Marc Lehman delves into an open discussion about mental health and wellness with Ellen Bradley Ganus, online business expert, entrepreneur, athlete, and network. Ellen explains why self-care, consistent incremental efforts, and strict time management are crucial in maintaining sound mental health and finding genuine joy every single day. She also talks about the importance of embracing mindfulness practices and the right way to balance eating, sleeping, and exercising to secure significant personal growth.
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Mental Health And Wellness With Ellen Bradley Ganus
Welcome, everybody. This is a day where we’re going to talk about mental health and wellness. This project is called Normalize It Forward. We are welcomed by a fantastic guest, Ellen Bradley Ganus.
Ellen Bradley Ganus
Ellen, I have to say that as I was reviewing all of the things that you’ve done, online business expert, entrepreneur, athlete, and networker, you are a super passionate individual and, certainly, mom is at the top of the list. You’ve done so many different things. I wonder if I could toss a ball to you and have you tell us a little bit about who Ellen Bradley Ganus is.
For the sake of the readers and the subject at hand, which is all about mental health and wellness for families, children, and so on and so forth, I do many different things. However, everything is motivated by my love of family and wanting to be the best mother that I could be. My children are grown. It is my son’s birthday. He’s 22. My daughter is 25. Even though they’re no longer living at home, we still work and cultivate this relationship at every new stage of life.
My background is as an actress. I’ve been in the arts my whole life. I met my husband on a TV show when I was eighteen at Northwestern University. I have had what feels like so many lives since then. For the last couple of years, I’ve had the great pleasure of aligning with a health and wellness company that has allowed me to provide solutions for people who are looking for foundational elements to living their best life. Meaning, they want to look better, they want to feel better, and they want to be better.
What I learned over the last few decades is that when we don’t have the key nutrients in our body working right, it doesn’t matter how many affirmations we do or how many counselors we see. If we’re going home and we’re relying on that bag of Fritos, you are what you eat. Part of mental wellness, as it relates to what I’ve done, is really about that nutritional foundation for well-being.
I still work in the arts. I’m a flamenco dancer by night. I’m producing a film. I’m still acting. I’ve always had a love of personal development in every aspect of it, which led me to become a triathlete in the sports world and then allowed me to continue to be physical and active in the dancing world. The last few decades though relative to nutrition and mental wellness have been my great focus.
You’re a person who whenever I’ve asked you what you’re up to, you never say, “Hanging around.” You’re always doing things, which is great. You’re doing wonderful things.
Thank you.
Self-Care
That leads us to the first topic I wanted to chat about, which is self-care. Self-care is so important when it comes to mental health and wellness. I’m curious to throw the topic out to you and ask what self-care is and why it is so important.
Self-care is everything about cultivating a great relationship with yourself. People have it backward. We’re seeking outside validation on a regular basis, especially with social media, likes, comments, and what’s the interaction there. The reality is if we don’t have a relationship with ourselves, if we don’t feel good when the door closes, or if we don’t feel good when we are alone and we can’t enjoy being alone, then we’re not going to have very successful relationships outside of self. Self-care is honoring yourself, being true to yourself, and building a relationship with yourself where you’re able to identify the pain, able to identify the joy, and able to make strategic changes in your daily routines to stay better attached to that path that is helping you live your best life.
I love that. Self-care is one of those things that everybody defines a little differently. You’re right. In many ways, we’ve got decisions to make as a human being. Some of those decisions that we make aren’t healthy. Some of them are. For some reason, selfishness has gotten such a negative tone in our community that it makes it hard sometimes for people, especially parents, to step out and go to the gym, go to a therapist, or do things that we know to be healthy for them.
When you’re exhausted, stressed out, and not taking care of yourself as a parent, you cannot be patient with your kids. You cannot be as loving as you’re capable of being. If you don’t feel good, how can you behave like you are feeling good?
When parents are exhausted, stressed out, and not taking care of themselves, they cannot be patient with your kids. Share on XNo doubt.
It really comes down to sharpening the saw. When we take care of ourselves, we’re in a better place to take care of others.
