment
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Cheyenne
Meghan 00:10
Hello, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is a confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter
Collin 00:17
brought to you by time to pet and pet perennials. Have you had to handle a crisis in your business? From the Personal to extreme weather, we are tasked with handling whatever comes our way. And we often don't recognize the toll it takes on us mentally, physically and emotionally. Cheyenne Williams, owner of shiny days specialized pet care shares how she tackles the mental toll of natural disasters, by paying attention to your mental health is so crucial, and share some resources available for those struggling. Let's get started.
Cheyenne 00:47
Yeah, hi, I'm so happy to be back on the show. Colin, I love listening to your episodes and hearing everybody's stories. So it's really great to be back. So a lot has changed since 2020. If we're not dealing with COVID, we're dealing with hurricanes. I own shiny day specialized pet care, we are in Sarasota, Florida. And oh goodness, since 2015, my business has been open. It was kind of like a side gig while I was working as a veterinary technician and emergency and specialty hospitals. So I have a lot of background and like mental health and dealing with the pet field. I am on the board of directors for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in southwest Florida, as well as a mother of two daughters. And I am the PTO president at their school. So happy to be back.
Collin 01:51
It's a lot going on. And you started off by saying we've shifted from from COVID to hurricanes. So I know that Florida and in your part of Florida still kind of recovering from an impact of a hurricane. So walk us through what what that was like some of the preparation you undertook actually writing it out and then kind of digging out from it on the other side.
Cheyenne 02:13
Yeah, so for hurricane No, it's been a lot different than most of the other hurricanes. I'm sure people have seen it. Like on the news, scrolling Facebook, Hurricane Ian was actually four times the size of Hurricane Charley back in 2004. And the funny thing about Charlie was I had moved here about two months before that hit and my dad convinced our entire family. He said, Oh, hurricanes never hit the west coast of Florida. Like, this is a great place to be. And then, of course, two months later, Charlie took our entire roof off. Um, so, you know, preparing for natural disasters, it's been a huge thing for me, I don't know if it's trauma, or just the fact of being prepared. makes it so there's less anxiety involved in the entire thing. But yes, so hurricane Ian was supposed to be a direct hit to Sarasota, Florida last minute, kind of shifted about 50 miles south from here. So you know, I'm thankful and blessed that we didn't get the brunt of it. But you know, our, our counterparts down south to get hit pretty hard. As far as preparing for the storm, I know that we kind of talked about this back in episode 62. There's a lot of different things that you can do to prepare for a storm like, especially if you have pets in your care, emergency authorization forms, natural disaster plans, putting those in your contract and having that with that conversation with clients when you meet them, because it gives you the knowledge on what to do with a client's pet where they stand on evacuating their emergency contact who you can drop the pet off with if that's necessary. With my emergency, arcane and disaster plan, there's three choices that we offer. As far as if evacuation is necessary during a natural disaster. The first choice is that will transport the pet to the emergency caretaker which is typically the best option that we recommend. The second choice is to transport the pet to the veterinary hospital of their choice or boarding facility. And the third choice which I typically don't recommend, and I haven't had anybody choose is having the pet remaining. In the person's home, with, with all of these choices, you know, we try our best to secure homes during Hurricane Ian, I had about 14 different clients that I was taking care of. So I had to bring in patio furniture, take things off of their walls, outside, you know, sand bags on the doors, try, try our best to, you know, kind of secure the windows, moving everything away from the windows and doors is always necessary, just in case, you know, something breaks through the window or flooding, stuff like that. And trying to move electronics, and items that are typically like on the ground or lower to the ground to a higher level in case of any flooding. As far as that goes. So we we, for hurricane II. And we did that for 14 different clients, I am happy to announce that none of our clients had significant damage done to their home. So we are super, super thankful for that. Well, and
Collin 06:21
as you walk through that process, Cheyenne, you know, I think of kind of how we approach incoming bad thunderstorms or tornadoes in our area. And all of a sudden, your list of tasks just goes through the roof. Because what we do with with a typical visit of mail, feed water medications, short walk, cuddle time cleaning up any messes, take care of, you know, light housekeeping, that kind of stuff, all of a sudden, now you're under the gun, and got that timer running to get a lot more things done in that visit. So when you are doing these kinds of preparations, are you extending the visit length? Are you coming in between visits, to get these kinds of things taken care of? How do you structure these new obligations in your day?
