Monday Motion W/Roe

Hello, Hello. Good morning. Good morning, Cadre fam. Cheers. Top of the morning to everybody. Good morning. It is Monday. Monday motion with Ro. It's 8:30. The sun's not out, but it's shining internally and I'm grateful for that. Let me turn this music down. I got some chilled electronic dance music going. That's my vibe. Good morning. Good morning. Who we got here? Speak Wonder. Good morning. Good morning. Who else we got? M A, F, F, E, F, Math. I don't know how to say that, but durky. Good morning.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for sharing this part of your day with me. Taking time out of your day to come be in the Cadre sphere with me like before. My name is Rolando, I go by Row for short. And I'm midway through my morning. My daily disciplines today was up at 5. Prayer, meditation, scripture, got some food in me. I keep it light in the mornings. Went to do a cardio class for accountability because I don't like doing cardio alone. I need the motivation. So I, you know, I bank on my community, push me through it.

Went to Embrace north, and now I just got my coffee. So cheers to you guys, everyone who's getting their coffee in them, if you're coffee drinkers. So last week I shared a little bit about who I was, some of the things I've been through, and just giving you guys a sneak peek into my life so you guys know who's speaking to you. Let's see. So today I was thinking about. And last night about Savor, the theme and what savor means to me. And I had to really do some deep reflection. I thought about Savor and for some reason, mindfulness kept coming to mind for me.

And I read this book a few years ago. I'm gonna butcher the name, but it was by Thick Thak Hanh. I can't even pronounce the name. But I read this book in this. It was. It was about mindfulness. And he was a Buddhist. And what stuck out to me was he wrote. He made this reference to eating an orange. And he talked about a lot of people when they eat an orange. You eat it and you consume it right away. But a lot of people don't slow down and individually eat it piece by piece and enjoy the flavors and the taste of it and the scent of it and the way it feels.

And like, that kind of messed with my head a little bit because I was like, I'm always doing things to check the box or to get through it or get on to the next thing And I don't really slow down and savor the moment. Whether it's a conversation, a cup of coffee, time spent with somebody, a walk, and it's always next, next, next. And I think that's where a lot of my anxiety stems from, is by doing that. So one of the things I try to do is to stop and savor the moment. Right. And not just the good ones, but even some of the bad ones.

Sometimes. Some of the moments that I might think are tough, that are challenging, that are hard, that I don't want to relive, but in those moments, there's something going on, Whether it's character, building me up for the next tough thing, or whatever life has life's gonna throw at me. I know a long time ago, prior to, you know, recovery and my newfound life, I used to run from tough conversations. Let's see. T nor says I breathe so shallow normally, but when I get anxious, my chest gets heavy, and.

And I'm very aware of the change. And then focus on my breath to help heaviness release. Yeah. And that stop and that. Just reflection and just understanding what's going on. It's. It's resetting. And, like, so when I was back in my. In my mess, you could call it, I'd run from all tough conversations. I'd run. Run from conversations that had to do with insecurity or vulnerability or death or grief or things that were gonna make me have to hold myself accountable to myself or to my family or to my community.

I from them. And there'd be a lot of people that would try to reach out and talk to me about certain things and trying to help me and trying to be there for me, and I would run from them. Right. And I had a situation yesterday that made me think of all those moments I spent running. I have a really good friend. He's. He's actually a news anchor. I won't say which news channel, but he's a really good friend of mine. He. He's been like a mentor. He's a few steps ahead in life than me, and we've built a pretty good relationship based around faith and just overcoming obstacles.

And he's always been kind of the strength one in the relationship. I would turn to him for things. Well, he's going through a situation where his mother has severe dementia. She lives out of town. And his brothers and family, they're not really doing much to support, and they're turning to him to kind of fight, fix everything, and, you know, pray all the bad things away, essentially. And it's costing him a lot to have his mother, you know, in a, in a home paying eight grand a month. And it's just, it's taxing financially, emotionally, spiritually, to sum it all up.

