Comedy Through The Chaos

Happy Thursday Cadre family. I hope that your week has been kind to you so far this week. If you're just joining me, I am Ms. Shannon Paul. I am a comedian, corporate speaker, voice actor, event MC and benefit auctioneer hubbing out of the great state of Minnesota. But primarily I am the mother of an adorable 60 year old kiddo who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. So I am happy to be joining you today. Hello. Hello Dr. Therese, Theresa, I appreciate you. Hello. I'm happy to be joining you on this caregiver Thursday.

Hello Anila, Nice to see you. So I will bring you up to speed on what has been going on over here in my world at Ms. Shannon's comedy through the Chaos. It has been an interesting week and we had the opportunity this morning. Some of us from the Cadre sphere actually did a live event with some wonderful folks. Hello Jocelyn, good to see you in the chat with some wonderful folks here in the Twin Cities that wanted to hear more about creating safe spaces in your workplace and out in the universe. So we got to cover a variety of things with a variety of panelists and you can see that here in the Cadre sphere.

And I was very happy to be part of that event and moderate a number of panels and bring up some information that kind of overlaps with what I want to cover today on our Comedy through the Chaos on this Caregiver Thursday. So. Hello. Yes, I did, I emceed, Yes, I did. I emceed yesterday at the Coven event, the Radical Leadership event. So thank you very much for bringing that up, Anila. That was a wonderful event as well. So and thank you for joining us while you're working. That is a multitasking is something that we all have to do.

So if you are finding some support while you are in that work zone, we appreciate being part of that. So. Hello, hello, hello. I am. I usually time this as an event that. I'm sorry, my live stream. I time this as one of the final things I get to do during my, I call it my adulting time because it's that 10am to 2pm is usually that sweet pot sweet spot during the week when my kiddos at school. So I like to jam pack a lot of information into that. And so it was wonderful yesterday as Anila is bringing up the Radical Leadership Summit that we had here in the Twin Cities, courtesy of our friends over at the Coven.

This wonderful co working space was a very inspiring day and it's the kind of event that brings me to what I was going to cover today in our comedy through the Chaos livestream because one of the questions that I got yesterday from an individual, but also at an event that I was at last week where I was speaking on the concept of vision and during that I did mention, as I always do, because it's a major component of who I am and how I navigate this interesting planet that we live on on a day to basis is that through the vision of not just a black woman in America, but a black woman in America who has a special needs kid.

And thinking about that and how I frame things and how my lens might be slightly different because of what I'm trying to create in the space I'm trying to create for my kiddo. And it's interesting because I had somebody asked me this question, they said how do you as a mom with a special needs kid, how do you make space for yourself to work on the things that are important to me, my career, those other things, just fully fueling myself as a human being. And I appreciate when people ask me that question because I am better at it now.

I don't think we are all perfectly imperfect. So I'm not going to say I'm great at anything. There's some things that I'm like, yes, I am proficient and that is something I'm very proud of and certain things. But as far as maintaining space for myself as a fully functioning human being, that is part of my continual practice. And I think a lot of us have those things that you can't take it off of your practice list because it's something that if you didn't intentionally continue to work for and work towards, it would fall away.

And it made me think about this and I brought this up and I've been divorced for I think 11 years. 12. Time flies. But I remember when I first started, the first time I had ever had a mental health practitioner, my therapist who I still see now. And so it's interesting that I've seen her through this so many iterations. So she saw me when I was married and I was in couples counseling. She saw me after I got divorced. She saw me when I was dating as a divorcee and these journeys and kind of has also sees me now and basically I call them my little checkups.

It's like so instead of falling off completely, I have this ch. I have these, these monthly check ins with her. And I'm really, really fortunate that a lot of times it's. Well, here's something I'd like to talk about with you versus being in that crisis mode that I know I've been in different points in my life. And I remember when I first started seeing my therapist, my mental health practitioner, years ago, as I was in couples counseling before I got divorced. And I remember her asking me, so, what is it that you want?

What do you. What do you. What do you want? And I remember answering that question. And back then, when she asked me, what did I want? Everything that I could say that I wanted was through the lens of what I wanted for my relationship with my husband at the time and the lens of what I wanted for my kiddo. And so I literally was not able to come up with an answer of what I wanted that had any fundamental thing that was only for me. And it was all, well, I want my kid to be happy. I want to be able to have a solid relationship, all these things.

But then when she came back and would reframe the question and ask me again, what does Shannon want? That was it. And I wasn't able to leave space for even the concept of me wanting something that was purely for me. And that is something that I have continually worked on over the years. And one of the favorite phrasings that she taught me that I use all the time is turning that rock before it becomes a wall. So that's something that I have been doing for years, is being able to create that space where I don't feel as if I'm a narcissist because I have aspirations that are purely for me, that I don't feel like an incredibly terrible parent because I also spend time working on things that are important to me or leaving time in to go.

