Comedy Through The Chaos

Hello, hello, hello, and happy Thursday, Cadre Sphere. I hope that you are well. In fact, I hope that the day is treating you well. If it is not, shame on it, not shame on you. I am Miss Shannon Paul. I'm a comedian, corporate speaker, voice actor, event MC, benefit auctioneer, and a variety of word-related things, and I hub out of the great state of Minnesota. I'm glad Good to see you, Andy Mack. Hope that you and your adorable helmeted dog are doing well. I am a variety of things. I also happen to be the proud parent of an adorable 17 year old kiddo who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum.

And so we are on a day, let's see, we are on Wednesday, right? So today three. of our school year, which brings us to Caregiver Thursday, where we talk about a variety of caregiver related things. So whether you are giving care to someone or having someone give care to you, we talk about a variety of things here, here in the cadre sphere where we reframe the way that we talk about mental wellness. And throughout the month of September, imagine that we are already in the month of September. Appreciate you.

Thank you. Thank you. So yeah, we going to have to see each other in the IRL eventually. So bringing us to the theme of September where we are talking about safety and so I wanted to talk today about the safety of being awkward. I like to consider myself professionally awkward. I have managed to make awkward a profession. I wanted to start today with an admittance and an apology. This morning, my kiddo, who I appreciate and am grateful that I get to give care to and care for, he is my favorite human being.

This morning, though, he was dilly-dallying and dilly-dallying in a very particular way as we were trying to get off to school. And so he was giving me joy in his dilly dallying. And I went over to him while he was dilly dallying out in the driveway. And what I told him was what I thought was something where I was teasing him lightly. I told him stop being weird. And I told him stop being weird. And I thought I was joking. But I could see on his face that he did not take it so. He got offended. And so what was turned into something that I thought was going to be lighthearted offended my teenager.

So I ended up apologizing and so it turned into what was just dilly-dallying needed to end up returning into a full reset this morning. So I always like to remind our parents that it is okay to apologize and let that happen. That's something that I wish that Maya mom had done more often when I was younger. There's lots of times I'm like, I deserved an apology. So I try to be freer with my apologies and do these things because the thing about. the word weird and the word awkward is that there's nothing wrong with a lot of the things that I think make me awkward or make him awkward and when I was saying weird it wasn't like I was saying that I don't like his weirdness or his quirks or any of those things I didn't want to give the impression that I didn't like any of those things that make him a little different or make any of us a little difference and so I was really wounded that I gave him that impression It wasn't that at all.

And I think that's something that we forget a lot of times is that we don't always feel safe in those awkward things that make us who we are. One of the things that I have in my bedroom is I have a lot of what I consider inspirational things on my wall. And since we can be mobile because we're on a mobile device because we're here in the cadre sphere, we can take tours, so I'm gonna give you a tour. of my my house. So here's a tour of my bedroom. So here on my wall, because I have a variety of different little things.

So there's one right here, and that first one says, hold tight and pretend it's a plan. And that is from the Doctor Who series. And then there's one right here, and it says, The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave, live. That's actually from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And then here's another one that is my favorite, one of my favorite things. This says, The things that make me different are the things that make me me. And that says, The things that make me different are the things that make me me.

And that is Piglet. And so that is one of my favorite quotes. And it's something that obviously, because of its placement on my bedroom wall, I read often. And it reminds me of something that is a tentpole in what frames how I think about myself. The things that make me different are the things that make me me. And so the fact that I said something this morning that could be framed and thought from my kiddo that made him think that something that makes him different, that he thought that something that made him different, it's bothering me that much, that he thought that I took that poorly, that maybe I wasn't accepting of something that made him awkward or something that made him weird, that maybe he thought that I didn't like one of his quirks or something that made him stand out.

it bothered me that that offended him and so I'm glad that I had the opportunity to to take it back and I wish that I could you know sometimes your mouth gets in front of you hey Anna how are you you know sometimes your mouth gets in front of you just gets you in trouble you wish that you could like immediately like suck it back in like a vacuum I wish that I could the minute I said it the minute I had actually said the word stop being weird I wish that I could have taken it back I didn't mean it that way at all but too late lessons learned So, as we are moving through the concept of safety and providing spaces, I do think that it reminds us that even though we try our best to provide safe spaces and spaces where we are creating an ability to go, you can be whoever it is that you need to be, that you are you do have the ability to be adorably awkward, adorably weird, your amazingly freakish self and all of those things that we still sometimes let ourselves down, you know, that we still sometimes don't give as much space as we'd like and so it happens to the best of us and giving ourselves grace to go no matter how awkward we are we still may not be giving as much grace and gratitude as we would like.

