Monica Jackman Coach and Counsellor

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Healing Hearts
Live Love Laugh

With Mel Robbins – I just made it onto her weekly engagement list by being one of their top engagers! 🎉

With Healthy Waterford – I'm on a streak! I've been a top fan for 25 months in a row. 🎉 Healthy Waterford is the group for Health and Wellness Practitioners in Waterford City and County and it brings Practitioners from many different disciplines together to share resources, information and support. I am delighted to be part of this group.

I was glad to read this. There can be so much conflicting advice. "Women should lift heavy weights." "No - women are not small men." Don't lift heavy weights." "They" say if you don't build your bone strength you could get osteoporosis." "If you lift heavy weights you could get a prolapse." Therapists can offer advice to express emotions in ways that incluse the physical body. I won't mention any of them here as it is very individual for each person.

The list of do's and don'ts could go on forever depending who you are talking to. I think this is great advice - to listen to your own body, mind and gut and decide what feels right for you. Each human body has been through it's own unique experiences in life and some parts of the body may be vulnerable or traumatised. Your body will tell you when you need to stop but your mind and your gut instinct may be telling you not to even start. Listen to the messages that your body is sending you. Yes it is important to exercise and to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and take medical advice but please don't feel pressurised or shamed into doing exercise that is bad for your body.

I had the pleasure of attending a wonderful session with Dermot Whelan at the Tower Hotel in Waterford, organised by Waterford Chamber Skillnet Skillnet.

It was one of those talks that makes you laugh, reflect, and leave with something genuinely useful.

Dermot spoke about stress, mindfulness, and leadership with such honesty, sharing his own experience of how stress gradually caught up with him. It was a powerful reminder that stress rarely arrives all at once - it quietly builds over time until, before we know it, we've accepted feeling exhausted as normal.

One image that has stayed with me was his description of busyness being like a river. It will fill every space we allow it to. Unless we intentionally create room to pause, rest, and reflect, our days will simply keep filling up.

He also asked a question that really made me think:

"Why did no one teach us about stress in school?"

It's such an important question. We spend years learning academic subjects, but many of us were never taught how to recognise the signs of chronic stress or how to protect our own wellbeing. Thankfully, that's beginning to change.

Another takeaway for me was the difference between being "good busy" - energised by meaningful work - and being completely exhausted. They're not the same thing, and it's worth checking in with ourselves from time to time to know which one we're experiencing.

What I appreciated most was that Dermot didn't just talk about the challenges. He shared practical coping strategies, grounded in neuroscience, giving us simple techniques that we can use in everyday life to better understand our minds, manage stress, and build resilience.

There were plenty of laughs throughout the morning, but behind every laugh was an important message.

A sincere thank you to Waterford Chamber Skillnet for organising such an inspiring event, and to Dermot Whelan for his honesty, humour, and generosity in sharing his experiences.

Sometimes the biggest leadership lesson isn't about doing more.
It's about knowing when it's time to slow down.

It was so lovely to meet Dermot after his talk to say Hello. He was very warm and approachable and very patient with a queue of people who were waiting to talk to him.

💙 I'd love to hear your thoughts. How do you make space for yourself when life starts to feel too busy?



Network Ireland Waterford Branch
Waterford Chamber of Commerce
Healthy Waterford