Wellness Rewrite

Well, hey, Cadre JC here. m. Central Standard Time on Tuesday. This is wellness rewrite, and I'm coming to you live from a theater. So, in wellness rewrite, we look at kind of the words, the, the ideas that we associate with mental health and wellness, and we think about how we use them and if we use them in the healthiest way possible, because quite often we don't. So you may be going and say, oh, JC's in a theater. What's that about? So I have a part of my world that exists very much in spaces like this.

I'm a theater educator, a music director, so I live often at the piano. And it's always so interesting working with young actors, because the younger we are, the less we are affected by the world that teaches us how to live. We often see younger people are a lot more willing to be. Hey, Chris, how's it going? Younger people are a lot more capable of being imaginative and playing and trying different things, and the older we get, we kind of lose that. But as a music director, even at a young age, I see this.

Here's how I start every single show. So this is the world premiere musical, dragons love tacos. It's a popular children's book that this will be the first production ever done. Hey, speak wonder. Nice to see you, my friend. So whenever I'm working with a new cast, I always say this. I hold up three fingers on my right hand, then I hold up three fingers on my left hand, and I ask the cast, I don't care if they're 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 years old or if they're 5678 years old. I ask, hey, everybody, by the time we reach the end of this rehearsal process, do you think there's any chance that you are not going to know your words, your notes, and your rhythms in your music?

And everyone goes, no, of course we'll learn it. We have all the time. That's what the rehearsal process is for. And I go, great. Since we're all on the same page, knowing that we're going to learn those things, can we not wait? And I hold it my other hand, can we not wait to. To be confident, clear, and committed to the story that we're telling through the music? Because so often this is how we do things. We go, I don't know it yet. So I'm gonna be hyper apologetic, and I'm gonna be really quiet and really afraid of making mistakes until I know those things, the words, the notes, the rhythms, and then I will be confident and clear and committed to the story that I'm telling with joy.

What do we have against being confident and clear before we know how to do the thing? How often do we hear, oh, you just have to show up and suck? And I go, what an awful. What an awful way to walk into a situation? I'll say, it's like, yeah, when we show up, we may suck at some things. We're also a heck of a lot better at some other things that experienced people lose the capacity to do. I look at the nine year olds in my cast. They know how to play. They know how to pretend. They know how to be big and bold and messy.

My 14, 1516 year olds, they don't. Those are two different skill sets. Two different skill sets that have a lot of worth. So the whole mentality of showing up and sucking, I think we say things like that because it makes us feel, first of all, like that's how it's supposed to be. Like, we're supposed to feel awful when we start something new, and then sooner or later, we feel better about it once we got it all figured out. What if when something's new, we show up and we excel and asking really fresh perspective questions?

When we're new, we have excitement and we have anxiety and anticipation. We get to feel those firsts. We're not sucking at those things. We're actually excelling at those things. Cause I tell you, I look at my actors on the stage, and they think when they're starting at the beginning that they need to be small and they need to feel not confident, that they need to earn the right to find joy. Think about your wellness journey. How in the h*** are we supposed to get good at being good to ourselves if the show up and suck mentality is the way that we're supposed to get there?

Makes no sense, right? So what if today you say, hey, you know what? When I do something new, I know sooner or later it's not going to be new anymore. I'll use the analogy of learning a song. After a while, you're going to learn the notes, the words, and the rhythms. A song is a lot more than that. A song is the confidence, the clarity, the commitment, the joy, the why in which we sell what we are providing other people, the light that we share. Why do we have to wait to have those things be present?

So if you're my musical theater cast, I would say to you, hey, this first rehearsal, this first day of considering how you're going to approach your mental health and wellness. Can we already express some confidence, some clarity, some commitment, some joy in that, in knowing that we're doing something really cool and good for ourselves? And we'll learn the other stuff, too. But let's not wait on being confident in seeing clarity and light and being committed to what we are doing, even if we don't know what we're doing, and to see joy within it, because all the other stuff will come along.

And sadly, once those other things come along, then it gets a little bit harder to remain focused on that initial set of fuel and clarity and gifts that we have. So that being your stage, this being the space where you live, the life that you live, what are you doing with that? I hope there's clarity and confidence and joy in it from now until you learn all those things that make you feel what culture tells you are the prerequisites. Show up and suck? Nah, show up and realize that what you have right now is enough.

Have a good night. Bye. Speak wonder. Bye, Chris. We'll see you later.