Comedy Through The Chaos

Hello, Cadre friends and family. I am miss Shannon doing what many of us here in cadres fear do, which is sign in from my car and I'm going to start the car because it is 80 something degrees and finally, officially summer here in Minnesota. So hello to everyone. Hello. Speak wonder. Thank you for sharing everything that you do here in the Cadre Sphere for anyone who ends up watching this in the replay and wonder, who is this lady and why is she in her car? I am Miss Shannon Paul and I'm a variety of things like many of you are.

So I'm a comedian, speaker, a voice actor, an event emcee. Primarily. I am a caregiver of an adorable 16 year old boy who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. And I am happy to be a member of this Cadre Sphere family. Hello, everyone. And so thank you for joining me for comedy through the chaos. I missed you all last Thursday. Hello. Hello, hello. Thank you. Speak wonder. I enjoy connecting with you as well. Thank you. So last week I was planning, because that's what we do all the time.

We plan to do things and then things happen. I was planning to join you on July 4 from the location that I was at. Good afternoon to you as well, Jules. I was at a beloved Sci-Fi fantasy convention held here in the Twin Cities called convergence. And convergence is a great big deal. If you're a nerd, geek or fan here in the Twin Cities, whatever you like to call yourself, you may identify as you like. Hello, Luke. Hello. Hello. I like that. Luke just says I share my wisdom. I don't know if I would call it that, but it are some words that hopefully are encouraging.

So wisdom is more like, since I was talking about being a geek, more like what I would expect, like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings to be. He is more wise than I am. But I do my best, Luke. I do my best. So last week I, I was planning to check in from convergence and then as things tend to do, the schedule ended up being a lot more robust than I thought. And it was interesting because this was, I appreciate you as well, Luke. It was the thing that was interesting about being a convergent this year.

It's a con that I've been going to for years. I went to it before I had my son and I've gone to it a number of times after having my son. And it's just interesting how things change and how your perspective changes as we continue to adapt, morph and change as the beautiful human beings that we all are. So last week when I was at convergence, I had said, you know what? I really appreciate all Micadre family and I want to make sure that I check in with them and I'm going to be able to do it because, you know, I'm at this nerd convention, but I'm Wonder Woman.

I can do all the things and didn't really look at my schedule. The next thing you know, I was hitting up our esteemed program director, Colleen Lindstrom, and saying, you know, I overextended. I thought I could do too much and I'm not going to be able to sign on. So miss you all. Sorry that I get more notice that I wasn't there. But as far as wisdom and lessons that I learned, it was interesting being at convergence because it's a, it was in town, but I was kind of counting it, as we'll call it, one of my nerd vacations.

And it was a really good learning experience for me to learn about myself and where I am at right now in that spectrum of caregiving. And a lot of what we talk about here in the Cadre sphere is a variety of self care and how you can take care of yourself. And, and that also means being compassionate to yourself when you can't do everything but also releasing yourself from what you think you should do. So I don't know where you are in your caregiving evolution. I'm at that point that I'm, you know, I'm my kiddos primary and I love him, and I understand that in order to care for him, I need to care for myself, which is why I'm in the car.

I just came out of the orthodontics office and have been trying to at least go. I made it to the doctor's appointment. I've been doing all my checkups and doing all that stuff so that I do count as taking care of myself. And hopefully you have some things in your day to day, week to week, month to month, that count is that as well. And one of the things that I was going to try and do this year was travel a little bit more. So back to the whole nerdom fandom geekdom thing for me, that was going and connecting with my friends in San Diego for a giant nerd convention called San Diego Comic Con.

Maybe you've seen it in the news. So I was incredibly optimistic a few months ago when the tickets for San Diego Comic Con went on sale. And some friends and I went in and I bought the tickets and I have the pass at my house. And then what's been happening over the last, oh, the last two or three months, I've been really anxious about this trip that would be later this month. And what I found myself doing is talking myself into this trip is something that I should do for myself, even though the more I thought about it, the more it just was adding to my personal anxiety.

So going to convergence here in Minnesota, it was one of those things where it was a staycation type experience where I had a hotel downstair downtown. I live about 15, maybe 20 minutes outside of downtown Minneapolis. And so, yes, I had a home base at the hotel, but I still found myself checking in on my sister and my kid and looking at my phone and seeing what was going on in my ring cam. And really was, even though I was away, finding it very difficult to not be divided attention throughout the whole time I was at this con, and I still had a great time.

But real talk, I I checked in in my hotel. I popped in there, but I went home three of the four nights that I had the hotel. It was nice to be able to go get my stuff together. Yeah. You know, and, and I get. Yes, exactly, Luke. I get nervous about that, too. And what I've been finding, because my biggest thing with my self care is figuring out how I manage my high functioning anxiety, and it's something that I definitely have to manage. I definitely have to. I like to. I'm a tea drinker, so I use the analogy of treat myself like a tea kettle and figure out how to let out little pops of steam so that I whistle, don't.

I don't blow. So I can feel myself lately whistling. In the times in my life when I should be resting instead of getting recharged, I find myself going, oh, I feel guilty that I'm taking this time. And what I really realized in my nerd staycation was that for my self care, I am not ready to disconnect from my kiddo right now in a way that this trip that would be for me would be fulfilling. So I decided to not go. And I know that there's some people that might go, oh, well, that feels like a sense of loss.

I don't. I actually felt a great sense of release to go. It's not that I don't enjoy this thing. I've been I've enjoyed it. I appreciate the friends that are there, but it won't be recharging for me. It'll just make me feel worse. And so I encourage all of you to go. It is compassionate and to acknowledge that you can't do it all things, but also to acknowledge that even though it should make you feel better. And you know how. How? I'm kind of not a fan of the word should. I've said that before, but some just because something should make you feel better.

