Balance: Which Plants Are We Watering?!

All right. Hi, my name is Brittany Hagan. I am one of the contributors for Cadre, Cadre, Cadre Cadre. And. And I want to talk about. Well, let's talk about why. Hey, Amara. Let's talk about who I am and why I feel like I can speak on this. Right. If you see me looking over here, it's just because I have notes. I'm going to try not to let my ADHD take us all over the place, but if you've done a live stream with me before, that's almost impossible anyways, so who cares? My. I am a sober vet. I've been sober for, see, well, double digits.

I'm trying to remember. I'll have an anniversary here in July, knock on wood. And I am a veteran. I was a combat medic in the military. I also work and talk radio. Not like that makes me an expert at anything. It actually probably discredits me a little. It's fine. Don't worry about it. But I want to talk about b balance in a way that is a metaphor that I've heard many times. I think. I think the mental health space is one of those fun places where you're allowed to kind of take what works and let go.

Hey, Shannon. Happy Saturday to you too. The mental health space is cool because when you go to different programs, let's say, let's call it what it is, when I went to rehab, there was stuff I could take if I wanted and leave behind if I don't. So what's cool is one of the things that stuck with me is the idea of, hey, Jodi. That you have to look at what plants were watering. What does that mean? Every part of your life, let's pretend, is a plant. And I'm talking everything. Your health, your money, your house, your children, your friends, your recovery, your anxiety.

There's all sorts of things that we can say are our plants right? And we have to think about what are we watering. So as we identify our plants, we have to figure out which ones we. I mean, just like in general, which ones we have. Because for better or worse, every part is a plant. Yes. Even like anxiety, even the unwell stuff, you. Those are still plants that you have the choice to water. So. So some obvious ones, again, like we talked about, are sobriety, sleep, family and therapy. But like we said, there's some other kind of less attractive plants that we also have, like doom scrolling and people pleasing and toxic self talk and avoiding bills.

Those are also plants that we can find ourselves putting a lot of water into Right. Which is so crazy, because if you, like, think about it, you go, I don't want to water those plants. Well, we are. And not every plant deserves your water. And kind of identifying what ones we don't want to water is pretty powerful. So let's talk about what our water is. What is our water? Now, initially, you're going to think, of course, water is time and energy, but it's not only time and energy. It's also money.

Thought, I know. And ask yourself, why am I investing? Or what am I investing into things in general? There's this whole thing. I'm going to use this example, and I'm very disgustingly vulnerable. I just recently had a divorce, and me and my ex are raising my kid or our kiddo together. And the other day he said something that bugged me. It bugged me. It just hit that, like, I mean, there's a reason we got a divorce, right? Like, we trigger each other in a way that's not exactly healthy. So he said something.

He kind of, like, snuck something in. And my mind went to a place of, okay, I'm not gonna say something to him because I don't have anything to figure out with him in our relationship, really. Like, we're doing a great job co parenting. This is just like a minor little thing, right? And I sat and thought about it, and, like, that was me watering that plant, because what's the point? Then on top of it, I had a little bit of me that wanted to go, s***, talk to my sister, and that's more watering. That's putting more things into that.

For why? For why? I don't want that to grow. I don't want that to be in the forefront of my mind. But I found myself putting. Putting in so much water on this one little comment that I go, I don't even want this plant to grow. So what am I doing right here? It's the idea of. There's also a lot of things around recovery and things that people like to say, selfish. But right now, if you're somebody who is in recovery, you have to be ruthless about your water. And I mean ruthless, because we don't have a lot of water to waste, especially when we first get sober.

I think. I think finding yourself at a place of going, I. I love my friends and I love my family. But right now, like, I don't really want to go out and, and be social because I'm finding myself valuing or wanting to water or take care of myself or sleep and things like that. Like, there's so many things. And again, that sucks too because again, we all have different amounts of water. I know that. I mean my mom has so much energy, it drives me insane. But I only have the amount of water I have and you don't get more.

And so if you find yourself going, I'm taking stuff out of here. Yeah, some of those other plants might not A survive and maybe they're ones you don't want to survive or B, on top of it. Like maybe there's something that you're okay with letting kind of wilt. Or maybe it's just like a tree because there are people in our lives that are like trees. Right. That don't need the water all the time. They're kind of fine on their own. I would say like my. Again, my mom, my sister, I can verbalize to them, hey, I'm taking time right now to grow myself in ways I recently did something that I.

