How Working Moms Can Slow Down, Breathe, and Let Go with Jessica Gershman

 Welcome to The Determined Mom Show. The only marketing podcast dedicated to guiding mom CEOs into tranquility, and wealth and multiplying those precious moments. I am your host, Amanda Tento and she is the founder and host of the founder of Zen Mommy and the host of Mom Slow Down! podcast.

So welcome Jessica and tell us a little bit about you before we dive into our topic. So then that way the audience can get to know you a little better.

 “Well, I’m a mom of four. I have two stepsons that I helped raise and two little girls. Zen is like a constant desire to strive for because life is really hard and tricky and there are always things, especially as a mom or a business owner sometimes you can have the best-laid plans and life is going to throw you a few curve balls.

So throughout my young years, I started my career as a Commercial Real Estate Developer at 19 and that was an interesting way to get into the business world when I graduated high school, I’ve always wanted to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. 

I looked at the trajectory of the last 13 years that I’ve trained in yoga and it’s been my movement of choice all throughout the country from New York to San Francisco and everywhere in between.

Yoga as a practice is like this beautiful meditation in motion and it’s a way to connect with our bodies for me, the practice allowed me to come back in and start loving my body, which I had hated for years and so when I launched the app Zen Mommy, I really thought hard about what brought me the most joy over the last 13 years.

So I teach 3 pillars. I teach movement, which is yoga-based. I teach nourishment/cooking. I create recipes that are allergy friendly, we’re gluten and dairy free at my house. Finally, I teach the mindset of peace, which is a meditation and breathwork because at any moment in your day you can stop, take five minutes and breathe.

Breathing is free, it’s available and it is scientifically proven to change the framework of your brain. So we don’t get out of this alive, life Is not without suffering. We’re going to have a loss and we’re going to have extreme joy and celebration but mindfulness meditation and yoga practice, it softens the highs and lows a little bit. So a lot of people talk about when you’re doing yoga and you’re living a yoga life or living a mindful life that you’re in what they call the ‘flow state’ meaning you’re just riding the wave.

There are little ups and downs and there are hiccups and there are things that come along because that’s just the way life is. However, you’re able to manage that a little bit better because you have, what I like to call your own kind of mindset toolbox or your own self-care toolbox. 

If you feed your body well, you’re going to feel better. If you prioritize rest and you get as much sleep as you can, you’re going to feel better. If you’re able to move your body actively, you’re just going to feel better because in life and when you feel better, you do better. You’re able to kind of tackle whatever life has to bring at you and you’re in that flow state.” That’s perfect do you have any last thoughts that you want to share on exactly how we can do that? Or should we just get the app or what is the best way around it?

“I think the thing about working moms is that they’re really good at scheduling things but struggle a little bit more with prioritizing themselves and self-care has been this idea that gets thrown around and it’s like you only need a bubble bath and you’ll feel less than right.

This whole idea of self-care is just created for you to go buy more stuff and do more things and feel not good enough and the idea is really just prioritizing yourself and slowing down and how you start your day properly. 

There’s always a choice at the moment so you can get up and you can immediately go frantic or you can take a few minutes and just create a mindset and think about a few things that I’m grateful for. 

Meditation increases productivity and anybody can meditate. Anybody can work on their breathing. So they can try my app and a few breathing techniques. We usually breathe like fight or flight breath all the time and so if we can access executive functioning in our brain with proper breathing, we can really be more productive because we’re not in this state of constant stress all the time.”

That is so powerful and that one statement is just amazing and it’s so freeing and relaxing to think about so thank you for sharing that with us. I hope you all have a great week. Don’t forget to join our Facebook group Mastering Google My Business to increase your revenue.