Comedy Through The Chaos: Why Caregivers Deserve to Shine

Hello, hello, hello and Happy Thursday Cadre sphere. I am Ms. Shannon Paul and very happy to be joining here on our Caregiver Thursday. Something that we hopefully are providing as a great resource for all of you out there. If you are in the caregiving role, we hope that we are continuing to support you. If you are adjacent to some caregivers, we hope we give you some great insight and information for them and you as well. I am currently. Hello, hello, Hello. I'm gonna take my glasses off, so. Hello.

That's a new name. T. Brown. Hello. Thanks for joining us in the live right now. If I miss anybody, feel free to just tap that screen or go ahead and make a comment and I'll be happy to shout you out because this is all about community and having this conversation. I was just getting to the point of slightly introducing myself and I have on a little more makeup than you normally get for a live, so I will explain. I'm Ms. Shannon Paul and I am a contributor here. Hi. Hubbing out of the great state of Minnesota, Minneapolis adjacent.

In fact, right now I'm in my car, I'm picking on my kiddo who happens to be an adorable 16 year old boy who happens to also be high supports on the autism spectrum. And he is lucky enough to get picked up from school early today because his mom, me, has a keynote that she has to give this afternoon. So I have to get him home, get him set up. Usually when I'm working, my sister is his primary caregiver when I have something I have to do and so I need to get home, make sure that he has landed appropriately and has all of his snacks and things and so he can hang out there while I go talk to adults like I am probably doing right now.

And so a lot of what we cover on Caregiver Thursdays is supporting a variety of caregivers. We have people that talk about being in the sandwich generation. We have people that talk about having kiddos who happen to also be on the autism spectrum. We have a variety of different contributors. I try to encourage all of us as caregivers to give ourselves a lot of room and space and time to figure out what our version of recharging is. Which brings me to the story that I wanted to talk to everybody about today.

So if I cover anything that you're like, oh my gosh, I could see myself in that story. Feel free to drop me a conversation, sorry, drop me a comment on the screen and hopefully could workshop some things before I go and pick him up at the main Door. But I was thinking about this. So my kiddo who is super great, but we, as I said, hub out of Minnesota and the winners here can be supes brutal. Like way brutal. So I don't know where all of you are viewing from today. We have a mini reprieve. But yeah, it can be a lot.

So a lot of his preferred leisure activities are really difficult. So thank you very much. Stephen said that yes, rest. It is really difficult sometimes in the winter to maintain his preferred leisure activities. So what I did this year is I was on top of it, I was in front of it and I like he. I had put in an inflatable hot tub in the backyard over the summer that he basically used as a heated pool because he's bougie like that. So I made sure I winterized that and put a dome over it and went through a lot of work to figure out how to install a heater so that the space could be heated.

He has a favorite bench that he likes to sit on in our front yard. So same thing. I bought one of those bubble dome pop up tents and put it over that so he could go outside as well just to try and make the winter not as dreary for him. What's up, Anya? Hello. Hello. Thanks for joining it. Hello, Luke. I see you as well. I know Luke has checked out some of my social media, so I believe that Luke has actually seen the bubble dome over his hot tub in action. So, you know, I'm that mom that I really do try to make sure that he has year round things to keep busy because we all know how winters can affect all of us and just make us in general kind of sad.

So I was trying to get in front of it this year and I was telling my friend Tara, who is a great champion, great friend of mine who reminds me of some of the. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Luke. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of it. But the thing is that my friend Tara, when I told her about some of the stuff I had done, she goes, you, you know, once she gave me a great mom. And I'd say that to all the caregivers out there, if somebody isn't telling you that you're a great caregiver, let me tell you on their behalf, you are a great, great caregiver.

Because we don't always hear that enough and we don't tell ourselves that. And my friend Tara is the one that told me, she goes, you really keep him on his toes. And I laughed and said back. I'm like, I think he's keeps me on my toes, and it just made me really think that both of those things can exist in the same space. Yes, he does keep me on my toes, but I do work really hard to keep in on his toes, and that's something I'm not sure that we always remind ourselves as caregivers that even though we are taking great care of the people that we love and we support, we're still allowed to be the main character in that portion of the story.

And I still can be the one that was setting things up, and I'm still allowed to give myself my roses for the work that I did on his behalf. And I know it seems super awkward to do that sometimes, to give yourself credit for doing something that is absolutely a labor of love for so many of us. It seems super weird and narcissistic to accept any credit or accept any gratitude from other people when this is something that you do every day because it's important to you and it's something that your heart follows.

