Still Here W/Roe

Hello, Cadre fam. Give people a second to roll in here. Good morning, good morning. Welcome, welcome. Good morning. It is Tuesday, 9:30 AM, 9:30 AM. I am Rolando, Coach Ro, Rose 612 on social media. How's everyone doing today? I challenge you if you're on the live, if you're watching this, if you're hearing my voice right now, how are you doing today? From a scale from 1 till 10, from 1 to 10, how are you doing? 10 being it's the best day ever, one being I need some help and I probably didn't want to get out of bed today.

How are you doing? Where are you at today? I'm at about an 8 1/2, 9 right now. It's going to be better when I get on the golf course here in a bit. So today I am currently up in the Boundary Waters area. Well, right now in Luton, Minnesota right now. I am on a walk around the state of Minnesota with my boy, Jason Lennox, who has started the Recovery Road, which is an organization that is walking the perimeter of Minnesota, 1,776 miles, continuously around the state of Minnesota, obviously stopping to eat and stopping to sleep and things like that.

And the whole goal is to talk about mental health, to bring awareness to youth mental health specifically, to bring awareness, to bring attention, and to bring, to grab qualitative and quantitative data along the way to try to make a change, right? So I'm on that walk with him. I jumped in and right now currently in Lutheran, like I said, That's Lake Superior back there, really nice area, getting ready to head out again. But as we're walking and talking on these journeys, these legs in the boundary waters, lots of bugs, deer flies, mosquitoes, wildlife, all the things, we're having a lot of really good conversations.

And there's also a lot of times where we're having spaces where we're alone and we're just thinking and processing with intention. This whole goal is about mental health and youth mental health. So one of the things I've been thinking about that's been coming to my mind is a safe space, right? What does a safe space look like for you? What does a safe space in general? It could mean something different for everybody, right? For me, a safe space is somewhere where I don't have to have my walls up.

I don't have to have that defense mechanism up for my emotions, my feelings, my thoughts, my insecurities, all the things. A safe space is somewhere where I can be 100% authentically, unapologetically me and not have the fear of rejection or abandonment or being criticized or being looked down upon or being called soft or all the things, right? That's a safe space for me, right? What I've noticed growing up the way I did, it was really hard to even, first of all, I didn't know what a safe space was.

Second, I didn't know what that looked like, and I just didn't know it was a thing, right? As I got older, I've been through so much stuff. Jails, prisons, overdoses, violence, all these things. So for me, a safe space was just not getting physically harmed. As I got older, I put in a lot of work, a whole lot of work. I've identified that the safe space isn't always physical. Yeah, that's important. But for me, it's a hard posture. It's a mentality of am I in a position, am I around people that are going to give me space and allow me to be myself, to open up?

That is hard. Especially when you hang around with people and you have friends that are different. They don't know what that safe space is either. right? We all have individuals that we call friends or might be more of acquaintances. I feel like we throw around the friends label a little loosely, right? I've identified it as if I have friends that I can't tell them how I'm really doing, if they ask me how I'm doing today and I feel like I have to lie to them or tell them, you know, I'm okay, same shit, different day, life is good, all these other things, like I should reevaluate that relationship.

Or at least head into it with a little bit more intention. So I told myself, if someone's my friend, I consider them a friend and they ask me how am I doing, I'm going to be honest with them. If I'm having a bad day, I'm gonna tell them I'm having a bad day and I'm gonna tell them why. If I'm feeling anxious and having anxiety, I'm gonna tell them I'm anxious and having anxiety. Or I'm feeling bouts of depression coming on, whatever it is. Now I don't say this in a way to trauma dump. But I call it keeping it real.

You gotta keep it real. Because if you have people in your friend group, some of them might not know what that space is, but you might have friends that they care about you, they love you, they want the best for you, they wanna know what's going on. And it might be hard for them to even open up that dialogue and say, hey, how are you doing? And if we don't go into it with intention, we might just say, oh, we're good, we're doing, and we give them this generic answer. Now, how are we supposed to allow someone to help us if we're writing them off?

