Comedy Through The Chaos: Parenting Edition

Happy Saturday everybody. Hello in the Cadre sphere, I hope that the day is treating you well. If not shame on it. Not shame on you. I am Ms. Shannon Paul. I'm a variety of word related things including a comedian, a corporate speaker, a voice actor, an event MC and a benefit auctioneer. I will be benefit auctioneering this evening actually for a wonderful organization here in Minnesota called Laura Baker's Services. They're an organization that provides services for Hello Andy Mack. I'm just talking about what I'm going to be doing this evening.

Hello. Speak wonder. I wonder if you are already done speaking for the day. Are you on your way to your retreat? Love? I hope that you are traveling safety. Hello to both of you. They already know who I am and so some of the rest of you who may be joining or watching the replay may not. No hello. Yes, my child is in a no hello moment today. Hello Jules. Good to see you as well. Enjoy your hydration everyone. I don't know if I've ever shown you my cup before. We get to thing Mel Myers. Good to see you as well.

So one side says allow yourself time to grow. That is one of that and on the other side it says dark and salty because we are complex human beings and as onions as we are, you have different layers. And so some days I am allowing myself time to grow and some days I am feeling dark and dark and salty and both can live in the same space. No hello. Yeah, he's like no hello. That's his thing. No hello, no hello, no good morning. All these things I said good morning. He's like no good morning. I'm like well I'm gonna try and have a good morning as well.

So good morning to all of you who are not telling me no good morning. Hello Mel Myers. So welcome to this edition of Comedy through the Chaos or Parenting Ed where hopefully I provide some information that can help ground you, help center you, help give you something to think about whether you're a parent or not. I do put it through the lens of the fact that I am a parent especially quite, quite layered. Especially since I am the parent of an adorable 70 year old who happens to be on the autism spectrum.

Some days we are quite 17, some days we are whatever age he needs to be that day. So it changes. Some days he's just a grumpy old man. So I don't want you to think it always is regression. Sometimes it is aggressive progression is what it is. So I have been going through the process of reflection. It was based upon one of the prompts that they dropped for us here in the Cadre sphere. And thinking about it from that perspective, it's something that I don't necessarily do. Yes, buddy. Yes, buddy. Yes, buddy.

Do you want to go see what he wants? We're gonna talk for a minute. I know that this stresses you out when I do this, Andy Mack, but it's with. It's. It's for a good reason. So I know you're like, just sit down. Hold still. Doesn't work that way. So. Yes. What do you need? Oh, something is wrong with his phone. So we're gonna fix that, and then we'll go back. If you wonder, I don't know what's wrong with it. Hold on. Is that better? Better. Gold Peak. Lemon. So we'll do Gold Peak. I'm deeply sequestered in the monastery.

Oh, that sounds beautiful. And somewhat terrifying for a person like me that is not good at being quiet. So good for you. Speak, wonder. All right, all right. Glad to hear it. Andy. Bag. I'm not trying to add anxiety to your life. See a sparkly cup. So what I have been thinking about is the way that I do reflection. And part of the reason why I find that I have a tendency to not do that is that reflection tap dances on the same stage in my mind as rumination does. So sometimes when I. There you go, buddy.

When I reflect or look back, we'll say that when I look back, then I get stuck in a replay loop. And so it's, well, what if this had happened? Well, what if you had done that? Or this was. This should have gone that way. And so because of that. Oh, thank you very much. I'm very. I've been doing. Painting one room at a time, Jules. Like. Like one room, I'm like, I repainted my bedroom one day. I repainted the bathroom one day. I repainted the hallway. So the living room is coming up next. I have the paint all downstairs.

I just haven't painted it yet. So one day. One day you will see, Go on a walkabout with me and go like, oh, she finally painted her living room. So I had to. In my process of reflection, it helps me to target it rather than just go, just think back and just let whatever comes to you comes to you. There are certain things, mindfully, that I'm better at that at in those moments, but not necessarily in the points of reflection. And so rather than allow that to roadblock me from looking back altogether, I've just found ways to tailor it and channel it so that it does turn out to be benefit.

So a lot of times with that it helps when never never save. And I have one of those fast those really fancy paint rollers that you put the paint stick I'll tell you about the paint stick later. So for me when I am reflecting what helps often is to be able to go okay well what are you looking for? What information are you trying to learn from this? And so for me in this reflection process over this week I came up with three questions. So we're going to start with this because I especially from the perspective of a parent and a caregiver I know that we can spend a lot of time doing everything for everyone else and very little for ourselves.

So I do hope that this process helps you do a little bit for yourself even if it's just focus on a few things that are important to you. So here's the first question that I.