Self Care Sunday ✨ Write The Letter

Hello, Cadre family. Happy Sunday. We're here, both of us, Manger and I. Major, can you sit? He's like, hello, I've arrived, it's Sunday and I am very excited to be here with all of you today on self care Sunday. Sometimes on self care Sunday, we make our walks. Hello, Mel, how are you today? My invitation when you come on in here is to simply share something you're doing for yourself today or even simply share. How do you feel right now? Both are great. I've got my trusted advisor Major here with me today.

He's always excited to join in and sometimes we make it home in time for our calls and sometimes we don't. So here we are. So on self care Sunday, our topic for today is write the letter. Hey Jules, how you doing today? Happy Sunday. Major is making his appearance, making sure we all feel loved and hugged. So today on self care Sunday, I wanted to have the conversation, just a real conversation around writing that letter. Now, there are multiple ways in which this topic could go. So I'm going to share with you a couple and then I'm going to give you a reason why I think it's important.

So full share. And this is a little bit vulnerable for me. But many, many years ago, many years ago I was in a relationship that wasn't super healthy for me. And at the time, like I grew up, I love writing. I love writing, I love writing stories, I love writing my ideas, I love writing blogs. Like, I just think that there's something so beautiful about writing. But in this experience, I used to write a lot to process my emotions. It was just something that I have always done. And sometimes I'm an external processor, so sometimes I don't always have a person that can just hold space for me while I say the craziest stuff.

But so I would write and just get all of those emotions and feelings out of my system. And in this particular relationship, many, many, many years ago, right out of college, they found my writings and they would use those writings against me and they would, they would, they would mock me and tease me and really try to belittle me. So when I think of the world of Ben Zander where it's the art of possibilities and we think about how do we show up in a way that expands the people around us. There are going to be times where there are people that are going to do what's called an upward.

And a downward spiral, Major, is an upward spiral. An upward spiral means that I do something to make myself feel better while simultaneously pushing Someone else down. So getting to the top of an organization, sometimes people do that because they have risen to the occasion, they have become a great leader and they were recognized. Or sometimes they do it in a way that pushes other people around them down, pushes their strengths down, so they are seen stronger. So in this particular instance, many, many years ago, my writings were used as a way to make me feel small so they could feel bigger.

And after, obviously, some therapy, but even just like recognizing what was happening and having the courage to walk away, I still feel like years later I have that remembrance of that trauma or that sense stigma around putting my words on paper, as if somebody's gonna find them one day and they're gonna judge me for it or they're gonna use it against me or try to make me feel small. Like, insert all of the. The crazy things that, that we might think of about ourselves when we get vulnerable that way.

So I share that because fast forward many, many years, I still, still sometimes have that. Should I really write that? Should I put that in a journal? Is somebody gonna find it? Now I'm in a healthy relationship and I have a lot of trust. So it's not even about whether or not I trust them. It's about that experience being so significant in my early adulting that it still sometimes hits really hard. But here's what I found. I have found so much freedom in writing that I've fallen in love with it again.

I haven't been publishing anything, and maybe one day I'll write the book that a lot of people think I should write. I said the word should. So therefore, it's not right for me just yet. But I've rediscovered a love for it. And what I found is that there's also beauty in thinking about our future version of ourselves. Now, that sounds crazy, right? We're here today. We can't control who we're going to become. But what we can do is we can plant the seeds for our future self today. Just like the seeds that we planted a year ago for our today self were planting.

Now, I'm going to pause on that because that can be a little bit of a twister in the mind. But if you think about it, what were your intentions, what were your goals a year ago? Because whatever they were, you invested something in them. Now, maybe they came true, or maybe they are on their way of becoming, or maybe it just gave you a. A milestone, a way to pivot, to really grow and develop. So I look at each day as an opportunity to plant the seed for a future version of myself. And I drove home this morning from a retreat in Wisconsin.

I was gone for the last three days. And it was a really interesting retreat for me because I, I, I knew a couple of people, I didn't really know them well, and I was surrounded by 24 of the 27 people. There were all moms. And I'm not a mom. That doesn't mean that I don't wish that I was a mom or pretend that I'm a mom to our team. But it just wasn't a blessing that came into my life. So I used that energy in a different way, and I saw all of us planting seeds for the future version of ourselves today.

But here's where writing the letter comes in into play. When I host retreats and when I do circles, I do a lot of women's circles or grief circles or things around new or full moons, I always bring cards or paper. And I invite everybody at the end of the night, after we've gone through our intention, setting and our opportunities to write a card to their future version of themselves based on what they learned or explained experience in that moment today. And I take them with me and I put in a little tab, a little sticky note on them.