Cheyenne 07:04
Absolutely, that is a really, really great, great question. So for, you know, businesses who have employees, I currently don't have employees. So it was just myself, I had the help of my amazing husband, thank goodness, for him, it was kind of a mix of both of what you said were during visits, you know, take care of my regular tasks and give the pets as much, you know, cuddle time and love that I possibly could while also, you know taking inventory of what needed to be done in the home doing the small tasks. And then by the end of the day, or, you know, if I had some little time, my husband and I would go to these appointments and you know, move the big furniture, try not boarding up windows, but like moving things away from the windows, putting the sandbags in front of the doors, making sure we could do everything we could with what we had in the client's home. You know, and it does get a little stressful because it's not your home. It's not your pets. This is someone's livelihood, it's somebody else's, you know, baby that you're taking care of. And when they're halfway across the country half way across the world, it makes it very stressful on them as well. So you have to focus on taking care of yourself and your family, make sure all your preparations are done. I mean, it's just like kind of like when you get on an airplane and they tell you, if the oxygen masks come down, you put yours on before you help somebody else. And so we had to try to find the balance between making sure we had everything for our kids and our animals. And then making sure we had things done for our clients as well.
Collin 09:07
That's also a lot of information to all of a sudden have to recall suddenly. So when you're I guess you do ask all of these questions and kind of get some of this information down. You're doing that during the meet and greet. And then other conversations with them while you're interacting with the client. And then how are you are you storing this in a particular software? So you're when you're in somebody's home you can go okay, this how do you how do you remember to do all this stuff is basically what I'm asking. And because it seems like an awful lot to all of a sudden have to go add to your plate.
Cheyenne 09:37
Yeah, of course. So I'm with I feel like this was a special circumstance because we typically don't get hurricanes too this magnitude in this area. So it was definitely like a learning experience for us. So like I had mentioned earlier we have implemented a new hurricane and other disaster Land Policy, I had the help of a wonderful pet sitter in the area. helped me with that something that she's had for years. You know, she's lived in Florida a lot longer than I have. So it was great connecting with her and kind of coming up with this policy. So we use time to pet for our business and in time to pet on the client settings, it has the agreement portion. So we have added the hurricane and other disasters play into the agreements portion, which we do go over in our new meet and greets. However, with current and past clients, we did send a copy out to each everyone for them to you know, sign and acknowledge and made it kind of mandatory before they could book further dates to fill in the questionnaire about what they would like to see happen if something were to come our way again, while they were at a tap. So in in our agreement, we also provided resources and kind of like a checklist for them as well, about securing your pets before you leave during hurricane season. I know you know other places don't get hurricanes. So this could be altered and changed a bit for you know, the natural disasters that happen in their area. Other pet sitters areas, I apologize. So crates are definitely a must if the pet has to be transported for any reason. For dogs and cats, it is required that they have crates, especially if it is an evacuation situation where you have to go to a shelter they do require you to create your animals. They're a disaster supply kit, I had put a copy of the A SPCA Red Cross and humane societies recommendations for the disaster supply kit which I'd be happy to provide you I think everything on here is kind of stuff that we had talked about in episode 62. So that includes like color harness with the rabies and ID tags, leashes for dogs, food treats, water, lightweight bowls like travel bowls, I feel like every home has those now. Disposable cat litter boxes, cat litter paper towels, cleaning supplies, first aid kits. And then of course, like the copy of the most recent vaccine history for each pet. We have that in our system. But I do ask like during hurricane season, now that they leave a copy of it on the counter, or with their like their disaster supply kit. So that we could just grab it and go if we need to take them to like the caretaker, the boarding facility, and then a detailed instructions for each pet. Now I also have that in my system as well. I do ask a lot of questions during the onboarding process. So everything that a shelter or a boarding facility would need to know is in there. So I can just simply like make a copy real quick, printed out and have all of that ready to go. I think helping educate our clients on what what they should have ready and prepared. In the case of an emergency also will help with their anxiety when they're away from the home when they're on vacation or something like this happens. You know it kind of is like takes that pressure off of them because I'm sure you've had something where you've been out of town and you know, something happens back home like the power goes out or the refrigerator dies, you you do almost have this feeling of like helplessness because you feel like you should be there to do all this. But you can't physically and I think giving our clients these resources and things that they can do will just really help ease that anxiety when they're away.