My next thought about self-care is the fundamentals that I talk about. I know you feel so passionate about eating, sleeping, and exercising. You’re so passionate about doing those things and managing all three. I feel like every human being, including me, has trouble managing all three on a regular basis but we know in the backs of our brains, that’s the key. If we can do those three things, we’re generally in a healthier place. I’ll ask you. Why is it so hard to manage all three?
Nobody could do everything all at once. What they say is the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. It has to do with understanding that if we’re consistent, even if it’s 1% a day, that 1% can grow into 2%, 3%, 4%, or 5%. It all starts with very small incremental changes, but the key is consistency. If you think of your life like a pizza pie and you divide it into sections, ask yourself, “How much am I moving? Am I sitting at a desk all day? Am I not moving my body? Am I not helping my cardiovascular health? Am I not getting that blood through my body so that my muscles feel agile and good?”
Our vitality is directly connected to movement. It doesn’t mean that you have to be a triathlete. It doesn’t mean that you have to compete in anything. It means that every day, you do something, even if it begins with taking a walk. When you talk about how you manage it, you manage it by focusing on those different slices of the pizza pie a little bit each day and maybe eliminating a little bit of sugar in your diet.
It doesn’t mean you’re going to make a whole different dietary change. Maybe start with one thing. It may be eliminating a little bit of white flour or a little bit of sugar, having your protein before your carbs, or decreasing a little bit of the calories that you’re taking in a day. Choose one aspect of eating. Choose one aspect of exercise. Help yourself go to bed maybe fifteen minutes earlier than you would’ve. Maybe go to bed earlier but also wake up fifteen minutes earlier. How can you give yourself more time in the day? Especially busy families, You have to find the time that everybody else doesn’t need us. It’s the consistency of small incremental changes and then focusing on all those different aspects of self-care.
You said it really well. Your kids are very similarly aged to my kids. We’ve been through that rollercoaster if we don’t have a moment to do these things. I love how you said that. Do it 1 bit at a time or 1 step at a time so it’s not so overwhelming. Let’s face it. When we’re overwhelmed, we throw our hands up and don’t do anything, right?
That’s right. Fear, uncertainty, and overwhelm lead to the same thing, which is inaction. You have to break that cycle. You have to do some sort of pattern interrupt to get you out of that. It also has a lot to do with who you hang around with and what your circle is like.
Mental Health
No doubt. Healthier individuals tend to breed healthier individuals. The more people surround themselves with like-minded individuals that way, the healthier they become. Speaking of health, the phrase mental health, I’m always fascinated by this. When I say mental health, what do you think of?
I think of my ability to process life, engage with life, and be joyful in life on a regular basis.
That’s a really good definition. Often, I interact with young adults or their parents. Physical health, we got it covered. Everybody knows what physical health is. When we get a broken leg, we go to the doctor. We got that. When it comes to mental health, anxiety and depression are at an all-time high for young people. My area of work is often on college campuses. To me, the amount of kids that are either anxious or depressed is overwhelming. It’s going up each year for lots of different reasons. I wonder from your perspective what you think some of the causes might be that have led to such incremental rises in mental health for kids.
There is so little human interaction. We are being machine-taught. We’re socializing on machines. It has completely broken down the ability for people to know how to communicate and know how to express themselves on all levels. It has skewed our ability to trust because we don’t even know what it is to have a real relationship. We’re measuring relationships by, “Who ghosted me this week?” That has led to where we are. We’re living in unprecedented times politically. With good reason, people are stressed. It’s a very difficult time.
I want to share something with you that I wasn’t going to bring up, but it’s important as a mother, as we talk about anxiety, and as we talk about moving forward. This is why his birthdays are always so special to our family. When my son was two years old, he had a vaccine for diphtheria and tetanus. I was on the National Vaccine Association. I was trying to help the Vaccine Association make vaccines safer for children.
Mental health is one’s ability to process life, engage with life, and be joyful in life on a regular basis. Share on XIn an ironic moment, we took this vaccine, and then two days later, my son’s bone marrow stopped working. We were hospitalized at Children’s Hospital in ICU for a four-year journey. He had no white cells. He had no red cells. He had no platelets. If you touched him, he would bleed to death. The only opportunity for him to stay alive was, at that time, a bone marrow donation which had to be from a sibling. My daughter wasn’t a match.
