Comedy Through The Chaos

Hello Cadre friends. Oh, that's not gonna work. I'm gonna have to turn this way. Hello friends. I am Ms. Shannon and I am joining you from the great state of Minnesota where I hub out of and I'm joining you a little earlier than what I normally do. Normally I join you on Caregiver Thursdays at 2pm Central, but today because I have an appointment, I asked them to kindly move it up. So if I threw you off and you were catching me in the replay. Hello. Hello, Elle. Hello. Thanks for joining me. Normally I would also check in from like my studio which is in my basement.

But I came up here because as I said and many of you might know, I am here in the great state of Minnesota and we are having our first major snow weather event and I thought I would come up and share some of those frosty flakes with all of you. So not like the delicious ones that we can get with Tony the Tiger on. But this I thought would be a good example of how we as caregivers and people who are in this space just have to roll with the punches because today has been already a very robust day and one of my favorite mindfulness pract is probably going to be very surprising.

I like, I love it when I am in my mindfulness app and they talk very often about the concept of impermanence and how we are in whatever space we are in at the time and then that will change and evolve and we will end up in another space because these, none of these things will remain static. And as a caregiver in my particular journey, that really always resonates with me because I when left to my own devices prior to having my son. Hello. Hello, GM Johnson, thanks for joining us. I'm talking about the concept of impermanence.

And when left to my own devices, I really am that very type A type of personality which I no longer call type A. I name it what it is for me, which is high functioning anxiety. And so the way that my high functioning anxiety works is that hey man, your girl likes a plan. I like to have structure. I used to be that kid that I was the kid that if we were going on a family vacation I would have like written away for like all of the brochures and then come up with a detailed map of where we should go to the bane of my mom's existence and like beat all of the fun out of the thing.

And I still like to have a plan. And it's the kind of thing that made me very good at a variety of things throughout my career. That's why I was a good promotions and marketing director and why I'm a good executive producer is that structure is something that I like to rest into, but especially with the challenges and adventures I have with my kiddo, who happens to be, if you're just joining me, high supports on the autism spectrum. Structure, although it is of value, is not something that we can always lean into.

At least not the structure that is on the schedule that I would like. You know, there are certain things that he likes and I know that when there is consistency, and I'll use that word more, you know, very loosely, consistency works better for him. Structure in that he doesn't seem to love a lot of surprises. You know, he likes to be able to count on certain things. All of that is fair. But with that in mind, me wanting to count on what my schedule would be and those type of things is not always as structured as I would like.

And I've also had to really just allow myself in my particular variety of self compassion to go, yep, I thought I was going to get to it by that time and I'm not. I'm going to get to it later or allow myself to be able to make a pivot or allow myself to be able to go, yep, I'm running a little late and that's not ideally what I would like. But the world will have to continue to go on. And that's why I like circling back to the idea of impermanence. One of the things I think is interesting. So we're at the time of this one, it's Halloween.

I had put off getting our Halloween candy until today because I did not want to have to put myself in a situation to need to use up any of my beautiful calories on Halloween candy when I would rather preserve them for things that I like better. But I, out of the sake of convenience, would of course eaten a lot of this candy that was made for the kiddos to come and partake of. So I'm glad I put that off because now since it's snowing, it's good cuddle weather and it's good hunker down weather and it would feel really good to have some of this candy around.

But now I don't. I can't guarantee that there's going to be any kids if it's snowing like this, we might not have any. So it will all go to me. And I love myself, but I don't need that much Halloween candy all in one setting. And so being able to go, yes, that plan was set for a certain reason, but it's not necessarily the plan that's going to work for what the universe has provided today. And probably in your life, you have a variety of those things too. Where, yeah, you set down this plan. Here's what you thought the agenda was.

Here's what you were encouraging the run of show to be in your life for that day, and then you have to change it and do something else. So that is what I'm doing. Because the good thing about this is that my son does not know that snow is a pain in the b***. He's actually, because he was watching some of his favorite videos that focus on snow. He's been asking me about snow and bringing up snow in conversation for the last three months. So I told him this morning, and I got to tell him. And mom did not turn out to be a liar.

I was like, there'll be snow when you get home from school and seeing your friends. So I was thinking, we're going to get a dusting. And thinking that they were being overly aggressive in their estimation, that we would actually have an accumulation. But accumulating it is. It is. And I think my kiddo will be excited about that, although his mother is less than enthusiastic. But I encourage you this week. I mean, we were checking in last week on a different homework assignment. So I will give you this homework assignment this week.

What can you do in your life to rest in the fact that impermanence is a thing? Wherever you are right now will only be for right now. And we can either look towards what happy moments we have or continue to catastrophize. And I have to catch myself all the time and go, no, I will look towards what positive things will also come. And I'm sure that there will be many catastrophes as we go. And giving yourself credit, as I say, often for the things that you end up actually doing on your to do list that were not originally on your to do list.

