Comedy Through The Chaos

Oh no. Ah. I don't know where to look on this one. Hello everybody. Hopefully I hit the right button and everything is going Well. I am Ms. Shannon and welcome to my tiny portion of Caregiver Thursdays here in the Cadre Sphere. I wonder what happens if I do this to you here, if I swing it that way. Oh, look, I think I like that better maybe. I think I might be upside down. Now. Let's see. Technology. Hopefully I'm not giving anybody vertigo or making them ill over there and hopefully this is working.

We will see how it goes. So hello everyone. Thank you for joining us for this edition of Comedy through the chaos. I am Ms. Shannon. Happy to be joining you. It is Thursday. If you're watching us live it, if you are watching us in the replay, it is whatever day it is in your universe and I am going to give you a couple of seconds to go ahead and log on. If I did this right, I normally am on a different mobile device that seems to be on its last legs. So a new mobile device is on its way. So in the meantime I will be contacting you from this one.

I miss Shannon Paul and I am a variety of word related things clubbing out of the great state of Minnesota and I am also the proud parent of an adorable 16 year old boy who happens to be on the autism spectrum and hello, get to the root of it. Hey Rachel, I hope that you can hear me because I'm on my tablet and I don't normally use this so you just want to put some hearts in there in the chat and let me know that everything is working because it is different technology. So welcome to the adventure.

Welcome to the adventure. To bring everybody up to speed. I appreciate what our director of people JC mentioned this morning as he was just kind of level setting for the day. JC is definitely one of my favorite human beings. I'm very happy to be a part of a circle. I am glad you can hear me. Thank you very much for your response and I think JC did a really good job this morning not only explaining what we do on Caregiver Thursdays, but talking about the fact that caregiving is a variety of things.

It's not always I care gear for this kind of person or what I do. It could be your profession, it could be your, it could be your hobby, it could be your what you're passionate about, it could be for a loved one in any variety of ways and reminding you that we all deserve to have this space to be able to share commonalities and build Community, which is a lot of what we do here in the Cadre sphere, is to talk about the things that make things complicated in our life. Rachel, I'm going to show you a little something that's been going on in our house.

So my sister, I have two sisters. So my sister Casey, who also is my biggest supporter in when I'm caring for my son. So she watches it most of the time when I'm working. She found these. And so it is not even the Thanksgiving, but she wants us to put up our holiday, our Christmas decorations already. And because I love her and I appreciate everything that she does for me, although I normally would hold off until after Thanksgiving. That is what we are going to do this weekend, is that we are going to do our holiday decorations because that will give her joy.

And so I wanted to use that as a sounding board. Thank you, Rachel. Yes. I wanted to use that as a sounding board for making space for yourself to find joy, even if it is out of the normal schedule of what other people would expect. Because I know a lot of people are like, oh, my gosh, it's too early. We haven't gotten through one holiday. We have to do something else. I get that. I'm normally one of those people. I wouldn't put my tree up last year. I think I put it up two weeks before Christmas, and I have never done this before.

Last year I took my Christmas tree down the day was it even the day after it was, oh, that's what I did. I took it down Christmas afternoon. And I've never done that before. I usually leave my Christmas tree up until New Year, New Year's Day, and then I take it down and then we start afresh. Um, but last year, and I will rewind what happened. We did all of the festivities. My sisters, both of them were kind enough to come over here because that was the easiest for my kiddo. Um, he is the least flexible of our family, so it just made more sense to be able to have the big things here.

And then if he needed some space to re regulate, he has his space. But then also if he was just getting a little tired, you know, I live in a duplex and so they could go next door to my sister's house. So it just gave us the most flexibility for all of the different human beings that were trying to celebrate the holiday together. So they left. My sisters went home. Our niece wasn't here anymore. And I started cleaning up and something that my son normally doesn't do because he's 16. Is he took a nap, one of those really, like, hard, snoring teenager naps.

