Comedy Through The Chaos

Hello and happy Thursday to you, cadres fear. I am miss Shannon Paul here joining you on our caregiver Thursday. If you wonder who I am, while I give a chance for people to go ahead and connect with us here in the Cadre sphere, if they're going to be joining us live, I am miss Shannon Paul and I am a comedian, corporate speaker, voice actor, a variety of word related things, and I hub out of the great state of Minnesota. And I am as happy to be one of your contributors that joins you on Thursdays here on our caregiver Thursday.

Hello. I see you, Chris. Thanks for joining us. I know somebody else joined. I will see you in a second. Feel free to shout us out in the chat as we get into this comedy through the chaos conversation for this Thursday. It's interesting. I am out and about as I often am. I'm squeezing this in while I'm working with one of my corporate clients, a client called the national co op grocer. So one of my favorite corporate clients, because we get to talk a lot about community and what they do and working with a variety of co ops throughout the country.

And part of the reason why they're one of my favorite clients is that it ties into a lot of the conversation we have here on Thursday, which is about especially building community and finding the community that you need to support you when you're going through a lot of things. And I love having that as part of the conversation that we have here on caregiver Thursdays and the reason why that's always been so important to me. Hello, Jules. Good to see you. Thanks for joining us here in the chat. The reason why I always think that concept of building community is so important is that especially as caregivers, we spend so much time working on supporting those that we love and those who deserve and who are we are giving care to that we often need someone in our community, our family, whatever that is, to remind us to care for ourselves and also to remind us that whatever story we are telling ourselves right now may not be the only story and you may not be the only one living it.

And I love that whenever I'm able to share something that's going on in my particular life, in the challenges and triumphs that I live with my 16 year old Cyclone kid, it's always nice to be able to share that with somebody else and go, where are you at in your journey? And being able to give other people opportunities to not only be able to ping me if they may need some bolstering or scaffolding and what they have going on in their life, but knowing that I have those people that are there as well.

And so this particular corporate client, because we talk about things from a variety of layered perspectives. So, you know, anytime we talk about, what do you label yourself as? A lot of us here on Thursdays, we're laying or labeling ourselves as caregivers, which we are. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that is the only thing that we are. We are a lot of other things that make us the wonderfully complex and layered human beings that we all have a tendency to be. And so it's good to have somebody remind you what else it is that you are able to do and what else you are good at, in addition to being a caregiver, so that you can then use that information to refuel yourself or to figure out, hey, maybe I don't feel just right, or I feel a little depleted, or I feel maximumly depleted, which is okay as well.

Maybe that's a way for you to find out who else you can tap into as a resource to help you go. Maybe it's that I need a little bit of a break. Maybe it's that I need a little bit of advice. Maybe it's I just need somebody to be able to relate to where I am in the journey. One of the other things that I've been very grateful for this week is, along with being able to come here and hang out with the national co op grocers, is that I was fortunate enough when I'm looking at those, if you pull your life out like a timeline that had different milestones on it, I was able to very clearly snap back to a year ago when I was hosting this fall meeting for this client.

It was a really challenging year. Last year. It was a hard transition back to school. For my kiddo, it was me going through a lot of personal ups and downs with some personal relationships with his other caregiver who was in the picture at the time, and just really feeling lost and in the weeds and just being able to go, you know, I'm not sure where I'm going to get the strength to make it through that particular time period. And I was really fortunate that I was able to, like, lean into and tap into my little sister, who you've talked to me, heard me talk about before, who is the sweetest one of the three of us in our family and also the one that helps me out and watch a cyclone kid when I'm working.

Like today, he is hanging out with Auntie and so she was there to kind of step in and go, you're gonna be okay. Even if some of these things don't go the way that you wanted, you're still gonna be able to figure out the way to take those next right steps for you and your son. And it was good to have her be able to tell me that I was doing a good job because it didn't feel like it at the time. So flash forward to this time period where I'm at the same time of the year, but I can clearly tell you, because of that timeline that cyclone kids transition back to school, as you've heard me say, was the smoothest that we've had in years.

I'm here today at this conference, and I can remember the feeling of trying to get here, being stressed out, being at that point of adrenal exhaustion, and going, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I have to go and work and be on this whole day, but now what a difference a year has made, because I can go. No. It's been a really, truly joyous experience where I've been able to even make deeper connections with the other people that are at this conference that I'm emcee for and just really rest into a position of gratitude of, I don't know exactly how I got to this moment of things are okay, but I got here, and I deserve to be able to enjoy it.

