Comedy Through The Chaos

Hello, hello, hello. I feel like my phone camera is probably dirty, but I'm not gonna mess with it right now. Happy Thursday, everybody. Welcome to the Cadre Sphere. Welcome to your Thursday edition of Comedy through the chaos. I am Ms. Shannon. I am in my car because I was inside the gym until moments ago and then came out to hang out with all of my lovely friends and family here in the Cadre Sphere. I hope that the week so far, if you are going to check in with us anytime soon, is treating you well.

Hello, Jules. Good to see you. I'm digging in my gym bag right now because somewhere in there there are some keys because it is just warm enough in the great city of Crystal, Minnesota that if I don't start my car, I'm going to feel like I'm going to bake myself. So good afternoon to you as well, Jules. It's always good to see you in the chat. I appreciate you. There are the keys. Don't worry, I'm not going to drive and have community with you. I'm just going to turn the car. And so to remind anybody, if you're just catching me in the replay and you wonder who I am, I am Ms.

Shannon Paul. I'm a comedian, corporate speaker, voice actor, event MC and benefit auctioneer. Also professional storyteller. And I happen to also be the fortunate caregiver to a 17 year old, now 17 year old, adorable kiddo who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. I appreciate being able to share these Thursdays with you here in the Cadre Sphere where we primarily focus on the world of caregiving and how we not only give care to the people that we love on, but how we support each other as caregivers that are in this role.

I like to speak about kind of the subject of comedy through the chaos and overcoming our imposter syndrome as caregivers where we are often doing better than we think. Hello, Speak Wonder. I appreciate your use of greetings and salutations. I hope that you are well. So I thought I would share this with you today. So if you've seen me speak before, then you know that I am a professional speaker. Yes. Hearts and coffee writing. Yeah. So I have some more writing to do when I get home. We'll have to connect offline because I'm in the midst of editing my book and I feel like I'm making some headway, but that is a different story.

But it does bring me to the concept of writing. So as a storyteller, I'm also, you might be familiar with this international storytelling group called the Moth. They have a podcast. They also have a radio the Moth Storytelling Hour, which you can hear usually on your local NPR or National Public Radio stations. And so I happen to be one of their Twin Cities hosts, so. Ah, fabulous. I can't wait to read it. Speak Wonder. Thank you for letting us know that you finished your blog. I appreciate everything that you do.

So what I was tasked with last night is they had a thank you. I love the Moth as well. And I'm very fortunate to be one of their rotating hosts in the Twin Cities and one of their storytellers. And what we had here last evening was our local Grand Slam. And so the way the Moth Grand Slams work is there are monthly story slams where people come and they tell their stories in the format that the Moth appreciates. And then there is a winner of each evening of the Story Slams, and then they have an opportunity to be invited to one of the Grand Slams.

And so last year I was one of the monthly winners. And so last night was the Grand Slam that I actually participated and I came in second, which is not important to the story. But just wanted to let you know, in case you wondered how I did last night, I came in second. And that works out really well. And the theme of last night's Grand Slam was Tipping Point. So they gave us this idea of being able to talk about those moments in your life where you get to your wits end, you hit rock bottom, you know, you whatever that Tipping Point is where it affected some sort of change in your life.

And so you only have five minutes to tell this story. And you have to decide how you're going to be able to convey this tale that'll have a beginning, minute, middle and m. Yes, you should, you should go. We'll talk about that. Speak Wonder. I agree with you that that should be a wonderful goal and you should go and tell a story at a story Slam. They're a wonderful community, regardless of where you are across our nation or internationally. I've seen and talked to people that have been in a lot of different communities.

So I hope that you do do that. Speak, Wonder. So last night when I was 20 minutes, 0 seconds, hold on. I was in the gym and did not turn that off. And so it's going to remind me that I should still be working out. But priorities, priorities happen. So when I was discussing or when I was deciding on my topic for the case of Tipping Point, I of course was rifling through different stories and things that had happened in my life. And I decided that I was going to tell the story story about the summer of 2019.

And the summer of 2019 was an incredibly challenging summer for my son. And I like it was one of our most crisis ridden summers where there was a bunch of mood swings, aggressive episodes and we were having very troubled sleep. And so it was a rough, rough summer. And I told this story of how not only were we having a rough summer, how I was sure that I was under spiritual attack. And you can read the full story. I'll post it on my blog. So that'll be on my sub stack blog and I'll make sure that the links are posted here in the Cadre sphere.

I'd love for you to read it in full. And the thing that I thought was interesting about it is often when I'm in that storyteller role, I don't always completely write out the stories. But since this was a grand slam, I made sure that I did. And I also wanted to make sure that I could hit a lot of the points points in the time that was allotted because five minutes goes by really quick sometimes, especially if you are long winded and verbose like I am. So I had the opportunity to write this whole story out and try and figure out how to distill it so that people who didn't know me as well as a lot of you here in the Cadre sphere do that it would make sense.

