The Gray Stuff Is Delicious

Well, good morning, Cadre JC here. It's a bright, sunny Sunday morning in Minnesota, where I'm located. And I am currently, as I often am, sitting in my automobile outside of cub foods. So I'm a church musician. Every Sunday morning for the last couple of decades, I'm one of the few people on the roads driving to a piano bench where I sit and I lead worship. And one of my favorite things to do is to stop at cub foods and to get a couple donuts. I always get one glazed and then one also raised donut, but chocolate frosting with sprinkles.

And I enjoy them greatly. Isn't it weird how in the world of being well or being healthy or doing good things for ourselves, we often have to get really quiet about these types of things? Good morning, Katie. Nice to see you. We have to get quiet about nufi lover. Nice to see you, my friend. It's weird, like the things that we actually enjoy. Hey, Shannon. Nice to see you. Happy Sunday. It's so much fun having friends show up. And by friends, I mean people who make you feel like something really great just happened to you.

The three of you made me feel like that. Keep saying good morning. If you're here, you'd be surprised at the impact it has on one another. So I enjoy a couple of donuts every Sunday. Most Sundays, Sunday is when it feels like, ooh, I think I'm gonna stop and grab a couple donuts today. This is a live stream called try the gray stuff. It's delicious. Of course, a very, very famous quote from the historical figure Lumiere from beauty and the beast. What I mean when I say try the grey stuff is so often in this world of doing good things for ourselves, feeling good.

As my friend Shannon would say, one of our big goals here at Cadre is to help people feel good. The path is either do it this way and you're doing it right, or do it this way and you're doing it wrong. Move more, eat less. Try this workout, not that workout. Cut this out. Do more of this. Do this for 75 days. Stop this, start that. I think we fall in love with this idea because it seems simple. If we do these simple things, then we will be better. We will be right, we will be healthy. All the problems will go away, will be enough.

We'll be honored. We'll be seen. We'll be skinny, we'll be tall, we'll be happy, we'll be honest, we'll be clear. Fill in the blank. And I think more and more, we're realizing that there aren't actually those black and white rules. It's within the gray that we find our wholeness, that we find our uniqueness, that we find our clarity. It's in the thin space between the light and the dark that invites us into us going, I think I'm doing it right. I recently shared a post after I met with two, two gentlemen for coffee.

Individuals had nothing to do with each other, but on the same day, I met with these two. I'll give you some demographics. Two white men in their fifties, successful, affluent, physically capable of doing the things that we normally value when it comes to being athletic. And a lot of their identity was given to them about being, you know, these 50 year old alpha men who can do physical things. They could go to the gym and they can work out. And both of them used a phrase that I think we hear a lot nowadays.

And that phrase is, I need to move every day for my mental health. Well, what happened to both of these men is they moved every day for their mental health. And then their bodies got tired, their bodies got injured, and all of a sudden, they weren't able to move every day anymore in the way that they found joy. And it sent them into a pathway of darkness, of sadness, of isolation, of questioning themselves. And again, in the same day, I met with these two individuals who had nothing to do with each other.

And their stories were very parallel. And both of these men started to have tears well up in their eyes and they got really, really sad and scared and real. And they got sad and scared and real. When I raise the point that when we're told that we're supposed to, it's like, oh, if you move every day, that you're doing it right, movement every day is awesome. It can be the best thing in the world. But if you get to the place where you need that, where you are addicted to having to move every day, or you cannot live, what do we call that?

We call it an addiction. If your identity becomes wrapped around doing this one thing, and then maybe one day your body says, you know what? We're tired today. You know what? We're sore today. You know, we need something else today. But you're incapable of giving it that. It leads you down a path of maybe not the healthiest of things. So both of these men started to well up with tears when I said, here's the pathway. You find movement. You see what it does for you. You're told that if you do it every single day, it'll be the best thing in the world.

People start knowing you as the faster, stronger, harder, deeper, committed, never giving up. Never miss a Monday. Keep it going. Keep it going. Yes, yes, stronger. Top of the leaderboard. You're doing it. You're growing, you're getting faster. And then all of a sudden, you go, I love feeling like this. I love being this person for everybody. I love the person that everybody depends on to always be that way. And then all of a sudden, you can't be that anymore. And you go into the dark, into the depressed, into the scared, into the sad, into the questioning of who you are, and then you start over again.

Doing anything to a place where you have to do it every single day is not healthy. Stronger, harder, faster, deeper, more, more. More is probably never the answer. You going, what do I need today? What is my intuition and my curiosity and my honesty and my presence? Asking for giving it? That is probably the best thing that you can do. Whenever your body says, you know what would make me really happy and filled with joy right now? Some days it's going to say it's a donut. And if you give it that donut, your body's going to start trusting that you're trusting it.

And if you go, wow, that sounds really easy, listen again. Because I think it's the hardest thing to do. To try to decipher what your body's asking for is a lifelong experiment that's worth living. It's all about opportunity costs. Hey, Chris. Good morning. My friend Katie says, just like investments, we need to diversify the things that bring us happiness. Katie. Right on. I wish we were better to market the phrase everything in moderation, because I don't even think that that's true. Right. It may not be everything.

You may be the person who does have a relatively simple formula for what you do every day, and there may be a little bit of change. But, Katie, you're right on. If you experience many things that can bring you happiness, your body learns that it can ask for a lot of different things to guide you down that pathway. So if you're wondering, how long am I going to hold this donut without taking a bite? No longer, my friends. This is the best donut, and it's been the best donut since. So there's this doughnut shop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.

It's my hometown called Donut Delight. Closed down about 30 years ago. That was the best donut ever. But cub foods, Minnesota based grocery chain, gosh, I got good donuts. I'm gonna enjoy mine. My invitation to each of you is to go. What is the thing that right now will bring you a little bit of Sunday morning joy? Is it going back to bed? Is it youtubing a Saturday live clip? Is it snuggling up with a dog? Is it going for a walk? Is it making a breakfast? That is low carb, organic, gluten free?

Is it eating the donut with two exclamation points? Thank you, Shannon. It's in the gray that we find our happiness. It's in the gray that we find the fact that we are not nouns, we are verbs. We are evolutions. We are ever changing and ever unique. We are not a noun. You are not that simple. And that's a pretty cool thing. Hope you have a great Sunday, everybody. Find your proverbial donut and bite into it.