Coffee Chats With Dr. D☕️

Hello, cadre. It's me, Dr. D. I'm trying to get situated over here, but welcome to my coffee chat. And today I just finished a cup, so I'm here to fill my cup with you guys, okay? But I want to revisit this topic of gratefulness because it's November, it's almost Thanksgiving. Can you believe we're two weeks away from Thanksgiving? It's crazy. But I'm excited about that. I really love this time of year. It gives me a chance to mentally slow down. And so I've been really contemplating about the friendships and connections that I have.

And I want to share with you a few of the relationships that I am grateful for. And I want to talk about the relationships that have been unexpected that I'm grateful for. So I'll give you an example of that. It's shown up in different ways. But there is one particular person from high school that during high school, I thought this person hated me. I thought this person was, I don't know, I was maybe a little timid when I was around this person. And we later reconnected in life as adults. And this person became one of my best friends.

And so that was an unexpected connection that happened because I was holding on to the old version of that person and actually found out that person admired me during that time that I was timid around them. So that is 1 unexpected relationship that I'm still grateful for. This person is still a huge part of my life and they are a really great mirror for me. They can reflect some things in me that I don't always see that Sometimes there's parts of me that I forget about and they're able to do that.

They just have this natural gift of doing that. But I want to also share something that has been an unexpected connection that's happened recently and it's with family. So I grew up alone, basically, it was just me and my mom and my grandparents live far away from me, both sets of grandparents. at least a good five hour drive. So I didn't see them often growing up. And I remember, I would see them maybe twice a year and it was usually around Thanksgiving is when it was either Thanksgiving and Christmas is one of the times that we would always go back and visit them.

But my grandparents are aging. My grandmother on my mother's side is the only one that I have left. And she currently lives near us. She lives with my mother. And so this past Sunday, so just a few days ago, I had the opportunity to spend some time with her. My grandmother is 88, I think. But she's also struggling with dementia. So she and she just had. Recently, I know it's a lot. But it's just part of life, right? And so she doesn't talk as much as she used to. She doesn't have all the cognitive functioning that she used to.

And so I am. I was in a space where I was her caregiver for the day for a good five hours. And I got to interact with her in a way that was very different and very unexpected. And she served as a mirror for me, whether she knows it or not. And I'm grateful for the time that I had with her this past weekend for a few reasons. One, I've never really been around my grandmother for long periods of time until this time of her life. But 2, it showed, it was like a mirror for me to see, to think forward and thinking about how do I want to show up as I age and how do I want to connect with people that are important to me and how do I want to maybe not be a burden on others as I get older.

And so it made me think about the future. It made me think about planning for certain things that I never necessarily needed to think about. And so that was an unexpected connection that I had this past weekend. And I would say I don't always get the opportunity to connect with family because again, I grew up alone, only child, single mom. And so my family is kind of all scattered across the US. And so we don't get together that often. But having the time to have that one-on-one time with my grandmother and seeing her more in a childlike state, I guess.

It made me reflect on myself and reflect on the future and how I want things to be for myself. But I don't know if you've had that experience. I would love to hear about that. But I do have one more unexpected and I guess it's a community that I'm a part of. And so I've talked about, you know, the gratefulness and the unexpected connections with a friend someone that I didn't know liked me with a family member. And now I'm going to talk about community. And that is my jiu jitsu community. So if you don't know, I've been training jiu jitsu for almost 10 years.

It'll be 10 years in January. And I've met so many like really amazing people. And they're people that if we didn't train jiu jitsu together, I would never, probably never ever see them or ever speak to them. So I train with a variety of people that have a variety of backgrounds. And when I say variety of backgrounds, I'm talking, construction workers, police officers, people who are ex-criminals, people who are moms, dads. I train with kids. I train with people who are professionals and I train with people who are who have been literally homeless and that sleep at the gym.

Not my gym, but it does happen. And I've trained with people from all walks of life. And the one thing we have in common is jujitsu. And I think those are special connections that I've been able to make over the years through a common interest. And so I want you to be curious this week and for the rest of the year. what communities are you a part of where you've had some unexpected connections that have happened, that you've been in places with people that you probably would never really talk to outside of that community, but some of those connections you've made in the community have, you know, maybe helped you see yourself differently or helped you show up in a different way.

And I think, you know, just being honest, Cadre is also one of those communities that the people in Cadre, the creators here and even the people that I've been communicating with that show up for the coffee chats, where would I have ever talked to you guys if it wasn't for Cadre? So this is a very special community and one that I'm also grateful for the unexpected connection. Even how we, well, how I became a part of Cadre was unexpected. It was a complete blessing. And Luke, thank you for everything.

So think about that y'all. Where are you showing up that maybe you're an unexpected blessing in someone else's life, but what are the connections you've made in the past year? Just look back at this year. Maybe you've met someone new this year that has been an unexpected connection that you were so grateful for. So let's stay in this attitude of gratefulness. Let's keep it going. And I will see you guys next Tuesday for my next coffee chat. We'll see if I have coffee. because my cup is empty, but I feel full with you guys.

Have a great week. Bye.