When we talk about stress, I’m sure that every parent here can only imagine what it would be like to be faced with a two-year-old in a hospital with a PICC line to his heart and not knowing if each day is going to be the last. My daughter was in kindergarten. We lived every single day not knowing what the next day would bring.
Honestly, he’s a miracle. We did forms of chemo that took his body down to nothing, and then slowly, reticulocytes and red cells came back. A lot of gratitude, a lot of life, and a lot of trying to figure out how to move forward from there, releasing the fear of what we experienced and deciding how we are going to live our life and what’s important. Everybody has to say to themselves, “What’s important to me? What brings me joy? How is it that I am contributing to my family, my friends, my community, and the world?” It’s through our contribution and sense of purpose that we can rise above everything.
It was coming out of that journey that made me link arms with this company that was forming in order to educate about the perils of toxicity in our world. By cleansing the body at a cellular level and rebuilding the body, we had a better chance of staying alive. I made that my mission. That turned into the whole nutrition of how we feel, how we look, and all of this stuff that I talked about.
Coming out of that was a complete paradigm shift. Everybody needs a personal paradigm shift. They need an exploration of that inventory of, “Where have I been? How am I feeling? What’s got to change?” It’s up to us to make those changes. When it comes to children, the adults in their lives who love them have to be the ones to foster communication and try to dig in and find out what’s going on in their lives.
When we got out of the hospital, I wanted to expose my children to everything. I wanted to uncover their talents. They were never on screens. They were never playing video games. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with that, but everything in moderation. We started teaching my son piano from the hospital bed. He and my daughter ended up being concert pianists. We gave him dance classes. He then started playing baseball. He’s playing for the Big 10 at Northwestern, hoping for his final year for a draft. He ended up playing in the Pan American Games representing Team USA at twelve.
My point is to expose them to things that they love and then help them stay the course and develop those talents. While other kids were getting bored and existing on social media platforms, they were busy honing a craft. They were busy getting better at something they enjoyed. They were entering into their own competitions to test their skill levels and give themselves a way in which to compete against themselves.
They were interacting with other kids that were doing similar things. We were interacting with other families that had that same priority. I know it’s more difficult now than it was then because everything is machines now, but you’ve got to find your space to play a sport, play an instrument, dance to a song, go out with a friend, or have conversations. That’s what most people are choosing to not do.
That’s very well said. First of all, thank you so much for sharing that story with all of us. What is your son’s first name, if you don’t mind me asking?
His Name is Tyler.
Let’s celebrate his birthday. Happy birthday, Tyler. What an amazing, resilient young man and resilient family. You guys have been through a lot. I like so much of what you had to say. I told you that I wrote down passionate. When I was talking about you, I wrote down passionate. She’s passionate. As a mom and as a parent, you said it best. We have moved away from this type of interaction, this direct interaction.
I’m a virtual therapist. I see people in my office and I see people online. I’m the first one to say nothing’s going to replace in-person connection. When I talk to young people and they won’t go into a store to talk to a store manager about employment opportunities, it makes me sad. I also know, and you know this, that when kids go off to college and they don’t have that ability to talk to people, how do we as adults expect them to make friends? Let’s say you got a social kid in high school. They go from a bunch in high school to none. They go to college and it’s a whole new world. I agree with you.
Happiness And Challenges
One of the biggest reasons why we’re here is I want to normalize the conversation and get young people and parents to understand it’s okay to have struggles and challenges. What’s more important is what are you doing about them and what steps are you taking to help find your happiness in this world. Happiness comes in all different sizes and shapes.
It has to be defined by the individual. What makes each person happy is going to be different. A large part of mental wellness relative to everything we’re talking about is mindfulness. I raised my kids as yogis. We’re all yogis. Meditation was a part of our life from the minute we were born. I highly recommend that as something to explore.
There are great apps like Balance. You can still get it for free. It’s guided visualizations. They even have sensorial meditations where your phone will vibrate in your hands according to the gongs, according to the storms, and according to whatever the ambient meditation is. It’s such a great way to get your feet wet. Even if you don’t know anything about it, start some practice of getting quiet with yourself.