And as I was going through this journey of what we had going on in the summer of 2019, I did feel this great gratitude for how far we've come into in this world now that we are in 2025. And I'm not saying we don't still have challenges and and there's always going to be ups and downs when you're in these caretaker roles, but it really gave me the opportunity to go, wow, that was a rough summer. And you made it. And not only did you make it, you learned a lot from it and you were able to do a better job of shoring up your emotional defenses, of leaving space and setting boundaries.

It was a better I've done a much of finding time to rest and refuel. As I said, I was in the gym and figuring out what I needed to do in order to recover so that I could be a better caregiver and not burn myself out. Because I love him and he needs me and he needs me to be here and to be healthy and healthy both in mind, body and spirit. And so figuring out that that wasn't a luxury and Figuring out that that was something that wasn't just a desire. It was a necessity for me to be able to do this and to maintain my role as a caregiver was a big learning process for me.

So being able to look back and tell the story about what was going on that summer and then to be able to lay that in alignment to where things are now was a great opportunity and a great practice. And a lot of what we work on when we discuss our mental wellness is the concept of practices and the practice that we have. So that would be the practice that. That I would encourage you to look into for this week. I know that sometimes you're like, well, that really sucked. I don't want to spend time thinking about it.

But if you're able to think about it from the perspective of this was a time period that sucked, but what did I learn from it that I can say that I put into practice now? You know, what could I learn from it that I can go, wow, I really am so much better? Because instead of using it as a memory that anchors you, and I'll use that because Speak Wonder and your harbor pilots, I appreciate them. Instead of using that memory as something that, when you look back on it anchors you and weighs you down, look at it as that was where you were at that point.

But how far have you traveled? So how far have you traveled because you were able to actually release that anchor and then be able to continue to move on and be part of that journey as you are traveling, because that's what we're doing. So I encourage you to look at it like that, and instead of only looking at it as a negative thing that you had back in your life, also look at it as something where you can go, well, now, here's the new milestone. Look where I am now. And that was what gave me joy and what gave me that feeling of being able to go.

I'm glad I could share this story with other people and to be able to present it in a way that it talks about the hope that we have. It talks about the growth that we all experience, and it talks about the need that we need to time 25 minutes, 0 seconds, 5 minutes, y'all. The need that we experience to better ourselves and to not let other people down. And that part, I think, is wonderful. So I encourage you, if you would like to hear the whole story, you could one let me know that you want to do that.

And maybe one of these days in the Cadre sphere, I'll actually bring the story and I'LL read it to you and I'll present it here in the thing because that would be great. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I appreciate that you like my Word pictures and yeah, that is I set the the alarm because I didn't start it right away when I went into the gym. So I'm giving myself credit on Google fit for the 45 minutes I was in the gym before I came out to talk to everybody. So it needs to run for 45 minutes.

But giving yourself credit for that and being able to look back and do a comparison occasionally to how much you've grown and how much movement you had, I encourage you to go ahead and do that. That was wonderful. And I'm very proud of myself. I'm very proud of myself for all the growth that I've experienced since 2019. So if you want to read the full blog, I will post that today and then I will make sure that the oh, thank you very much. Speak Wonder. So that's what I'll do. Here's what I promise.

I will post the story to my blog on Substack and then I will present it to everyone next Thursday. I should be able to be on time. So I will prepare to actually tell you the story of my spiritual journey in 20 in the summer of 2019. And hopefully you all do it so it gives you somebody something for everybody to look forward to. So in the meantime, just like Speak Wonder Dud, if there is something that you would like us to do here in the Cadre sphere, please let us know. You can put the, the, you can always sign on when we are here doing our live streams or if you watch us in the replay and there's something that you want to know, go ahead, put that information, leave us a message and we'll make sure that we do that.

Also, if there is a way that we can continue to support you as we build this community, let us know as well. I also encourage you to go find my friend Speak Wonder and listen to all of her great content that she also shares on these Thursday when she's doing her Harbor Pilots live streams. And that's what we do is that there are such a variety of contributors here that hopefully there is something that fuels you in the way that you need at the time that you need it. And if not, let us know so we can keep continuing to build this community.

So I am now going to run to the grocery store that would. You know what? I like that idea. So we just said Speak Wonder suggested that Kadri could have a story slam and we could. That is great. I know some of our other contributors would do that. So maybe we should do a story slam and we can do it as one of our live events. I'm gonna talk to additional Shannon. So Shannon, stuff about that. I like that idea Speak Wonder so we can all zoom in and we can figure out how to do that. You are full of wonderful and brilliant ideas, my friend.

So everyone out there, I hope that you enjoy whatever the rest of the week has in store for you. If not, remember, we are here for you if you end up hitting some speed bump and you need somebody to workshop them with. So enjoy the rest of your week. I appreciate you, Speak Wonder. I appreciate you, Jules. Thank you for joining us. Anybody who joins me in the replay, I appreciate you as well. So stay safe, stay healthy, everybody. We'll talk to you soon.