Leading With Love 💕

Hello, Cadre Sphere. Anila here. Maybe you are wrapping up your day. Maybe you are getting your last run in or a shower or finishing bedtime. I am here to close out Wellness Wednesday with you. I am coming to you from the twin cities, Minneapolis St. Paul, and I'm coming to you with my lived experience with an Alphabet soup of mental health conditions. Hi, Jules. Good to see you. And a battle with breast cancer. And with lived experience and entrepreneurial experience and spiritual awakening in process, I guess you would say I feel like I am a good student right now.

Well, on this Wednesday, October 2nd, it is actually the second day in BFRB Awareness Week, which is. BFRB stands for Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors. And that is the mental health condition that really kind of was the highlight or the lowlight really right of my. Of the last probably 20 plus years. Namely a specific condition called trichotillomania, which is the compulsion to pull out hair. But I turned that pain into purpose, invented a smart bracelet with friends and technologists that brings awareness to these conditions.

And with awareness, you can make change. And I'm here every Wednesday night to just chat about leading with love. This idea that I. Obviously, it's not mine, but that I have come to understand that when we meet our pain with love, when we meet our challenges in life with curiosity, with a positive attitude, you can come say, hi, this is my son who needs to be asleep right now. That love is the answer. And so I'm going to read to you. I'm going to read to you. You know, I'm going to tell you a story.

So I'm going to tell you a story, too. I have. I'm originally from New York and my mom was telling me this story. Nani was telling us me the story. Okay, So I know. Oh, look. Okay, listen to this story. Okay, so I have a friend named Sunny. I grew up with Sunny in Long Island, New York. And Sunny, Sunny's mom has a dog. And this dog was 15 years old. This is very recent. Just a couple of last week, this happened. Sunny's dog's name is Sunshine. And Sunshine was really, really sick. 15 years old.

Went to the doctor, the vet, the vet said, you know, there's really nothing else we can do. And Sunny's mom was there at the doctor's office and said, okay, let me just call Sunny. Let me call my husband. Like we, you know, this needs to be a family decision to, you know, say, okay, it's time for Sunshine the dog to, to go to sleep for forever, because he's not well. Right. And what happened was Sunny said, you know what, mom, let me come get Sunny. So they live separately. Sunny lives a little bit away with his wife and his kids and their dog.

And Sunny said, let me come get Sunshine the dog. Let me just see if take bringing him home with me. Maybe there's something that I can do. And so Sunshine went to Sunny's house and met the other doggy, this old 15 year old doggy met this young puppy. And within a week, Sunshine, the dog regained all his energy. Isn't that so beautiful then? Yeah, it's so sweet, right? And that is the power of love, that is the power of play, that is the power of movement, that is the power of. That is the power of the transfer of energy that this dog was so listless.

Sunny's dad had retired, so they stopped. He stopped going to the store with Sunny's dad. He stopped being, you know, active in that way. And slowly life was deteriorating. But this one change of environment of people around this sweet dog changed the dog's whole outlook, the dog's energy levels. And that's leading with love. Because they tried something different and they tried it in a loving way. And in this case it helped. In this case it worked. And that's kind of all that I ask of you and I ask of myself and I try to remind myself because sometimes it's hard to choose love, to choose what is the way that we can meet this terrible moment with.

With love. And in some cases it might be saying, you know, it's time. But in others maybe it's saying, what if we try a different way? So I just thought that was a really sweet story. And I hope that you all find a way to meet each moment with consistent practice of meeting each moment with love. Then it takes practice because there are moments where it is so hard, where someone cuts you off in traffic or does you wrong at work or throws you under the bus for something that happened or you know, just treats you in a not nice way.

And we want to respond with F them or whatever. And instead how might we take that deep breath and pause and think, what if we just met that moment back with love? And with that we are going to go to sleep now. Have a good night. You want to say bye? Bye. I want to say I'm wishing you love, strength and awareness. I'm wishing you love, strength and awareness. Bye. Hit the red button. Equipment.