But I would like to today encourage all of us to free ourselves from feeling guilty about taking our roses for the work that we do as caregivers like you can be very, very humble enough to go, I am so happy that I get to do this for this person that I love. I know that I'm in this position because I want to make sure that they thr and still go. But, yeah, I did a bunch of work to get here. And that, I think, is what sometimes refuels us when the people that we care for are not in a position to do that.

And it also takes the pressure off of the people that we care for for refueling us. It's really important for us to figure out how do we continue to refuel ourselves and to figure out a way that we can make sure that we are sustaining ourselves so that we can be better at the things that we choose to do, which is support people that we care for. And I know it's different. It's difficult as someone who grew up in that space of being humble to the point of being standoffish, is what one of my mentors told me.

I know it's super weird sometimes to give yourself credit for something that you did, even if it was a lot of work, because you're doing it for someone else and you're not upset about doing it. You're not jealous of the time that it took to do it. So it seems weird to be able to sit there and go, no, I deserve a pat on the back for all the things that we do. So I am giving you freedom and license to pat yourselves on the back for the work that you do as caregivers. Hopefully you get better at going, wow, that was a really cool thing that I did.

And feeling okay with taking that space and providing it to yourselves. I'm sure that if you're like me, there's lots of times when you're like, thank goodness for all of the makeup and concealer that I have because I look exhausted because of some work that I was doing with my kiddo, or he was going through a phase where he wasn't sleeping well, which means mom's not sleeping well, and all of these things that we do on the regular and, you know, do it with grace and charm and dignity and all of those things.

So it's okay to sit there and go, yeah, you know what? I do keep him on his toes. She's right. You know, I did. I do keep him hopping and it's in my best interest to continue to do that. I don't know if any of you out there are familiar with teenagers. If you're familiar with teenagers, you don't even have to have your own. If you're just familiar with teenagers, go ahead. You could tap that screen. You can go ahead and give us a. Give us a. Give me a comment on the screen. So if you are familiar with teenagers, let me know because then this will make sense.

Because teenagers are a treat. I mean, they are. My 16 year old is very 16 some days, which is fabulous. But that also means that I have to spend a lot of time trying to continually figure out ways to motivate him that aren't in a way that he organically drops into like emo teenager space. It's me trying to encourage him and help him be able to figure out what his version of thriving is going to be once he is a young adult. But also giving him the supports that he needs to be able to get there in the time that his delay would require without putting additional pressures on him, without putting limiting language on him, like going, okay, buddy, we're going to figure out how to get there.

And you can just tell me where it is, you know, what that end up goal, that end goal ends up being. So if you were in that position or you are lining up a lot of things for the people in your life, congratulations on doing that. Congratulations on doing that on days when it seems really easy and congratulations on doing that on days when it's really hard and just continue to figure out a way that again, if you can't have somebody else give you a T shirt that says, hey, great job, give it to yourself.

And we always want to encourage people to give us the feedback that would support you best as you continue to navigate what's going on here in the Cadre app, there is so much content, there's live streams that you can pop into, but if you're like, hey, that timing didn't really work out for me, we always encourage you to just let us know what you thought when you watch us in the replays. You can still put your comments there. You can also just comment on any of the posts that our contributors have throughout the communities here within Cadre.

That's what we're really trying to do with this, is to figure out a way where you go. Here is a safe space to discuss mental wellness in a different way, to figure out how we can support one another, and to provide resources at any given time when you need them. So if you have to pop through this app and go, here's what I'm looking for. That's great. If you pop through the app and go, you know what? I was looking for this, and I've looked for it more than once and it's not there, let us know so we can try and figure out a way to make sure that it might be there for you the next time that you need it.

So you can always give us that information. So I am gonna go and rescue him, slash his instructors, so you can go home and probably ask me to make him some bratwurst before I have to hang out there. So thanks, Stephen. We appreciate you. I really appreciate you. I, I, I will take that. You telling me that I'm doing a great job, I take it and I appreciate it. And I always need more people to remind me of that because there's some days that I even get really bad at reminding myself that. So thank you so much, Steph Irwin.

So, as we continue to have these conversations, let us know what it is that you need us to cover. We will do our best to try and make sure that that is available to you as well. And just pop around, you know, stay in contact with us. Let us know what you have going on in your life. So we can also give you some roses. If you want to go ahead and drop in the chat once my live is over, some things that you should be celebrating yourself, let us know so that I can sit there and like your comments as well.

And go, you're right, you are doing a good job. And so if I can be that person for you and we can be that person for each other. Hey, man, that's a pretty good Thursday. So I will see you all next week, hopefully enjoy the weather wherever you are, before it turns into whatever torturous thing it could possibly be. So stay safe, stay healthy, everybody, and we will see you next week. Thanks for joining me.