What Can I Give?

- Hi, Nick Hanson here from cadre. How are you today? What's on your mind? What's in your heart? Those are the things that I wanna share with you today. What's on my mind and what's in my heart? And I want to encourage you to ask those same questions. And maybe do a little writing on them. Maybe talk to your friends and family about them. But we need to emote, we need to express. Lack of expression can lead to depression. No man or woman is an island. We cannot keep it all inside, right? We've got a lot of it out there in some ways.

And I'm so grateful for this opportunity to do that with you today. I'm just gonna have my phone out here in case there's any technical difficulties. This is my first time going live on the cadre platform. And we're here to connect and deliver real experiences. And it's just an amazing opportunity. And I wanted to talk a bit about just some things that have come up for me in the new years and things that I've been thinking about. The first thing that I wanna talk about is what can I give? So I heard this awesome speaker talking about this, and he had hit a crossroads in his life.

And things weren't going well. And he realizes, I realize often that he was thinking more about what he can take. And I'll think that oftentimes it can get in that mindset, going into, whether it's going into a room or a work situation or a relationship or a friendship, what can I take? And we have needs that need to be met to sustain ourselves. But I get miserable when I think too much about what can I take. When I get in that mind frame, it's like, I just start thinking, oh, this has to go right.

And that has to go right. I forget that the world is abundant and the universe is abundant. So when I shift that thinking from what can I take to what can I give? If I'm going into a Zoom meeting, what can I give here? If I'm going into a work conversation, what can I give? If I'm going to a social event, what can I give? How can I be of service? I'm so much happier when I do this. And like anything else, I think it's a practice and I need reminders. And even though I know this, what can I give to be true, I'll oftentimes forget it.

And so that brings me back to this kind of other point of just solving today. In the recovery movement, we talk about one moment at a time. And I think to just solve today can be really, really important. And if you're struggling with overwhelm, it might be just solve the moment. Just solve the next hour. Just sometimes it might be just survive. And something I've learned about myself and I was actually talking to my psychologist about this last week is part of my personality is that I kind of go back and forth between expansiveness and despair.

And it's just kind of who I am. And that is maybe always will be the case, but I can learn how to live with that. And sometimes instead of trying to change myself, I need to accept myself. And that expansiveness, one minute thinking, oh, things are so amazing. I'm gonna be the president of the United States someday or some other grandiose thing like that. And it's important to have those dreams and hopes while maintaining a sense of reality or the despair. But I can flip to despair very easily too.

I'm not where I wanna be. This is not going right. I don't have this. I don't have that, you know, whatever it may be. And so I can crescendo quite a bit in between those things. But I'm thinking about what can I give? I'm not so worried about what my personal situation is and I'm thinking more about what I can, as some 12 step literature says, pack into the stream of life. And so this expansiveness and despair for me, you know, before I got sober and entered recovery, looked more like, you know, the expansiveness could land me in the psych hospital.

You know, I went to the psych hospital three times with manic episodes because that expansiveness took over and because I was using alcohol and other substances, I wasn't able to, you know, stay the moment and I lost track of everything. And also, you know, something I've identified as well that I was living in so much fear and I didn't know it. You know, I thought I was totally free as a bird in Amsterdam, but I was actually, you know, living in a lot of fear. I'm just going to make sure that this live is working.

So yeah. And so I just want to keep on making progress in that, you know? And for me, that growth has been very slow. It has been, sometimes I can make some big jumps and I like to do that. But the actual, you know, progress of my recovery and my healing has been a slow journey. And by just solving today, I can appreciate the moments, the things that I'm supposed to be hearing. And my experience, it all ends up coming to me if I'm open and accepting what the next person that I need to meet, the next person that I need to help, the next book that I need to read, you know, if I stay open and I keep the channels open and I try to live from the heart, those things are going to come to me.

