The Thin Space

Well, good morning. Good morning there, Cadre. How are you? I hope that you are doing well, and if you're not, that's okay, too. My name is JC Lippold, and today, Sunday, this is self care day. I'm Cadre self care, caring about you. Tokaboom, Marisa. Anila. Speak, wonder. Oh, my gosh, Jules. What a crew. Coming in for a little Sunday morning virtual coffee or whatever your beverage of choice is right now. Oh, my gosh. Good morning, Anila. Hey, Jules. Kim. Hi, Kim. What are you two doing this morning?

Kim, your new puppy is so beautiful. Speak, wonder. I hope those flowers are blooming where you are. Isn't it amazing how even just the greeting on a Cadre live stream does the. Does the. Does the trick to have someone see you in the here and now is a lovely, lovely thing. Speak, wonder. I still remember when it was your birthday and I had a live stream and we sang to you all from all around North America that day. Anila, self care equals still in bed this morning. What a great idea. Everybody, how are you?

So, Marisa and Kim, cabin time, maybe the self care. What are you doing for a little bit of self care this morning? And as you share, as we continue to do exactly what we're doing, and that is connecting with other humans in our realness here is a little bit of thin space. Like what we just did is thin space, the space in between everything that has happened and everything that will happen, in between the past and the future, in between the good stuff and the bad stuff, the beginnings and the ends of.

I have been doing thin space stuff on Sundays for almost 20 years. I first started working on the concept. I borrowed it from franciscan monks back when I was in college, and it stuck with me because on Sundays, if you're like me, very hyper anxious, hypersensitive, hyper feeler. Sundays are hard because the weekend is over in a traditional sense. But the week hasn't begun yet, so I always feel stuck. Jules said, just rolled out of bed, grabbed my coffee, and I was sitting on my deck listening self care.

Speak wonder baby snuggles with my two month old grandson, Oliver. Oliver. Oh, now I have every song from Oliver the musical rolling through my head. Hi, Oliver. Hope, you're great. So, thin space, I have an exercise for you today. It's a real simple exercise. Simple, not meaning easy. Simple meaning few moving parts. And it is an exercise that you can use to, if you feel so. The thin space is in between two things. Sometimes we get pulled to one. Sometimes we get pulled to the other being the past or the future or the good stuff or the bad stuff or whatever.

Today I'm going to talk about the idea of a rumination. Rumination is the action of getting stuck on something. An idea, a worry, a panic, a memory. And most of the time the rumination happens when we finally attempt to take time to be with ourself. So, like, let's say you get to the end of the day and you lay down in bed and all of a sudden an idea like, oh, gosh, why did I say that? Say that thing in that way to my boss? Why did I have that awkward encounter with that person? All of a sudden we start thinking about it again and again and again and again and again.

And we can't stop. Like a record that has a skip on it. In my parents house, there's a jukebox. And in the jukebox there is a old record of bohemian Rhapsody at the beginning. Thumb, thumb, thumb, thumb, thumb, thumb, thumb, thumb, thumb, thumb, thumb, thumb. And always skips. That's how I knew the song for the longest time. It has this little skip in it and those measures play like two or three times before it goes on with the rest of the song. That's what rumination is. Rumination is like the skip in the record.

And it just keeps playing the same thing over and over and over again. So here's an Exercise. If you are attempting to be in the thin space, but you are stuck, you are ruminating on something that is outside of the here and now. This exercise is called rumination break. You've done some research on rumination and it is said if you focus on something that brings you joy or something that you find to be positive for two minutes, you can break the rumination cycle. So like that bohemian Rhapsody record, sooner or later it goes on to the rest of the song.

If you want to go on to the rest of your song, think manually. Like literally go, I'm going to think about this thing for two minutes. So speak wonder. Maybe you go ahead and think about Oliver for two minutes. Or maybe you sing Oliver a two minute song from Oliver Con City yourself at home. Maybe you sink. Consider yourself, and two minutes later, that rumination will stop. Now again, how often do we hear people say, it's been, science has proven, yeah, but I always like to go, okay, yes, science.

And also, what is the practicality that science is telling us? Science is saying that if we focus on something that brings us to joy or positivity or something that we want to focus on, we sooner or later, stop focusing on the thing we don't want to focus on. That's not easy. Two minutes. Oh, it's like holding a two minute plank or, you know, attempting to sit still for two minutes. It's hard. It's simple in the fact that there's few moving parts, but it's a hard thing to do. The good thing is, if you fail, you're still in the right place.

If you succeed, you're still in the right place. Whenever you do something that shows that you are on your side. Boom. Anila, who is one of my favorite guides on this planet, says, so consciously switch from the rumination station to a love station. I'm done. That's it. If you wonder why a Cadre is a space that I keep coming back to, it's because I get gems like that. Anila, with your permission, I'm going to quote you on that phrase for the rest of my time. Here's how you move on from the rumination cycle.

You change consciously from the rumination station to the love station. Y'all. That's all I got for you today. Coming up, you're going to find a great lineup of people who care about you. You're gonna see Gene, you're gonna see Daryl, one of my. I'm so excited. Beverly Lutz is now a contributor. It's been a long time coming. So later this evening or later this afternoon, you'll see Beverly. And then the one and only Tiffany Norton, bringing a little bit of levity and comedy and clarity and truth, especially if you're struggling.

If you're in that place of going like Goshen, I don't want to do the thing that I don't want to do, but sometimes it's hard to not do it. Tiffany sits with you and uses humor and clarity to wrap up your week. Y'all have a great rest of the day. I'll see you tomorrow.