So when we give someone that answer, we're writing them off, essentially. We're writing off ourselves and our feelings. That's how we start that journey to the safe space. If someone asks how you're doing, give them a little bit. You don't have to trauma dump, but tell them like, you know what? I'm kind of struggling today, bro. I'm kind of struggling today, sis. This is what's going on with me. Tell them. give a little three second pause, five second pause, give them a minute to absorb what you just said, give them a chance to respond and see what they say.

If they respond in a way that's healthy, that's positive, and it makes you feel a little bit more comfortable, congratulations. You just took the first step to creating a safe space in that relationship and you were intentional about it. That's how it starts. So I challenge you. Start that journey. If you're struggling with something and someone asks you how you're doing, just give them a little nugget. See how they do with it. And if they respond well, conversation grows from it. Now you have a different dynamic in that relationship.

Now you have new things to talk about. And if that's your friend, it will pull you guys closer, guaranteed. And if it's someone that's more of an acquaintance that isn't as good as a friend as you thought it was, you at least know where they lay and you will know that this is something I can't bring to that person. So feel it out. Don't give them everything. Give them a little nugget. That's what I do. I've done that and it's changed the complete relationship dynamics for some friend groups, for some friends, right?

So that's the first lane. There's another lane. Instead of waiting for someone to ask you, this is for you seasoned communicators that can get your feelings and thoughts and everything out there. when someone asks you, right? The next level is if you're going through something, send someone a text. If it's hard to call and tell them how you're doing and ask for help, even if it's not just ask for help, just calling someone and tell them like, hey, like I got this going on. I got this going on. See how they respond.

See if they ask questions. Sometimes people won't know what you're going through until you tell them. Sometimes we have to call and let them know. And I don't know about you, But even though I think I'm a pretty tough, strong guy, jail, prison, tattoos, weights, gym, all the things, right? It's hard. So what I do is when I'm struggling, I will send a text message. Hey, I'm feeling X, Y, and Z. I'm kind of going through something right now, but I don't really feel like talking right now, but I wanted you to know.

Boom. Call me in 10. Call me tomorrow. Call me in a couple hours. Give them a little bit and see what comes back. It's like throwing a life raft out there. right we want people don't know how to save us not saying other people can save us but people don't know how to support us if they don't know where we need to be supported it's our job it's your job to let them know so two challenges within the one right not to complicate things if you are someone who keeps everything close to the chest when someone asks you how you're doing I challenge you let's try something different if someone asks you how you're doing give them a little nugget whether it's I'm anxious I'm feeling depressed, I'm feeling sad, job laid off, I'm angry, all the things.

Give them one little thing of that and see what happens. It's like a trial run. Let's see what happens. All right? That's your challenge. The second part of the challenge, for those who can keep it real when someone asks them, I challenge you to push yourself outside of your little box of comfort that we all happen to live in. And when you're going through something, call someone. Or better yet, not when you're going through it, when you feel like you're on the way into something. We all have them flag systems, the notifications, right?

It's like, things are getting a little bit more heavy. Things are starting to irritate me a little bit more. Let me send a text to somebody. Send them a text, hey, I'm kind of feeling irritated. I might not feel like talking right now, but I just want you to know, boom, and just let it be. The people that are supposed to be in your lives, the people that are supposed to be in your close inner circle, they will know how to respond. And most of the time they will respond in a way that is probably better than you think if they're your friends in the way that you think they are.

That's what I wanted to leave you guys with today. I'm all scruffy because we're out here roughing it, kind of not roughing it, some parts of the journey. But here I'll give you guys a quick view of where we're at, my buddy Matt's house. Nice views that is Lake Superior in the background. The fog and smoke's cleared up. But I'm gonna head out into this last leg of the journey. Thank you guys for showing up and checking out my live today. I will see you guys next week. Peace out.