From Stress To Sandhill Cranes: Daily Moments Of Calm

Hello, Cadre sphere. Hello. Welcome. Come on in. Come say hi. I'm really excited to see you to be here. Every morning I wake up on Wednesday and I think I get to hang with my Cadre sphere peeps today. Really excited about that. Wednesday always comes fast, but always really excited to see you all and be here with you. So thank you. Come in and say hello. Let me know how you're feeling, how you're doing. My name is Christy Larson. For those of you that don't know me. Hello. Speak wonder. Wonderful to see you.

I do a variety of different things. I do a lot of coaching, but I also am event planning and program managing and doing all of the things that I need to do for the paycheck that comes through. So excited to see you all. Excited to be here. Hello. Hello. I always think about Wednesdays as the day that I get to hang with you all and the day that I get to see you. And when I wake up on Wednesday morning, some people say Wednesdays are tough. I always look at Wednesdays as a day that I get to see you all and I get to hang with you.

So really excited to see you. I'm actually in my office today, so I am doing some final work before heading out on a small little vacation. A weekend getaway, a long weekend getaway. We're going to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, so. So gonna go and experience the Sioux Falls life. If you haven't been downtown. Sioux Falls, South Dakota is an amazing place. I love it with all my heart. During the pandemic, my husband and I decided to start going there just for a short getaway because we knew if we stayed home, we were gonna just do home stuff and continue to work.

And so we thought, you know, let's go somewhere that's close that we can just go for a long weekend and just hang out and do whatever we wanted to do. We had no plans. And so every year, annually, we celebr on a whim Covid trip that we took and we go back to the same place and have met some cool people and now get to experience some of the same things. But also there's many different things. And it seems like we're going to have good weather this year, so hopefully we'll be able to. Yeah, I love South Dakota too.

Hopefully we'll be able to do some hikes and get outside. They have a beautiful downtown Falls area. So anyway, I was thinking about harvest, and we're kind of wrapping up the month of October, right. And it's crazy to think that it's crazy to think October's over and we're moving into November and the seasons are changing and life is changing right, right before our eyes. Whether it's the trees losing the leaves or the bugs deciding to burrow into the ground or the birds flying south to warmer weather, seasons change and things change, right?

And this is the time of year, I think, too, we start to think about the holidays. And I was last weekend. My husband and I have a wonderful opportunity to have a lake home in Wisconsin, northwestern Wisconsin. And this time of year, I always kind of reflect on the things that I've surrounded myself with, right? The people and the places and the things that mean things to me. And oftentimes that means it created a memory somewhere and I tucked it away just for the day that I wanted to remember it or think about it and reflect on the ways that you show up when it matters, but also when maybe it doesn't matter so much.

So as we were driving up, I was thinking. Thinking about. Actually, this is kind of what brought it on. Yesterday, no, Monday. I was listening to Jean Nichols talk about taking time off, right? You earn vacation, you earn pto. It's kind of yours to take. And some people use it and some people don't. And I think I agree with Jean. It's 100% something that's yours. You've earned it, you should use it, you should take it. Whether that's a staycation or whether that's going off somewhere, a tropical island or a hike in the mountains, whatever your cup of tea is for taking that time that you need.

But as she was talking about that, it made me think about moments that we head up to the lake home. And there are certain moments, and my husband usually drives, so usually I get to, you know, be the one that sits back and gets to observe and watch all the things that are happening. And there was a moment, and there almost always seems to be a moment when we're heading up to the lake home where you feel a release, right? There's a. There's a moment where you get out of traffic, you get on that side road, and I was looking out the window this past time, and it hit me.

It just hit me. And I want to share that moment with you. And I think it's a really unique experience when you recognize it and when you're present enough in the moment to realize that it's happening. And for me, it was. The leaves were falling. It's almost past peak. Gorgeous. The sun was shining. There's a lot of Sandhill cranes that migrate into Minnesota and Wisconsin before migrating further south. So there's this field, this cornfield, that had thousands of sandhill cranes that were just feasting on the corn, hanging out with one another, right?

Warming up a little bit before their next trek, wherever they go, before they make it all the way south. And a word came to mind, and it's a funny. A funny thing sometimes when that happens, but I thought, I feel relaxful. And I don't know if I made that word up or if I've heard it before. Something sparked it in my mind, but I felt relaxful. And then I thought, what does relaxful mean? And to me, it meant being full of relaxation. And I think that's a moment where I kind of like the breathing slowed, the mind cleared.

I felt at peace, I felt safe. I felt comfortable. And again, this often happens when we head up just because of the environment that we know we're going into. There's little to no people. We're surrounded by woods, nature, right? The animals. We hear the loons on the lake. We hear the. The, you know, osprey calling for their. Their little kiddos and the deer rustling around. And we see the turkeys. And I mean, the. Just the setting itself, right, makes you feel relaxed. It's just that relax. Full feeling, full of relax.

And it got me thinking about, why did I recognize it this time? Why was it this time that I was like, I feel relaxful. And I think for me, it was just a moment where I was present. The radio wasn't loud. We had the back window open. Like I said, the leaves were rustling. You could hear the leaves as you kind of passed them, blowing in the wind. And it just. I was. I was so present in the moment for some reason, at that moment. And like I said, often, it really. It does hit me when I'm heading north.

There's a moment, whether it's right when we get to the. To the lake home or whether it's on our way up, that you just feel it and you're so happy to be, especially if you live in a city, right, where you're surrounded by people and busyness all the time, to be able to go somewhere where that's not happening. And for you, that might be a park, right? A park that's quiet, where you can sit, maybe sit on a swing and swing or sit on a park bench and just take in the things that are happening around you.

For me, it was just that moment where I felt like I'm going to a place that I really love. I'm going to enjoy every moment of it. I'm going to be present. And it felt really good. It felt really good. And it felt good to recognize it, where it happened, right on our drive. And like I said, sometimes it happens when I get there. But those sandhill cranes, the leaves blowing, the sun shining, the back window open, the quiet of the radio all just made me full of relax. And so I wanted to share that with you today simply because I feel like there are plenty of moments that pass us by that are relaxful, that we just keep moving.

And this is the time of the year where it's holidays, we want to slow down, we want to take it in, but we go, go, go, go, go. Right? We need to go pick up the turkey or we need to go, we forgot to get the dressing, or we're, you know, heading into stocking stuffers and we need to get stockings, whatever it might be for you. That busyness doesn't make us feel full of relaxation. And so I urge you to take a moment and think about the things that make you feel relaxful, the things that you do, whether it's every single day, whether it's a drive up somewhere on a weekend, whether it's PTO and you are just sitting in a beach chair with a cold drink in your hand, right?

Whatever that might be, take in that moment. Think about it. What is it right now that is making me feel full of relax and feel free to use that word. I'm happy to share it. Like I said, I don't know if I made it up. I don't have the true definition of it, but it just felt like a word that really fit in that moment that I was in. And it's a word that's easy to use, right? Full of relax, Relaxful. And so I encourage you today to find a moment of relaxful. And if you do, tuck it away because you never know when you might need it for the next time, right?

I love you all. I think you all are amazing. I hope you know you're amazing. Take care, Cadre Sphere. Be well and find a moment to yourself that is relaxful today. And I hope all of you are able to do that every single day.