Practicing : What I Do To Stop Living In Survival Mode Every Day

Cadre. Good morning. Happy Tuesday. It is Shannon from Cadre. I have not done a live for a while, so I'm so happy to see you all. Happy Tuesday morning. Welcome to my live stream. It has been a few months, so I am back in the Cadre sphere. So my name is Shannon. For those of you who don't know me, I'm part of the Cadre team. I am doing a live stream called Practicing. I think this is the title. This is a new title for me. So it is called Practicing. It is what I have learned in eight plus years of therapy.

As a human who has been in therapy for a long time, I'm a person who lives with anxiety. Cptsd. What else do I live with? Caregiving. I'm a caregiver of a child with autism. And I am here in real life because I am sharing you guys. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to share. Share some thoughts of what it means to be a human living with a bunch of things. The way that I roll in the world is that I'm a person who really just shares my own lived experiences.

And I do it in hopes that you will feel less alone. You guys. Okay? Who's. Who's Harding? Who's Harding? All those hearts. Is that Luke? Is that a Luke Harding? I don't know who it is. Good morning. Speak wonder. You guys, I missed you all. I love to see you, but I'm here to talk about savoring. So. So for those of you who are part of the Cadre sphere, I know you know that we have topics that our director of coaching, Nikki creates every month and they are savoring. And so this month it's savoring.

And so I'm going to talk about savoring from the point of someone who struggles to savor things. Because you know, frankly, as someone who is a caregiver who lives with anxiety, I struggle to savor things because I'm always freaking out. Reality, Nikki, they're all your hearts. Thank you. Aww, Jules, it's so good to see you too. Okay, so I'm going to talk about savoring from someone who struggles to savor. And I'm going to talk about it from the perspective of a story of all the of me. Actually, when I was young and it was when I was moving to Austin, Texas.

I grew up in Iowa. I went to college in Lincoln, Nebraska. Then I had. I made the decision, I'm just gonna be real. I followed a boy to Austin, Texas, and I made the decision to move to Austin, Texas. And I was really scared. And so I drove my Plymouth, my s***** car, I'll just call it that. I don't know what it was. It was a bad car from Austin to Texas, and I was really, really scared. And I got my car and I was excited to move to Austin. It was my first job in radio. I was really excited for the move, I was excited for the new thing, and I was also really scared.

And so I got in my car and I started driving to Texas. And this was a time pre cell phone, so it's just me and myself in my car. And I remember every single mile that passed, I was really scared. And each time, you know, I was crying, I had tears streaming down my face. I think I was listening to like some country music about like, you know, leaving the nest or something like that. But every mile that passed, I had to tell myself, you know, I can turn around at the next exit. Like, I'm on this new adventure.

I'm going to Texas. It was a 13 hour drive. I was by myself. And as I went on this new venture, I had to say to myself, okay, Shannon, I know this is scary, and I know this is hard, but you know what? At the next exit, if you need to turn around, you can turn around. Like nothing is going to. Nothing is going to. Like you can do it, right? Like you can turn around at the next exit. If you need to quit, you can quit. And then I could keep going because it's almost like I'd given myself permission to, like, know that I had an out.

And I'm bringing a story up because this is the time when a lot of us are transitioning. Some of us are taking our kids to college. My friend Colleen just took her son to college and she told me that every mile after she dropped him off, every mile driving away from him, she felt like she was, you know, it was hard. I'm not going to share her story, but it was hard every mile that she put between her. Hard for us to do things that are we know we need to do, that are maybe growth oriented, that are amazing and valuable, and things that we want to do, and things that are going to add value to our lives and things as individuals that are important, that we know we want to do and that we will ultimately savor, and that will ultimately be incredibly valuable to us.

And at the same time, they're hard. So I'm in one of those right now with my personal life where I'm in a new relationship. And for those of you who know me well, you know that that is kind of my hardest. And so I am having to work really hard in that relationship to say, hey, you know what? Each step that I take in that is like another exit on that road to Austin where I say, you know what? I can always turn around. I can always get off at the next exit and turn around, and I take instead, or I choose instead to keep driving.

I choose instead to keep moving forward in that next step, in that next path in this relationship. And so I just want all of us. I wanted to share that today to say that I think I might have lost connection number one. I hope I didn't. And if I did, I will. I'll try to rejoin and finish this story. But I wanted to say that as we are all doing the things that are hard, and again, specifically, as someone who has dealt with anxiety and CPTSD and a lot of trauma in the past and a lot of things that make it really scary to keep moving forward, I just want you to remind you that, like, even if you have to trick yourself a little bit, right?

Like, even if you have to say to yourself, okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I can get off at the next exit, right? I can take a different direction. I can go back to what was comfortable. You can, right. Forgive my eyes. Rachel MK55 as someone who always needs to have a way out. Yes. Looks for doors 100%, right? I'm the same way. So I have something called cptsd, which basically means I have hyper vigilance. I'm always looking for that way out. Right? That's from my past experiences. And to be honest, it's what's happening currently in my new romantic relationship.

It's hard. There are scary times where I'm like, hey, is this now or is this from before? And I have to go back to myself and say, hey, you know what? I always have a choice. Because I am a person now who is 49 years old. 49 years old. And I'm not that person I was before, but I have to take that moment to say, I have a choice. I can get off. I can get off anytime I want. And also I have the ability to say, nope. I also have a choice to stay and move forward and savor this thing that is in front of me that can be different.

So I just wanted you guys to hear that today that as someone who lives with a bunch of hard stuff, who is 49 and who has been in therapy forever and who does a bunch of things that make me an adult. Like, I am a mom, and I am a business person, and I am a. You know, I do all the things. I'm a sister, I'm a friend. I'm. You know, all the things I do all the things. I show up in the world, like a real person. Like I have a mortgage like you guys, you know, I'm also scared a lot of the time, and it is hard for me to savor things.

And I just want you to know you're not alone in that, number one. And number two, you always have a choice. You always can get off on that next exit. And so if you want to employ that little piece of trickery, mind trickery again. It's just something that I learned in therapy. That is something I practice today to stay my most resourced self, which means basically the self that is like, yep, you are not stuck. You have choices. I wanted you to know you could steal it and just remember me on that road to Austin, crying to, I think it was born to fly.

Now I remember Sarah Evans in my Plymouth something or other, a really crappy blue car, crying to myself at 21 years old, but also saying, you know what? I can get off of that next exit. But I didn't. And you know what? I savored what I learned in Austin, and I actually freaking loved it there. And here I am today. And so you can do it, too, beautiful Cadre sphere friends. I hope I didn't lose you in a connection. I love seeing you all, and I just hope you know you're not alone. You have. I believe Betsy's coming up next, but you guys are awesome.

Thanks for being part of this community. Thanks for supporting each other. I love having you here, and I love being a part of all that you guys are doing and supporting for each other. So we'll see you soon again here in the Cadre sphere. And, yeah, have a beautiful day. Bye, guys. Oh, I took a. Okay, bye.