Things We Aren’t Supposed to Talk About

Cadre, good morning. It is Shannon coming to you live from St. Paul, Minnesota, where it is negative six. Outside, recovering from a cold. All the beautiful things she says with a little bit of sarcasm that happened when you live in Minnesota. And it's January 14. Happy Martin Luther King day to everyone. All right, so today you're joining me. I'm Shannon. For those of you that haven't met me before, today's gonna be a little bit of an interactive time together. So I'm a human being who is not a clinician.

I am not a therapist. I'm a human who lives with anxiety, who has CPTSD, and I have child with autism. So I parent a special needs child. I've been in therapy for eight years. I've learned a lot in therapy, and my role here on Cadre, my self appointed role, is to be a human who shares everything I've learned. And these segments are called things we aren't supposed to talk about, because I want to share what I've learned, being a person who's been through stuff, like all of you, who benefited from saying it out loud, and who benefited from normalizing all the things that we do and experience as humans.

All right, so I think I put in my. I think I put in my description today. Hi, Alec. Good morning. Today, this is like aa for humans. And essentially, that means I'm gonna raise my hand and I'm gonna say, hi, I'm Shannon, and I'm twice divorced. And so why do I wanna talk about that? I'm gonna use a prop, actually, to show you, which. Let's see if I can do this. I'm gonna stand on my couch, and I'm gonna show you this thing. Okay. So, this is an egg carton kindergartener project. And so, my first divorce.

I'll come back to it in a minute. So, my first divorce happened after I'd been married for ten years. I had two kids, and as I shared before, one of them has autism. We went through this really hard, rough time of managing that and then still keeping our marriage together. And so I'm not alone in that. Right? For those of you who have been married before, for those of you who have know what it means to have a partner. Speak. Wonder. Hi. It's so good to see you. You know that it's hard, right? And it takes a lot of energy and effort, and it's a commitment.

And so I ultimately left that marriage, and that was a very hard thing. And again, you know, 50% of people in the US have been divorced or have had relationships that break up. So I am not alone in that. The challenging part about it or the hard part or the part that I want to talk about today is that that decision, for me was really personal, as many people probably have that same experience. But I think I hit this point in my life where I was like, I know this isn't working for me. And so my choices were.

I probably had more choices than I thought I had at the time, but my choices were to be honest and upfront about who I was and what I needed, even if that went at odds with culture. And it did. So I'm gonna go back for a moment to this egg carton. I'm gonna stand up, and you can see this is a kindergarten egg carton project. And so for you, for those of you who had kids, you know, these are. These are egg cartons. Kids paint them. They put them together into these mobiles, but on the very bottom, and you probably can't see it, it's faded from time.

Maybe you can. I think you can. It says, keep your heart brave and your imagination wild. Okay, so keep your heart brave and your imagination wild. Why does this mean so much to me? I have this. So this. This is from when my son was in kindergarten, or maybe he was in, like, second or third grade. I can't even remember. And he's 14 now, so it's been years and years and years. So keep your heart brave and your imagination wild. I got this egg carton thing. Chummer berry. You have one with your kids as well, right?

Aren't they beautiful? And I got it because I remember walking into the room to pick him up that day, and I was in the midst of this decision to get a divorce that was very anticulture. And to put myself first for the first time was so anticulture. And I remember it was just the thick of it. And I was. For any of you who have been through a divorce or a loss, really, of anything, a loss of a relationship, a change that you had to say out loud that really made your life change course, you know, how sort of just.

I can't even think of the words right, how raw that is. And I remember going to pick up my son, Wyatt. Hi, Luke. Hi, Nikki. Thank you. And I saw that mobile, right? I saw it. I saw it hanging there. And it hit me in that moment that the choice that I was making, and I know it was anti culture, and I know it was anti. All the things of what you're supposed to do. And at the time, I told myself, this is so selfish and I have to do it. But I knew that for me. I'm gonna go up one more time. Oh, you can see 2016.

That's what it was. I had to keep my heart brave and my imagination wild. And that was true for me. And I saved that. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm gonna keep this for my entire life because I'm going to remember why in this moment when I'm making this decision that is so anticulture and that is all the things that the narrative tells me that it could be. I'm doing it because that's my truth. My truth is I need to keep my heart brave and my imagination wild. That's what I need as a human to be me.

And that that might come with a lot of hurt for other people. I know. Luke this morning talked about making changes with. With his inner circle and how there's a ripple effect and an impact that comes with that. And this is the same, right? So I go back to aa for humans. Hi, I'm Shannon. I've been divorced twice. I'm not perfect at relationships. I'm working at them every single day. And honestly, right now in my life, I'm in relationship with me. And that's the best choice for me. So I just want to say to all of you out there, whether it's you are twice divorced, I know some of you are.

And that's beautiful because it means that you are pursuing you and you're pursuing the wholeness of you. And we're not perfect. And sometimes it's gonna look like, hi, I'm Shannon. I'm twice divorced. And I just. I want to say it out loud to all of you so that if you're in that place for whatever that is for you, you know that pursuing, keeping your heart brave, I'm not gonna get the quote right. Wild and brave. Being wild and brave, pursuing the things that are you, is a worthwhile endeavor. And it's true.

So there's no shame in that. And that's my message today. All right, guys, so that's it. I will have this. I just. Honestly, if I'm being honest, I just took it out of my closet and it was so dusty. But I think I'm gonna leave it there because it's gonna remind me. It does remind me of me. And that's beautiful. Alright, guys, thanks for being here. It was so great to see all of you. Alec, speak wonder Chummerberry. Nikki. Luke Chummerberry again. Thank you. Thank you. Have a beautiful day. And we'll see you soon.

Here on Cadre. Bye, guys. Up. Go. Bye.