Comedy Through The Chaos

Hello, hello, hello, Cadre sphere. And happy Thursday to all of you on our Caregiver Thursday. I am Ms. Shannon, coming to you live from my vehicle. So here in the great state of Minnesota, I am back in my current home state. If you wonder who I am, I'm Ms. Shannon Paul. I'm a comedian, corporate speaker, author, event emcee, advocate of all variety of things. And primarily, I am the mother of an adorable 17 year old son. Hello, Andy Mack. Welcome in, welcome in. I was just explaining who I am, who this lady with blue hair is.

It is blue. This lady with blue hair is sitting in front of you. I am also the proud parent of an adorable 17 year old son who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. So I'm very happy to be joining you here for this edition of Comedy through the Chaos, I usually talk about a variety of things that kind of land in the the realm. Speak Wonder. Hello, Hello. My additional favorite human onion. Good to see you. Speak Wonder. I usually talk about the concept of imposter syndrome as a caregiver and the comedy that we go through and how we can use that to kind of help us bond with the good things that we have in life so that we don't do that human default that we do of focusing back onto the negative things that we have in our life, although we have those and we.

One of my favorite things I like to share is that a friend of mine was talking about a concept she got from one of her mentors, which is she happens to be a filmmaker, which makes sense that I had friends that would be filmmakers. And she was talking about how we as human beings have similar beats in our lives. But then we get to decide whether we view our lives as a comedy or a tragedy because we will have those similar beats. It's just a matter of what we choose to highlight and focus on. What usually makes comedies better is to have those dramatic moments that tie us back in to the humor.

And then there are also some of the things that make a really good drama is to be able to have those moments of levities that break things up. And that's kind of how life is. I mean, I think that we have a lot of times in our life that are not hilarious. They are not hilarious at all. But we have moments that are ups and downs and we have to swim through all of those things. I am happy to be joining you back here in Minnesota. C. on a business trip and I was using that as A basically what I like to see those milestone events that, you know, one of those events in my life where I was clearly able to see how we have had a positive change year over year.

That last year when I had that business trip come up, it was incredibly stressful. And this time I did feel, although there was that mom and that caregiver anxiety of having my kiddo home with his alternative care providers, it was a lot less stressful for me. I felt like I was able to prepare him and therefore prepare myself so that things could go well. One of my favorite things, and I don't remember if I shared this last week, is I text my sister, who is his primary support when I'm not around.

And so I text her one of the mornings I said, how are you doing? And she goes, hey, I'm great. And she goes, dominic, that's my son Dominic. And Hudefe, who's one of his new caregivers, they're both sleep. And that gave me such peace having that message that they were both. Because my care provider, he came straight from his overnight job to come hang out with my son in the morning. My son decided on that day to sleep in. And so, hey, I'm glad that definitely got to take a nap. And everybody was sleep.

There's so it is so great to have your kids sleep peacefully. Oh, my gosh. Speaking of sleeping peacefully, that was not really what our experience was last night. So I wanted to transition into the concept of each day is each day. So yesterday when I got my kiddo ready for school, he did a fantastic job. I was so proud of this kid. I want to let you know that we haven't done clothes with buttons in a while. He's been very much anything that you can slip on and slip off. He does have the general dexterity and the fine motor to be able to do buttons, but he didn't necessarily have the patience to do buttons.

So I just stopped buying him clothes with buttons because I pick and choose my battle. So I was. It was all a bunch of what his preferences is. Basketball shorts, swish pants, hoodies, things that have zippers. That's cool. But as he's gotten older, I'm like, okay, well, let me give this a shot. So some clothes in his size went on sale from one of our favorite online real retailers. I'm not going to give them an unnecessary shout out, but I was like, well, let me see how he would look in this suit.

Because I know that we live in a world that is also navigated by other human beings. And I appreciate being able to have him dress in a way that mirrors some of his contemporaries at his school program. And not just the contemporaries and in the other students, but also as he's gotten to be a bigger guy, just having him be able to mirror what some of the staff kind of looks like because I think it makes a difference. Like when he gets out of the car and they're like, hey man, great suit. Or I really like your hat.

