Rules Of Engagement

Hello, hello, Hello, Cadre. Welcome to this live stream. I can tell you right now, I'm going to be a little distracted by my nails. I was at TJ Maxx and they had those. They're basically stickers. You don't even have to paint the nails. They're just little stickers. And then you cut and shape them to fit. And I am delighted by them. It's been a while, so I'm glad to be here with all of you. And this week, you know, we have themes and such, and this week is, you know, September is safety month, but this week, because it.

It goes across two different months, I get to just decide free range. I get to pick a free range topic. And I have decided on my newest rule of engagement number 36. I have 36 rules of engagement at this point. And I have this new one that I added. Even though it's an old one, it's not like I understood it to be new and added it. It was. Oh, I have been living according to this rule of engagement for quite some time. And so I added it to the list. I also got one. If anybody's watched the TV show Bosh or Bosh Legacy, I have watched those as well.

And on there, one of the things Bosch says to his daughter a lot is either everybody counts or nobody counts. And I finally just added that in more as a guideline. The a rule of engagement. I don't know. We'll see. But that's a new one. But that's not the one I'm talking about. I will proceed it with a little story. Years ago, I was in graduate school, so this was in like the late 90s. And I had been going and going and going and going and going, just studying. I think I was studying for my prelims.

So this would have been like 1996, 1997, maybe 1998. And this has happened occasionally since then. I just. I didn't get sick, but I just stayed in bed all day because I just could not keep going. I was just so tired and I slept most of that day. And then I also watched. I discovered Law and Order. Hard to imagine somebody would have to discover it, but it came on. And what I loved about it was each storyline was discreet. And that's great, but it started years of me watching every crime show. Law and Order.

Law and Order SVU when it debuted. Hard to believe there was a time when there was a Law and Order, but not a Law and Order svu. And here we are. And like, I watched all the shows they, they had one where Chris Noth's character was sent to Staten island. And it was more of a narrative show than it was a typical law and order show. It didn't last very long, but it was good. And I really liked Chris Noth at the time. Anyway, on and on I watched all these crime shows and I realized probably a few years later, at some point I realized if I keep putting that in my brain, it's going to be hard to have positivity come out of my brain.

And so the newest. And so I made a decision. From now on, I'm only going to watch, read and listen to things that are fun, funny, or inspire me in some way. Now, I could watch something that had dark themes if the artistry of the film inspired me. And I lived by this rule 20 years. And so the rule of engagement number 36 is what goes in is what comes out. What goes in is what comes out. And that's more of a guideline because what it just reminds me is to think about what I'm putting in now. Like my other rules of engagement, one of the reasons that it makes the list because it's so applicable in so many areas of life, diet, right?

We are what we eat. What goes in is what comes out. If I'm putting in junk food, if I'm only considering macros, right, like carbohydrates, protein, fats, that's great. I need macros and I need the right balance of macros. I am a 56 year old woman, I need a lot more protein than I did even 10 years ago. And I've always lifted weights and such, so that's important. Anyway, what goes in is what comes out. If I eat enough protein, it's going to be easier to build muscle, right? If I eat a lot of fat and carbohydrates, especially really processed foods, that's going to show up in my numbers and my health and how I feel.

If I don't go to AA meetings, if I don't go to recovery meetings, and I'm just letting the world put messages about alcohol in my brain, then what's going to come out is alcoholism is really makes it easy to forget how terrible alcoholism is. It's one of the many reasons I go to meetings. But if I go to meetings, what comes in is message about the good in the universe, what I can control and what I cannot control. A reminder that there is a whole transformative process I can use and I can put my problems through that connection with other people matters.

Like if I put that reminder in my brain a few times a week. Then what comes out is more serenity, more connection, less obsession with alcohol. I mean, that's been removed from me for three and a half decades. But, but that's because I continue to work my program. But it so diet, mental health. If what I put in and it's who I surround myself with, if I surround myself with people who collude with my worst ideas about myself in the. Then what comes out is I behave in ways that collude with my worst ideas about myself and the world.

Right? Who I hang out with. What comes in is what comes out. What goes in is what goes out. And so it's just a reminder to me to be as thoughtful as I can about what I'm consuming, what I am steeping myself in, what I'm bathing. You know, I often think of, you know, I watch a lot of comedy because laughter is just so healing and sometimes really inappropriate things make me laugh. But that is a way to heal the hurt that made me, you know, laughter is important. I'm not going to do a whole comedy thing here.

But comedy is important and laughter is important. Where was I going with that? Why did I even start on comedy? Something hello, 1% better. Welcome. I am talking about my brand newest rule of engagement. Yes. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I mean they have shown that when you with weight loss, right. That you will, if your friends are eating food, you will eat it, if they're eating more food, you'll eat it, etc. Etc. Who. Because rule number 36, it's my newest rule of engagement.

It's more of a guideline. We'll see where it ends up on the list. But what goes in is what comes out. What goes in is what goes out. And that that's true for what I watch, what I read, what I listen to, but also who I surround myself with, what I eat, you know, my nutrition habits, how I take care of myself medically, if I, if I take care of my teeth, that then they don't come out, I guess is more, more the important thing. But when I'm really conscientious about how I spend my time, how I spend what I view, you know, how I think about what I view.

That's really important to me. And on the mental health front, it has to do with how do I protect my peace, which is one of my rules of engagement. Key rule of engagement, protect your peace. Because if my. I am a survivor of a Great deal of trauma as a young person. And it led me to draw a bunch of conclusions about how the world is in my brain. And then it also left my body feeling like I was being chased by a lion all the time. And so if I am not curating my life, then I will experience the world through the lens of being chased by a lion all the time.

