Comedy Centered

Hi, everyone. I think it's going. It is. Okay. Hi. Happy Sunday, Cadre. It is comedy centered with your girl, Tiffany Norton. Back again. Happy, happy Sunday. I hope. I don't know where. While people are filing in. I don't know what the weather is like around the country. It is hot here. It is muggy and hot and sweaty. And you can see, like, even with my air conditioner kicking on, it's not doing much. I'm a bit sweaty. Oh, I got some people coming in. Hi, Jules. Welcome, welcome. One of my dry July challenge partners there, and I'm kind of excited to kick that off.

I don't know if other people are going to be interested in joining us so far is me. It's team Tiffany and Team Jules. But we're taking the dry July challenge, which, basically, it's pretty simple. We're just not gonna drink. We're not gonna drink for the whole month of July. And that doesn't sound like difficult, but July is a tough one, I think. Dry January, sure. But, you know, you're not really going out. Nothing's happening. It's not that exciting. The winter. You're probably broke from Christmas.

You haven't gotten your tax return yet, you know? So I think dry January is kind of a. It's all right. But the real deal is dry July. Dry July is. You're talking about 4 July weekend. You're talking about all the barbecues, talking about local festivals, grad parties. There was tons of grad parties this, you know, this weekend. And, you know, some grad parties don't serve booze, but a lot of them do. A lot of them do. Oh, Julie says that it's windy like heck where she is. Okay. What's up? Yeah, we.

We're not getting any wind. You must have it. You have our wind because it's just like, huh. This is like hanging right there. But we've had storms for the last couple days, so at least the sun is out. But if there are other people that are listening in the replay and you want to hop on and challenge yourself to just, you know, we're not saying you have to commit to a life of sobriety. We're not saying that you have to really change anything. This is like any kind of a workout goal or a fitness goal, anything for.

This is a mental health goal, though. If you can give your brain a break from the alcohol for a month, some amazing things started happening to your cognition, your memory, your recall. A lot of things are affected by the overuse of alcohol. Right. Your skin starts looking really good. Your sleep patterns go back to normal. After about 30 days, your body starts making more of its own natural hormones, more serotonin and more dopamine. That will increase the longer you stay away from the alcohol.

But just even 30 days is a great reset for your body and for your mind, too, because I know when I first started out, I knew it was going to be hard. I knew I was using alcohol as quite the crutch, right? And I wasn't. I had no illusions about the fact that this was going to be probably the hardest thing I'd ever done, right? And it continues to be a battle to this day. It's not like you get. You're done, you know, bad stuff still happens, and liquor store is just right there. You know, it's not open 24 hours, but.

Whoops. No, I bumped it. Now I'm getting off track, I tell you. But yes. So if people want to get in on our dry July challenge, we welcome you. We're just gonna be putting it down for the month of July. I'm gonna think of some kind of. I want to put together a, like, a little graphic with, you know, our names also to have fun with it. I don't know if Jules. If you've decided, if you're just gonna use Jules, since that's already kind of your signature name, but you can. Hey, this is like a trivia night or a bowling team.

You can name yourself whatever you want. You know, you can just say team booty. That's fine. Whatever you want to call yourself. But we will begin in July, so it's a couple weeks away. You don't have to decide quite yet if you want to join us. So the other thing that's got me thinking is Thursday is the summer solstice, and so the summer solstice is the longest day of the year, right. And for me, it. It's always kind of a bittersweet moment because it always feels, at least if you're a midwesterner, it feels like summer just started, and then all of a sudden, you know, bam, it's a solstice.

Like, right now. We had a really mild spring this year, though, so it feels better than a lot of years. But, you know, it's one of the times of the year that I've noticed that a lot of things, I think, in our life can correlate to gardening. I'll explain a little bit, but think about it, right? If you think of things you're trying to accomplish in your life changes. You're trying to make. Maybe you're trying to start a business. Maybe you're trying to crush some other goals that you have set for yourself personally, right?

The spring is when we're putting our seeds, we're spreading our seeds all over, right? We're spreading the seeds, but the seeds have to have time to grow. And that's the summertime. I've always found that there's a lull. Like, there's. There's lots of communication going on during the summer, but it's not. I don't know, sometimes it's just not necessarily the same. Anyway, I'm getting off track, but the solstice just kind of brings it home that the days are now going to start getting shorter again.

And much like the animals in the late spring or the late summer and the early fall, they're very like, the squirrels are going nuts. Like, I got to get everything. I gotta. I gotta store everything up for winter, right? So it's really easy to get stuck in the thought that you're not doing enough this summer or that things aren't happening fast enough or that, like, people aren't getting back to you. Maybe you're, like I said, communication gets very affected. You're, you're. You're trying to get some kind of a business thing done.

