Monday Motion W/Roe

Hello. Hello. Welcome. Welcome, everybody. My name is Rolando. Let me see if I'm doing this. All right, There we go. All right. I just wanted to make sure I was on this thing, right? Shannon, good morning. Good morning. So get this thing going, y'. All. Welcome Monday Motion with Ro. My name is Rolando. I go by Ro for short. And I'm going to be sharing my day in my space with you guys right now. I am currently outside of Ola Coffee in northeast Minneapolis. I planned on doing it right outside. It was like aesthetic af, but, like, the buses kept going by and you wouldn't have been able to hear me.

So, as you know, life doesn't always go as planned. So here I am in the car. But this is another safe space for me that I have had a lot of powerful conversations, get a lot of time to think and just, you know, be alone with myself, which I like. And I'm grateful to share that space with you guys. So for everyone checking in, do me a favor. Tap in the chat something that you're grateful for today. Anything other. It's small, big, even if it's just breath in your lungs or a strong cup of coffee, because I know I got mine.

So just a little bit about myself. So my name, like I said, my name is Rolando. I go by Ro for short on Instagram or here, it's rose612. A little bit about myself. I'm someone that has overcame a lot in my life. I've been through addiction. Was born in prison to a mother that was going through substance use herself and living on the wrong side of life. Growing up south, Minneapolis, my family consisted of a lot of, you know, undiagnosed mental health disorders, a lot of addiction, a lot of living on the wrong side of life.

And I grew up kind of in that ecosystem, you know, that environment. And that's what I thought life was. So I learned a lot of unhealthy things and coping skills and just a lot of norms along the way that didn't really play out in the long run. Right. Growing up running around the streets, did all the things. Got into drugs early on. About 13, 14, started smoking weed. Let's see, we got some grateful things. Family for wildfires. I noticed. I'm like, oh, okay. There we go. Nice. Yeah. So got into smoking weed and everything.

Elevated. Chasing things that were trying to solve me of the things I was going through, whether it was insecurities, abandonment, rejection, identity, just trying to find my way in life. I chased all the answers in the. In all the wrong spots. And that led to me, you know, smoking weed and then that was kind of the step one. And then opiates and then hallucinogenics, the party drugs. And then eventually on to methamphetamine and heroin. I spent probably over from 13 till 28 running the streets and getting high and just wild living.

Went into. Started getting into trouble a little bit. Well, a lot of bit. And it started small in the. In the first place, the front end, but then got into a lot of trouble going in and out of the system. You know, as the drugs progressed, so did the severity, you know, the consequences of my actions. Right. I spent a total of seven and a half years locked up, incarcerated. Not all at once in different segments. You know, 60 days here, 15 months here, 19 months here. It was just a revolving door overdose.

Probably six, seven times. In and out of detoxes, many treatments, and learned a lot of hard lessons along the way that it became just, you know, a never ending cycle. And that just kept going. And then about 2018, I went through a Minnesota Dalton Teen Challenge. I caught a significant charge, went to the judge, and he offered up Teen Challenge. She was like, hey, you ever heard of Teen Challenge? I'm like, yeah, but like, there's all this faith stuff there and you can't smoke cigarettes. And all the excuses I could think of.

He was like, well, it's either this or you go to prison. I'm like, all right, we'll check it out. We'll see what this is about. Went through Minnesota Dalton Challenge and really found myself, found my purpose, found my identity, and was able to tap in and really just, you know, figure out who I am, the things that were holding me back. And that's when I got introduced to my faith, who I am. But also I really got to start digging into my mental health. That was the huge component. The mental health was a barrier to so many things.

I grew up in the context of, you know, you don't talk, you know, you don't talk about your feelings, you don't talk about your emotions. If you're a man, you just deal with it. Suck it up, suck it up, buttercup, as I was always told. And, like, that was so wrong. And it just kept me hurting and kept me on this road that would just was straight downhill. So in Teen Challenge, I learned how to discuss those things, how to be vulnerable and how to just keep it real with not just other people, but with myself.

