Rules of Engagement

Good morning, Cadre. I hope that you are doing well. I hope that wherever you are, there's a little bit of sunshine, even if it's not particularly warm. C. today. I know it's been very cold in Minnesota where some of you are located. C. and I'm already tired of it. So how are you doing? Welcome to the week. I see a heart. That's great. Good morning, Luke. Good morning, Jules. Good morning, sunshine. Yes, I hope you have sunshine where you are. We've had it in and out here these last few days. Happy Tuesday.

Happy Tuesday, Luke. Did I say Monday? I might have. Things are a little catawampus in my brain these days. It is a gorgeous day in Minnesota. I am glad to hear that negative 12 in northern Minnesota means people are learning how to band together with their neighbors to make sure that winter goes well and everybody gets through it. That's what I figured out about the Midwest is part of the reason the culture is what it is is because everybody has to go through that together. And for some reason, the heat in the south doesn't seem to do quite the same thing here.

So Taco Tuesday. I approve. I approve of Taco Tuesday. We don't really have themed food days in our house here. At least not yet. But I am going to make a vegan quiche tonight, so please pray for me. It's made with garbanzo flour. I don't know. I was just intrigued. So I'm going to make it. If it doesn't work, we have other options. So. Rules of engagement. Rules of engagement. Rule of engagement number nine. It was in the quote that I posted from Arthur Ashe. It was the middle piece. Use what you have.

Use what you have. So I suppose weather wise, it could mean use what you have. If what you have is a sunny, cold day, appreciate the sun and get involved in cold weather activities or. Or get involved in cold weather outdoor or indoor activities. I am very indoorsy in the winter, so I like to read and do all my stuff. I still work out. I go to Orangetheory, but those are indoor workouts. For 15 years I tried to find an outdoor workout that I would enjoy in the winter. And eventually I said I've done my due diligence.

I mean, I played a season of hockey. It wasn't outdoors, but it was cold weather. I played a season of hockey just to see. I just struggled so much figuring out how to work out in the winter. And then finally when I found orangetheory Fitness, it was like, ta da. For many years I worked with a great trainer, Sally Carey, if you know her. And then when I became mayor, it was too much to try and do anything. But I went to Orange Theory twice a week. So turkey and vegetable meatloaf. See? Healthy and delicious.

I actually find ground beef a little too heavy. Of course, I don't eat meat anymore at all. But when I did eat meat, I was not a huge fan of ground beef. So there you have it. So my rule of engagement number nine, use what you have. It starts with like. It came to me and then evolved and it came to me in the spirit of Gretchen Rubin defines. She has all these questions so you can know yourself better, so that you can adjust your strategies for a good life better. And one of her know yourself better questions is, are you an under buyer or are you an over buyer?

Are you someone who, even if you need the thing, you'll just make do with the other thing. You won't, you know, you'll wear something until it's falling apart instead of buying a new one or an overbuyer. I am an overbuyer. You will buy. I like to have things to hand, so I have plenty of notebooks, plenty of pens, plenty of shirts, plenty of pairs of pants. You know what I mean? Like just plenty. I like abundance and plenty. I'm not going to show you my room, but if you saw my room, you would see that I just, I like a little bit of clutter.

I actually feel very reassured by clutter. Not everybody's like that, but it means that sometimes I just have too much. Eventually I had too much lipstick. And so I did an entire year of use what you have. When it came to lipsticks, I didn't buy any. I went through them all. I got rid of ones that I wasn't using. I cleaned them up with alcohol and stuff, gave them to teenagers, friends who had teenagers in their lives. Got like a box of lipstick or whatever that had been cleaned and taken care of.

Use what you have and then that means what's left I get to use. And it was like, don't buy any. Use what you have. And that's loosened a little bit. I think I did that three years ago now, but now I just don't buy nearly as much. And then I did it with cosmetics in general. I don't buy nearly as much as I did. And it's fun to use what I have. I went through my closet, edited everything, got Got rid of so much, went to Goodwill, consigned clothes, gave things away. I sent an entire box of shoes to a friend in New York who's the same size as I am.

I just. I was like, I'm done. You know, I don't mind that I'm an overbuyer so much, but I do mind that I don't use what I have. When I started using shopping as a solution, so that's where the Use what you have came to me. Right. Like, is there a solution available to me with the belongings that I have? Is where it all started. Yes. Old earrings and necklaces and donate to a thrift store. Perfect. Hello, Newfie lovers. I'm very excited that you are here. And I did the same thing. I did a jewelry swap.

My friend. When I was back living in Minnesota, my friend Sarah and I did a jewelry swap. We invited all the women we knew, and everybody brought their old jewelry. We swapped, and then all the leftovers just got given, you know, got donated. It was very fun. It was a very good way for all of us to do that. So. Yeah. So usually what you have started as like, my physical belongings, but then I realized it had other applications. That's how it ended up on my rules of engagement. It would be enough if it was just for my physical stuff.

Use what you have. And, you know, in our pantry right now, part of the reason I'm making this dish is because use up the ingredients I have. But then I realized, use what you have. Now, this may sound too transactional for what I'm about to say. It may sound too transactional because I don't want to think about us as using other people. But when I say, use what you have, if I'm struggling, who is in my network that could help me? I am thinking about this in multiple ways right now. My anxiety was through the roof a few days ago, and I still do my meditation.