Collin 14:35
Yeah, that big word Empower comes in going this is these are things that you can do. These are actionable items that you can do that are going to help you while you're away. It's going to help us as well we're while we're here caring for this. And so for you for your shading you mentioned you know your clients having anxiety and how are you processing all of this in handling that as as you You're watching the hurricane come through. And you're, you have 14 houses that are under your responsibility. What's What's that process?
Cheyenne 15:07
Like? Yeah, so that that was honestly, a lot of pressure, I think, in the preparation phase of it. So you have these houses, you have these pads, you're extremely concerned about what's going to happen. But I think as you know, the storm started going over us and passing like, I, it was almost like a, kind of like a breath of relief, like, Okay, we got through that. So let's, let's see what the next steps are. So as soon as it was safe to be on the road, roads, like I said, we were extremely lucky. With the flooding and stuff, like there were definitely downed power lines and branches in the road, as soon as it was safe for us to kind of leave the home, we went and started assessing my client's homes. And as I got to each home, you know, you'd like kind of, to hold your breath, like, I really hope nothing happened. But as I got to each, each client's home, and I found, you know, a few shingles off the roof, but no leaking in the house windows look good. I had one client in particular that has, has five guinea pigs. And I went in and everybody was just acting like nothing happened. So I took their cages from the highest spot that we put them safely, and brought them back to where they were and that them, you know, their lettuce and their bell peppers. And they were totally fine. Like, it was just a huge relief, but the anxiety of preparing houses and like, you know, you you're doing all this stuff, and then you leave the home and you're like, oh my gosh, did I forget to like, bring up plant and and then you have to go back and make sure that the plants and it definitely, definitely takes a toll. I was exhausted for sure.
Collin 17:17
Well, as you mentioned, but all that pressure being kind of above beforehand is of because that's where all the activity is of what that's all the preparation and the movement and the in the planning and the implementation then. And then you do get that window of just waiting of going okay, I hope the preparations have held and at that point, there's really nothing else for you to do. And then I can't imagine if going into each home and inspecting it and right being like, maybe those visits weren't exactly the most physically demanding of them. But the mental burden of going I don't know what's on the other side of this door, or I don't know what's around this corner. As I'm coming down the street or, again, there's this level of anxiety and anticipation of what we're going to find.
Cheyenne 17:59
Oh, absolutely. And I mean, like I said, I was so thankful and we were so blessed here to not be hit that badly, that I was just amazed going into these these homes, I was like, Oh, another breath of relief. And then as I finished off those visits for that day, I did have quite a few people. I think that was the other part that was very challenging as the storm got closer is that all, you know, 14 of these clients were texting me calling me, which I love. They're more than welcome to do that anytime. But trying to delegate taking care of the home homes and answering clients promptly so they don't get worried. I mean, it takes a lot out of you, you you feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders in that moment where you're trying to ease their anxiety but you feel like you're kind of taking it on
Collin 19:02
and you have 14 homes with 14 different conditions with 14 or more animals and different states have have put together nests and different questions and things that each one is fielding to you so you are also having to keep track of going okay, Sally called me Sally was with the home that did this and I have a thing here and that's that's what that question is about. No, no, Dave has texting me and there's just that bombardment of information and of communication of your right like it is such a struggle to keep up so for you, did you just kind of take all that on or do you try and prioritize those as they came in?
Cheyenne 19:35
Um, so I tried to when when I would get text messages because I was so like, go go go. I would try to call the client while I was in their house. So I tried to keep it as organized as possible. Like if I got a text message from you know, Sally, and I'm in Dave's house. I would text Sally and be like I'll be at your house at seven. So time I'll call you then that way I could keep the lines of communication with the clients, pets and the house that I was dealing with at the time open so that, you know, if if I was noting something, I wasn't giving the wrong information to the wrong client. And definitely, I mean, for those listeners who are here in Florida, pictures are everything. So I did take a lot of pictures like especially if there were, you know, big trees down in the yard or shingles off the roof, like I documented as much as I could for clients and put it in my time to pet system so that they would have that for you know, if they had to file an insurance claim, or the roof or anything like that. So I think that also kind of really helped the clients feel better about things that now I was paying attention to more than just their pets in that moment.
