Comedy Through The Chaos

Hey, everybody. Happy Thursday and happy almost. If you're watching us live, June, can you imagine? Oh my gosh. Where has the year gone? Hi, everybody. I am miss Shannon Paul, a comedian, corporate speaker, voice actor, vet, mc, benefit auctioneer, a variety of things, but primarily the caregiver to an adorable 16 year old boy who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. And I am happy to share in the Cadre space this caregiver Thursday where I talk about the comedy that we have through the chaos.

Encourage you to find opportunities to laugh through the difficult times that we all have in life. I hello, Nicole. Thank you for joining us. Hello. As I was saying, when we talk about comedy through the chaos, it's funny because when I came up with that name, there was a variety of people that said, hey, you should call it comedy in the chaos. That has a better ring to it. And I was like, that is not true. True things are not funny in the midst of it most of the time for us, but it does get to funny afterwards sooner rather than later for some of us.

And that's what I encourage you to do is hopefully use some humorous moments in your life to help you just kind of get through the difficult times. I'm going to tell you about my day. Hello, Jules. Thanks for joining us. So I'm going to tell you I have a weird job. I know I have a weird job. First of all, I went to go see one of the radio partners that I do. I co host a show called the Holistic Health show with a holistic health practitioner named Doctor Megan Kershling. And so, hello, Jules. So hello, Colleen.

Colleen, I'm telling you about. I'm telling them what I did today. So as part of my weird job, they provide a variety of different things that are in your holistic health landscape. And so the one that they wanted me to try first, I would have picked something else, but I was okay. I was interested in that. So it was called, or it is called and not was called. It is called. Hello, Shannon. So I went today for not a facial, a micro needling session. A micro needling session, which is where they basically numb your face and then they take a little thing.

I'm having my eyes closed so I don't really look what it looked like. Cause in my head is sci-Fi stuff that I probably don't need to look. It reminds me of what might happen to you if you were in blade Runner or something like that. And then they poke little holes in your face with the micro needles so that your face is appropriately distressed in a way that it can then produce more collagen and some other things so that you can heal well. And I think it's interesting and if you wonder why in the description, I was talking about how sometimes things have to look worse before they get better, I thought that this was a great analogy for that, where if you want to grow or if you want to heal, then you have to stretch yourself and maybe go through some pain in order to get there.

So if I want to maintain my glowing skin, I maybe have to every once while let somebody come and p**** me repeatedly with this little thing. It didn't hurt, it was fine. And my face feels all like if you took like some cooling gel and your whole face is a little bit numb, that's what I feel like. I do think I do suggest that feeling. The overall feeling of general numbness, I'm on board for, so we'll see what happens. But when they're talking about some of the things that might happen while you were waiting for the healing, it's talking about additional redness.

It's talking about how you might feel more dry than you normally do. There might be some flaking or some peeling. And isn't that just kind of what we do in life? Like, maybe we have some flaking and some peeling, and I have one hair that's doing something crazy. Maybe we have some flaking and some peeling in our life so that we can get to the next layer of growth. Maybe we have to shed that skin, maybe get something out of the way so we can actually get to the next thing that we actually need in order to prosper as human beings.

And, you know, it's also just a wonderful metaphor for the situation that I put myself in over the summer and what ends up looking worse before it gets better. So because I am, like so many of us as caregivers, not good at asking for help. I was kind of concerned about putting my son in some additional programming over the summer because I was worried that he didn't want to go or is going to end up with additional behaviors and all the yada yadas that go on in the back of our head as caregivers when we could actually find a way to maybe increase our team so that we actually get a break and what might be best for us and might also be best for the people that we are caregiving for.

So because of that, I put myself in the situation that I signed him up for extended school year stuff, but I didn't sign him up for a bunch of extra programs that basically are like summer camp here in our market. And I really should have. I should have not. I should have trusted him to give it a shot. I should have trusted myself to get there and get him there and get him to participate. And I should have trusted the staff that put these things on, to be honest with me, that if it was not the right fit for him, that we could have adjusted once we did it.

So, lesson learned. This is a lesson that I've been slowly trying to teach myself starting last summer, that I really should have just given it a shot. And so now, instead, I'm in the painful phase of trying to figure out what programming I'm going to do for my kiddo for our overly long summer break. So you will hear a lot of stories from week to week of me trying to keep him busy. And we'll see what happens. We'll see if he's in a mood for mom to do livestream and talk to her friends. And that might be what you're going with, too, is that whoever you're caregiving for may not be on the same time schedule that you are on.

