Poetry, Meditation, Walking

Hey, folks, how you doing? Nick the poet here. It's Friday. TGIF. We made it. If you're working the weekend, you know, maybe you're in the middle of your week, I don't know. But regardless, today is another day, another opportunity to shine, another chance to work together, to dream together, to be peaceful, to be positive, to be prosperous. But realize we all have a lot of work to do. So I'm super excited to talk to you about poetry, walking, meditation, how we can connect ways to soothe ourselves today that we learned about a long time ago, even when we were kids.

Dan Cunningham, welcome to the live. I've been thinking about you this week. I've got my apartment cleaned up, but my organization is not that splendid. m. If you haven't had a chance yet, check out his Sunday dinners. I highly, highly, highly recommend that. And today I wanted to open with a poem. And so I wrote this poem before. We had our annual Cadre retreat this year, which was in Austin, Texas. And it goes something like this. And we're really excited at Cadre, just about what we're doing.

We're excited that you're joining us. We're excited that the app is getting out there to more people. So please tell your friends about it. You can use this code, friends one. If you go to Cadre IO, they can then download the app for free. Big slick Luke is on the call. Thank you so much for joining. I was just telling the folks how just stoked we are that Cadre is growing and that more people are joining. Because if I know one thing, right, if I know one thing, and I've been through the mental health wringer and came out a singer.

And the main thing is that you can't do it alone. If there's no other advice, it's just don't do it alone. If you're by yourself, it's no good. But together we can do it. And so I wanted to share this poem that I wrote before the retreat this year. And it goes like this. We met in Vail last year. The subject how can we change the world? Welcome, Katie. How can we change the world? By connecting and delivering real experiences. The answer resounded through the snowy mountains that towered above our small but mighty group, our mental health warrior troop.

We rode the bus together and breathed new dreams into 20. 2022. The app has been built. The team has coalesced such strength, such passion, conversations, content, perspiration, inspiration. Crying. Laughing. Walking. Writing. Connecting. Emerging startup award podcast van crisscrossing the nation and the world. I think Brennan is in Mexico right now. Zoom meetings. Caring, sharing. Doubts, fears, triumphs. The arc that is the app has been built and now it's time to take it to the sea of people we can help.

Shout out friends one. Share this with your friends. You can download the Cadre app for free with friends one. And no boat, though, was meant to stay in port, especially one that can be of such support. There's. There's a super boat. Brennan. Brennan saw the green comet, and if you haven't had a chance yet, there's a green comet out there. Brennan tracked it down. Anyways, I will stay. I'll stay focused here. No boat was meant to stay in port, especially one that can be of such support to those who are hurting, those who are healing and those who are growing.

And that's all of us. Let us band together and launch and we will ride the waves to the horizon of a better future for all. Right, okay, so that's it. And we have this thing and we want to share it with you and we want you to be a part of it because like I said, right? We've all been through all these challenges and we've come out the other side and we have so much to share together. Right, COVID? We have economic stuff going. We've got job crisis. You know, it's just becoming more and more apparent that the more that we can stick together, the more that it's going to be possible.

And so today, stick with me here. Stick with me. I want to share some things that have helped me to soothe myself during these difficult times. Right? And like I said, I've been through the mental health wringer and I've come out the other side as a singer, and I've just been able to do that by staying connected. And I'm going to share just a quick little song with you. I can't sing very well and I can't play the guitar very well, but I have this affirmation and it seems like it's a little bit funny and maybe even a little bit like, what is he talking about?

But just go with me for a second here. Life is so good. Life is so easy. All the good things come to us and we give them all away. Okay, now, if you're thinking that life is so good, life is so easy, you know, I don't think all the time that life is really good and life is easy. They're super tough, super challenging days, but it's just a little affirmation to take you into the weekend. One of my favorite writers is author Darrell Fuzzaro, and he talks about, what would this look like if it were easy?

Right? What would life be like if it were easy? And I think it's just a good way for us to kind of relax and recalibrate a little bit. And it doesn't mean even that we're going to work less hard or that life is going to get less difficult. But if we can have that little inner shift, you know, if we can just loosen our grip a little bit, if we can let go of that perfectionism and become one with the loving ways of the universe, I think it's going to help us, you know, a great deal. It's going to help us a great deal.