And so, hopefully, you have those little moments in your life. If you can sit there and look at your life and pull it out like it's a timeline and then put those little tick marks on it at different places along the journey and go, hey, I can see that there's been growth. I can see that there's been change. Sometimes you just want to be able to put a little milestone that says, hey, things went from really terrible to they're okay. And that's just as important. Just getting to the point where things that sucked stop sucking.

Amen. Good for us. I mean, I don't believe. I like Disney movies, but I don't believe in the fact that sometimes when things are terrible, we have to have things swing to the other side of pendulum where we're like, oh, my gosh, now they're amazing. Really, what I want in my life a lot of times for them just to stop sucking, I'm totally okay with that. And maybe you are what are as well. So if you're in the midst, if things are sucking for you right now, I'm so sorry that you're going through that.

And I want to be here for you as well when you get to the next point when you can just sit here and go, you know what, Michael? Last week was terrible, but today is okay. And for you to be able to get as much joy out of okay as, oh, it's just amazing because, okay, hey, man, I'm good with that. You know, I'm like, I'm drinking water I don't think is a bad year, but I'm like, cheers to the fact that being okay works for you and it works for me, and it works for all of us sometimes. Setting that realistic expectation so that you can enjoy your life instead of setting up this unrealistic expectation where it has to be so amazing that you never get to the point of being able to just rest and being content.

That is a word that I've been using a lot in my daily practice when I'm talking about things, is what I want right now is to be able to be content with where I am so high. Speak wonder. Thanks again. You had on a great t shirt. Your coffee t shirt this morning was fantastic. So thanks for joining us. And I had gotten to the point of the conversation speak wonder where I was talking about the concept of being content. And I use that word very intentionally because I don't want you to feel like being content is the same as being complacent.

Because it is not being content and being able to rest and refuel yourself in certain situations, to be able to enjoy these small wins that you have as much as the giant, giant triumphs that you get as well. Content is good. Complacent, no. We are still allowed to achieve. We are still allowed to have these goals and things that you're working for. I have a long list of things that I want to be able to achieve for me and for my kiddo. But that doesn't mean that we don't deserve to be content and have just a day of, hey, we got to sit still, you know, while I was on the bench in the backyard and he was playing in his inflatable hot tub, and we were content.

So if you can, for this rest of this week, and as we move into next week, look for those moments of being content. I would like to challenge you to do that as your homework assignment. And then hopefully we can go ahead and share some of those next week. I'm going to look for those moments of being content as well. The other thing I would love for you to do is look for those moments of how you can continue to build community, and sometimes that is swapping out different people in your life. Maybe there's somebody that's really good at supporting you in a certain way.

Maybe there's somebody else that's not necessarily that person, but you can use them for something else kind of thing. And just figuring out how everybody fits into that overall definition of community for you and also just being fair about that. Thank you. Speak wonder. I hope that you do. And being fair about that and not putting unrealistic expectations on people in your community to be all things, sometimes it's giving them grace to be some of the things, just like, hopefully we are giving ourselves grace to be some of the things.

So those are, I think, our two lovely homework assignments for us right now. I don't like to give too much homework assignments because I don't want you to come back next week with this feeling of, oh, I didn't get it done. I can't check in with her. She's gonna think I'm the worst. You're not the worst. You are absolutely wonderful. And, you know, we are all just on this journey. And, you know, I encourage you, as you're looking at those moments of contentment, to find those moments and then sit there.

And if you're a journaling person, do that. If you have to do like, what I do. Sometimes I write myself little notes that I can just look back through and go, wow. When you're looking back, remember this day or remember this moment, because I know that we all get busy and we get on to whatever the next thing is and the next thing and the next thing. So give yourself a chance to reflect on your timeline. Give yourself a chance to be proud of those moments of contentment and keep checking in with us here at the cadres sphere, I know we're all giving a variety of different information, and that is intentional, so that wherever you are in the journey, there's somebody here that you can relate to and can give you the relatability and the storyline that you need to get you through to the next moment.

So if you have any suggestions on what we should continue to cover, please let us know. If you're like, hey, I know somebody that would be a great contributor, please let us know that as well. Or if there's somebody in your circle that you think benefit from being part of our community, hey, just send them and suggest the app, and we'd love to have them join us as well. So, hello. Yes, sticky notes. I love those as well. So whatever it is for you that you have it around you know, I like putting on my little pins today.

That's my equality. So whatever you need to bolster your moments of contentment, do that this week. And I would love to have you report back next week. So enjoy your weekend. Check in with all of our contributors throughout the weekend, and we will see you all back here next week.