Like, just was in his room, just out, just. I mean, that cartoon snowy, that Rachel, that deep, guttural, like, snoring, like somebody was making a Foley artist. It was the most aggressive snore. But he was happy and he was exhausted, obviously. So since I was left my own devices here in our living room and started cleaning up the wrapping paper and putting boxes away and clearing out some of the presents that he had got, I just looked over at the tree and the amount of space that it was taking up and the mood struck me that I wanted the tree put away.

And so in this blitz of cleaning, I took the tree down and I got halfway through taking the lights off and started to feel guilt. Like, it's like, oh, no, why are you taking this tree down already? And why aren't you savoring this moment more and extending it and holding on to it when it was like, no, I want this space back. So for me, it just felt really good. And not only did I take our treat out, it's a forever Christmas tree, so it's very easy. I took it down, folded up, put it in the cardboard box, wrote on the Sharpie, because that was the first year I did it, what it was and had it in the garage.

And so for the first time in my adult life, our Christmas tree was down before bedtime on Christmas Day. And it felt good. It felt good to. To have that space back because that's what I needed at the time. That's where I was last December. So I understand my sister's desire. What she needs right now is she wants to feel this sense of jolliness and community and this thing because that's, you know, it's definitely. We're moving into her two favorite holidays between Thanksgiving and. And Christmas.

So I understand and I am all on board for what is going to give her joy in this moment right now and this time of year, I think I will enjoy looking out and seeing the glow up deer that we have in the front yard and putting these adorable. If you wonder where you can get these, it was at a dollar store. So if you want to know where you can get them, that's it. Hello, Sarah. Thanks for jolly. Yes. So it is so appropriate to be able to go. I know what the general vibe is of the world and what the general expectation is for the world, but it doesn't make sense for you.

And that's a lot of what I think we have to remind ourselves all the Time. As caregivers, there's lots of ways to get things done, there's lots of expectations of how you're supposed to do it, what kind of parent should you be, what kind of caregiver should you be, what will you be doing? And then really just sitting down and going, you're doing what's best for you and what's best for the person that you're giving care to. And that's really what's most important. And if that's a little out of the norm for what the expectation might mean in our society, throw it out the window, man.

Just let it go. And that's a lesson that it took me a really long time to be able to come to grips with with is to go, you don't have to do things in the way that they are always expected. It's better to do things in the way that makes sense for us. And the more I've done that, the more the universe has leaned into it and provided me the things and supports that I needed organically to have happen. And also it's allowed me to release some, some of the inherent low level anxiety that I live with every moment of every day.

So allowing yourself to go, yeah, it would be nice if this happened, but nobody's going to be harmed if it does. Not the. 9% done with. So we have an upstairs bathroom. Again, the safety doors that they were putting in I actually got to try out last night. So that actually worked really well. It made a nice cool transition for my kiddo when he needed to re regulate in his room. It's like, you can just go do that. That's all right, I'll stay out here. But it was a couple of weeks of extra people in the house, routines getting thrown off and every day that there was supposed to be something that I was like, oh my gosh, this is going to be really difficult for us to deal with it organically.

Kind of reset itself from the thing that I thought needed to happen to the thing that really needed to happen. And that was wonderful, you know, being able to look back and go, yep, I thought they were going to come on Friday, but then they messed up and double booked and can't make it. That's probably for the best. Okay. All that energy that I put into what it was going to be like when they got here and I had to move all this stuff around my kiddo and trying to make sure that he had an ability to a soft land with all of this chaos that was going on.

It all worked out. So is there something in your life that you were hanging on to? The. It should be versus the here's what would work best for us. Here's what would be best for me. And I encourage you to examine those things and don't let the FOMO of being this sitcom lifestyle back you into a corner that it does not serve you. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And that's okay. You're allowed to look at things a little differently. I had to be honest with myself. I was considering getting together with a friend tonight, but it was a later get together.

And the reality is I got a show on Saturday. I'm already feeling a little. I'll use the words run down. Based upon all of the challenges and the juggling that have been going on the last couple of weeks, and we're moving into that type of season that is very easy here in Minnesota to end up catching whatever is going on. And I just had to admit, you know, as much as you would like to see this friend, now is not the right time. So let's just put it off. And I text them and said, hey, do you mind if we reschedule?