Time Management
It’s a tool. Let’s face it. We could all use additional tools. Clearly, every kid goes to school with their phone in their pocket, so to have an app on that phone that teaches them how to do things like that is great. Lots of people aren’t experienced with that. I appreciate the suggestion. That’s fantastic. The more tools kids can have, the greater their wellness gets and things like going off to school don’t have to be so daunting. You mentioned mindfulness. Time management is also a part of wellness. Let me ask this. What are some things as an individual you do to manage your time?
I always make my schedule the night before and always leave space in the day for the unexpected and welcome unexpected miracles. I try to not overschedule. I leave what I call blank space. I make my schedule the night before and time block according to activities. Time blocking might be the first two hours of the day for my meditation, my workout, my journaling, and my gratitude. That’s uninterrupted no matter what. You have to have the time blocks that are non-negotiables for yourself.
I’m an entrepreneur. It’s a little bit different from a corporate job. If you have a corporate job, you’re going to have a task list and you’re going to have when you arrive, when you go home, and what your check off for the day is. For me, it’s about what are my income-producing activities, what is growing my pipeline, and all the different aspects of what completes my day. I made a schedule the night before. I time block. I make sure there’s empty space in the day. Every night before I go to bed, I do the same thing so that I have a schedule. Some people feel like, “If I make a schedule, I’m going to feel like I’m in jail,” or something. When you make a schedule, it gives you more free time.
I agree. It gives you the bumpers of the day. I’m 100% on board with what you said. Let me ask you this. You said your kids are 23 and 20.
22 and 25.
Out of curiosity, from your own observation, what do they do for time management?
They do the same thing. I have a list from my son in elementary school. At the end of the list, he would always put, “Have fun!” They took great responsibility for how they were planning their day. My daughter, Spencer, worked really well with calendars and stickers, making it visually appealing. She could see, “This is going to be one of my dance classes,” and she could look forward to that. If she had a paper that was due and maybe she was having to put time into something she didn’t want to do, she could always look at the schedule and know it was coming. The key is the night before planning the day. You won’t have your activities for the month but nailing down that daily schedule the night before is everything.
The key to time management is planning the night before. Nailing down that daily schedule the night before is everything. Share on XIt’s a great suggestion. I love that you make time for things that pop up unexpectedly. I love what your son did when he wrote, “Have fun!” If we’re not having fun in our day, we’re missing out. Tomorrow’s another day, but guess what? We can have fun. Making some time, making some space, and making it important to take care of ourselves, which is so unbelievably important.
Ellen’s Nominee
This has been awesome. I appreciate you making the time. I know you’re busy and this is such a great topic to talk through. I feel like you and I could talk for hours about this, but I know we don’t have hours. Let me ask you this. Part of the project of the show is that I’d like to continue the conversation. One of the things I’m asking everybody is to nominate a friend, a coworker, or a relative that you think would be helpful to talk to and interview on this platform and discuss health and wellness. Do you have anyone in your circle that you think would be helpful for you?
It would be terrific if you wanted to interview my daughter. When she was thirteen, we did a campaign called Bridging the Gap. This was about the relevance of young people’s voices as well as the relevance of the middle-aged. We’re living in a world right now where young people who have access to everything sometimes feel that the adults in their lives don’t have important messages anymore. They can figure it out and they can find it on their own.
Through the campaign I did with my daughter and the work we did when she was younger, there was this very interesting place where we met in the middle. We respect each other, listen to each other, and learn from each other. As a philosophy major and literature major, she’s got a wide net of education and experience that will lend to sharing some really important thoughts about the world as a young person but also someone who has grown up in a family that was extremely mindful that also went through some very difficult challenges. I would suggest a conversation with my daughter.
Episode Wrap-up
I would love that. You’ve got my information. Put her in touch with me. We’ll set something up. The life of a young person, and sometimes, I feel like a dinosaur when I say this, is so different from our generation. When you look at the things they go through and the challenges that they have. One of the biggest reasons why I love working with young adults is helping them through that process. I really appreciate it. I look forward to meeting with her and interviewing her. Thank you so much for your time and energy. Have a wonderful rest of your day. I’ll talk to you soon.
Thank you for having me. Take care.