And it's something that they can go ahead and present that we're so glad that you're here and help evoke that feeling of belonging. I think it's easier on him because he's like, when I get out of the car, these people are excited to see me. So if I can make that an easier lift for him and an easier lift on the staff at his school, then I'm going to do it. And so trust me, I'm not one of those moms that's made of money and I got him in all these designer things fits and all that stuff. And he's not asking me about that.

Like I said, this is a very discounted retailer that I buy stuff from. But yesterday he looked dapper. I'll put the photo in the community chat when we're done. He looked very dapper yesterday. I was very proud of him. So that was yesterday. We were on time for us, he had a chill day. The report was that he got everything done. He did all his work. I'm like, hey man, crushing it. So that was yesterday and then today was today. Today he Woke up at 4:45 in the morning. It took him a while to go ahead and wind back down and to go back to sleep.

So by the time he went back to sleep it was closer to 6, which means that by the time he got his new disco nap out of the way, trying to get to school by 9am really wasn't an option. It just wasn't happening. So we didn't really get to school until 11. And of course it's today when I had an 11 o'clock meeting which I ended up having to knock. I didn't get there until 11:30. But what I kept reminding myself throughout the moment was allowing him time to re regulate, allowing him time to self regulate and by default allowing myself time to re regulate.

And that has been a big evolution for me because my type A slash high functioning anxiety hates letting people down. I don't like people keeping people waiting. I like to be the most prompt and the most prepared and do all of those things. And that was just something that I had to start giving myself more grace for that. Sometimes the day is the day and it doesn't happen often. And I don't use that as an excuse. I don't. And I think a lot of us as caregivers, it's not like we're going around broadcasting, hey, let me tell you how my morning was and this is how it was.

But I do think that we have to at least internally go, this is how this morning went and here's why that happened. So instead of beating ourselves up and giving it so that it actually exacerbates whatever the situation is, because I don't know how it works in your house, but me adding in any of that anxiety is certainly not going to make the situation diffuse any faster. It's actually more likely to make it escalate into a direction that will even be even more late. So this morning I had to go back to the toolkit of how can I help him go into his bucket of ways to regulate.

What can I suggest that he could go ahead and work through it? Because that's what I really want. Like the end game is for him to remember, yeah, I'm feeling out of sorts, but here's the ways, the things that I can do to help myself feel better. Because that's what he really needs, to be able to do this when I'm not there to remind him and to have this beautiful a time when, if he's. Once he's an adult and he's at his day program, if he needs to self regulate or if he needs to communicate what he has going on, like me practicing with him now is what's going to help him when he gets to be 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, all of those things.

And so trying to pay it forward to future me, trying to pay it forward to future him, not always the easiest thing, but reminding ourselves that that's what we're doing when we give ourselves grace in this moment, that's what we're doing. So I encourage you to think about that. You know, has there been some time over the last week where you deserve to give yourself grace and instead you let that negativity come in and just beat yourself up? I release you from that. I rebuke that spirit that makes you want to beat yourself up?

If you can think of one of those things, you can either put it in the chats, you can go ahead and tap that screen, let me know. That feels like something that's very Relatable to a lot of us is that when things aren't going perfectly during a day, instead of saying, this is a moment, we go, the whole day is trashed. This day is the worst, and I just can't get it together and I need to try harder. I did this. And that. There are certain days that maybe you didn't give it your all, and that's fair.

I'm not saying that every day we're crushing it, crushing it, crushing it. But I am saying that there are more days when you are crushing it than you give yourself credit for, because we just by nature, are harder on ourselves than we really need to be. So if you could think of a couple of moments where that has happened to you over the last week, I hope that you can use this next time when you are reframing how that actually happened as you are reframing what you could do next time when you're in that moment.

Because as much as we're practicing with our kiddos and using this behavioral analysis, all these. All these tricks that we've gotten from our, our, our BCBAs, I saw that they were talking about that earlier today. All these tricks that I've gotten from his behaviorist over the year, as much as they work well for him, they work well for me. Like, I've had to learn to go, oh, this is how I can rewire my brain so it snaps as well to this pathway. Hello, Robert. Welcome to the. Welcome to the live stream.