It's for better or worse. I decided I wanted to with with my divorce and with sharing my kiddo. I said, okay, there's a lot of times I'm not gonna have her. I went from having her every single day and being with her all the time to now seeing her half the time. And I said what am I gonna do with this extra water? And there was a lot of part of me that wanted to pour it into unhealthy things. And like, I mean luckily like I. Sobriety hasn't been so much of a challenge. But there's a thing called being a dry drunk where you kind of fall back on old tendencies and maybe you're not getting wasted, but I'm finding myself isolating, finding myself the doom scrolling the people pleasing though.

Especially people I don't barely even know. So I kind of had this thought around this water is what if I took. Because it's been six months now. I always been somebody who works out a lot but what if I took that extra water that normally goes to my kid and I put it into health and fitness and got hardcore about it. Cuz I've always worked out but I've always had this like amount of weight, mystery amount of weight that I thought I could lose. I just, if I just dedicated that to myself and I did. I took that water and I poured it into meal planning and prioritizing workouts.

So much so I would put the workout in my planner and act like that was absolutely like, like I was going to say like a pap smear. Sorry if you can't relate to that but if it Was like a doctor's appointment. And I would say, I'm so sorry I can't go to lunch that day. I have something people don't ask questions, which is really funny. So I poured into that and I was able to lose 25 pounds in six months. Months. I mean, 20ish pounds. I don't know, who even knows? But like, the point is, I put a bunch of water into that one thing that I'd never had the opportunity to before.

And that was kind of a moment too where I said to myself, like, there's so many negatives with the transitions that I've been through. And one thing is, is I do have more time and energy. I have more water now. Do I miss my kiddo? Like crazy. Abso freaking lutely. And that's a whole other blog or vlog or whatever you call these things, live stream that we can someday touch on. But, you know, I think taking a second and thinking about pretty much right now, oh, and something I want to talk about money.

Money is a huge water. And you're like, well, money is whatever. No, because guess what? To get that money, you did time and energy and things that we put our money into are things we're prioritizing. It's just a fact. So keep that in mind too. Because I always, like, there's this conversation around that and it's like, money's not an endless pie. And you do find yourself growing the stuff you're putting money, be it a gym membership, be it. I was going to say pornography. But like, you know, like wherever you're putting your money, that's also water that you are growing something.

So keep that in mind when you are buying things or find yourself at a place of like. But it's just money. It's still. It's still a resource that you are giving to something to grow. I really think it's important. I wanted to mention as well that putting water in yourself is really important as well. We forget that I'm from Minnesota, I'm in Minnesota now. And it's looked at pretty selfishly or negatively. If you give yourself as much energy as you're giving other people, which is like an awful thing to think about because a lot of us out there, especially moms or dads, are, you know, the default parent.

You don't get that energy back. You pour it into other people and you're at a time in your life where you're not getting it back. So make sure you're leaving water for yourself. And a lot. I mean, you are very important, and you want to make yourself grow in all those fun, creative ways as well. So just take time today. And I want you to think, first off, identify what your plants are. What are your plants you want to grow? More importantly and, well, as importantly, what are the plants you don't want to grow?

Identify those as well. And then ask yourself, realistically, a hard truth. Which plants am I watering? Which plans? Because there's a lot of us that go, I don't know why my anxiety is so high. And the reality of it is, you're pouring water into your anxiety. I don't know why my negativity, like, why negative things keep kind of arising in my life. And here you are concentrating on that negative thing that that person said or that you did or the misstep you had. And you're pouring thought, time, energy, all these resources into that.

And then you're shocked. You go, I just pour all this water into that plant and it's growing. So identifying your plants, what plants you're currently watering, and then make the decision to water the plants you want to grow. It's so important. I would say it's a life changer. It's a life changer. When you think about it, it's also one of those things that it can stop yourself from going down rabbit holes. Because I love a rabbit hole. Obviously, the obsession, the obsessive thinking, the like, well, what should I say?

Or even, like I said, taking that negative thing that happened to you and telling 10 people, I get it. We have a person we talk to, and sometimes we have to hash stuff out, but sometimes we're just watering a s***** plant. And to that I say, like, just stop. Find yourself going, why am I? I gotta quit putting time and energy into this thing. Your garden is never gonna be perfect. Your plants you have are never. Plants are not perfect. They're inherently just chaos. So, like, know that your garden will never be perfect, but more importantly, it's yours.

And the things that you prioritize and you're excited about, be it tomato plants, be it health and fitness, you want anxiety, you want that ugly plant there? Okay, well, it will be there too. Just know that this is your garden, and whatever choices you make are the right for you. And it also means it just is for right now. This is something that's so much.