Growth Doesn’t Happen Overnight, But….

Hi Cadre. Hope you are enjoying this lovely day. I know it's really nice out in Minneapolis. Beautiful sunny day. I'm excited to get out and go play in it, hopefully. But the good news is I did everything. I restarted my phone, I updated the Cadre app. I did everything I could so that all these. Hi Mel. So that we can stay connected together today. That is my goal. One of many, but we will. Hey Nikki, good to see you. So good to see everybody hop on here. And it's been so. Oh, hello. It's been so great seeing this harvest theme this month.

I. I love to see the mix of mental health, of gratitude, of sobriety, of. Hey, Mel. Hi. Speak Wonder. Excuse me, sorry, I am recovering from a cold this week so forgive me, but it's been such a great mix. Mixed bag of. Of topics this past month or I'm sorry, this past week, the first week of October. Ooh, yes. If I had coffee, I would. Cheers to you. Or tea. I do have tea but I'm not going to get up because I like I said, I'm doing everything I can to keep this live stream going for the full duration.

So. So yeah, I'm excited to add in. It's two things for me today. It's world World Mental Health Day, which is such a wonderful thing that we're. I don't want to say celebrating but we are sharing and enlightening the world with. Oh yeah, I hope you get feel better. Speak Wonder. It's going around. It's change of season two, you know, but it's been interesting day seeing the world share their mental health and or their mental health strategies and their mental health hiccups. I know Luke posted a blog about it and I started diving into that and that was really, really.

It really opened my heart to see the struggles that people have gone through and it's just such a. Of course my YouTube thing is going off right now. It's such a great thing that we can talk about it with one another. And so today I want to add upon that because mental health is so important and we have a lot more control than we think. And now I have to get up because the YouTube video now it stopped, of course, but we have a lot more control than we think. It's just, it's really hard to see that when you're in it.

And so growing out of that space for me personally was really hard, really difficult. And I want to share three a few things that I hope you find helpful to stay patient in your pursuit in this Persistent journey of growing your, opening your heart, growing and expanding your mind. Girls calm. Sorry. The girls are playing mental health hiccups. That's a perfect way to say it. There's. We're all going through those. And I can say this past week I've definitely gone through some mental health hiccups.

Holy buckets. I'm like, gosh, I am just feeling this like anger come up like and that's. And that's okay. We are only human. Things are going to come and go. Our past experiences that we push down just they come up sometimes. And so something that has really helped me to not only get off of medication but maintain this, I want to say not balance, that's not the right word. But maintain this. Like even keelness and level headedness in my mental health journey is okay. What can I do today to help my future self?

What can I do to. And what it's like for example, yesterday I was like, okay, tomorrow's Friday. It's the last day of the week. What can I do to like help myself ease into this and maybe relieve a little stress so that I'm not as stressed tomorrow? I went to a restorative yoga class and it was beautiful and amazing and it was everything I needed and, and I slept better. I woke up feeling refreshed. It literally that one thing I did for myself opened me up to a greater, more expansive version of myself that allowed me to keep my mind open.

Because oftentimes when we're struggling mentally, we're just like shutting down. We're narrow focused on this one thing or this irritation spiral, whatever it might be. And so really opening up and expanding has. Helps me and could look different for you. It could look like taking a walk out in this fall weather, this peak fall weather, oh my gosh, it could be like making a really nice warm cooked meal. It could be knocking one thing off your chore list so that tomorrow you can like relax and breathe.

Could look different for everybody. But definitely that's my number one is do something your future self would be happy right now for. Or you could also turn that into like 1% better. What's. How can I be like 1% better or help myself get one step ahead? Like just think one step ahead. I know that I don't like to get too in the future because the present is what they call a gift, you know, but they, it's, it's. We need to do that sometimes. We have to plan and strategize. It's not terrible to go into the future.

Just, we can't stay. And the back side of that, instead of going to future, is to reflect when we're taking these baby steps every day, like, it seems like we're maybe in the Truman show or Groundhog Day, where we're going up, back and just like, oh, wake up, work, eat, sleep, repeat. It seems like it's not changing at all. But then you look a year behind you and you're like, oh, my gosh, I am a completely different person. Or, wow, this really used to bother me. Or an example for myself was because fall really kicked in this week here in Minnesota.

And I was like, man, I can start. I can feel my, like, fall. Like, I used to have really bad seasonal depression. And so it's a pattern that still comes. It's just the low isn't as low, and every year the low gets a little higher. And so I could just feel it come on. And I was like, oh, my goodness. You know, and then on top of being sick, when you're sick, your. Your mind, your thoughts are just like, kind of garbage. And so it was just an interesting week. But I reflected on it and was like, wow, this low is not as low as it used to be.

And this situation isn't triggering me as bad as it used to as well. And so there's power in reflecting and journaling through it. And I even wrote in my journal how like, wow, this feels so different than what I'm used to around this time of year, or whatever silly little thoughts I wanted to jot down in there. So I would say that's a powerful act as well, you know, 1% forward into the future and then taking, you know, number two, to step back and reflect. Reflection allows us to embody and incorporate the wisdom of the lessons that life is constantly putting us through, not stay back there.