No, I go to the gym. Yes, because it makes me a better parent. All those things that we have to tell ourselves, but it also makes me a better human. It's something that I need for myself, that maybe today is the day that, you know, my kiddo, I didn't make him take a shower yesterday, but I made sure I took one. Anything that's like that, where we can very easily, as caregivers go, I feel as though I'm doing something wrong because there's something that I'm doing that is purely for my benefit. And even to say that feels very uncomfortable for me still at this stage of my existence as a human being.

And so you might be in that situation as well, that something that would be purely for you, a particular career goal, a particular personal goal. It feels like a mistake to put your goal in that bucket of something that you strive for when what you are Also doing is caring for another person. And so I encourage all of us to go. It is allowed that we can have things that are for us even though we are a caregiver. And so it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. I spend massive amounts of time making sure that my kiddo is safe and secure.

My concept of the future is greatly based on how he thrives. And I absolutely know, as a major definition of success for me is that I set my kiddo up for success as well. My personal mission statement leads, with my kiddo, I'll use my art to care for my son and make the lives of other people better. And that doesn't mean that I also don't have financial goals that are based upon what I want to do. It's not that I also don't have eventual relationship goals of what I would like to do when I eventually find a partner that I think is appropriate for me.

It's not that I don't have certain self care goals, you know, like trying to like right now go, you know, it's okay to wash your face. Did you know this? Did you know this? I'm gonna drop this in here. In this comedy through the chaos, I learned through an esthetician Friends of mine, you're supposed to double cleanse your face. Mind blown. Friends, mind blown. Things you learn when you hit 50. I have been washing my face poorly, poorly this whole time. I suppose wash it and wash again. Never knew that.

So now I gotta find time to make sure that I double cleanse if I want to make sure that everything is taken care of myself. And maybe there's something in your life that you're going, I have putting off some of my self care because it felt bad to put it first. Maybe there's something career wise that you've already preemptively talked yourself out of because you're like, no, I got to put everybody first. I am a servant. Not just a servant leader, just a servant to the person that I'm giving care for.

I. I feel that. I feel you and I hope you feel seen right now. And that was something that I had to come to the reality that it doesn't make me a bad person. That I spend time working towards my personal goals with my career relationship, my interactions with other adulting human beings. That's not a bad thing. It doesn't make me a bad caregiver. There are things out there that make you a bad caregiver and there are people out there that I know need to work on that journey and I, you know, we can all see them in a bunch of reality shows.

So I am not talking about that, but there is. Thank you very much, Anila. It is a difference. And so I am a wonderful servant leader to my family and the people that are important to me. But I am not an everyday servant, and you don't have to be that. What are the things I'm working on in this particular house is on my kiddo. We're always working on his communication strategies. It's something that we work on in speech therapy. And for some reason, just because of where he's at in his teenagerness, he's back to trying to, like, bark orders at me.

Like, not only am I a short order cook, it's like, I don't know if you've ever watched, like, all those cooking shows back when they seemed to think it was okay that Gordon Ramsay would just bark orders and yell at people and call them names. My kid seems to think that he could just say t. Hey, hey. I at least deserve three words in that sentence like, t, please, mom, and those kind of things. So I'm like, I. I am your mom and a good friend to you. You don't get to talk to me like that. And hopefully you are finding those things in your life where it's like, no, no, no.

I am. I am a servant leader. I am glad to be doing this, this. This work as a caregiver. I'm glad that I have the resources to do it. I'm glad that I was able to make the time to focus on all of these things, because I do truly believe my kiddo will be in a position to thrive more efficiently and appropriately, because I'm putting this work in right now, all those things. But I'm also trying to go, well, what do I look like when I extend that? Let's use the. The visual of a tether. So let's imagine that the person that we are caring for is this foundation.

And then you're like that bungee that you see on pets. Sometimes you're the one that's on that bungee, and they're holding the end of that bungee. And so how far can you pull that out to the point that you can still be over here off the screen orbiting whoever it is here on that base, but you still have a little bit more space to be able to orbit so that you can fully form the things that you need to do to be able to be a success in your own right. Not just a success, because you are A wonderful caregiver.

You can do both things in this space and be successful at it. You can find a way to refuel yourself and to refresh yourself in this space and be successful at it. It is not always easy. There are lots of days where I am already at adrenal exhaustion and it's only 9:30am so I feel you. But please do remember that that can be a definition of what happened until 9:30am it does not have to be a definition of what that entire day is and finding ways to go, yep, that was something I experienced. And now what can I experience next?