Right? Learned a lot of lessons, graduated from Teen Challenge, went on to work as A youth prevention advocate, talking into the community, speaking in the community about drugs, awareness, mental health, all the things. Using myself, kind of like a curriculum, like, hey, this is a great example of what not to do. This is what I did about it and this is what your life could look like. Post. So it wasn't like the DARE program where it's like, don't do drugs or you'll die that we didn't have that aggressive approach.

It was like, hey, this is the dumb stuff I did. This is how I fixed it. You know, here's some tools that I learned along the way that really got me, gave me a lot a sense of responsibility to the community. So to speed things up, graduated there from Teen Challenge, went on to be a peer recovery support specialist. Did that for quite a while, probably about four or five years. Became a supervisor, became a trainer and. And then built programs up around peer support, which I love doing. I really liked more of the mental health side, so I'm grateful for the space here.

Then went on to North Central where I graduated just two months ago. Got my bachelor's in marketing and my minors in biblical studies. From there I'm doing some marketing work in the community, doing some peers, a little bit of peer work, speaking in the community to schools, high schools, and I work in the gym as well. So anyways, now you guys are caught up. That's who I am, parts of it. That's what I've been through. So now welcome into my space. Today, it's Monday, Monday Motion with Ro. I'm grateful to be here, to be sharing the space.

Well, let me. I'm about halfway through my morning, but this is, this is the beginning of the day, I guess you could say. So. For me, I'm really big on showing up in the world intentionally. I know where my weaknesses are and I like to do things that combat my weaknesses. So I know if I sleep in, I'm going to be droggy. I know if I don't set my mind right before I tap into social media or the news, like my. My mind is going to be mush for the day and it's just going to. I'm going to start off in a deficit.

So I'm just going to share a couple of the disciplines that I go through in the morning. So for the beginning, the first thing I do, I wake up at about 5am I get into, you know, a form of prayer and meditation and I read some scripture, do my daily readings, and then I journal. And then from there I put this is A little extreme. I'm not David Goggins or nothing, but I've recently, for a form of discipline, I've been putting my face in ice water for discipline. Yeah, it helps with circulation, inflammation and skin tightness.

But in my mind was like, if I can get up and do this at 5:30 in the morning, like the day's downhill from there. It can't get any worse. So that's a thing. I don't know how to feel about it, but it's become a routine from there. I go to the gym real early, and then I go do a sauna, cold plunge, and then I get a coffee and then I start my day right. And that's kind of where you guys caught me right now. I picked this time to share here because this, after doing all of my morning routine and my disciplines, now I'm firing on all pistons, spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally.

And I'm just ready to tackle the date and whatever comes along with it. So I was like, this is the perfect time for me to spend with Cadre, enter the Cadre sphere and welcome you guys into my space and share it with you guys. So that's where I'm at right now. If you guys have any daily routines that you do, drop them in the chat. I'd love to see. That's just some daily routines that I go through. Some of them are a little intense, but like, I'm kind of an intense person sometimes. Let's see ice play, ice face Plunge is probably the best alarm.

It is. It's way better than coffee. It's. It's awakening, but. And like, your day can't suck more than that after that happens, to be honest. So those are just some things that I do. But like when it comes to meditation or prayer, whatever your flavor is, for me it's more of a prayer and, you know, becoming one with myself and what I believe in. I get the chance to start the day off kind of calm, but then I journal on it. It's like, what was going through my mind? What did I hear? How am I processing that?

And then I write it down and then reread what I wrote. Because sometimes what I think, I can have a thought and like I go off on tangents, even internally, and I'll have a thought and it'll be gone. And I'm like, oh, where did that go? So I try to write it down and be intentional and process those things and go back and look at it. But when I journal, sometimes I journal from a third person. It's like I'm talking to my future self. But at the same time, I keep in mind, like, if my future kids or if my future son or daughter find my diary or my journal and read this, I want it.

