Don’t forget to care for yourself. While work and being a spouse/mother is important taking care of yourself is equally if not more important.
Today, more than ever, wellness is at the forefront of societal discussions. From mental health to physical well-being, women are making significant strides in bringing about change, introducing innovative solutions, and setting new standards. Despite facing unique challenges, they break barriers, inspire communities, and are reshaping the very definition of health and wellness. In this series called women in wellness we are talking to women doctors, nurses, nutritionists, therapists, fitness trainers, researchers, health experts, coaches, and other wellness professionals to share their stories and insights. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Lori Lembcke.
Lori Lembcke is a Physician Assistant and CEO/owner of Lux and Leaf Wellness and Lori Lembcke Inc. She is breaking the barrier of just staying in the medical box by creating sister holistic wellness brands that are tailored to busy working mothers. Her passion is to help other working mothers overcome and beat overwhelm and burnout for good through her online Busy Mommas Guide to Beat Burnout course and through high quality nutraceuticals and supplements.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
Absolutely! I will never forget the day that I told my nurse mother that I was going to go to nursing school. We were standing there in our kitchen while she was making dinner and her response was “you can’t even see the dog throw up, how are you going to care for sick people”. Well let’s just say I have proved her wrong and beyond. I am a third-generation nurse who has pivoted my career into advance practice as a board-certified PA (Physician Assistant) and now into an entrepreneur who has developed sister holistic wellness brands that are tailored to busy working mothers. I started my career in health care as a Licensed Vocational Nurse then went on to earn an Associates Degree and a Bachelor Degree in the Science of Nursing, followed by my Masters Degree as a PA. I practiced as a nurse for a little over 10 years in a variety of different areas ranging from surgery trauma, surgical intensive care, radiation oncology, hospice, and post anesthesia care. I had reached a point in my career where it was time to either go into management or advance practice. I did a short stent in management and missed the medical side of things, so I decided to go into advance practice. Most people ask me why I decided to be a PA and not a Nurse Practitioner. There are a few different reasons, but the main two were the way in which PA’s are trained and the ability to work in the operating room.
I have been working as a PA for 6 years with a very busy practice working out of the number one hospital in California. As almost all health care providers I was reaching the point of burnout and then add on becoming a new mom. I was feeling lost, overwhelmed, isolated, constant fatigue, and depressed. I was living a very reactionary life, just responding to what was thrown my way. I was not living life on my terms. Like most working mothers I was feeling guilty and inadequate with both my home life and work life. I refused to sur come to the awful “hot mess mom” stigma. I knew there had to be a better way of life and I was determined to create a new reality, one that was on my terms and that brought back the confident happy person I previously was. I spent hundreds of hours reading and learning from the top masters in the self-improvement industry. I did endless trial and errors to figure out what actually worked and worked for the long term not just a quick fix. As I was regaining who I previous was my colleagues that were also working moms would stop and ask me how I was I able to do all that I was doing without being burnt out. I wanted to help share all the amazing life changing skills that I had learned that helped me regain not just my life back but an improved life that has me on a continued path to becoming an even better version of myself. As women we all carry such superpowers that often we aren’t even aware that we have. I help show women how to tap into those superpowers with a few simple shifts in both mindset and habits to create the life that they deserve and want to live. With that I created the online course Busy Momma’s Guide to Beating Burnout.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
As we all know 2019 was a crazy time for the whole world with the COVID pandemic. A week after I found out that I was pregnant the pandemic hit. It was a scary time of the unknown. During this time some of my patients were post-partum mothers who either fell ill with COVID during the last trimester or directly post-partum. I have been in healthcare for over a decade and seen some pretty heartbreaking and crazy things, but this took the cake as far as how hard it hit me. In the area of healthcare that I work death is unfortunately too frequent given how critically ill the patients are. During the prime of COVID taking care of these mothers who never got the chance to hold their babies or ones who barely got to enjoy their new baby was extremely hard for me not to be emotional about it. Their rooms would be covered with pictures of the baby. These mothers would be on full life support with machines running almost every system of their body. Some women even had to undergo emergent c sections just to save the baby. Unfortunately, I only got to see a few that actually made it out of the ICU. Others were not so fortunate, and it was absolutely heart wrenching when a mother would pass away. I still get emotional just talking about it. To think that these poor children would never know their mother and some who had never even got the opportunity to feel the warmth of her skin.