But people's minds aren't in necessarily business world right now because we are creatures of nature and it's beautiful out. And I, especially in the midwest, I can't be thinking about all that, right? So if you're feeling like things aren't happening fast enough, remember that the solstice is technically just the beginning of summer, right? But any of the seeds that you are planting this spring, that you're planting now, you're not going to reap the benefits of those for a few months, right? So enjoy this period of time where generally business communication and those types of things calm way, way down.

This is, you know, kids have gotten out of school now. Most of the kids, I think, in my state now it's the 16th, are excused for the summer break. This is when families get to go and, you know, reconnect. And also, if you're like, in a situation like I am, I just went through a breakup and being alone when there's all those activities going on, all those summer fun things that normally you'd bring a date to, um, I'm riding solo on those events and I'm being a little choosy about which ones I go to.

Um, but the seeds will grow, but you can't rush it. And, um, I studied buddhism for many, many years. I would not say that I know a ton about it. I mean, I do, but I don't. Right. I'm not, I'm not trying to, I'm definitely not a guru, let's just say. But I've always been fascinated. I became interested in the concept of the religion and the ideas around Buddhism, in contrast to the catholic religion that I was brought up to. Brought up in. Because they don't. In Buddhism, there's not really the idea so much of sin in the way that we have it in Catholicism.

Right. So that's. I thought that was very interesting, and that's kind of what got me down that path, like 20 some years ago. But they, a lot of the teachers, when they're trying to explain concepts and stuff, use the seed a lot. They use the metaphor of a seed because the seed in of itself is just potential, right? The seed isn't yet a plant, but it could be, but it's not, right? It's potentially a plant. And a seed can stay comfortable for a millennia just hanging out, being a seed, not even trying to grow into a plant, but from somewhere it just begins to struggle.

It begins to grow this little seed and it's struggling against all of its surroundings and it starts to expand and. And it starts taking off its little, its little shell and its little, you know, husks. And it's starting to crawl its way upward through the dirt. And it can't see, it doesn't know. There's no light, there's no assurance it's going to be okay to the seed. But the seed keeps going, right? Because life will always choose life, right? Growth. Growth will always choose growth. And this young, now we've got our little seed and he's coming up through the grass, right?

He's poked out, he's like, woo, I'm alive. I'm a plant. But at this stage, extremely vulnerable, right? To predators, to pests, to flooding, drought. You know, he's probably watching his other little seedling friends get eaten up or, you know, taken out by the dog next door, something like that. So why does the seed do it, right? Is it a need that it has to become its full potential? Can we think in the context of need from, you know, the perspective of a seed? I don't know. Right. It's a philosophical one, for sure.

But the reason why I bring it up is, I mean, did you really decide to grow up? Did you decide to become who you were? No, you're just the seed. You're your seed and growth and change and metamorphosis in those, like with butterflies, too, in those periods of change, you are extremely vulnerable, very vulnerable, because you can't quite yet occupy the world you want to, the space you want to, and you can't go back to where you were. The seed can't start coming up the ground, peek its head out and go, nope, don't like it.

And then go back down, turn into a seed, and then wait it out. Right? So it has to keep becoming what it's what it's supposed to become. And excuse me. Breakdowns are assured you will. There will always be breakdowns in life. But breakthroughs are not assured. Breakthroughs are when we take the breakdown, mental, financial, relationship, whatever it is for you, health, and we really feel it and we own it and we go, that sucked. I don't want to do that again. What can I learn from this lesson? And the idea being that by using this period of time, using this slow period of time during the summer, this is a very good time to go and do some of that inner work also.

It's a good time if you're wanting to delve into some heavier stuff, some mental health stuff, you can get out and walk. And nature is such an amazing healer. When I'm stressed to the max, that's. I go to the state park. State park pass. Cost you, what, 20, $30? And walking around and just watching life and watching things grow, you know, like we are. Like we all are here on Cadre, right? Just growing and growth hurts. Growth is painful a lot of times. Um, but necessary. Otherwise, you just stay a seed, and you could never be a flower or a tree or anything bigger.

The seed is safe. No one can hurt the seed, but no one can see the seed either. So, yeah, you're a mighty seed. Maybe that's a dumb way to outro, but thank you guys so much for stopping by. Again, dry July sign up. Oh, I was gonna say that on the Cadre app I post. It's Tiffany Norton. Put your name on the post. It's got, like, a little beach scene, and it says dry July challenge. So just put your name on there, whatever name you wanna use for your dry July challenge team. And I'm gonna have to think of, like, a cool prize or something.

I'm gonna talk to the Cadre peeps and see if there's. See if there's a prize closet or something that I can read. But if not, I'll figure out something. Absolutely. Thank you again. You guys are the best. And stay strong. Happy Sunday and enjoy your solstice. It's gonna be a great week. Take care. Oh, there we go. It's got a countdown. I know. That light is ting.