And exactly 30 days from the day that we were together, I put them in the mail and people received the letter to themselves. And I get these text messages and emails from people that are so beautiful, where the experience that we had gone through together, they, they solidified it. They felt something inside of it. Now, it's funny, because I always ask everybody to do this exercise, and then I help facilitate the room for them, make sure they have their ideas, comfort, the right music, a cup of hot tea as they go through the practice.

And I'm always intentional. I put the sticky note on, I put a calendar invite for myself to remember to put them in the mail, because these words are important. But I never let myself do the same exercise during the event. And so I decided that it was time, it was time for me to start writing my own letters. And so this weekend is the first step in my own journey of once a month, on a Sunday, I'm gonna write the future version of myself a letter. And then it's interesting because what I do is I'm putting it in a stack along with the other letters that I have to send.

And so in a month after the event that I just had this last weekend inside, there is going to be a card addressed to myself. And a month from now, I'm going to receive my own gift. And I'm actually going to do this in two different ways. Today. I'm writing a letter to myself, my future version of myself. And I'm writing a letter to one person that I'm also going to put in the mail and send off to them, but I'm going to send that one today because they might not understand the exercise. But how often do we actually take the time to write a letter or a card to simply say, thank you for being a part of my life.

Thank you for inspiring me to become the best version of myself. Thank you for helping me through that challenge, or writing a letter to someone saying, wow, I got to interact with you. Hi, Emily. Welcome. And here's how our interaction impacted me. And I feel forever changed because of our interaction or whatever those words are for you. But I find that writing a letter like pen and paper. I always go into the card stores at airports and I buy two or three cards and I keep them in my backpack because what if there's a flight attendant that just did something really amazing and I want to recognize them?

Or what if I'm sitting at the coffee shop and I want to write somebody a note? I have one in my bag. I can just pull out. So my invitation to you today is twofold. One, write a letter to the future version of yourself. What do you want to tell them? What about who they are today inspires you? What about what you're experiencing right now? Do you want to tell your future self it's going to be okay? You're strong, you're resilient. Look how far you did. Look, you did that, whatever it is. And then the second is to write a letter or card and not a text message, which I do those a lot.

Also, once a week, I go through a few different people and I'll send out different text messages just to tell people that I'm thinking about them. But this is different. This is physically writing out a card, maybe putting a little sticker inside or a quote, quote, something. But when you send that letter to yourself and you open it a month from now, a week from now, however long it takes to get back to you, maybe you just stuff it in a book, and then when you finish the book, you get to read it.

Who knows? There's no rules. There's no rules. Just think about how that might make you feel, knowing that you believed in yourself enough today that you wrote your future self a love note or a friend or partner, a family member. So my invitation to you is to simply write the letter and see what comes back. And even if nothing does, you put so much love into the world right there for you or for anyone around you. So write that note. Now I'll tell you why it's important. One, it's important that we celebrate ourselves.

So on Self Care Sunday, finding that moment to celebrate all you are versus all you're not. Like, I'm not gonna lie. When I went to this retreat this weekend, I kind of felt like I should get in my car and drive home at the very beginning, opening circle. Because I realized I was one of three people there that wasn't a mom and one of them was a sister of somebody else that was there and the other was the pastry chef that was there and then me. And I felt so out of place and that I didn't have anything to offer.

But what I received was so much gratitude for my mom and reconnecting to my mom that it reminded me that when I write those letters, I have a shelf, a drawer inside our home that has all the letters that people sent to me over, I don't even know, 20 some years, maybe longer. Some cards from my mom and dad when I was in college. And I read them. They mean something. So why send them? My first sassy response would be why not? But my second honest response would be, maybe the person on the receiving end of that letter that you send really needed you in this moment.

And knowing that, you took time to pull out paper, grab a pen, put thoughts on paper, get a stamp, go to a post office or a mailbox and to actually send it, that is it. That is an action that requires an investment. And when they receive that, they'll remember that you invested in them in that moment. So not only does it feel good in the heart, but it creates connection, human, real connection. So today on this beautiful Sunday, self care Sunday Major and I would just love to say we love you, we are so grateful for you and we are proud of you for showing up out here, here for yourself.

Receiving, participating, listening, learning, loving, feeling. So I hope you all have a great day. I'll be back on Monday. And check it out, seven o' clock tonight we have another amazing Cadre contributor that will be out here for you. I look forward to seeing you soon. Okay, have the best day. I can start with the kids, just kind of sit up on this ledge.