Comedy Through The Chaos: Parenting Edition

Saturday, everybody. I am Miss Shannon Paul. I'm A variety of word-related things by trade, including a comedian. Hello, Andy. It's been forever. Hello, As I was saying before my friend Andy joined, I am Miss Shannon Paul and I'm A variety of word-related things by trade, including a comedian, a corporate speaker, a voice actor, an event emcee, and a benefit auctioneer. I also am a proud parent of an adorable eight-year-old kiddo who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. I have to take that out.

And I also consider myself a pretty proficient DIY person. So that brings me to the project I'm working on today. I'm putting up some plant stands around the house because I have been working on repositioning some energy in my life and in my house in particular. So changing out some artwork, rearranging some things, making some spaces more functional, and changing them into spaces that will be used in a different way. which I think is interesting. I had a conversation with a parent earlier last week, and she is near the beginning of her special needs journey with her kiddo, and by that I mean she just recently got his formal diagnosis, which is a difficult time for a lot of parents, but it's also a time when you can sit there and go, Okay, I might be able to exhale, 'cause now at least I know how to begin the process of getting involved in the channels that might be able to add some supports for both myself and my kiddo.

So that was part of what we were talking about. I was explaining some terminology because it's specifically vague. So I was helping her with that. And she brought up the concept of being exhausted. And I said, you know what I can do is I can help you not be exhausted because you deserve to not be exhausted. And our kids should not exhaust us. Now I told her, I said, I can't fix tired though. And I considered that being honest and realistic because I honestly can't. I am tired often. Not tired continually, not tired all the time, but I will say tired repeatedly.

There are lots of times where I'm tired and I think that that's something that we can manage. So getting to the point that you are tired, there are actually good reasons to get to the point that you were tired. That probably means that you worked really hard on something. You worked on something that hopefully was important to you that provides some sort of benefit, whether it's monetarily, emotionally, physically. There's lots of reasons to end up tired. But what I think we all want to do is encourage ourselves to stay as far away from exhausted as possible.

Because exhausted is when you get to those points of feeling depleted, feeling as though you're trapped feeling as though you're never going to actually accomplish anything. And that is what we want to stay away from is that deep exhaustion. And so for me, what that's meant is sometimes doing a little bit more work upfront to make sure that it saves me work on the back end. It's been very realistic with what I can accomplish, what I choose to start. what I choose to put on the list of something to do later.

And that has served me to not get to exhaustion as repeatedly as I used to. Because I'd get there too. I'd get there and be like, oh my gosh, I'm worn out and I don't feel like I'm ever going to be full again. that is a terrible place to be. Trust me, friends. So trying to figure out how you just get to tired. I think I'm going to be able to get through most of my projects today without actually getting tired. Where I'm at right now is that it's one of those projects where it has very limited directions.

And what I did this first pass is I was like, oh, you can do it without laying it out ahead of time and I made a mistake. And so now I use the wrong length screws on some of these and I got to go in and figure out where I put the right length ones and figure out where they are in the process. So it'll work out fine. It'll be all right. And then I will report back to you as I continue to work on tangible points of growth. That's what I consider the plants that I have in the house or tangible points of growth because it's nice to have those anchors.

And so I encourage you to do that, to figure out what it is that you need to work on, especially this week. If you can feel exhaustion coming, don't necessarily wear that as a badge of honor. Tired. Yeah. Use that. It helps you be resilient. But exhaustion, let's avoid it at all costs. So if you happen to be in the Twin Cities, enjoy the gloomy days that we have. Get yourself some grow lights, friends. They're good for you as much as they are for the plants. We will figure out how to get through this next season.

There's going to be a lot coming at, I think, all of us. over the next, potentially over the next few months. So let's figure out how to continue to build our community. Let's find ways to support one another and see what those next steps are one step at a time. And always let us know what you have going on here in the cadre sphere. If you can benefit from specific information, please share that with us. So we are sharing those kind of things and we are continually making updates here in the app and figuring out how we can come to you most efficiently.

So I hope that the day treats you well. If it doesn't, shame on it, not shame on you. m. Central.