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Collin 21:37
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Cheyenne 22:54
Oh, absolutely. I completely agree. And I think that that made it a little easier. Like in the beginning, like for the preparation stage. I wasn't necessarily doing that. I was kind of like everywhere where, you know, I would call a client they didn't answer but they would text me back then I was texting back and forth with them. I was on the phone with somebody else I was dealing with a completely unrelated persons pet. So once I think I had a good 12 hours to kind of really figure out how I was going to handle the aftermath of everything. And I definitely think that in the future, you know, knock on all of the wood and hear that if this were to happen, I would definitely have a better system down on how to communicate with my clients and make sure it's all coordinated so that I'm not feeling as overwhelmed.
Collin 23:49
So for you, what are some other lessons that you took from this about you're going to implement moving forward?
Cheyenne 23:55
Well, one lesson I had learned back from Irma in 2017, was that I cannot take every single pet with me. And I think hurricane Egan this year really reinforced that so during Irma, it was my second year in business i It really wasn't the scariest natural disaster that we have ever gone through. You know, Irma was relatively small compared to em, so I just decided that I was going to take all of the pets home with me. Which worked out great for that hurricane we had 23 animals in our house. Whoa. Yeah, so we had my in laws. My mother and father in law, Our two children are animals, their animals, foster animals and all of my clients animals in the house. And it told him to be 23 animals. And it was, it was a lot, but it was doable. But with something like Hurricane II and where the possibility of having to evacuate was almost definitely going to happen. If it didn't turn, turn, I wouldn't have been able to do that with 23 animals. So I feel like that has definitely really set in stone, my hurricane in natural disaster policy where, you know, either the emergency caretaker takes the pet, a boarding facility takes the pet or the pet stays in the home, like, I personally really don't want the pet to stay in the home if I have to evacuate because I don't know when I would be back. I feel like it's necessary for the safety of me, my pets and my children to have this policy in place.
Collin 25:55
Yeah. And that's all about what we look at for our businesses is there's always that balance of but what can I do realistically, what is something that is actually feasible for me and was going to work for me? And at the end of the day, we can't forget that aspect. We can't just, you know, I'm sure some people may go, well, I'll just get a giant bus. And I'll have all the animals there. And well, you know, that's certainly one way to prepare for it is to have a giant evacuation bus or whatever. But there's a lot that's also tied up into that as well. And so I do think that we do have to make those hard choices, and the three choices that you have, and discussing what those look like for each of the clients is one of the best ways to do that going, okay, that the client also needs to be involved in this process. So what would they prefer? And then that takes a lot of burden off of ourselves to?
Cheyenne 26:49
Yes, exactly. And I was, I was so thankful that, you know, this, this other pet sitter had offered to help me with this. And I mean, it definitely is a huge relief from this end. Because when, you know, the the only thing I have to compare it to was Hurricane Irma in 2017, like the storm was nothing like that. So we need to also keep in mind that every natural disaster, every storm is different. And we have to be able to adapt and kind of be flexible to these things as well.
Collin 27:27
Well, that flexibility comes with the planning and also helps alleviate a lot of the overwhelm while we're in that moment. But as business owners, we're not just focused on the natural disasters, right, there's overwhelm that we come into and that we experience the rest of the year and from day to day operation. So for you, have you ever personally experienced burnout in your business
Cheyenne 27:54
salutely I feel like to a degree, every business owner has experienced this. And the way I see burnout is maybe a little different than other people. But to me, burnout just means you need something to change. There's something going on whether it be in your personal life, your business life that just needs to be tweaked a little bit. For me not having any employees I was working seven days a week with honestly only ever focusing on working seven days a week and my children, I found that I wasn't doing a whole lot outside of working or just didn't have the time to. Um, so the one thing that I changed to kind of get away from that burnout was I found things I was interested in, and I put them on my calendar first. So, you know, I started yoga has been a huge thing. I have yoga every Wednesday from 1pm to 2pm. It's on my schedule, I do not schedule anything in that timeframe. Um, I've also kind of changed my hours as far as you know, when my last appointment is and when my first appointment is, I will admit that I'm kind of guilty on being super flexible on that if I do not have a client that I've had for you know, the last six years and they need like a later appointment. I am flexible on that. But otherwise, I typically try to stick to the schedule. But I think definitely making time for yourself and making like your own little mental checklist is how you overcome that like fine. Like check in with yourself. Ask yourself what needs to change pinch, and create, like kind of a plan to ease into changing it.