COVID taught a lot of us to not take the small things for granite. It has made me really cherish even the smallest of things that I get to share with my daughter and my family. It is also why I am so passionate about helping other busy moms create a life that they enjoy, not stressed out and missing out, one that is filled with joy and happiness with their families.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
One of the biggest mistakes that I made early in my career is not holding boundaries. I am a people pleaser and I wanted to show how devoted I was along with continuing to prove my value, so I was saying yes to everything, seeing an endless number of patients per day, writing notes for the patients that I saw until late in the night, and answering calls from the hospital at all times of the day. I was putting my work first over myself and my family. Then would be upset that I was burnt out. Once I realized that this was one of my main sources of burnout, I had to enforce some firmer boundaries. I had to remind myself that there is 24-hour care for my patients that is being provided by the multi-disciplinary teams, also one of the physicians that I work with is on call for the hospital 24/7. I also have a boss that will continue to give you as much work as you are willing to take so that he could continue to have the quality of life that he wants and spending time with his family. I had to learn how to say no. I had to remind myself that my life and my family is just as important as his family and his life is to him. I love quotes. There are two quotes that I refer to when I explain how important boundaries are. “You teach people how to treat you by what you allow, what you stop, and what you reinforce” Tony Gaskins. “If you don’t prioritize your life someone else will” Greg McKeown. This is a huge thing that many of us don’t think about or implement in our lives. We don’t realize how life changing it is until we make those simple shifts. Once I started putting up boundaries, I was able to regain my life back.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
Though I enjoy the individual work that I do in the hospital with each patient that I care for I knew I was meant to touch more lives than one at a time. I want to be able to impact thousands of women’s lives. Often the main topic when it comes to motherhood revolves around post-partum anxiety or depression, but the stress of motherhood extends well beyond that. I know how important it was for me to regain my not only my life back but my identity back after having my daughter. I want to help show women how to tap into their inner superpowers and regain or even create the life that they deserve and want to live. It is my passion and mission to help provide women with the proper tools that not only helps pull them out of overwhelm and burnout, but also continues to allow personal growth. I want to help break the cycle that unfortunately our society has created towards women called the Human Giver Syndrome (HGS). HGS is a belief that women have an obligation to give their all to everyone by setting aside their own personal needs. While at the same time women must maintain being pretty, happy, and calm. This is one of the biggest sources of overwhelm and burnout when it comes to being a woman. It is a hard cycle to break because it is so deeply engrained in our up bringing. In my Busy Momma’s Guide to Beating Burnout course I help teach women how to take the steps to break free from this cycle.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing?
1 . Self-awareness/Mindset
Our minds are such powerful things. We truly are what we think. Just think of how the placebo effect works in medicine. “Your body is your subconscious mind” Dr. Candace Pert. Our bodies want us to be well, happy, and healthy. But much of this is held up by our disruptive thinking keeping us in a pattern of negative thoughts. Psychologists estimate that we have approximately 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day and 85 % of those thoughts are negative, and about 90% of them are the same habitual and unconscious thoughts that we had the day before. Once we can become self-aware of these thoughts, we can create new ones to replace the old pattern allowing for you to create real change in your life.
2 . Physical Activity
Physical activity is so important not only for our physical body but for the mind as well. There are endless studies that show how important physical activity is to keep your brain healthy even with just 15 or 30 mins a day. Physical activity boosts serotonin which can help alleviate depression. It can also help delay age related cognitive decline. I find that it helps me to stay more productive because it gives me and extra energy boost. The days that I really don’t want to go, and I fight through it, it gives me a mental boost as well because when we show up for the hard things is when it matters most. It is easy to do things when you want to, but when you have the self-determination and drive to show up when you don’t want to this sets you apart from the rest.
3 . Boundaries
We are the ones who teach people how we want to be treated. Boundaries are going to ever evolve with whatever stage of life you are in. They are personal to you. Having boundaries can provide you the freedom that you deserve to have.
