Comedy Through The Chaos: Parenting Edition - Finding Gratitude After the Meltdown

Good morning, good morning, good morning Cadre Sphere. At least if it is morning, wherever you're watching, if you're watching in the future and it's afternoon. Good afternoon to you. I am Ms. Shannon. I am a comedian, corporate speaker, voice actor, event emcee and a variety of word related things. And I hub out of the great state of Minnesota. I am also the fortunate proud parent of an adorable 17 year old kiddo who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. Hello, K. Lasley Hall. I love your screen name.

Welcome to the Cadre Sphere. Good to see you here and happy Saturday morning to you. 1% better. Good to see you as well. Nice to see you in the chat. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Happy Saturday morning to you. Hello Jules, good to see you. I'm going to reach over here and get my cup. I'm well branded so it is blue as well. Welcome to the parenting edition of Comedy through the Chaos. Good morning. Good morning. Is there sunshine outside yet? Let's see. Not yet. At least not here in Minnesota. Hello.

Hello. Happy Saturday. Thanks for joining. I am happy to be joining you today. Speak Wonder. I am so glad to see you. Kathy. Thanks for joining. I am, I want to give a shout out to Speak Wonder for a variety of reasons. One, because they are a wonderful human being as I am presuming that most of you here in the chat are. But also they are joining us today after sitting in wonderful, wonderful communion with me during our. Oh, thank you. Share the sunshine with us here in Minnesota. Speak Wonder is sitting in wonderful communion with me on Thursday during my live stream which was in the middle of my bumbling bubbling anxiety attack that I was in the midst of.

Thursday was a complicated day for me. Everybody in full disclosure. And I think that's one of the most wonderful things about our Cadre Sphere here now we have a variety of contributors that join us from lived experiences. And so part of my lived experience along with being a a parent of a son who has autism is I also have someone who lives from the human place of high functioning anxiety. And so Thursday was a day that along with working through a recent med change with my kiddo, I also was compounding just dealing with some of my low high functioning anxiety on that day.

Absolutely. Speak Wonder. And it was not mixing at all. It was mixing like if you were in college you ever did one of those cement mixer drinks which is a bad life choice I made once. It was mixing like that, that bad life choice. So thank you for sitting with me during that day as I basically just had A a verbal lunch with Speak Wonder and Rick Cram. And it's so funny the way my anxiety having this conversation during that day. The storefront issue right now. Exactly, man. That is. That is one of my comfort foods when I'm in the midst.

And it was interesting because articulating the way my high functioning anxiety processes is I was had spoken with it with an ex boyfriend, may he rest in peace because we lost him a few years ago. And the way that it interacted in comparison to his depression is that his depression worked in a way that allowed him to have no motion. When my anxiety is all the motion simultaneously as a human being in general, the way my anxiety works in generalities is that I am continually in motion. That is basically it.

And so when my anxiety really kicks in, it is doing all of the motions simultaneously. Good morning buddy. Kind of thing. My, my child has elected to come out of his cave and begin moving. So we'll see how that works. So I am feeling significantly better and less anxious than I was on Thursday. And which brings us to the concept of what we will be cover covering in a variety of ways throughout the month of November. Welcome to November friends here in the Cadre sphere. And so we will be talking about a variety of things in gratitude and abundance here in throughout throughout the month of November.

And gratitude and abundance are some of my favorite things. Specifically gratitude. It's one of my things that I use in my auto signature and not even my auto signature. It's something that I literally type out with. Gratitude is what I type out when I am responding in emails all of the time. And so it's something that really did change the way that I interact with my fellow human beings is trying to as much as possible interact with people from a position of gratitude. And it's very, very much a position that I choose to take as I interact with people.

So I am excited to do this and talk about it. I did hang the blue artwork. Let's take a walk everybody. Deep breath. I hope that no one has vertigo. We're going to take a walk because I am currently in my kitchen. I'm sorry, in my bedroom. And so we're going to take a walk. Welcome to the living room. I did very well last night, Halloween. This is all the candy we have left of all of the bags that we had. And I could have given that out if I had stayed had the light stay on longer. But it was getting a little overwhelming for my kiddo and they have so many kiddos come by.

So speak wonder here's where the art went. I think it looks good there. So that is right next to the vent, so you can see it. So I did decide to put it in the kitchen. Thank you for noticing. I think that it looks good there. So we'll see. I could move it. Obviously it is permanently impermanent where it places that. That is where it is going to do. Would you like to go get some clothes? Yeah, that's a good idea. So that is where the art decided to go. So get some clothes. Clothes are not absolutely necessary, you know, especially since we're in the house.

But probably a choice that I would suggest that my kid decides to make picking some clothes. So what I thought that we would focus on today here for our Comedy through the Chaos parenting edition, since we are going to be talking about gratitude is a gratitude following the meltdown. So I thought that this was coming to play for both me and for us as parents, because there are so many times that I think that we live in this idea. Thank you very much. 1% better that gratitude is one of the most powerful mindsets in humanity.