Collin 30:06
Now they say if you want to know what's important to somebody, check their bank account calendar. And I think if most of us looked at it looked at our calendar, we would find that we have very little time scheduled for ourselves, right? We wouldn't have. So we would have very little things that are on there, that's just for us just our thing, something that's going to feed our mind, body and soul, and help us recover from these stressful events and the overwhelming happen day to day. And so by that, that first thing of going, you know, if I, I'm really good at always showing up for clients, and for appointments for everybody else. What is it? I think, well, this first question is going, what is it about showing up for an appointment for me that I find so difficult? And man, that that those questions can go down some really interesting roads, because it may mean, a lie, actually, I actually don't, I just don't value myself as much as I thought I did. Or I prioritize other people's happiness above and more than myself, or maybe I have a fear of losing out on an income and money. And so I always will schedule something else, because I know I'll make money from that other thing versus taking an hour to go read a book. Whatever those motivating factors are. In that moment, we have to walk through them. And that's a muscle that we have to build. It's not easy. Being business owners being entrepreneurs. It's not easy to look at that time and go okay, I need to value me for a little bit right now.
Cheyenne 31:31
Absolutely. And I feel like you and I can have a whole motivational mindset podcast on this. So last, again, this to August of 2021. I started when I guess a little bit before that. So when June I started having heart palpitations, and they landed me in the hospital twice. And you know, while I was in the hospital, they're like, your blood work, your X rays, everything is beautiful. You have anxiety? And I'm like, No, sir, I don't, actually I'm fine. And I'm like, I'm fine. I'm fine, I'm fine. And then in August of 2021, I ended up having a major panic attack that kind of threw me into. I don't want to use the word depression, because I don't think it was depression. But it definitely threw me off where I was just like, something's not right. This isn't right. I need to figure out how to, like, kind of fix whatever's going on. And I started seeing a therapist, and she's like, well, you're telling me all of these things that you were doing for everybody else, but what are you doing for you? And that's kind of when it really clicked and I feel like that's why I view burnout. That way is that, for now isn't something that's wrong with you. It's not something that's wrong with your business. It's just a little nudge telling you that something needs to change. So when I started doing the yoga, I started working out five days a week, I started putting things on my schedule for me first and filling in the spaces around it. I definitely feel like that completely turned not only my personal life, but my business around and just made everything better. When you start
Collin 33:37
putting yourself first as a priority. Yeah, you do all of a sudden start rescheduling everything around it. And I have those moments of in business in our busy lives. We try and figure out okay, what's the priority today? What do I need to get through on my list? Where's my latest? How do I rank these kinds of things? What if my kid gets hurt? I don't really have to go look at my list and go okay, is this where does this rank on my list? Right? I know where that priority goes. And when you are faced with heart palpitations, and you're dealing with massive anxiety that's impacting your ability to operate and enjoy what you're used to going, I don't think I need to put this on a list all of a sudden, this is my number one priority. We reach those moments in our lives where things come up that all of a sudden goes there's no need to rank this, I have to address this. And what's important for us is to recognize I need to get to the point where I'm doing that before it becomes a major issue. You
Cheyenne 34:34
know, your your child, we have this situation as well where, you know, I have all these appointments during the day but I got a phone call from the school. We think Hadley broke her arm. I dropped everything I was doing and immediately went to get her and I think if we start viewing our ourselves in the light of like our children or something that's most important to us that That will definitely change everything
Collin 35:02
in your life. Well, and sometimes that means quitting certain things, quitting from obligations, quitting from things that you signed up for quitting from things that you thought that you wanted to do. But now just realistically don't have the time. I know for me, that's one of the hardest parts of this of going, No, I committed to this, I need to see it through. And that can cloud my judgment of going, You know what, actually, this this is actually impacting me a lot more. You know, so I can't teach at my kids school anymore. I can't volunteer at this other place, I can't do all these these good things that I would love to do. But right now, it's not a good healthy place for me to try and spread myself even thinner to do those because then I'm not doing them well, and not valuing myself at the end of the day.
Cheyenne 35:48
Yeah, and recognizing it is the most important step. Most definitely.