So I just wanted to share some of these things that can, you know, maybe help you soothe yourself and. Because that's, I think a lot of what it is, is letting our nervous systems relax so that we can heal. And I think each of us has a unique way to do this. You know, for me, one of the things is the guitar, taking a break from looking at screens and everything and feeling my fingers on the strings and all that good kind of stuff. For you, it might be something totally different. And I wanted to share kind of, about poetry, meditation and walking and how they connect to things that I really enjoyed when I was growing up.

So, yeah, the poetry front is just a way for me to express complex feelings and emotions. And I don't think it's about being a good poet. I don't think anything that we do. There's another quote. Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. And we all want to try to be really good at things. And maybe one out of ten poems, one out of 100, you get one. That's amazing. You know, if you bake 100 pies, maybe you get one that's really good. But, you know, what is it that we can do that's going to connect us?

And for me, writing has really helped. And I remember when I was about 14 or 15 years old, and we had this standardized writing test, and I wrote all about my favorite place growing up, which was Longview Tennis club and flying down the alley, and the awesome manager, Kirk, was there, and he'd give me a mcMuffin, you know, and I'd go and hit against the wall, and the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and I really just got in that zone and was able to write this thing. 5 out of six. It was, like, in the 99th percentile of writing.

Now, am I saying that to boost my own ego right now? Who knows? But I want to just say that I felt seen, you know, by this standardized test, and it helped me tap into this. This power for the first time. Like writing. Yes. I can't do math. Algebra's not making sense to me. You know, science isn't good. I can't do this and I can't do that. But writing is something that I can do. And so, in the difficult times of my life, I've been able to use that poetry as an outlet. And I used to have, one of the first poems that I wrote was, the thing about the mind is that when it's on the grind, it might never stop, right.

And I didn't realize that there is a way to stop it, and I'm going to get to that with my next one. So that's a little bit about poetry and how that's helped me. But with meditation, right. I am able to find a way. And I'm not an amazing meditator, but I do it every day. And there's some awesome meditations on this app from both J. Brennan Matteu and from Evan Lieberman. I definitely, definitely recommend checking those out, checking those meditations out. But I remember the first time where I became aware, kind of my own thoughts and mind and being separate from them in some way.

And I was at church, and I was probably about ten, and I thought I was thinking something, and I thought what made me think that. And I traced my thoughts back, you know, I don't know, like, 50 thoughts to where I had begun to get that chain of thoughts that brought me to where I currently am. You know? And if we look at our lives in that way, it's a long series of thoughts. But what I didn't realize is that we're so much more than our thoughts, and our thoughts can have such a power over us, both positively and negatively.

And meditation is just something that's helped me to have a little bit of distance, you know, from that, a little bit of power, you know, and to relieve the fears and the anxieties that come up with the thinking, because the thinking is really the thing that could get tricky. Right. And. But if I can tap into, you know, something else, then thank you so much. I got. Stick with me, too. I have another poem at the end, so if you like poetry, hang in there and please be thinking. As I'm talking about ways that you can work on soothing yourself and being a good friend to yourself this weekend.

And that could be the biggest life hack that there is. Just be a good friend to yourself, and we can do that in our thoughts instead of saying, nick, you fool, you idiot, you're dropping the ball. Everything's going to fall apart. How about this for a thought instead? Hang in there, brother. You're doing well. You're doing well. You're showing up. You're doing what you can. Awesome job. Awesome, awesome, awesome job. Because there's no relationship we're gonna have, like, the relationship that we have with ourselves.

And the better that that can be, it's gonna mirror out into the rest of our life. So let's be better friends to ourselves. If nothing else, let's say, good job. You're doing great. You know, look at the people on the call Cadre. You're doing awesome. I don't know which Cadre. Remember, that is Brennan down in Mexico. You're absolutely kicking b*** down there and just living your authentic life. Luke founding this app is just the greatest thing, and your heart and passion inspires us every week. Dan Cunningham, I love you.

Your organization, your cooking, right? We have all these people, right? And they're all just helping us to get better. So I'm sorry. I'm a little bit. Just excited today. The sun is shining, and I'm just having one of those days. So, lastly, I want to share about walking. So walking may be the other massive hack. Maybe you don't like to walk, and that's totally okay. I just think that if you get outside and walk around, you start looking at the birds, looking at the sky, your whole thought process can change.