And he's usually the strength one. And yesterday I dragged him to church with me, dragged him out to brunch and just to exist, right? And we had this conversation about these real life things that were going on in his life. And it made me stop and think about all the times that, that I ran from these conversations, right? But every time I ran from those conversations, you know, I was running from people that were trying to help me. So I learned how to lean into those conversations to be, you know, to savor those hard situations, right?

I learned how to grasp them, hold on to them, experience my emotions. Like if I'm feeling scared or I'm feeling insecure or I'm feeling weak, like, okay, like let's, let's experience these emotions. Because if I run from them, I'm gonna be run from them, running from them forever. So I need to experience them, sit in them for a healthy amount of time and just deal with them and learn how to navigate them. And I've done that for the most part. I think I'm pretty, pretty good at it, right? And so I say all that to say when we, When I was sitting with my friend yesterday having brunch, it was one of those hard conversations that I didn't choose to run from and that those were the.

One of the ones that I ran into. I'm like, hey, he's dealing a lot of things. He's dealing with, you know, not feeling good enough to be there for, for mom financially. Doesn't know what's going to go on, all these things. And I chose to lean in and just sit and not to offer up in a one, you know, a one phrase, fix it all, or here's a Bible verse or here's something I read from a book that's gonna, you know, turn your day around and make all your problems going away. But like, I chose to sit in that uncomfortability because when you're sitting with someone, someone that's going through something, it can be uncomfortable.

You see people fighting back emotions and tears and all these things, especially when they're the sign of strength. It's, it's. It's a vulnerable moment. And I chose to just sit there and like, hey, I'm just here existing with you. You know, get, get whatever you need to off your chest. And my reason for saying that is I wanted to savor that moment, right? Because there's going to be a lot more. Life throws so much at us all the time. We never know what's going to come. Whether it's death, whether it's a cancer, sickness, all the.

All the life struggles. And I was like. And I. I kept thinking about savor over the last couple of days where it's like, yeah, I want to savor the good moments, but I savor those ones that are challenging, that are not so, you know, the sun's not shining on those moments, but in an aspect, it is because we're still bringing light to a dark situation for somebody. It might be uncomfortable for us for them, but they're gonna look back at it that. At a different day and like, hey, like, I was going through a tough time, but that moment when.

When Ro or Durki or Speak, Wonder or T. North sat with me and they just existed with me and listened to me and talked to me. Like, those are the moments that I cherish. Now people are gonna think like that. And so I. It made me stop and think to savor those types of moments as well. So that was just kind of something that was heavy on my heart over the last couple days. But I also not to just stay in the dark side. That's not dark, but it's just those are real moments that we deal with in life. Right.

On the other side, I like to stop and savor the moments that are big moments, happy moments that I tend to look past. Like, I've went through a lot of things in my life. And in November, I bought my first house, which I thought was never gonna happen. And I graduated college, four year degree, which I really thought would never happen. And I noticed as soon as it happened, I was on to the next thing. I'm like, oh, graduated. Boom. All right, what's next? Chase a job. Chase your life project. And I've had to be really intentional and disciplined about stopping and savoring.

Okay, you just completed a very hard thing. Sit in it. Speak. Wonder says my therapist calls it sitting with the discord. Yes. I love that. We have to learn how to sit with the discord. With. There's so many things we just have to. We not just have to, but we should. We should choose to. Because everything is gonna. Everything has a silver lining. I'm one of those people that I find the silver lining everything. People like, oh, my. Oh, my goodness, it's raining now. It's thunderstorm. I'm like, well, at least it's not humid.

That's how I see it. Anyway, there's always a silver lining. The optimistic, I'm definitely a half a cup, half full type of guy. So, before I move on, what is something that you guys are choosing to savor or what is something that you guys want to stop and appreciate more that might get overlooked? Whether it's, you know, a cup of coffee, the sunshine, letting your dog out in the morning. What is something I challenge you if you feel comfortable with sharing? Some of the things that I've chosen to be more disciplined about savoring is the time spent with people.