Collin 35:54
You already know our friends that pet perennials make it easy for you to send sympathy and milestone gifts to people that you love and care for. But did you know they have designed a new line of car air fresheners, they integrate long lasting car fillings with adorable animal designs, and they're releasing new designs quarterly. So there's always something new. And they have sent these to Megan and myself and we continue to use them in our cars, they continue to smell well and our children continue to love them. They make great gifts, given the air freshener to new clients or since something small for birthday, or even a holiday gift, order a whole case of your favorite designs for $1.95 Each or you can have pet perennials, send it as a gift package to your client with that handwritten card and gift wrap for 1275, which does include shipping, visit pet perennials.com. and register for a free business account today. You know, this is this is the other aspect here of we're business owners. But we have these these personal lives that we we have to realize that impact our business as well. Not not necessarily a Oh, when I'm feeling this way, I don't make as much money. But they're they're inextricably linked, because it's it's our business, right? We're running it, we're guiding it, we're doing the fieldwork. We're involved in it. And so when we are impacted, that impacts how we run our business. And so for you, you know, how how should How should people go about getting help and support? If they're, if they're really struggling with their mental health? And these these other things?
Cheyenne 37:22
Yeah, so that that is beautiful question. I feel like mental health, there is like a huge stigma around it. I'm very open and talking about it. That could be a conversation for another day. My I have a personal loss with suicide and mental health issues. So there are a lot of wonderful resources that can help you or somebody you know, with mental health. Like I had mentioned earlier, I'm on the board of directors for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and southwest Florida. And their website is a great place to get resources. It's a f sp.org. If if somebody is in a mental health crisis or struggling with suicidal ideation, AFSP, along with our other national partners have gotten the 988 initiative implemented. So just like you call 911. And for police, the medical you can call 988 for mental health guidance. And that was one of our huge initiatives. I was actually on the advocacy board and got to talk to our local and state officials getting that passed into law. So that's a wonderful resource. If individuals aren't ready to talk to a mental health professional, having somebody who's like your support system, somebody you can have an honest conversation with is definitely the first first place to go talk in private to somebody about what you're going through. The one thing I would definitely recommend is if you are struggling with mental health is don't wait for someone to reach out to you. If you're having issues in your private life. immediately reach out to somebody that you trust or you know, your doctor, spouse, co worker, anyone like that, because a lot of times signs like these get overbooked. I'm pro long to feelings of like sadness. So a lot of times people who start I go with mental health act like the happiest people in the room, they're the ones that make you want to laugh. So definitely check on your happy friends. If you notice anything like changing in habits of your personal habits, like you're eating a lot less than you should, over eating increase drug or alcohol use is typically assigned to. And then extreme emotions, a lot of people don't realize but extreme emotions where you go through periods where you're extremely, extremely happy. But that's followed by a really, really low sadness, where you just feel into these emotions a lot more than you use to definitely reach out to somebody.
Collin 40:51
Well, and it's not something that's just for somebody else. Right? I think that the important part here is that we all can benefit from better mental health and talking more openly about this. And recognizing that everybody really has walks around with some sort of trauma from their life, however, they're going to define that and how it impacts that there's a really good book, called the Body Keeps the Score, about how the body is physically impacted by unprocessed trauma from some time in the past, and how one of the aspects of that is, you know, because traumatic events come up many times, it doesn't actually fully get processed and integrate into memory or the past. So that's one of the reasons why it always feels so present, and you can never get away from it, because it's never gotten processed. And then this can impact a lot of asleep, other behaviors, muscle activity, digestive system, all of these things can start stemming from that. And just recognizing going from a big, little small, medium, large, it doesn't matter, it impacts us, it could be the terror of a hurricane, you know, 20 years ago or more, it could be witnessing a car accident, that could be something a lot more personal and close to us. But realizing that we are impacted by that. And by talking about it by by not waiting by recognizing those signs, we are going to be better and through that process help others around us as well. And I think that's one of the things as well going, we can we can help a lot of people, by ourselves recognizing that we can we can start working in addressing some of the stuff that we're walking through too.
Cheyenne 42:32
Yes, definitely. And it's amazing that you brought up that book, that's actually one of my favorite books that I recommend to people, I have it sitting on my desk right now in front of me, oh, really, really wonderful book, I've personally bought it for about five or six people and sent it to them who have been dealing with traumas or you know, any anything related to that. It it's so interesting how your body does keep score like that. One person had said that, you know, for for a small child, even something as little as like the tone of your voice can be processed as trauma when you're speaking to them, like if you know, if you're yelling, a child can see that you're yelling, but the body can store is then being hit. So it's really interesting how your body, your body processes, all of that information, the same whether it's mental abuse, physical abuse, it's all processed the same. And that's, that's a really interesting part of trauma. And I do believe we do have with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, we do have resources right now for people who have been affected by the hurricane. So those are on there as well. Because again, that is a big trauma.