So if that means at the end of the evening, you're like, well, I meant to do these things, but I really ended up doing these other things that are still of value, make sure you add that onto your list and you give yourself a little check mark and a gold star for getting that thing done, because there may have been a reason that it manifested when it did and you had to push it up. So the adventures that we're going to have here in our caregiving household over the next two weeks is that I am going to be having some people Come in and do a modification to our upstairs bathroom that will be better for my kiddo in the long run.

The painful part of that is that they're going to tear up my upstairs bathroom and they said that it's going to take two weeks. So I am putting all of the positivity into this particular project that it will go smoothly and that my kiddo will not be thrown off too much about the fact that there is this remodeling going on because it needs to get done and it'll be better for him in the long run. And this is just going to be the growing pain that we have to deal with to eventually get to the outcome that we want.

So think about that over the next week. What can you put on your list to give yourself credit for that was not originally there? And also think about what is the thing that you might have going on in your life right now that will be painful for a little bit, but will actually get you farther along and be something really great when you get to the end of that particular mini journey or mini adventure. So wish me luck as I now go to get my new retainer. Fun times. Fun times is why I'm early. Fun times.

I'm gonna go get my retainer so you can see how it looks next week when I check in. Also, regardless of what it is that would be of value for you to as far as content goes here in the Cadre sphere, we encourage you please to let us know, drop us some information in the chat, send us a message if there's something you'd like us to talk about. If you want to see how my remodel for my kiddo and again I get to I call it a remodel but it, it's really a necessary thing. We're going to put some we're there the people, the company that I hired, we're putting in some safety doors and some other things in the upstairs bathroom that'll make it a lot more user friendly for my kiddo and also make it just a safer environment as I continue to look for additional staff to work with my kiddo as well, which is always if you're in this particular situation or that whenever you're looking to have new oh, thank you gm.

I appreciate that. I, I am optimistic that this is going to go well because it is something that once it gets done it'll give me that opportunity to free up some space because it'll give him more space to self regulate. It will give me. It'll take out some of the things like right now I'm going to be full disclosure. I have a 16 year old boy whose highest sports on the autism spectrum. So his aim in our bathroom is less than stellar. And that is intentional. It has now become a game. It has become a game to see how many free throws he can miss is the way I'll put it when he is using our upstairs bathroom.

So one of the part of the remodel is we're gonna put in a bigger toilet. So hopefully he enjoys that more and it changes the game of let's see how much I can splash off of the backdrop to actually getting it in the water again. That'll be fun. Also, I'm putting in some antimicrobial flooring because if I have to mop 75 times a day, then I know it's so glamorous. My life here in the Twin City is so glamorous. If I have to mop 75 times a day, I need a floor that will not degrade from the 75 mopped moppings that happen.

And I'm also putting in and I the company, the remodeling company that does these things for different families that have a variety of different challenges and special needs kiddos and family members suggested that I put in a sink that had a automatic faucet because he has on a couple of occasions decided to let the water run and then plug everything up because he thinks it's really funny when the sink overflows. So if I'm downstairs doing laundry for too long, I get to come upstairs to a giant puddle of water.

So one of the things that they're putting in is an automatic shut off sink, which I think the dual purpose of that along with him not flooding the kitchen, I mean flooding the bathroom anymore, it will also make it so that I'm like, wash your hands till the water turns off. So hopefully that'll. That'll be a twofer on that. So I will keep you in the loop on all of those things are going on. Also encourage you that I know that we probably a lot of times have some things that were like, wow, it's too hard and I don't have the capacity.

And I encourage you to go, how can I just suck it up and get through this hard part? Because the end goal will probably be better for us. And that was something I had to do on this particular thing is going, nope, it'll be hard for a couple of weeks and it's not necessarily going to be convenient. But the end goal is really going to be a benefit to he my kiddo and to I. So I will bring you in on that next week and see how that is. So, again, please let us know what's going on here in the Cadre sphere.

We are grateful for each and every one of you, regardless of how long you check in with us, regardless of where you are in your mental wellness, mental illness, mental health journey, however you identify that. We try to be here and be a support so that you have a place to stop in and be part of a community, because a variety of things that we're dealing with can be incredibly isolating. And so we want to be part of the fact that you know that you do not have to go through things alone. You can find somebody here and go, oh, wait, they're in the midst of going through this as well.

So I'm gonna go throw my shovel in the back of my car, just in any case, anything goes awry. And giant hugs to all of you. We will check in with you again here in the Cadre sphere. So be safe, stay healthy, and we will see you again next week, friends. It.