Hidden Hazards in the Harbor

Hello. Hello, Cadre. We are live in the Cadre sphere. My name is Kathy. My Cadre handle is Speak Wonder, and my template is in the frame of harbor Pilots. You might see if you're just getting acquainted with me, there's a beautiful painting from a friend, Dana. He did that in high school. Of a ship at sea. I have an anchor on the wall. I have a cross on the wall. Another anchor, spiritual anchor. Some bells that I usually hang up during the summer on my porch. It's so good to see you here in Cadre.

We've circled back to Thursday again, and that's the day I get to come into the community and speak to you from a layman's perspective and very much familiar with caregiving Caregiver Thursday. My caregiver recipient caregiving is my mom, June, and she is a resident at a nursing home. It's about an hour and a half away from where I live. I am her administrator. A. i say that so often, I've. I've lost what it means. Power of attorney. Thank you. My little wooden head jiggled it up. I am her power of attorney, and that means that I represent her medically, legally, financially.

So there's a lot of background work that goes on in caregiving, at least in the picture, that I'm familiar with. A lot of administration, phone calls, bank visits, calling the attorney, ironing things out. As far as understanding legalese. It's like learning another language. This caregiver realm for our elders. And it's an honor. Great honor. Talk to mom on the phone every night, and we share stories, poetry, prayers, songs. I sang a song to her last night, which she really enjoyed. Got my hug in a mug.

I'm having some Angelina's coffee. I use those in my Keurig. This one's lavender coconut. Mm. Good stuff, Maynard. So. Oh, thank you, Jules. You know, I'm wearing a sweater today. Here it is, the very last day of July, and it is sweater weather in Erie, Pennsylvania. Why don't we put that in the chat? Because I love feedback. You know me, all of us do. Along with your hearts on the side. It helps me to know you're here and we're here together. But also, if you could put in the chat, what kind of weather is it?

T shirt weather, sweatshirt, hoodie, tank top weather. Sweater weather. Light jacket weather where you are. I mean, it's really fun to name city and state, but instead of that, let's just say what kind of weather we're having. We are having Sweater weather in Erie, Pennsylvania. So last week on Thursday, Ms. Shannon Paul came on her live stream comedy in the Chaos and she mentioned people in our lives who are hole pokers. I had never heard the term hole pokers and I thanked her immediately for inspiring my next Cadre live.

And so today I'm going to talk about hole pokers in your world and other things. These are people, saboteurs, if you will. And I don't think it's by intent. I just think we bump up against hazards in the harbor, so to speak, when we're out navigating life. And we need to watch for them and be ready for them, be aware of them and be able to confront. I recently had to have a very difficult conversation with one of my grown up daughters. It was extremely difficult. It did involve tears, it did involve lots of vulnerability.

And you know what? In the end it was cleansing. We washed away the toxicity of things that been had been held in silence. So that also is informing me about today's live is having those difficult conversations and how we can notice them in the harbor. A hole poker, according to Ms. Shannon, is someone who pokes holes in your dreams, in your ambitions, in your intent. And again, it's probably not malicious. We have people who are just very pragmatic who maybe want to give an opinion. And so it feels like holes are getting poked in the underside of our vessel and then we start to sink.

So that's a H. And hidden hazard is a hole poker. Watch out for that person. Be ready and be ready to navigate around that. And if so, I have visuals today. I truly should have been a teacher. I really should have. I was in radio. If you need to send the SOS and have someone haul you in because if too many holes are poked in the undercarriage of your boat, you're gonna sink, call for help. Yeah, and you have. I made up some more. So there's the hole pokers. Thank you, Ms. Shannon. There are the anchor grabbers.

Those are people who pull on your anchor. You've dropped anchor, you're already with mindfulness, wanting to have a rest and a respite and they're yanking on it and maybe giving you advice that's unsolicited. Watch out for anchor grabbers, ballast bullies. Can you tell? I did a deep dive on Google. On nautical terms, the ballast stabilizes your vessel and so the ballast bullies are the ones who hop on in and upset the balance and they destabilize your boat. Be aware, if so, talk to them. There's the Propeller meddler.

I just love the way that sounds spoken out loud. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about the propeller meddler, but it's a good visual in everyday language, not nautical. We have the busybody, the badinski, the Kabitzer, the Snoop, the tattletale and the gossip. All harbor hazards to look out for. And I bring this up because I, I have the privilege of here on the last day of July speaking into the Cadresphere about freedom, which is the July theme. And here it is the very end of the month of July with sweater weather.

Jules has outside T shirt in the office, zip up jacket and a blanket. You definitely have AC in there. Jocelyn. I relocated to Vegas. It's hot, hot, hot. Definitely T shirt weather. I have relatives in Vegas. I was told it was 105 and with the heat index or whatever, it feels like 120 out there. So take good care. Stay hydrated. Coconut mocha? Yes, Jules. So we have freedom. This was a difficult one for me to prepare just because I've recently had to call someone out. We have freedom to hold their feet to the fire, to confront and, and tell the person who's offending that the pain is being inflicted on you and how it feels.