And it turns out that it's better for them too. And that they were a little weird leery about getting together this evening. So it all worked out. You know, the. The landmine, I thought. Thank you. Yes. Sliding into sideways. Yep. You know, the. You know, if you all. Sometimes the catastrophizing that we do is the hardest thing to overcome. It's not the actual activity. It's not the actual interaction. It's the catastrophizing that we allow to happen up here that actually is possibly much worse than whatever the reality is.

And that is a lesson again, that it took me a while to get to the point of going. That's where we're at. So. So instead of stressing out and forcing myself to go and do something that didn't serve me this evening, I'll be able to hang out with my friend at a later date when I'm in the right headspace, when he's in the right headspace and all that's good. And what I plan to do this evening is continue putting my house back together because it's throwing me off, too. I say it's all about my kid and his routines, but mom has routines too, and it's been kind of a pain not having things have a place to live.

It's like, yeah, so thank you. Speak wonder. It is catastrophizing. You can borrow that, you know, and use yours in yours as well. But it, it's, it's giving yourself that space to go. From a Socratic point of view, is this the reality? You know, ask. Giving yourself time to ask that question and go, is this true? And if it is true, then what is the scenario that I'm going to deal with in this scenario? When a lot of times, once we give ourselves a second to actually go, is this true? It may not be.

It's just our brain adding on these layers of anxiety and what could go wrong and making it the most horrific experience that it possibly could be when it might be just okay. And we all like to remind one another that okay is fine. You know, okay is. Is acceptable. Content is also acceptable. I like to use that word a lot and remind myself that feeling. Those moments of being content are some of my favorite things. Not living in the swings emotion, but just being able to rest in contentment like a teabag in warm water.

That's what I'll say. You can. I should write all these things down and make bumper stickers, but I haven't been that together about the process. So one of these days you'll be able to buy a series of bumper stickers that are mini sound bites from Ms. Shannon and what she said in the Cadre sphere. So there will be no catastrophizing. What there will be is some trim painting this weekend. I'm glad that tonight is going to be a night where I just get to set and sit around with my kiddo. I do not have any of his additional caregivers coming this evening, which is a great support, but it's also extra people in your house so it'll be nice to sit here if you wonder where you are at right now, my tablet is sitting on a box for a brand new Ryobi circular saw that I bought to myself.

And just so you don't think I made it up, that is what I will be opening when the live stream is done because your friend here will be trimming some some floorboards over the weekend. And don't worry, I have chainsaw gloves and some other safety measures that I will put into place. So take some time for yourself over the next couple of days. See if there's something that we might be adding into that catastrophizing bucket. I know it happens a lot this time of year. There are a lot of additional stressors that are going on between what goes on with Thanksgiving, what goes on with.

You know, a lot of times our, our additional support system might be taking some time off for the holidays, which may be well deserved, but it's stressful for us also reminding yourself that. And one of my friends who is a mental health provider reminded me that the expectations that we set for ourself around the holidays, that Hallmark Channel expectation of what we need to act like around other human beings, if that does not serve, you do not feel the need to force yourself into that round hole.

If you are a square peg, there are lots of ways you can get through it and some resources that you can not only find here in, in the Cadre sphere, but if you reach out to us, there's lots of things that we've collected throughout our existence here on this planet that we would love to share with you. So hold yourself close, hold the people that you care for close during this complex time between now and the official end of the year, and always pop in here and talk to us here on Cadre. As I remind everybody every week, we are here to continue to build this community, talking about mental health and mental wellness and mental illness in a way that hopefully is accessible to as many of our friends as possible.

And also providing what you need as a resource and getting your feedback and doing our best to make sure that there are the resources that you need when you need them. So maybe you just need to be able to pop into one of our replays and go, what was that? Yeah, that's what I'm doing now. And I'm not the only one that's doing it. There's somebody else that is living that experience as well. So I am going to do a couple of errandy things and then go pick up my kiddo at school and hopefully see what he likes about all of these wonderful modifications we have done in his home.

In the meantime, I am holding all of you dear. We will see you next week. Be kind to yourself and we'll see you back here in the Cadre sphere.