Appreciate seeing you there. I'm talking about how I've had to, as much as my kid, practice going, how can I build this pathway to self regulation? How can I make it so that my brain snaps to this route as much as it snaps to that route of negativity? And that takes practice just as much for him as it does for me. And I remind myself that it's like we're both learning. Right, kiddo? We're both learning. So that is how I feel today. And then what I was able to do once I did make it to my meeting, it worked out fine.

I made sure that I was prepared and efficient once I got there. And then instead of picking myself apart, if you wonder where I'm at, behind me, along with our safety cage, is the gym that I go to. And you know what I did? I told myself that I was gonna go to the gym before I talked to all of you wonderful human beings. And I made it to the gym today, and that's what I normally do. And even though I'm like, hey, I'M gonna have to run right before so I can make it out and make my commitment to all of you.

Here I was in there and I lifted heavy and I feel like I crushed it. I even ended on a little heavier weight than I did. So I was like, okay, you feel like you accomplished something and all of those things add up and add into how come today is still the best today it can be. So I am not going to harbor. I use that because I see my friend speak wondering here. I'm not going to harbor ill will towards how complicated this morning was. I choose to look at this morning and go those complexities allowed us to practice some things that we clearly needed to practice.

And you know what? It ended up being a success. And hopefully the rest of his day. I didn't get a bunch of text messages from school so I'm presuming that once he got there he was able to navigate the day as best as he could for today and then we'll see how tomorrow goes. And that's what it is. We are going to continue. Hello Mel Myers. Welcome for joining us into the live stream. We're talking about moving on yet letting each day just kind of unfold the way that it does and then making sure that during the day you give yourself credit for how you are continuing to have that day unfold appropriately for the day that it has versus going.

I'm going to compare it to the last really great day I had. So that means that today must be straight up trash. Nope, today is just today. So I hope that that was a value for you. If you want to see back our experience and my experience throughout the whole conversation, hold up. Spring in Minnesota is gonna be a lot of that. So if you want to see through the whole thing. Hello, good afternoon, Mel Myers. I appreciate you. Just want to let you know that you can always look back through the entire live stream, see about how this morning went and how I use this morning as an opportunity to refra into some self regulation practice for both my son and myself.

And hopefully between the lessons we get here. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And to you as well. As you can see it is. I almost had the T shirt on then I decided that it was appropriately springish and I needed to have short sleeves on. We work towards perfectly imperfect here in the Cadre sphere. We work towards moving towards our goals. We work towards building community and encouraging one another. If there's something that you would love for us to cover here in the Cadresphere, please let us know you can always drop that information in the chat during the live stream.

If you're watching us during the replay, you can put it in there as well. We always try and communicate with one another and we can always go, hey, you know what, my buddy, the contributor over here, this is what they're talking about. Maybe that'll be a value. And then hopefully in whatever moment you are in your life, if you're like, I just really need some support or I just want to see if anybody else is going through that. We really hope that you can hear in the Cadresphere, just drop through, do a search and find one of us that are giving the information and the way that you need it at that moment.

So, moving towards additional milestones, I am hoping that next week is appropriately, appropriately dull. I'll do that. Appropriately dull. The other thing we're working towards right now is practicing and I'll update you on this. We have a one of our annual doctors checkup visits coming in a couple of weeks. So I am practicing that with him. So in order to that what I am doing and I'm sure maybe you guys have your practice for what you have to do to help people be comfortable with that. What I've been doing is that I have a blood pressure cuff, a blood pressure machine and a stethoscope.

So we have been doing lots of that practice at the house. So I'm just gonna be like, we practice taking our blood pressure, we practice letting somebody listen to our hearts with the stethoscope. And I'm just going to put that energy into the house so that when we have to do it in real life, hopefully you're prepared. So fingers crossed that some of this planning works out. So if you have anything that you'd like to hear me talk about, feel free to let me know in the chat as well. It's always great to be hanging out with you here.

It's nice to see new names in the chat. We hope that you're able to join us again for the live stream. I'm usually here every Tuesday, I'm sorry, every Thursday at 2pm Central. Hopefully that time continues to work for you as we continue to build what's going on here. We'll help you find a little bit comedy through all of this chaos so you be well and we hope that we will see you again next week. Everybody have a great one.