Self Care Sunday ✨ Phone A Friend

Hello Sunday. Coming in today with my trusted advisor. He is full on in pet mode. Today it's Sunday. We're here, we've made it. And today we're on Sundays. It's Self care Sunday. So my name is Jean Nicholls. If we haven't had space together before, welcome. It's nice to have you here. Hello, Jules, how are you doing today? Welcome, welcome. I'm excited to be here with all of you. Major is equally as excited to be here today with all of you, even though he shows it differently than I do. So today on self care Sunday.

Sorry, my phone is wobbly. Today, Today is about phoning a friend. Now this could go a whole bunch of different ways. In the most beautiful way, however, I'll share with you a fun little fact. 14:40 minutes in one day. 5% of our day. It's not a huge amount of time, but when you think about the art of actually picking up the phone and phoning a friend and having a conversation with them, whether or not you get to talk to them. So let's say you do call them, it goes straight to voicemail. Or it rings and they don't answer and it goes to voicemail.

How many of you leave a message versus how many of you hang up and just think, well, I'll shoot. They'll see that I called and maybe they'll call me back. So here's my invitation to you today. So phoning a friend first is the actual tactile element of calling them. Calling someone, someone you haven't talked to in years, someone you haven't talked to in months. Why is that important? Even if they don't answer the phone, you get to hear their voice. Unless they have a just a general recording for their voicemail, you get to hear their voice.

And just the sound, simple sound of a friend or a parent or a sibling's voice creates a sense of calm in our systems because it's somebody that we really respect, appreciate. Maybe they've supported us, maybe we've supported them. But the simple element of hearing their voice offers an opportunity to connect into a space, a human, a person that really often sees us, someone that's relatable to us. So when we hear their voice, our memories have this sensation of, ooh, that voice might trigger this memory, which helps me feel safe and calm.

Now, on the other side of that, if they do answer the phone, you know, sometimes they might be like, is everything okay? Because we don't call people anymore. We just text people. I find that when I send people voice memos instead of a text message, they respond with a voice memo. And the first thing they often say is, wow, it's great to hear your voice. I'm glad that you're a voice memo person also. So technology has really shifted things for us. If you can FaceTime, that's even better. And sometimes people will be like, oh, I don't want to take your call.

My hair is messed up. Who cares? I don't care. Most of the time my hair is sweaty because I just wear, worked out and taught a spin class. Fun fact. I have a significant number of voicemails saved on my phone from my mom and dad. And since I can't actually call them anymore, I listen to those voicemails and I feel that memory. I feel that connection. I hear their voice, their laughter, and I have a physical reaction to that. A joy, a remembrance of love. And so oftentimes I'll keep voice memos for maybe longer than I need to, but I love to hear the sound of people's voices.

So when we phone that friend and we think about doing that on Self Care Sunday or designating one Sunday and not a month that you call somebody you haven't talked to on the phone for a really long time. It's space and time to refuel your soul, reignite a connection. Now the other side of phoning a friend can also be when you need them. There's this song that is a song that we really love called Banks. It's one of my favorite songs, and it's by this band called need to Breathe. And I'll pop it out into the chat after we're done here and I'll put the link on Spotify to that song.

If you're an Appa music person, I'm sorry. I'm gonna post the Spotify link because that's what I listen to the most. But when I think about banks of a river, and that's what this song is about. It's about who are the people on the sidelines that are cheering you on? You know, as I go through life, nobody can be in that water, in that river with me. It's my experience. They can hold my hand through it, they can cheer me on through it, but it's my lived experience. But when I visualize floating down a river that might have plot twists or curves, or maybe the river gets really rocky or bumpy, or maybe there's a tidal wave in there that I need to avoid, right?

That's life. But when I look up onto the bank on the side of that river and I see all these people cheering me on, knowing that at any given point in time they might reach out their hand and help me out. Phoning a friend can also mean that today the rapids are too much. It could mean that there's too many curves in the river and maybe I lost my stick, right? Phoning a friend can also be, I need help today. And those people that we call, they know that when they call, we need them to answer or call us back.

And they will. So on Self Care Sunday, my invitation to you is to check in. What do you feel today? Do you feel like just reconnecting with someone? Someone that you haven't talked to in a while? Do you feel like you need to phone somebody because you just need to stretch your hand out for help? Or do you need to phone a friend because you know that that friend needs to stretch out their hand? And maybe they haven't, or maybe they have and you haven't called them back yet. So there are three, maybe even more different possibilities of phoning a friend today.

Only you know what it is that you need or where you at. But my invitation is, is if you're sitting there today and today's a good day, phone those friends. Pick one, pick two, give them a call, have a laugh, share memory, tell them you're thinking about them. Sometimes I also like to do the phone the friend. And if they don't answer, I write them a little card. I send them a card because I feel like cards get lost too. So you can phone a friend if you're having a great day, you can phone a friend if you're just having a day, you can phone a friend because maybe you think that friend needs you.

So on Self Care Sunday, take that time. It's funny because two years ago, on Friday is when I lost my mom. So it's been 732 days since I've heard her laugh. And on Sundays would be our day that we would have a visit. And every Sunday I'd ask her who she wanted to call. And most Sundays, especially in the last year, I'd actually have to hold the phone for her or call, dial the number for her, hold the FaceTime. But inevitably, no matter how many calls we made, we always made one for sure. And it was to her oldest sister, who was her best friend.

And I'd be sitting there holding the phone for her or dialing the phone, and I could hear both sides of the stories. And they probably share the same story many times, but they would just laugh. And as soon as they heard each other's voices, they knew that it was gonna be a great day because they were talking to their best friend. And I would laugh because, one, I'd hear the same stories over and over. Two, they were laughing so hard I couldn't help but laugh. And three, I would laugh just to see my mom so happy, talking to her best friend.

So get out there today. What do you need? What do you need right now, in this moment? Find that friend. Call them up. Don't send them a text. That's the cheat way out. Voice Memo, maybe, but FaceTime them. Give them a real call. Hear their voice even. It's just their voicemail. Leave them a message. You'd be amazed at how important those messages could be. So I'm dialing in to Cadre today. Check out who's next. I'll be back here on Monday, excited to chat with you. So who might you call today?