Anila: It took me 40 plus years to figure it out that I was not loving myself. She says it is so hard to actually live that answer of leading with love. Anila: If you had a moment today where you were able to stay calm even things were going wrong.
Secm. 435133 had to press pause when she was too tired to read complex documents. Knowing those limits and good on you to. To just that press pause and not full stop because complex documents just put me to bed.
When your daughter gave you the news that she's moving 1600 miles away. I feel you there. The love will be there no matter where she is. 100% be excited for her. That she's on to some interesting things and making her own way in the world.
Hello Cadre Sphere. Anila here in my new time of 9pm but late because why not? I am chilling, relaxing, taking time for me and spending time with you. So who am I? I am a mental health advocate. I have trichotillomania which is compulsive hair pulling disorder. Hey, speak wonder. Hey. SEM 435133. Oh, sorry. Secm. 435133. Welcome, welcome, welcome. I am here. My name is Anila. Wanted to chat with you tonight about leading with love. And you know, it's kind of funny to say this, but it's kind of the conclusion that I've come to in the 40ish years that I've been on earth.
Is that love is the answer. Yes. Very cozy evening. I'm in bed, wrapped up in blankets and you can see my doggy is also resting. And yeah, I mean leading with love, it just seems so like duh, of course we should lead with love. But it took me 40 plus years to figure it out that I was not loving myself. And in the process, if you can't love yourself, you can't really give love to other people. And that made for a very like broken life, if you will. And it took me all this time to figure out that love really is the answer.
It's kind of what's the word when it's not irony, Trivial. I don't know what the right word is right now. Basic, I don't know. Just not shocking, right? It's like very duh. But it is so hard to actually live that answer of leading with love. It is so hard to not honk when the car in front of me doesn't go as soon as the light turns green. It is so hard not to get irritated when the children do not do something after I've asked them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times, right? Even today my 11 year old has to. It does like a weekend math class and so he has to do his homework for that math class.
So every night we do one page of homework. Well, there's usually three pages of homework. So we have the week to do three pages of homework. And he was just getting so irritated, you know, like first the notebook paper ripped, then the pencil wasn't sharp enough, then the problem was too hard and it was just like, dude, come on, you can do this. Last week we did the same similar questions and all this stuff like and it really took a lot of energy to not go nuts on him and to stay calm and loving with him and remind him that he was capable that if the pencil is not sharpened, just get up and sharpen it.
That, you know, he didn't need to make such big deals out of all these little, little things and get himself riled up for no reason. And that actually really made for a wonderful evening because then we finally got up off of the couch where we were both trying to sit and do our math together, because I do it with him. Helps me keep my brain sharp. And we went to the kitchen and we sat at the dining table and we did the math together. And we had a really great bonding experience because we talked a lot about it.
And I showed him how I would do the problem, and then he showed me how he would do the problem. And I am teaching him, here's how you take better notes. Here's how to show your work so that you don't get points off. And I told him a story about how I got points taken off from a math test and a Spanish test once because my spelling was not, you know, my chicken scratch handwriting and stuff. And it was actually, we turned a. An annoying moment into a memorable loving moment because I stayed calm.
That's what leading with love is. It is staying calm in those moments of everything, everything, everything going crazy. So if you're still with me, I would love to know if you had a moment today where you were able to stay calm even though things were going nuts or maybe you weren't. And maybe you can type in the chat and let me know what that moment was and how you might choose next time to, you know, if you got a redo, what would you do instead? I think that's the beauty is that people around us have grace enough for us to allow us to do that redo.
Like, I've yelled at my kids before and I just keep going, you know? But now I've realized, okay, if I yell, whoa, wait, hang on. I'm sorry. Let me try that again. It's actually really cool. The school that our kids go to, they have a circus for the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. So this. The. Those eight, those grade students perform the circus for the. The first for the kindergarten through fifth grade and all the families. And there's like three shows that they do. A Friday night, a Saturday afternoon, and then a Saturday night.
So, like, they are entertaining. And, you know, if you go to Vegas to a Cirque du Soleil type circus type show, one, you probably will see zero mistakes, right? Two, it's just like, whoa, amazing. But you go to this circus with these 6th, 7th, and 8th graders, and it's also. Whoa. Amazing. Because the coolest thing is when they do miss, you know, when they're juggling and they do miss a ball and one ball falls, they don't run off the stage crying, oh, no. They just go like this one second. They tell the audience, wait one second.
And they pick up the ball and they do it again. And maybe again it falls and they go, one more. They do it again, they go one more and they do it again until they get it. Showing us this was like the hugest lesson for me the first time I saw this. Like, how amazing. They stayed calm and they redid it and they led with love for themselves, for the audience. And the audience gave them so much more love back. You know, like if you had one of the students doing a juggling act and they did it perfect, they'd get applause and cheers.
But the kid who dropped the ball and tried again and tried again and tried again and persevered as soon as they got it, even more tears. Because we're with them because we feel that we've all been there. It's just so beautiful. And that's what leading with love is. It's like you make a mistake, you say, whoa, hang on, I need. Let me do that again. I know I didn't act correctly in that moment. Let me try again. So Secm. 435133 had to press pause when I was too tired to read complex documents help me stay calm.
Yup. Knowing those limits and good on you to. To just that press pause and not full stop because complex documents just put me to bed. So I hope that you were able to get back to them and. And make sense of them when you were in a more focused state. Speak, wonder, remain calm and upbeat. When your daughter gave you the news that she's moving 1600 miles away. Whoo. I feel you there. You know what? The love will be there no matter where she is. So 100% be excited for her. Right. That she's on to some interesting things and making her own way in the world.
I can imagine how that will be. I have an 11 year old and an 8 year old, so I'm not there yet with that idea of what happens when they leave. But I think I was that daughter moving from New York to Minnesota for my mom. So I got you. I feel you how that can be. Just think of the opportunities and all the places you get to go to visit her and meet her and meet up with her. My mom lives in New York. We're here and on vacations. Now we try to meet in new places, so we're all seeing new things in this world.
So hopefully that's a way that you'll be able to stay connected with your daughter in time when she gets settled in. And once you get settled. But yeah, absolutely right there is leading with love, saying, okay, this. This is kind of gonna suck, but ultimately it will also be good and that we can find the good in it. That is the other thing is that. And I'm just pausing here because in my mind, I'm thinking of something that I wrote recently on social media about. Someone had asked a question about the best piece of advice from a treatment professional.
And so I shared how my treatment professional encouraged me to find treasure in the trash or treasure in the tragedy. And the tragedy for me was losing my dad to cancer when I was 17. And it took me, like, another 15 years to have this moment with my therapist saying, find treasure in that. Find. Find five good things in that. And that's another way of leading with love, right? I lived in fear. I lived in anger. I lived in loss for 15 plus years. And she switched it on me with that one question.
I live in hope. I live in knowing he's with me. I live in love. I live in faith and trust. And I live in knowing that all these things after his passing just fell into place and they wouldn't have happened if he was here. And so that, again, is like, yeah, this. This thing, this kind of sucks that my daughter's moving 1600 miles away. But that and this, that door feels like it's closing, but it just means that all these other doors are opening on this new path for both you and her. And so I'm hopeful that that journey for her will be an incredible journey for you as well.
And with that, I will let y' all go. Have a good night in your cozy rooms, wherever you are. Stay warm, stay loving, and stay well. Cadre Sphere. I'll see you next Thursday. Bye.