The little conversations, the small ones that might seem insignificant, but to someone else, they might seem really significant or impactful. I try to stop and savor it. So, for example, like, when I. When I ask somebody how they're doing, it's like, hey, how are you doing? I don't like to just receive it and check the box and move on to the next thing. It's like, no, I want to ask these things because I truly care and I want to know and I want to savor that. That moment of sharing my life space with somebody and them sharing it vice versa, because I feel like that's a big part of what life's about, is to be able to coexist together and to learn from one another.

Learn from one each other words today. Learn from one. Eat one another. There we go. My coffee's kicking in. Obviously. Speak, Wonder says, watching the birds at my feeder. Oh, that's a good one. Funny thing about birds. Oh. Interesting thing I like is, can you imagine being as free as a bird? Or all you do is fly around all day. And I don't even know what that mindset would feel like. Like, they don't. They're not worrying about taxes or gas prices or the economy or the climate. Well, maybe the climate when they fly south.

But, like, I just think of the freeing aspect that just flying and soaring and just experiencing the world, just carefree, like, that's. That's probably a good happy place. But. So where was I? Yeah. Savoring. Savoring the moments. Savor. I. I hear the word a lot. I just didn't really know what it truly meant to me. And like I said, mindfulness came in holding on to things, right? Holding on to the moments, assessing what the situation is, what something means to me, what I'm experiencing. One of the things that I have to do to reset myself, to not think about tomorrow, taxes, bills, and to savor moments is to resort back to the five senses.

Something I learned to do. It's like, okay, what do I see? What do I hear? What do I taste? What do I feel? What can I touch? All these. All these senses. And once I stop and, like, sit in that for a second, it's like, okay, I'm grounded now. Now it's like, okay, let me focus on this now. Let me face whatever's in front of me, whether it's reading a book, having a conversation, having a cup of coffee and kind of just a reset and, you know, looking for things to hold on to instead of worrying about the next thing.

But I'm gonna wrap this one up. Looking forward to sharing more and hearing from you guys. Drop something in the chat. What's something that we can savor? Something that we have coming up that it's like, hey, I could probably savor this a little bit more or make this a priority or, you know, I want to lean, enjoy this moment more or, you know, just be more mindful. I challenge you to drop it in the chat. I love seeing the comments. I love seeing everyone else's approach and how things that they're looking forward to.

And also, it's Monday. Let's start Monday motion. So if there's something you're grateful for, I know today I. What am I grateful for today? Coming up, I'm going to be doing a suit fitting for a wedding I'm going to be in, which is really cool. So I'm looking forward that. Looking forward to that. I'm going to be in someone's wedding. Awesome. Really looking forward to that. To that Someone chose to share the one of the biggest days of their life with me and include me in it. So glad to go and support.

So looking forward to that. And I don't know about you guys, but I feel like 007 when I put a suit on. So I never miss an opportunity to put a suit on. So always gonna jump at the chance to do that. So let's see. Amar. Looking forward to finding and starting employment. Oh, that's always an exciting. Can cause the challenging time. Lots of things. I. I definitely feel you there. I'm looking for a couple different new ways to apply my skills and in the workplace as well. So I. I can. I'm in that same boat.

Good luck to you on that journey. It can be an exciting one. When a new chat, one chapter closes, a new one opens. You never know what's going to come, but it's the next chapter of your life. So looking forward to seeing how that plays out. Grateful for unknown adventures awaiting me this week. Oh, the great unknown. Those are the best ones, so keep them coming. Hope you guys have a great week. Thank you for showing up. I'm gonna tune out to my chill dance electronic music. Set the vibe for the day as we roll in.

Get your coffee or your water in you. Hope you guys have a great week. Looking forward to next week's Monday Motion. Have a good day. Cheers.