And not letting yourself feel guilty that you allow yourself to release those moments. It's hard. You know, it's. I think one of the hardest things that we do as caregivers is releasing ourselves from the guilt that we didn't care give every single moment that we're awake. I know it's something that I am sharing with you that I struggle with all the time. You know, I was not doing it from the moment I woke up to the moment my head hits the pillow. And some days that's okay because there's going to be days where a lot more of the day is built for that.

So to help you do that, I encourage you to find a way to not only continue to make space for yourself, but use that as part of your mindfulness practice so that when you are caregiving, as much as you're able to be fully present with the person you're giving care to in those moments, so that when you take a moment away from that role, you can allow yourself to be fully present there as well. For me personally, and again, I'm not a practitioner, I'm just someone who practices this along with many of you is it's more fueling for me to be able to go, I fully was able to be in this moment and now I'm going to be able to be fully in this next moment.

And it's those overlaps that end up exhausting me the most, not giving myself time to go, well, that technically is completed for now. I will come back to it. Those moments will be there later and I will work on that later. Instead of going, I have to try and layer everything at the same times so you never really feel like you've completed, completed any of those tasks. So that would be my homework assignment. It's funny, I was talking to a friend this morning during the live stream that we did at the event and I talked about how, what homework assignments would they like to leave with our audience and she mentioned that she does not like giving homework assignments.

I do like giving homework assignments and I always kind of liked receiving homework assignments and some tangibility. And so my homework assignment for this week for you would be, what can you do this week to be fully present in each of those spaces. So when you are giving care, try and be. Even if it's only for a few moments at a time, even if you're like, I could be fully present for five minutes because then I have to multitask again. Try and be fully present during your caregiving time and then when you're able to again, maybe it's only five minutes, that five minutes break that you leave for yourself before you go on onto the next thing.

Maybe it's five minutes of you scrolling through webtoons on your phone. Maybe you're one of those people like me that does a bunch of Merge 3 video games. Maybe it's just you sitting quiet and being able to just go, okay, what good things happened to me today? Give yourself that five minutes to be fully present for yourself as well and then see how that works out. And I would love if all of you check back in with us next Thursday. I would love to see how that worked out for you. And you could tell me, Shannon, it was great and I managed to do it.

And I'm not saying you got to be able to do it every day, but if you manage to do it once, I would love to hear that and see how that worked out for you. I will be my own accountability partner along with you and I will let you know how that works for me over the next week because that's what I'm going to work on too, is, you know, make sure every day that I have those moments where I am fully present with my kid and see how that goes. He's 16. He might tell me go away, but I'm be fully present and see how that works when I'm interacting with him and then give myself that time and space as well for some other projects that are for me that I'm working on and see how that works.

You know, am I able to reclaim those moments to get into flow and those things that I miss from when I was able to do this on a more consistent basis, this particular practice. So, you know, give that a shot. Let me see how it works for the week. Other than that, I always encourage you to pop around here in the Cadre sphere. We have lots of things that are going on and that's really the goal. And was reminded of that today is that if you're having that moment of weakness, that moment of exhaustion, that moment of it, am I in community?

Am I not in community? That's what we're trying to build here in the Cadre sphere is something that you would normally have to Google and go, hey, can I trust this source? You can at least pop around here in the Cadre sphere and know that you can trust the source, because we all are in this with you and trying to make sure that we continue to build this community and build together, that we can find a spot that we can clearly support one another in. And we're always looking, looking for your suggestions on what it is that you would like us to continue to cover.

Additional kind of contributors that you would like to see in this Cadre sphere, and then also letting us know the folks of us who are here, like Anila, I love your suggestions. Everybody that's in here, if there's something you're like, hey, Ms. Shannon, you touched on this. Can you bring that up again in the future? Make sure you drop it in the chat. And we appreciate all of that feedback. I usually am the anchor for Caregiver Thursdays. If you're joining me, feel free to pop back through. There's plenty of conversations that are here and some other reminders of what it's like when you're in this space and knowing that you are not the only one that's dealing with it.

And I don't know about you, but I feel better knowing that even though it feels isolated, because I'm one lady sitting in her basement studio, there are lots of people that are out there that are going through a lot of the same things that I'm going through as well. So also, regardless of where you're at, if there's somebody that you know that's dealing with grief, somebody that's dealing with recovery, somebody that's dealing with a variety of different things, we want to be able to be a resource for you because we understand that as human beings, if you're going through one thing, there might be another spot in your life where you're going through other things.

And we always know, well, where do I start? And that's our goal right here, is for this to be a place where you can start and then we can share resources and ideas so that we can go, hey, we're in a very complex situation. We could get through it together. So I hope everybody feels refreshed. Let me know how that practice works and seeing about being fully present in each of those situations and I would love to get your responses next week. So I will hopefully see you next Thursday, 2pm Central here in the Cadre sphere.

So everyone be well and I will see you back here soon.