If it doesn't, it doesn't. And trying to talk yourself into it is futile sometimes, because now I'm going, wait a minute. I'm supposed to feel good about this, but it's not working for me. So, yes, there might be some people that if they were like, you know, what I need to do to recharge is to tap out and go ground myself in my backyard, or I do need to completely get away, or I do need to go someplace and completely just be surrounded by nature. Maybe that's what works for you. And if so, dive all in.

But also don't pick yourself apart. If these historically recharging things do not recharge you, maybe you're just not in a place right now that you can receive it, and it's really just gonna make it worse for you because you're like, well, I used up all this energy, and then I still feel depleted. So if there's something else that you can do, so that you can do it in baby steps, like, I really believe, especially for me right now, when I was being truly honest with myself, I feel better if I'm home and I get my kid off to summer school.

The last three days of summer school, instead of going, I took him out of summer school so I can go on this trip. And now I'm worried that he's okay and is he giving my sister the business the whole time? Is he upset that I left? Honestly, having all of those thoughts that I know because I know me, I'm not going to be able to quiet. It's worse than just going on, you know? It's worse than just staying home. So I will go eventually on this nerd vacation. Even if I don't, the con will continue to happen until, I don't know, nerds give up on San Diego.

Who knows? That might happen. But I did also notice that once I made that decision, once I just pulled that ripcord and let the parachute up, I don't have to go on this trip. Once I did that, I was able to just, like, sit down and, like, start looking around and go, oh, look how pretty the view is over here. Look how, you know, look how happy I am that my kiddo and I had a big win for us, which was we sat outside before it got hot. Today we sat outside with no devices and just hung out for half an hour, which is the longest I've gotten him to do that in a long time.

You know, yesterday, he ate popcorn that I made for the first time in a long time. So leaving space for yourself to choose what wins, you focus on and going. You know, these little wins are really what's fueling you or fueling me or fueling us right now. So those are important. So maybe you don't have to go on this giant trip to feel fulfilled. Yeah, maybe that would be a lot more, I don't know, insta worthy, you know, definitely it would be a lot more insta worthy than me hanging out in the backyard right now, happy that the foxgloves that I planted are thriving, or looking at the fact that, you know, I planted some seeds and I didn't think they were gonna grow, and they're actually coming up right now, and, oh, my gosh, I am.

I am the recipient of some awesome, like, love from the bunny rabbits in my neighborhood. They really like the clovers that I did. And so I acknowledge that that sounds silly and not insta worthy, but it's fueling me right now. It's recharging me right now. And you don't always need that big, huge thing to actually go, you know, I feel 1% better than I did yesterday. I actually have more space to, um, expand and feel good today than I would if I try and wait until that giant, big thing happens. And that that's what I set myself up for and go.

Now I feel like I've accomplished something because I went to San Diego when instead I can go, you know, I feel like I accomplished something because, hey, I got to take a shower fully today because my kid was happy and hanging out in the other room. So, as caregivers, that is my suggestion for this week, as we add to our self compassion bucket and practice, is allowing yourself to feel joy in those moments, even though, compared to some other giant thing, it may seem minor, it's not. It's a big deal.

Amen. If you get to. If you get joy like I do, from actually going, hey, I vacuumed, and I got that done. Look, there's no crumbs on my floor. If that gives you joy, then you allow yourself to have that joy. And don't always compare it to these big wins that a lot of our friends are going to have on Instagram. You know, that's just. That's what they're, you know, we're all talking about those things. And don't get me wrong, I know I'm very fortunate and blessed because I do get the opportunity to do some of those really big things, too.

And I'm grateful for all of the opportunities that I get. Like, I get to hang out with some cool people, including all of you that are here in the Cadre sphere. And that's highly important to me. So thank you for being part of our family, and thank you for sharing all of the information and listening to us as we share our day to day and talk about all of the things that help us light up as we continue to go. How can we be a resource for one another? And really, just, as I said, allow us all to figure out that way that we can let off steam in a way that allows us to keep moving forward.

And if you don't feel like moving today, check in with all of us. You know, there's lots of things going on with all of the folks here in the Cadre sphere. We all are so authentic and having so many different varieties of just the variety of ways that we are able to communicate with one another in this app is one of the coolest things that I get to do. So we continue today. I believe I saw that my friend JC is gonna be popping in later today. I think I'm actually gonna see JC in real life this weekend because I believe that he's coming to one of my in person comedy through the cash shows, and that will be lovely.

So, for all of you that we don't get to see in real life, man, stay in touch, you know, ping us. You know, throughout the week, if you just think of some kernel of interest that you want to share with somebody, you can always put it in the chats and any of our live streams. You can always suggest what you want us to talk about next. If you're just like, man, I thought about you today and it made me smile. I would love to hear that. So, whatever we've got going on, make sure that you stay in here, stay in community.

Cue talking to one another. You are important, even if you're just spending your time in the grocery store. Good for you. Go get those groceries. Just stay on the outside of the store. That's where all the good stuff is. The outside of the store. One or. Okay, real talk. One thing of cookies. One thing of cookies. Go ahead and do that. Just get the good ones. So we appreciate all of you. I know we have some more. As I said, JC is going to be popping in later today. We have content going out through the rest of the weekend.

And hopefully, if all goes well, I will see everybody next week. Luke, speak wonder all of my friends that are in here. Jules. Thank you very much. Fay P. We appreciate you as well. We were continuing to grow this community and we do it through all of you. So stay safe, stay healthy, everybody, and we will see you next week.