And that's just what we got. That's what we end up having to do. So if you're in the redness and the puffy phase of your life right now, I hope that you can find some ways that it eventually gets to the healing phase, the collagen producing, glowing phase, that you get to the point where you're going, all right, I actually can see the results of this versus just looking more beat up than I did before I started the process. So hopefully you are in that position. And if you aren't there organically on your own, I hope that you can lean on the scaffolding that we provide here in Cadre and help get yourself there, because it's understandable that it's a journey and it's a difficult thing to do on your own without a community.

And so hopefully we are additional community for you. I, because I was getting my micro needling done, did not get to see my friends Shannon and Colleen, and I saw that speak wonder also had a live stream going on earlier today, so I'm excited to go back in the app and hang out with my buddies. And then I also know that our good friend JC is going to be on later today, so I'm going to make sure that I check that out in the midst of hanging out with my kid because we only have one more week of school before it's all me and I just will be honest with you.

Psychonekid's mom is good at a lot of stuff. I am not always adept at keeping him appropriately busy. I know that about myself. I really should have done more. But we are here now, and you might be in that situation, too, where you're like, I am here now. What can I do to get through? So here are some suggestions on what you can do to get through. Give yourself grace. Give yourself time to rest. Figure out what your new rituals are while you are in the midst of whatever it is that you need to get through.

For me, that looks like, hey, when I'm stressed and in a corner because of additional things, I'm one of those emotional eaters. So I need to figure out other rituals to put into my particular circle so that when I'm stressed out going, all right, you are not a really good homeschool mom, and I'm beating myself up. It doesn't mean stuck my hand into the box full of triscuits and then get through the whole box and don't know how I got there. So I've had to build in other rituals. For me, it's making tea like matcha and having that and a kettle and all that stuff.

So you're allowed to have replacement rituals. They serve a purpose. And there are a number of people in the app that are good at coming up with replacement rituals for you as well. So I encourage you to do that when you're trying to get through. And the other thing is, I I love giving yourself again, and I've mentioned this before, at the end of the day, don't only do your to do list of what you need to do the next day. Don't only sit there and figure out ways to poke yourself in the face because you didn't get everything done.

Figure out a way to give yourself compassion and gratitude for everything that you did get done that day. I have been in gratitude because my kid yesterday, for the first time in over a month, got in the shower unnagged. Yep. Got in the shower on his own yesterday morning. Good job, mom. I don't know how I just put the shower into his presence enough over the last month that he decided to get in it on his own. But I did make sure that I took some appropriately framed pictures of him looking happy in the shower so I can go back and show him later.

Like, look, sours do not make you miserable. So I gave myself big credit for that. I gave myself credit for some imagination play that my kid, who is high supports on the autism spectrum does not really normally do on his own. And yesterday he brought up some very imaginative games that he was going to be part of and I got to be present for that. And so, yeah, there were a few things that I didn't do, but I gave myself credit for those things. So I hope that you do that as well. So those are some tips, hopefully, that help you get through some of those difficult times that you may have backed yourself into over the next week or so.

I will do my best in the midst of everything else while I still have a week of being able to focus on adulting pretty much without the stressors and also continually parenting to give you some more advice as we move into the summer season, if you are in that caregiver mode, also shout out to all of our folks like Colleen who are in that sandwich generation because I know that there are a variety of similarities when you are caregiving for our older population that seem like it would be completely different than what I'm dealing with because my son is 16 and has a different challenge.

But I'm speaking to my friends who also are dealing with their parents that may be in the different forms of dementia or maybe an older member of the family. I understand that there's a lot of things that are also similar, so you still deserve some rest. You still deserve to do something when they are. We'll just call it not giving you all of the roses that you probably deserve because they may not be able to do that. So we will help give you those roses because you deserve them. So continue to join us.

I'm excited to see what JC comes up with. I'm excited to share every stage that I get to with all of our content providers that are here. And I'm excited to be able to continue to share this space with all of you that are out there as we continue on this adventure together here in Cadre. It is an adventure. If you don't always like the direction it's going, I totally get that. But don't worry. Just like when we're watching all of those movies, there's always going to be another turn. Get through this turn, and then there'll be another one somewhere down the road.

So I will let you know. I look. I look less red than I thought I was gonna look. So whatever your version of micro needling is, enjoy the adventure. We'll see you next week. Bye.