We do have freedom to speak in loving terms. It would probably be prudent to set a time, not ambush somebody and try super hard not to be angry or shoot from the hip. Give some thought to your conversation, the difficult conversation that you're going to have or that you need to have. Why does it matter? I was writing this in my notes. It matters because you can be adrift in the harbor with absolutely no mooring, no sense of direction, because of misunderstandings, because of conversations that haven't been had, that need to have been had by now because of the festering and the building up of big strong emotions.

Yours, your pain that you've been squashing down. You have the freedom to speak about that. Yeah. You really do give yourself that grace. It does matter. I will tell you in the recent conversation that I had with my daughter, it was terrible and lovely all in the same moment. I wrote here. I felt devastated and exonerated all in the same breath. Devastated and exone. Exonerated. Devastated because we were feeling big feelings and sharing them. It's a little bit scary. And you're looking at all the things you put out on the table that are points of pain and exonerated meaning.

I felt understood, I felt seen, I felt heard. And all that happened in the same Breath. And it was lovely because it was truth. It was truth. Being released from my aching heart. Necessary. We cried together and laughed with relief at the same time. Oh, I didn't print it out. Next time I'll read a poem, or at least a portion of it, titled Undertow. Then I wrote back in the spring, and in the poem Undertow, I talk about being pulled under. Truly, I was in the Atlantic as a child, but my father had warned me about the undertow, had told me how to.

To manage that and come out of the sea without being pulled way out and perhaps, you know, drowned under toes are serious business. And in the poem, I describe the tears, the salty tears of relief when I came up for air. But being pulled under and being pulled away was scary. So that poem is in a future Cadre undertow. And I could post it in this in the conversation stream. Anyway, you cry and you laugh with relief at the same time when you do a loving confrontation. This is not an intervention.

This is not. You know, I don't know all the psychology terms because I'm not a professional. I'm not a psychologist or a counselor as I identified myself earlier. I'm a layman in the business of caregiving. Sometimes in caregiving, we have to confront. Now, my mama and I are in a long rate. And so you know what? Please let me update you. My daughter and I are fine. Fine. We are both feeling heard and understood. We were both piling up pain. And as is our mode of operanda. Operandis. Upper. Oh, boy, mo operandi.

As is our style of communicating, sadly, we go quiet. We sometimes go off the radar, and we avoid. And so somebody needs to hear this today. If you've got something festering that needs to be said, gather your courage. Gather your wits about you. Make a plan. Maybe include snacks and coffee. Make the environment inviting if you can. If you can't do it in person, we had to be on the phone for this because of the miles between us. You can still put a welcoming vibe out. You can still throw down the virtual welcome mat and say, come on in.

Come on in. We need to embrace this. We need to look at it. We need to share with each other. I need to give you time to speak, and then you need to give me time to speak. And let's see what we can discover together in the way of healing. I leave you with the exhale. In my poem Undertow, I talk about the exhale afterwards and the relief. In yoga practice, we talk about inhale. And exhale fills your lungs. It Gives you life. It resets your synapse, and it's life giving. So the exhale after the conversation is the sweetest thing, truly, I tell you.

So watch out for the hole pokers. Call them out if you need to. The ballast bullies, the ankle anchor grabbers. Boy, these are tongue twisters. The propeller meddler. Good grief. Who wrote this? I did. And the ones, the ones who would kind of pull on your freedoms. Again, perhaps not intentionally. Maybe intentionally, but we have the freedom and we have the clearances for our mental health to go in and say, look, this isn't cool. This is what I want to tell you about. And usually when you're in a loving relationship, the truth will perhaps inflict some kind of discomfort.

But it's so important to be heard and to work through that and then let the salt tears heal the wounds and, oh, the exhale afterwards. Friends, in August, we are going to be talking about savoring the ordinary. So our first Cadre speaker out the gate tomorrow, which is usually JC will be talking about savoring the ordinary. Yeah. Next up today in the Cadre is Talk Stigma with Seth Seth Perry. Then we have comedy in the Chaos. This is afternoon with Ms. Shannon Paul. The replay is wonderful. I missed a bunch of lives yesterday and I got on the replay and made comments and always good stuff, whether you're live or replay.

And I love some of the recent tweaking that the Cadre leaders are doing and the different innovations they're coming up with. So hang on and hoist the mainsail because we're sailing into new waters with Cadre and it's very exciting. It's very good. So, everybody, I appreciate you joining me today. Stay in safe waters. When you get in the storms, throw out the SOS and somebody will pull you in to safety. And if you need to drop anchor, I'll see you next week in the harbor. Bye for now.