So encouraging us to see that in one another, to try and make sure that we are giving more room than we even think is necessary for one another and giving ourselves that space as well. So interesting. because I had been planning on talking about the safety to rest in our awkwardness even before this little pitfall that came up this morning. And it's so interesting to me that even though that's something that's so important to me, that I still is like, ah, I still managed to put my foot in that bear trap.

So do a little bit better if you can for the next week you know try and make sure that as we're trying to look for that safety that you know for those people that are important to us you know including the people that you are caring for that you do your best to try and go hey you know I know that none of us are perfect but I'm still here for you and I do my best to try and make sure that you are seen yeah the word weird exactly you know it's it's It's interesting, and I appreciate that word, and that's why I think it's interesting that it was so misunderstood the way that I was using it.

I didn't mean to offend him, but I also think that it's, I used it in a way that obviously did. And so Lesson learned. So instead of trying to tell him, hey, don't be offended that I use it that way, I just won't use it around him like that because I could just see on his face not working for him, not working for him this morning. I will soldier on and figure out another way to make sure that I get back on his good graces. He seemed okay by the time we moved on. I still got back into the, you know what, I love you.

And I wanted him to make sure that that's what we left on was a good note. And instead of trying to move on and tell him that he did not need to be offended and that he was misinterpreting what I had, I'm not gonna tell him, just get over it. It's like, nope, mom made a misstep. And you get to feel all of the feels. And I especially want him to understand that he is allowed to be offended if mom did something wrong. So mom made a mistake. Mom will do her best to make less mistakes in this particular thing.

Or if nothing else, mom will make a different mistake next time. I cannot guarantee that additional mistakes will not happen. There will be other mistakes, but that's what I can do is try to make a different mistake next time. The best that I can promise is that I will probably make a different mistake as best as possible. So yeah, I would love to chat with you about that as well. But continuing on the conversation of what safety looks like. It did also make me think about the concept that safety does look different for all of us, just like the definition of different things look different for all of us.

The way that I looked at that interpretation, as you're saying about centering on celebrating weirdness, some people wouldn't, you know, no matter how you try to celebrate weirdness, they have such a connotation or denotation around that word that no matter what we say about, no, no, no, weird is good. There's probably some people that they're like, yeah, I'm not here for it. But for the rest of us, we're like, no, we're gonna learn to celebrate it. I like the word weird. Maybe he doesn't. So for those of us who want to champion it, then we'll be able to take it back.

For those who don't, There are lots of room for them as well. So we will continue those conversations. There will be lots of chats here in the cadre app about the conversations around what safety looks like, about a variety of different looks at safety. And that's one of my favorite things about CADRE is going, what does safety look like? What does safety, how do you define safety for you? What are the different aspects of safety? And what does it look like? There are many ways that we can have these discussions.

And I think that creating safe spaces is something that I like having those discussions around because, you know, I'm one of those people that goes, is a safe space something that I think really exists. I mean for me I'm like I don't know if I think that there are completely safe spaces but I love having discussions about what would that look like, you know, for people who look and sound like me. So let's continue to kind of work towards that and see what that kind of utopia could be and how we can move towards it.

So thank you for being here and having these conversations with us and moving towards whatever kind of mental wellness, mental illness, mental conversations work best for each and every one of us. That is always the goal is to keep working towards all of these things and seeing what we can do to try and make sure that we blend together as much as we can. So I'm hopefully going to pick up a less crabby kid and see how this goes. We are going to move towards a more a more combined relationship because it's different every single day.

So continue to let us know what kind of conversations you would like to have here in the cadre sphere. and we will continue to try and provide it for you. m. Central for the Comedy Through the Chaos Parenting Edition. I will have more content about safety. It'll be slightly different and hopefully it will not start the day off with me putting my foot in my mouth with my teenager. that is the goal so if I start today that way I will continue I will consider it a good day so whatever it is that you need please make sure that we you let us know so everybody we appreciate you so hopefully as I said I hope that the day is treating you well if not shame on it not shame on you let us know what else we can provide and we will be back here soon so see y'all soon