4 . Selfcare
I feel like selfcare can be a trigger word for especially mommas as we have very limited time and everyone is trying to stuff selfcare down our throats. But it really is important, and it can look as simple as having 30 mins to yourself, taking a shower (by yourself), getting in a daily workout, journaling, spending time with a therapist, or having dinner with friends. As a people pleaser and one who wants to be there for my daughter for everything, I must remind myself that, one it is good for her to have time away from me, two I need and deserve this time, and three I will be able to show up as a better person.
5 . The power of habits.
Over 95% of what we do are habits. Habits are not just the physical things that we do, but it is also the thoughts that we think. Habits can either make our lives more difficult than it needs to be or easier. Developing proper habits can help you to create the life and the identity that you so desire. In order to break one habit you must replace that habit with a new desired one. For example: Every evening you come home and your habit is to drink a glass of wine to unwind. It is the reward of associating drinking wine with relaxation. Now if you just tried to come home and avoid drinking wine your not going to feel the satisfied sense of relaxation and typically will crave it even more. So you must replace it with the better habit that you are wanting to start. This use to be me I would come home and pour myself a glass of wine to escape the stress of the day, but once I realized that the wine was giving me poor sleep and making me irritable the following day, I knew I needed to stop this habit. In order to break this habit, I needed to fill it with a new one, so I started to drink nonalcoholic adaptogen drinks. Adaptogens are amazing herbs that help reduce the stress response in the body. It helps relax the body’s nervous system. I would pour my adaptogen drink into a wine glass so it still had the feel of drinking wine. Do I miss drinking the wine, yes sometimes, but then I remind myself of the reward not doing so, a good night’s sleep and no irritability the next day. A habit is all about the reward so when you feel like that bad habit is trying to pull you in take a second, stop and remind yourself of the good feeling that comes from the new one.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Moms supporting other moms. With social media there is so much toxic perfectionism out there along with mom shaming. Being a mother is hard enough on its own there is no need for the additional pressure and criticism especially from other mothers. If we could take away all these Instagram perfect pictures and mean comments to mothers who are just trying to do their best with what they have, we could help eliminate this toxic perfection culture.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- Don’t forget to care for yourself. While work and being a spouse/mother is important taking care of yourself is equally if not more important.
- Learn the art of delegation. Just because we can or know how to do something it does not mean that we need to do it. Not delegating things off your list that don’t require your skill can increase the feeling of overwhelm and burnout.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help. This plays off the art of delegating. We can’t do it all, especially as mothers we want to try to do it all for everyone and it can be hard sometimes to put up the flag and ask for help. You might be surprised how much of a supportive response that you get when you ask for help.
- Motivation is great, but you must develop the proper habits to keep it going. When I started developing my companies, I was super motivated and excited, but once the shiny newness started to wear off it was hard to stay motivated. Once I set the proper habits into place it helped keep me on track and moving forward.
- Stop and smell the roses. Often, we are working so hard that it is hard for us to see how much we really have accomplished and give ourselves credit for it and take a minute to actually enjoy it.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Mental health is so important to me. As one who has struggled with depression most of my life, I want to help normalize mental health. Many of us often just push our emotions under the rug and don’t face them head on. Having the ability to become self-aware of different emotions is key to unlocking some of the deep causes of different types of mental health problems. I still battle with intermittent depression. I am open about how I take medication for it, which helps, but it is not the complete answer. I had to step back and evaluate my emotions, and often I would find the things that were driving it were things that I needed to address. For example, working out is a huge part of keeping my mental health in line. I found myself falling back into my depression and realized it was because I couldn’t go to the gym and workout like I enjoy doing because my husband was out of town working for a month. So, I had to improvise and create a new routine of working out at home. While yes it wasn’t the same as the gym, I was still able to get what I needed by lifting weights at home. I understand that sometimes it is not that simple of a solution and love all of the new therapy companies that have started making therapy more accessible. I have faith that this wave highlighting the importance of mental health will continue to grow even bigger.
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
They can check out my websites and subscribe to my email list:
Or follow me on:
Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest: @lori_lembcke
Tiktok: @_lorilembcke
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com.