Collin 44:05
It is it's trauma. And as business owners, we're in the pet care industry, trauma may arise from the death of a client sometimes in the not so pleasant way or an abusive human client who is not treating us well, or is interacting with us in a bad manner. Or maybe we ourselves get hit, you know, in a car accident going from one place to another, we accumulate those and we tend to just brush them off and go Well Nevermind, I don't need to worry about that. Or that's not my thing right now or I'm too busy. I think that's one of the most detrimental things that we get involved in our brains are going I'm too busy to work with that right now. I'll deal with it later. And then later never comes and then we start to build up this unprocessed traumatic debt I guess in our bodies that can lead to a lot of this, this burnout and these mental health issues that we that we come across
Cheyenne 44:54
and with the with the car accident that's actually a trauma that I'm currently working Not and I was involved in a car accident going to a client's home. And, you know, I never thought about it again, I was like my car was totaled. But I was fine. Everybody else was fine. So like, I just went about my regular day, but my husband actually brought it up. And it was something that like, I didn't really notice. But when I would be in the car with him in the passenger seat, if he wasn't slowing down, I guess the way that I thought he would should slow down, I would jerk my leg up, just ever so slightly, like put it up, like I was bracing myself. And he actually pointed out and he was like, You're, you're having a trauma response right now. And then once he started pointing it out, and I started noticing it, I was like, Well, this is something that I definitely need to work on with elections professional,
Collin 45:59
those little things, again, the quote unquote, little that's not that's not belittling that in whatever, but it's the it's the how it manifested of it would have gone probably totally unnoticed for a long time, how do you not pointed that out, and then who knows what else that leads to. So yet another reason for why surrounding ourselves with a good community and having that on our schedule on our calendar, so that we are committed to that. So people can, you know, see how we're doing. And we can see how other people are doing?
Cheyenne 46:27
Absolutely. And I post a lot about mental health and how people can get involved and kind of learn more about signs if they know somebody struggling, or if they struggle, and resources that they can, you know, have access to, to kind of help them get through things like that. So it's definite, definitely, definitely a lot of great resources out there. For that, and, you know, I'm always open, if anybody has mental health concerns, they are more than welcome to reach out to me and have that conversation with me.
Collin 47:06
How best can they do that and get connected with some of the resources that you've mentioned today?
Cheyenne 47:12
Yeah, of course. So my business page is at SHINee de Petcare on Facebook and Instagram, both of those are open for private messages. And then I can give you my email to link in the show notes, because it's ridiculously long.
Collin 47:34
Absolutely. So yes, I will have that link, I will have a link to the afsp.org. The Nine, eight, and the link to the Body Keeps the Score in there as well. And anything else, you want to send our way chance we can have that in there. So if people are interested in donating to help out Florida and the local communities, how best can they do that? Yeah,
Cheyenne 47:54
so um, the Florida disaster fund is open for donations worldwide. So it's just Florida disaster fund.com, or you can text disaster to 20222.
Collin 48:10
Thank you so much. This is an extremely important and, and relevant conversation for for everybody, but also for the pet care industry, who, who experiences a lot of these things and doesn't really take the time or half the time in their day to process them. So I really appreciate you coming on and sharing and encouraging us to do and that there are steps and things that we can do to be better at this. So Shane, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show again today.
Cheyenne 48:38
Thank you for having me. It was wonderful.
Collin 48:41
What does your calendar look like for next year? How much time have you set aside for yourself to do things that you want to do, and not all of the other obligations that you feel like need to be on your plate. Managing a crisis begins with early and organized planning, whether that's for the hurricane, the tornado, other natural disaster, the car wreck that happens, whether that's for a mental health crisis that we ourselves experience, begin pulling together resources, begin building space in your life today to be able to address those and have that good support team around you. If you feel like you don't have that support team reach out to Cheyenne, Negan and myself, make sure that you are in our Facebook groups that are confessionals, so that you can be plugged in to a community of people who wants to see you succeed. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. We're so thankful for our sponsors today titled pet and pet perennials, and we really, really appreciate you so much for listening. We'll be back again soon.