I do agree with you as well, because it does allow us to frame things not only internally, but externally as we are discussing things with our other humans that we are interacting with. So which brings us to what I want us to talk about as parents is that I think that we live in this world that has been Disney fied so much that when something negative happens, we expect there to be this one, for one thing, where we get this pot of gold or this rainbow at the end of a difficult journey when sometimes what happens is we just have difficulty, things stop happening, especially when we're interacting with our kids that lots of times we'll have this terrible interaction.

Our kids are melting down. They have this terrible interaction. We're just in the midst. And hopefully as a parent, we've all dealt with that. And one of the things that I really learned about my kid and what we really worked for with them, I mean, Disney, I worked at Disneyland for a while. We can. Disney has messed some stuff up for us as far as our expectations of interacting with things. So what will happen and what I've really worked on with my kid, especially since he's on the spectrum, is that those meltdowns, those negative interactions, they need to be pockets in time.

And when they're done and we have our big emotions, we need to move on to whatever the next emotion is. And then what he's learned to do is be done with whatever that time is and move on, and then I have to also do the same thing. And so what has happened is that he's gotten much better at it. And instead, I'm still over in the corner, resting in whatever that last interaction was and harboring and allowing him to move on, but not allowing myself to do the same thing. And so what I'm practicing is, do you.

Hey, not grabbing. Say good morning, and then mom is going to finish talking to her friends. And then I'm gonna make you breakfast because you allowed yourself to come out of your cave. And you're gonna give me five minutes. So I'm gonna talk to y' all for five minutes and then go make. I think. What do we think? Pumpkin waffles, everybody. We'll make pumpkin waffles. It's fall. I'll make pumpkin waffles. So to finish my sentence, so he'll be in the midst, Go through the midst, Move on to the next series of emotions as I have helped him practice doing.

And I'm still sitting over there, focused on whatever the last emotion was and in it and allowing him to move on, but not allowing myself to move on. And so what I've been doing more is going, no, be grateful that the meltdown has ended, and then move on. Allow yourself to go, hey, I'm so glad that that's done. I'm glad that we moved through it. I'm glad that we were successful in whatever it was that we needed to do. I'm glad that we have now learned the skill set to be able to do the next thing.

I'm glad that we have pumpkin waffles, that we are able to do the next thing. I'm glad that we're in a situation that we're self. We're safe. And so that is the next thing. Yeah, you don't stay in the harbor for too long. You're right. Right. So you got to move on to the next thing. And so, yes, buddy, I'm coming. And that is what I encourage you to think on this week as we move into November. What can you be grateful that you have traveled into and now get to travel away from? What can you be grateful that you have traveled into and now that you can travel away from?

Is there something that you have been resting on for too long and that you need to let go? Maybe you'll come back to it. Maybe it'll still be there for you. Maybe it's something that you need to wave to, but it needs to be in your rear view mirror. So give that some consideration over the Next week. I am grateful that we all get to be in community together. I have learned so much being a part of you. I have actually am so grateful that I have people like Speak Wonder here, here, and 1% Bender and Jewels that I can sit with and that can sit with me.

When we have those moments that we can be vulnerable with together, that I can share grocery store sushi with when I just need somebody to just sit and watch me eat because I'm having a moment. It has been very, very comforting. So we also appreciate all of the comments that you give us throughout the week as we continue to build this community. That is what we are doing, is that this is something that we are building together, friends. And so all of the comments that you give us, we truly do take to heart when we are looking for ways to go.

How can we provide resources for each other? How can we go? You know what? Somebody needed something. They were popping through here and they were doing a search for terms. They were trying to go, you know what? I was in the midst and I needed somebody to just pop something in and I wanted to listen to it at a time that was convenient for me. And hopefully we gave them some information that was a value to them. That's why we try and drop these videos in the essays that we have that you can search the live streams and listen back to them at a time that is convenient for you.

That is what we appreciate. I'm sorry. That's why we appreciate all of the comments that you give us. So we continue to build all of these communities. So make sure that you. You like some information that is here that you drop a comment. If you watch one of us in the replay. Let us know what we can do to continue to give you all the information that you need. And we always appreciate one another as well. So again, I show much gratitude to Speak Wonder. Thank you very much. I'm gonna pop through here and tell Rick as well.

It makes a difference. So we are here for one another as well. So I' ma go make pumpkin waffles. Thank you very much for sounding out in the chat and letting me know that that works. I will let you know how they go. I think I'm gonna make the mini ones because I want to clean the big waffle iron. So don't act like I'm doing too much. I'm gonna do little waffles. So I will see all of you back here on Thursday for the additional version of comedy through the chaos. I believe Speak Wonder will also be in in here.

On Thursday. So speak Wonder. Are you planning on coming in on Thursday as Well? I believe 11:00am Central. Central Time is when I normally see you pop up. So I'll see you in here as well. And everybody else, I will look for you throughout the week. I hope, as I said, that the week treats you well. If not, shame on it. Not shame on you. I appreciate all of you. I' ma go be mom. So be well everyone. Yeah, Mom.