So, again, we're not staying in the past. We are taking the wisdom and leaving everything else, even though it's really hard to do that because sometimes we just want to. Like, you know, we. I could go on, but moving on, the final thing that I shared last week is. And again, I'm so sorry, the girls are just. They are super psyched and they are playing and going nuts. Gracie, calm down, por favor. Speak. Wonder says, I'm sitting next to my sun lamp while enjoying your life. I love the sun lamp. I.

I call it my happy light. It's helping me cope. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm glad you said that, because it does feel like coping energy, for sure. Like this, the settling into the fall, seeing the whole, like our country just do its thing. But then I try to. No, squeaky, not right now, please. Thank you. I try to remember that there's this whole world. Yeah. The darker season. There's. There's always balance or. I'm sorry, Light and dark. There's always been oppositions throughout the entire history of the planet Earth and humanity.

And so. Gracie. Hey. Okay. Next time I'm going in a different room. I'm sorry. And trying to think bigger takes me into more of a light process versus staying in that dark dooms, doomsday energy of nothing's going to change. And I can't believe this is doing that. It's really hard. It's really heavy. And so if you're navigating that right now, because it is everywhere and everyone's talking about it constantly, then all we can do is try to bring peace within ourselves. And after we have even just one glimpse or one moment of peace within ourselves, hopefully we can take that step to.

That's our. That's your 1% better. How about that? Trying to have the peace in ourselves or having our happy light and sun lamp help bring more light when we are in a dark place? Because it does. It gets dark, it gets turbulent in there. And so can we work towards that 1% better and reflect on like, wow, okay. I actually have a lot to be grateful for. Which leads me to the third. Is gratitude so important to try to remember what we're grateful for? It's really hard. But like I've mentioned this before, being grateful in our hearts is a.

Is different sensation than being grateful. Just saying we're grateful in our minds, like feeling gratitude can literally shift us on an internal level. And it's like, gosh, this heart that we have, it is meant to be open in a world that constantly wants to close it down. And I believe the gratitude practice is what can open our hearts again when no one else is coming to do it for us. And the things that do are usually temporary. A relationship gets old, a new car doesn't have the same pizazz that it once did when you first got it.

A new job fades. All of that is pretty temporary. But if you can pump yourself up, then you are just slowly living in this, this higher, higher state. And I recently just put a little post it note on my mirror about a week ago because I told the client to this. It's so funny when you have clients and sometimes, and sometimes you give advice to them that you need yourself. And so I did that. And then my advice to her was put a gratitude sticky and say like, what are you grateful for in your bathroom mirror?

So that every time you brush your teeth you are expressing gratitude. So that way you already have to brush your teeth, might as well habit stack and add something else to it. You're just standing there anyway. And so I recommend it. I've been feeling like pretty darn good even though my mind doesn't really want me to. And I'm just kind of feeling the weight of this, of being sick in the world and all that. But overall I'm like reminded. I'm like, oh yeah, like I can choose this. I can choose to be grateful even when I'm really not, even when I'm angry.

And not to say that I'm not allowing myself to feel these things because I know you've, you've said it before. Speak. Wonder where. You just have to, you have to let yourself go through these, these things as, as they come up. And I think Carrie, Carrie Pickering's post was interesting too in. She's just, you know, we're trying to bypass all of these things and missing connection with others and the connection with ourselves is the foundation to how we can connect with others. And when we see how far we've come in our journey towards growth, towards being the best human we possibly can.

Because I truly believe everybody wants that. And if they don't, then I'm naive. But I want to believe that we're in a world where everybody wants to be a really good human for themselves, for their friends, for their family, for their community. And I know I've seen it. I've been by me believing that I've been seeing a lot more of it. And so I hope that some gratitude can help you get into, help you with the coping, help with transitions, big transitions and life changes, and help you see the path forward.

Because that's what's the most scary is the unknown of, okay, I don't know what comes next and none of us do. That's part of the human predicament. But all we can do is practice being 1% bettered by making our future self happy just by one tiny act a day. Reflect on how we have grown, how we are doing, how. How we have shifted so that we can still, you know, navigate and have a clear path to our North Star or our Pulse Star, and finally expressing gratitude for that journey, for that path, for that process.

Life is the practice. Life is the process and joy is the process. Even though we are told and conditioned that the end is where it's at. But last time I checked, anytime I got something I wanted or completed something, I always wanted something more or I was afraid I would lose it or I wanted something else. It just, it never ends. And so if we can adapt to loving the process and working on ourselves in that nitty gritty, uncertain, I don't know what the heck I'm doing type of energy, I truly believe we will harvest some beautiful circumstances, some peace for others as well as ourselves, and some guidance so that we don't feel so alone.

And I would argue a community, a strong community. And so I hope that helps with navigating these weird times. Being a human, it's so fun, but it's just my two cents but I would love to help anybody in this process if you're feeling down or going through big changes, because that has been my whole freaking life and I've survived. I know you can survive if you're on the Cadre. You're strong and adaptable and resilient as it is because you're on this thing. And adapt to loving the process. Yes, we can do that.

It takes work, but we can adapt to love the process along the way to becoming more true and loving towards ourselves. So I hope you all have a fantastic day. I apologize for my dogs being very social and wanting to play and making noise, but sometimes I'm like, oh, their joy just makes me. Makes me smile more. So with that, I love you all. Cadre, it has been a great, a great day to see everybody share their fun harvesting. Some of them aren't that fun, but some of them are needed. Right again, the opposing.

So have a lovely day. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will end with I'm grateful for you and I'm curious what you're grateful for.