The Thin Space

Well, hey there, Cadre. Good. Good morning. How are you? I hope you're good, I really do. If you are a regular morning livestream attendee. Gosh, if you had a nickel every single time I asked you how you were and heard that, I hope that you're good. But it's okay if you're not. You'd have a lot of nickels. Well, hey, if this is our first time spending some time together, my name's JC and you get to see me every single. Every single day, seven days a week. I kick off the mornings here in the Cadre sphere.

Hey, Chris. Hey, Amy. Nice to see you flicker on in. It is Sunday morning where I am, depending on when you're listening. It may be Sunday morning or some other time, but on Sundays, we take our live streams and focus them on you. Thinking about caring about yourself. How many passing quotes do we have about taking care of yourself before you take care of others? Right. The foundational belief in most religious pathways, right. The golden rule, however that translates, is about taking care of yourself, take care of others, how you take care of yourself, which insinuates that if you want to do good on others, you need to do good on yourself first.

So that's what we do on Sundays. We talk about you taking some time to nourish oneself. You know, I used to. I had a chapter where I ran, where I ran marathons. It was a pretty fun and memorable chapter of my life. And today is the running of the Chicago Marathon, which is one of the biggies on this planet. And our contributor Gene Nichols, who you'll see later on today, is starting Chicago Marathon. Literally right now it's happening. And it makes me think, I used to run a lot. When I was youth directing and directing high school theater and was a prep tennis coach, I spent a lot of time doing a lot of stuff for a lot of other people.

And I would always say, ah, my marathon is the four and a half hours that I don't have to do anything else. Meaning that time moving around the course was the time that I could focus on doing one thing. And that was kind of the thing I looked forward to. I could be in the moment, I was doing what I'm doing, and that was the opportunity. And that's what the thin space is. This thin space is the moment after everything that has happened and before everything that will happen. And it's being in that moment in between.

I think about the marathon and what the marathon does is it amplifies those internal voices, right? Like, if you're thirsty, you're really thirsty. If you're hungry, you're really hungry. If you see something beautiful, wow, it pulls you in. If you're feeling something, you really feel it. And because all of those internal voices get really loud, all of the desire, normalcy to pull outside goes away for that time, you don't have a choice but to focus on what is happening right now closest to you.

And I think that's my advice today for how you nuzzle into the thin space. You amplify the voices on the inside. It's kind of counter societal, right? We always think that, that the self care or the, or the meditative moments or the self nourishing moments have to be quiet. I go, no, it's actually the opposite. You want those self moments to be really loud, loud from the inside, so then you can root down into what's going on. So if you're wanting to carve out some time for yourself, place yourself in an environment where those voices on the inside get loud, where your imagination, your feelings, your memories, your senses get really, really loud.

You know, I think I put on some slip ons today on my feet without any socks. That's what seemed intuitively right this morning. Now I'm in Minnesota. You probably heard the wind blasting around. You can see it through the back window of my car. It's a chilly morning in Minnesota. So why did intuitively my body say hey, don't wear socks? I think it's because my body wants to feel the crisp and the cold. Because a week ago, actually even a few days ago, it was 80 degrees, it was still summery and all of a sudden the leaves turn amber and golden and we get to experience something different.

What can you experience today that is ripe for your picking? Do that because at the end of the day you really don't have a choice. You can ignore what's happening, which sometimes is a pretty healthy tactic, or you can go, ah, right now, here is what's happening around me and I'm going to be in the midst of it, y'all. You're going to see Seth coming up this afternoon and then marathon or Gene after that. You'll see Tiffany this evening, Jason this evening. These little moments, these little reminders to go, ah, hey, here's someone literally on the other side of the screen right now.

But if those times don't work for you, you can come to Cadre anytime and find some face, some voice, some perspective woven together by professionals and peers to create a community. To show you that there are so many ways to be. Well, have a great one. We'll see you later.