It is very easy for my body to convey to me that I'm being chased by a lion. And then it sends that message to my brain and my brain thinks all the negative you're being chased by a lion thoughts. But of course I wasn't chased by a lion. I, you know, I was, I mean, content warning, I guess, right? But I mean, I was abused by a whole bunch of adults who treated me very unkindly, I'll just put it that way, very unkindly. And they made money off it and I did not, which left me with some very inaccurate conclusions about money that I did not realize and earning money that I did not realize until a year ago.

Maybe this year sometime this year probably. Anyway, as a side note, if I don't curate my life pretty carefully, I am a jacked up nervous system, cranky, anxious, withdrawn mess, like all the time. And so I curate my life pretty carefully. I need to know what's going on in the world, but I curate how I get my news. Because if I just let the news beast into my brain, I will be panting and like freaked out and eventually completely shut down. So I guess that's the invitation. What goes in is what goes out.

Curate your life. Curate your life for your best success. Let's see, I had a group of close friends who drank a lot. I had to leave the group to effectively change my habits. It was tough, but so right for me and my purpose and happiness. Yes, yes, absolutely. As a recovering alcoholic, I can say, you know, people, places and things is one of the things you get taught early on. Anything that is going to be louder than your recovery. And when you're new, everything's going to be louder than your recovery.

The people, the places, the things that I associate with drinking. Like that had to change. That had to change. It meant I couldn't be super duper alone in my room all the time because that's mostly where I drank. Right. There weren't people I drank with, it was me. So I had to change me as the people. Yeah. Who we're around really matters, what they say and how they feel. I mean, if you, if you ever do a wealth consciousness sort of situation. They'll tell you if you're around people who are like, yeah, no, you can't, you can't start a business.

That's pretty risky. You know, if you're around people who are downers and they're trying to be helpful and they're trying to be careful, but, you know, they're trying to protect us, as are the voices in our heads. But if we are incapable of using our judgment around their protection, it just goes in. It just goes in. So. So that's my newest rule of engagement, slash guideline. What goes in is what goes out. But it's only new because I've been living by it so long that it was hard to be separate from it and then see it because it does, it does sort of guide my life.

Maybe the guideline is what goes in is what goes out. And the rule of engagement is curate your life for success and your life meaning your thoughts, the people around you, your health, what you eat, your lived environment. I, as you can tell, I am actually reassured by a bit of clutter. I know for minimalists this would be a nightmare, but for me, a little reassuring. It does tip over the end and I do my best. But a final note, because I'm here on Cadre, I. I am a Bruce Springsteen fan. This is from his river tour.

River Re release tour in 2016. I am a Bruce Springsteen fan. You know, if you've been around me for 10 minutes and don't know that I, you know, call a doctor because something's wrong with me. And many, many, many, many, many magic things have happened in my life as a result of just loving what I love. My number one rule of engagement, just loving what I love. And letting people know. Because a friend of mine who's in one of the guilds got an invitation to a four year consideration screening in New York this past weekend of the new Springsteen biopic.

It's called Deliver Me from Nowhere, based on the Warren Zanes book called Deliver Me from Nowhere, which is of course a line from a song that Bruce took from the name of a movie, any Paul Schrader movie. Anyway, it stars Jeremy Allen White as Bruce, Jeremy Strong as his manager John Landau, with whom he has an unusual 55 plus year relationship. In show business, it's unusual how close they are and Stephen Graham plays his dad. And this young kid whose name I want to learn does a brilliant job playing young Bruce.

But it's this very specific moment in Bruce's life. After the original river tour, before it's about the release it's about the creation and release of the Nebraska album and what Bruce was going through in his life at the time. And it takes heavily from Deliver Me From Nowhere, which is a remarkably good book, and also from Bruce's memoir. There are things in there that I recognize more from the memoir than I did from Warren. Even though he interviewed Bruce about this time period Bruce was in, he had come off this big tour that they had just done.

There was pressure for him to do a big album. He made Nebraska instead. For those of you who know Nebraska, he was in a depression, and he didn't have a word for it. And he had grown up with a father with mental illness, among other things. All of this is public already, but it shows this very intimate, very specific time in Bruce's life. And it is. I am biased, and it is beautiful, and it is such a test. I mean, it's. It's about Bruce. It's about a man hitting bottom and realizing he's got nowhere to turn except inwards to really deal with his stuff.

But it's also a love story between. About his friendship with John Landau, who just provides this beautiful level of support for him in this difficult time. And it's a story about generational difficulties. You know, you get to see his dad, and you get to see young Bruce, like, responding to his dad, and then you fast forward to this time period where he's grappling with the lessons he learned from that time in his life. It's just great. And it opens October 24th, and everybody should go see it, bring Kleenex and have a therapy appointment scheduled.

But one of the things that I loved about watching it was similar with Rocketman. When I watched the Elton John film as an alcoholic, it was hard to watch. They framed it really well because it opens with Elton John walking into a meeting. But I also know that Elton John has been sober for decades. And so it just really helped to know that watching the rough part of his story. It is public information that Bruce has had resource help, therapy, support, medication, all the stuff. He has had it, and he's doing okay, and he loves this movie, and he is out there promoting it, and he looks more relaxed than I've seen him in a promotional situation for a long time.

As an outsider. I don't know him, but just observing him as a person. So he loves this film and he loves the performance, and he gave them free rein to, like, do what the. He gave Scott Cooper, the director, writer, what he needed. Do what you need to do, he said. And you know, he said in New York, this is not a hagiography. This is, you know, film. You need to make this film. And it was. It's gorgeous. Go see it. That's what I'm going to say. I took three minutes over time just to say that. Go see it.

It's amazing. But remember, what goes in is what goes out. What goes in is what goes out. Curate your own life for success and I hope that you have a great week, Cadre and I will see you in the app.