And in my meditation, I realized, oh, I just worked the steps on anxiety. I'm going to go through all the main lessons I learned. It took two years to go through the steps to really delve into my relationship with anxiety from the viewpoint of you, you know, the steps, the 12 steps. And I did. And it was so helpful. I remembered that I posted as part of the steps. I did an inventory of all the ways my anxiety shows up, posted it on my wall of. I'm looking at where it is over there. I reviewed it, and I realized almost all the ways my anxiety shows up.

Many, like 3/4, 4/5 of them were showing up already. And it was a good reminder of two things. One, my anxiety was at a pretty high level. Sometimes it's hard for me to recognize it at the beginning stages. And two, it always shows up the same way. It does the same thing every time, no matter what's going on in my life, which is useful in the sense of if it shows up the same way every time. And I may have more tools than anxiety to deal with whatever's going on. Right. My anxiety is not telling me anything new about the situation I'm facing, except that I'm scared of it.

So that was a little bit of use what I have. What have I already done that can help this situation? But also, who are the people in my life? And of course, I have a sponsor. So I reached out to my sponsor. I have friends, and I have friends in recovery, and I reached out to them, and I'm having some work challenges, and I am asking for help. I'm just reaching out to people who know something about this field, and I'm asking for their advice about what to do. org and they will give a business mentor, a volunteer business mentor to people who have a small business, want to either start one or expand a small business.

I have my own business mentor now, and she's fabulous. What, you know, use what I have to me, codes as. What do I have available to me that could help me meet the situation at hand? Whether that's. Do I already have turmeric in the cabinet and I don't have to go buy some more? Even though our spice situation is a little tenuous, it's hard to see anything in our little spice cabinet, which didn't matter when I didn't cook as much. But now that I cook more, it's not a great situation. Whether it's, you know, do I already have turmeric?

Use what I have, or is it. I have a. org and so I got a biz mentor, all of that. Use what you have. That's why it's on my rules of engagement. Use what you have. Do I have something in my environment, in my life already that could meet this situation? You know, I love little dishes. Again with the clutter. I love a little clutter. So I love little dishes. I use them to store little pieces of jewelry. If I can't see it, it doesn't exist. So my jewelry is, like, all laid out on a shelf there, but it's in little dishes and things like that.

And if I have a new piece, if I get a ring from my husband or something, do I have a little dish downstairs in the cabinet that I could use? Yes, I do. Great. Use what you have, I guess, is be industrious. And I think Minnesotans are really, really good at the use what you have thing. But I think a lot of Minnesotans are under buyers too. I just have this sense. So jewelry swap, it was. It was fabulous. I still have pieces of jewelry that I got at this jewelry swap seven or eight years ago that I love and I wear all the time.

And I cannot tell you what I brought to the jewelry swap because I haven't thought about it for one moment since. Use what you have. But the, you know, and use what you have goes along with my rule of engagement number two, which is start from where you are, not from where you wish you were. Because sometimes use what you have means my internal resources too. Like, hey, I worked the steps on anxiety, so I have some information about that that is useful. I just lost my train of thought there because I was so distracted by using my internal resources for the problems at hand and my anxiety.

Honestly, anxiety is pretty distracting. You can see behind me. I use little command hooks to put on the side of my thing. So I pull a card from my little Oprah deck and I put it in there just so when I'm sitting here, I have something to think about. An under buyer in most things, but some categories where you're an over buyer, yeah, I think that's likely true. I love Gretchen Rubin's know yourself better questions because they're so fun to think about. Because I too am mostly an over buyer. I'm not like you, but I am mostly an over buyer.

But I do have under buyer places, right? I hate to buy Kleenex. I have ripped up every bit of cotton jersey that has ever been lost its usefulness in its original form. And I have baskets of handkerchiefs basically at various strategic places in my house. And then a basket to put the used ones in. And then I have a whole system I use to wash them and then I cut up some of them into smaller pieces and I use them in my bathroom to instead of like have reusable cotton rounds, but then also little cut up pieces of fabric to wipe brushes off or whatever.

And then I wash those on the regular too in little net bags so they don't clog up the entire washer dryer system. I just hate to buy. I hate to buy Kleenex. It is what it is. So if there are other places where you have an imagination for use what you have, but use what you have, I will end by saying the number one thing you have is Cadre. If you are on here, you have access to Cadre. You have access to us to. We have access to each other here. We have access to these live streams and resources and posts and people and therapists, and it's just a whole wonderland of resources and support that we can use.

And I did come on Cadre this weekend when my anxiety was at its highest. I don't. I'm not great at interacting when my anxiety is at its highest, but my anxiety is much better today because I did. I used the resources I had and Cadre is a great resource and I'm very grateful for it. So have a great week. Cadre, use what you have. Tell me how it worked for you this week. How did it work for you this week using what you have? How did it fire your imagination to think about that in a general way and specific ways?

I'm so grateful for everybody. Use what you have. Use Cadre and we'll see you all week on the app and see you next week on the live stream. And stay warm, Stay warm.