And I think that could be one of the best forms of meditation. And even better, if you. If you go out with a friend and walk, you know, and you can share that experience, it just helps us tap into, you know, something else. And for walking is also tied to running. For me, I just love to be out there moving, you know, and to bring it back to, you know, when I was about 14 years old, I had quit playing hockey, and it was kind of a big thing. Everyone plays hockey in northern Minnesota, and I'm just like, I don't like getting checked.

I don't like. I don't like hockey that much. You know, I don't want to play it anymore. And so I stopped playing hockey, and I decided to become a runner. And I went to this, the first race of the year. I think I was in 8th grade, and my friend Henry was showing me all these different things. We're walking the trail, okay, this is where you should run. This is the tough part. This is an easy part. And then I ended up getting second in the whole race out of 100 people. And I was so excited because I discovered this new passion, you know, this new thing that I was good at.

And we all have these things that we're good at that we forget, you know, as we get older and they become. They become different, and they become ways that those things that we were good at, that. That we enjoyed at that age, I think we can tap back into and use them to heal us in the present moment. And so those are my three big ones. Poetry, meditation, walking, and it's always great to add new ones into the mix. So I ask you, what is your ways to, you know, soothe yourself and ways to take care of yourself and have self care, you know?

Please email me and tell them. Tell me about them. Nhansonadre IO. That's Hensen. And remember, tell your friends we got the friends one code, right? And they can download this app for free. We've got live streaming, we've got coaching. We've got all of this great stuff. And you make the world a better place, right? We can all do this together. Let's make the world a better place. And I want to close with a poem about that. I got this book, Nick the poet. It's unpublished. I got a bunch of poems in here, and so.

So I'm working on this, too. I gotta get it organized. I'll talk to Dan about that. But here it goes. Soft snow and streetlights swinging in the wind. Every moment an opportunity for a new thought, something that can't be bought. We all know that things we own will eventually rot. But like a cosmic magic trick, we can't remember this fact and get caught in the proverbial mouse trap. Or is it a rat race? But clearly there's something in the air. And it's not just the COVID-19 virus. It's a rising consciousness.

It's a Cadre. And this is clashing with old ideas. We're all the mayors of our own towns, the friends, the family and co workers that we interact with and commune with and talk to and. And love. Let us all agree that being good to each other is a good plan. And I saw this vision in the sky where the soft snow blanketed the streets and the lights swung and a dove flew into the sun. There is no need to run anymore. And there's no score to keep. Let's take a leap into the great unknown of peace on earth so we can all relax by our own collective hearth with one heart.

Together, together. And so that's my message for you today. I hope you have an amazing weekend. m. Central time, Barb Provost is going to be talking about Liv financially fearless. She is amazing. Financial times right now are wild for everyone. She's going to show us some great tips on how to deal with that. And then tomorrow, we've got deep breaths restoring lost lung capacity from Brennan Matthew. I'm super excited about this one. He did a self massage live last week that was so relaxing. And I want to figure out how do I restore lost lung capacity.

That is wild. m. On Sundays. And then, of course, we have Monday motivation. Every Monday with Luke Winlet. Never missed that one. And then also Monday, we have Evan talking, Evan the counselor, Evan Lieberman, who's hilarious, informative, and just amazing. Has frequency, intensity, and duration, how we diagnose mental health disorders. And then on Tuesday, February 7, we have Katie Donovan with her weekly shift happens, always providing just an amazing, heartfelt, inspiring perspective. m. Girls mentorship is fricking amazing.

They're new to the app and I've learned so many things from them in just the two weeks that I've known them. So don't miss that one. And then on Wednesday, we have fasting for a purpose. Carrie, makey. Doctor Carey always brings it, and so you're not going to want to miss that one. And then Risa went live earlier today. Dreams do come true. Super powerful live. Go check that one out. And so we've got just some amazing creators on here. We're growing and we're working on moving from survive to thrive together.

And we're all on different days somewhere in that spectrum. So just if I have one message for you today, you don't have to do it by yourself. Don't even try. It's no fun. Doesn't go well. So just whether you're joining Cadre or reaching out to someone, just stick together because we're better together. Let's keep being peaceful and positive while realizing we all have a lot of work to do together. I'm nick the poet, signing off for the weekend. Catch you on the flip side.