I don't need to seek them. But once again, it's just a practice and I got to keep showing up. And it's like, you know, I was a tennis player and we have to get a lot of repetition in. You know, you got to hit a lot of forehands. If you're learning something new, you know, you might need help, you might need a coach, you know, you might need someone else to come in and help you. You know, and it can be frustrating. You might wonder, you know, my forehand was always weaker than my backhand. My backhand, 'cause I'm a lefty and I hit a two-handed backhand.

I right left hand but played tennis righty but I had the two-handed backhand. I would, in big situations, I love hitting the backhand. Forehand would sometimes tighten up, you know, and we might have those areas in our life where we tighten up and we're wondering how am I still tightening up here? How am I still fearful, you know, in this area? But it's just another opportunity to practice, you know. And in my experience, these things take time and that's okay, that's totally okay. So just take your time with it, just solve today.

And that's gonna open up to these kind of holy moments and I wanted to share a little bit of this writing that I did last week, if something I've been noticing over the past few months. And in a way, I'm busier than I've ever been and but every day feels chock full of what I've been calling these holy moments. Not holy in a religion sense. I just can't find a better word to describe these moments. Walking through a grocery store parking lot and looking at the sun and realizing suddenly what eternity might mean.

And then it's gone in a flash. Or I'm typing on my computer working on a spreadsheet, which is not my forte. And I'm looking down at my hands, you know, realizing these are the hands of the combination of all of my ancestors. And that at some point, one of them, maybe looking into a wooden bowl that they were washing in a stream had this same thought that I'm thinking hundreds of years later. Or I'm having coffee with a friend and I'm seeing their eyes twinkle in the sun while noticing a bird frolic on a branch outside the window.

These are the moments that have been making my days beautiful. While they are also filled with the usual hustle and bustle, the excitement of ideas and collaborations and work coming together, the fears and anxieties that we all have both individually and a collective society facing a global pandemic and other existential crisis. One thing is certain to me. We must learn to work and live and love together as one because like the Beatles say, and I highly recommend the new Beatles doc on Disney Plus that was directed by Peter Jackson who directed the Lord of the Rings films.

This is a line from one of the Beatles songs. I am the walrus. I am he as you are, he as you are me and we are all together. Or as I say, and I'm not comparing myself to the Beatles here, I just want to share this thought. It's all good in the neighborhood of your heart from the start. So these are some thoughts that I've been having and I don't feel these holy moments all the time. The past couple of days, I've been stressed. I've got work and projects and life and questions. And in the back of our minds, we have this pandemic looming and all this major happenings.

And so I like to share more about the good thoughts, but I think it's equally important to acknowledge those tougher thoughts and those fears. And I think it's a balancing act. And some of the times the canoe is going to tip up to fear and worry, but if we stay together, if we stick together, we can bring that canoe back to the center. And sometimes it might get tipped up too far for me towards this expansiveness or whatever it is, but if I stay grounded, that's been a big thing for me. I had a psychologist years ago talking to me about keeping it kind of within this realm of stability.

Or we can think about keeping it in between the lines of the road. And this stuff is all just practice. And a lot of times I think we need to just step, if I need to just step just right with all the stuff or the wheels are going to fall off. But my experience in the healing and recovery journey says that there is so much grace involved, right? We don't have to do it perfectly. Mistakes are going to happen. And that's something for me too, I need to work on. I hate to make mistakes. I hate to be in the wrong, it's scary, you know?

But we need to accept that part too and let go of some of that perfectionism and release some of that 'cause the opportunities are always there to do that. So as my friend at cadre says, I hope you caught some little tip in here that might help your day. I hope that you have a good day and I would encourage you to open that heart up, right? And whatever way that comes naturally to you, it could be a walk, it could be a meditation, it could be talking to someone, it could be writing, it could be anything.

We don't have to do it perfectly. We just have to do it together and connect in whatever way that works for you. My name's Nick, I'm from cadre. We're doing what we can to connect and deliver real experiences, have an awesome rest of the day and please share what's on your mind