Coffee Chats w/ Dr. D

Hey, Cadre, it's Dr. D. And my coffee. Welcome to my coffee chat. And I want to apologize for not having my coffee chat last week. So I'll tell you what was going on. Last week was pretty eventful for me. Let's see. Let's rewind back to the previous Saturday. So I was in Nashville on December 7th, and I received an award for Empowered Woman of the year and top 50 fearless leader from the International association of Top Professionals. And I just kind of took a road trip with my friends. So we went on Saturday, Sunday, drove back home to Illinois, and then the very next day drove to Kansas City to see one of my college friends I have not seen since graduation.

So that was a long time ago. But his name is Je and he is part of an acapella group called King's Return. So it was a Christmas theme, and it was just really cool to hear his voice. And so the next day, which was Tuesday, I was on the road back home again. And so I didn't think it was wise to host a coffee chat and drive at the same time. So that is why I chose not to meet with you guys last week. So please forgive me, but I'm back and I am just really excited. I actually got an update from my platform called Simple Practice that I use for therapy, and it showed me the number of sessions that I've had and the number of people that I've impacted for the year.

Welcome there. And the number blew me away. So if you think about therapy session, it's about an hour. And just how many minutes of talking and listening that I've done, It was about 45,000 minutes for the year. And I'm still going, y'all. I still have two weeks left in the year. I'm one of those people that likes to take the first week of the year off instead of waiting till the holidays. And I think it might be just because of the space that I'm in as a therapist. I've recognized over the last few years that people need more support during the time with the holidays and with family.

And so I like to make myself available for those who need sessions just to maybe prepare for family situations or some people have experienced loss during this time of year. And so this could be a very triggering time. So I think it's more important for me to show up at that time and then take time off later. So that is my personal plan. I don't know what you guys have planned. Let me know in the chat down there if you're planning to Take time off now for Christmas or for New Year's or if you like, to take the first week of the year off and kind of reset.

So I'm looking forward to that. And it's just crazy. We have two weeks left in this year. That's it, two weeks. So it's going to go by fast. And I have decided to kind of start preparing myself for the new year and how I want that to look. And I'm one of those that, you know, I'm really committed to my vision board. And so this time of year is when I start to look at what do I want for myself in the next year, how do I want to cultivate relationships? And one thing that I may have lost and tell me if this is resonating with you is the ability and the time that I need to take to connect with myself.

So you guys know I'm a therapist, so I'm always talking to other people and connecting with them, even if I'm not asking for it. I get strangers who just want to come up and tell me their life story. They just. I think they can sense it about me that I'm a therapist. But there are times when I have to pull back and I have to connect with me, and I don't get a lot of that time, not as much as I used to. And so looking back, maybe. I'll say maybe 10 years ago. So in my early 30s, I probably had a lot more time that I didn't realize, and those were moments when I wanted to connect with others, and I didn't necessarily appreciate the time that I had to connect with me and to connect with my thoughts and connect with my own desires.

And it's. You know, I think we all do that sometimes, or we. We look at what we don't have, and we. We only focus on that thing that we don't have and what we want so bad that we don't pay attention to what we do have. And so now at this time in my life, I have so many connections, personally, professionally, and they're all great connections. And so I've lost the time where I'm connecting with me. And so I'm gonna. I'm gonna challenge myself to do that. So I'm gonna challenge you to do that, too.

And so what does that look like? Well, for me, connecting with myself means doing the things that I want to do and not feeling guilty if I say no to someone else. So something is coming to mind right now. So there's a request for me to attend an event for someone that it's a new connection that I have and I want to show up for this person and I want to, you know, prove to them that I am on their team and that I care about them. But it's also. The event is scheduled during the time that. That is typically my time.

And so I'm kind of torn. Do I show up for this person with their event and let them know how I think that they're important to me, or do I commit to myself, as I have been doing with that dedicated time, and show up for myself? And I don't know if you guys have ever experienced that pool where you need to show up for you, but instead you abandon that. You abandon yourself to show up for someone else. And I think if it's reversed when we choose ourselves, we can feel like we're selfish, or maybe we're called selfish.

Like, you didn't show up for me. You're being selfish. And I don't think that that's necessarily true because we have to fill up our own cups. Now, if you go back to some of my early videos, I did a video about filling up your own cup. And what does that look like? You know, we can't fill someone else's cup and show up for them when we are empty. And I'm. I'm taking inventory of myself. I've had a busy. What's today? The 17th? So it's been about 10 days, maybe 11, if I'm being honest. 11 days consecutively, where I have been so busy, where I have not had time to do what I want for myself.

Although the things that I'm doing are enjoyable. But I have not time. Had the time to slow down and sit with myself and be present and even recognize my own thoughts. Like I'm just on a go, go, go mood, right? And I have to be committed to me. And that's not selfish because if I don't pour into myself, I can't continue to give to others. My cup is going to be empty. And how do we show up when our cups are empty? So if I think about me personally when my cup is empty, I think I get irritable. I think if I get one more request, it's like, oh, my gosh, what do you want?

You know, this is too much. I've already been doing a lot. But the truth is, not everybody knows all the things that I do behind the scenes. Not everybody knows that I'm tired because sometimes I can mask that I can just keep going because I find the energy I get energized by giving to others. I get energized by helping others. But when I'm done helping, I crash. And so I don't want to get to that point. And that's something I'm recognizing myself. And I want to challenge you, too. When you recognize that your cup is empty, you know, it's kind of like with a gas tank, it's a little too late.

We don't want to get to that point when we're out of gas. So we have to kind of monitor that over time. And so recognizing the signs within yourself when your cup is getting a little lower. Right now, my coffee cup here is still full because I have only had a few sips. So I'm gonna take a sip right now. But I have to check in with myself. So a couple things I noticed with me and let me know if this resonates with you too. So when I'm starting to feel empty, I get irritable, I get tired. I feel body aches and pains in different places.

My sleep is disturbed. So sometimes I can't sleep because I'm always thinking about the next thing. What do I have to do tomorrow? Or I might wake up early because I don't want to be late for something. I won't say that I feel anxious at all, but I do worry about showing up as my best self because I know I'm running low on the energy that I have. And so when I get to that point, I know it's time to just kind of shut down. And I don't like doing that. I don't like to shut down. So my personal goal for 2025 is to kind of monitor that a little bit better and not feel guilty when I need to pull back.

And. And to make intentional time for myself on a regular basis, not just when I'm starting to feel like I'm doing too much, but to be more intentional about, you know, even once a week or once a month where I just have time for me and not feel guilty about it. So I want to challenge you to do the same. So what we're talking about today is connecting with ourselves. So how do you connect with you? And I hope you guys are looking forward to Christmas. I love Christmas time. I just watched a really great Christmas movie last night on Netflix.

And so I think the next two weeks, even after Christmas, I love watching Christmas movies. So that's what I'm going to be doing for time for myself. And next week, we're going to talk a little bit. Maybe about Christmas, but just preparing for the New year. So I hope you guys have a wonderful day and don't forget your coffee. Bye.