I want them to think that I was talking to them. So I kind of. I'm real purposeful about that. And then I go to the gym. So I pray it out, I write it out, I work it out, and then I go to the gym and sweat it out, and then we get it going. So by the time the day happens, I'm coming in hot already. So that's my Monday motion. And I like the word motion a lot, because motion, for me, motion starts with action. You have to be intentional about your actions. Actions start that motion. Motion turns into momentum, and momentum causes change.

And that change can change your life, can change your lifestyle, your mindset, your emotional health, your mental health, all the things. So, like, I'm really big. You guys always hear me talking about motion. Just remember, I like motion, but it always starts with the action. And I look at it like. Like a boulder. It's like to get that boulder rolling in the direction you want, it's. The momentum is not going to pick up itself. You have to start with the hard work to get that thing moving. It builds momentum, and then we're off to the races.

Sometimes the day or whatever obstacle we're facing is going to feel like we're moving a boulder by ourself. That's huge. Huge. And it's going to be hard. But, like, if we work hard enough to get that thing tilt, to tilt it a little bit to get it rolling, eventually it'll build momentum and then we can get it going. So that's kind of, you know, what I do to break even. And it prepares me for the rough days, right? So then when I. When things happen, I already. I'm already grounded. I'm already have my foundation, I have my footing.

I already know who I am, what I'm about, and how I'm going to tackle the day. I got my toolkit with me, right? So, for example, like today, today I am going to a funeral of a friend, a friend named Juice. He was a really, really important guy in the community that I am loved on everybody just overall good guy incident in Uptown where his life was taken, an innocent life. And it made me start thinking about grief and how we deal with things. Like, grief is a real thing, and it's not always death that we're grieving, but we could grief, like grief a Relationship, a lifestyle, you know, a certain.

A friendship. And it's always wonder. It's always interesting to see how people deal with it. And for me, like, I've dealt with so much death coming up in the recovery field that I. It's. I attack it differently. And when it comes to the five stages of grief, I bounce around a little bit because of so many. So many of my interactions, I kind of jump straight to acceptance and then go through the other steps. But, like, days like today, it's like, all right, I'm going to be going to a funeral. But, like, I'm still grounded in who I am.

Yeah, I still. It's going to be sad, but I get the chance to show up. Like, I'm still joyful. I am. I still am who I am, but I get the chance to go up and show up for people that might not have that strength that I have. And I feel like that's what life's all about. Someone that might be more impacted and more emotionally impacted this death than I am. And I get to go, yeah, I'm gonna be grieving, but, like, I'm coming. I'm coming in hot. It's Monday. I got my schedule, my routine, everything down.

I'm coming in hot. And, like, I get the opportunity to show up for a grieving sister, a grieving mother, or someone that hasn't experienced death as much as I have. And some. At first, I used to think that was kind of insensitive. It's like, oh, I went through so much death that I'm desensitized. It's like, no, I just got used to it. I know my processes. I know how to work through it. Now I'm going to go be the strength for other people that might not have the strength for themselves. Yeah. And I love that.

Grief is. The grief stages are not linear. They're not. They're absolutely not. I tried to go by it, by plan, where someone was like, oh, well, you're supposed to be angry right now. Well, I'm. I'm not. I'm on denial right now. And, you know, right now I'm unaccepted, so it's a bounce around. So right now I'm going to. I get the chance to go show up and be my authentic self, not try to fix anybody and also just to share a space. I don't want to have the magic phrase that's going to fix them or make their grieving process speed up or bring someone back to life, but I want to be a sign of strength, a sign of hope, and just be there for someone else that's grieving and just be there for someone.

So I only get 15 minutes. I could go off on it forever. I'm the tangent king. I should probably start tangent Tuesdays, but I just wanted to come on here today and introduce you and into my space, into who I am, some of the things that I've been through and learn from you guys. I'd love if you guys could share something that you're grateful for or a tool that you guys use for grieving or to be there from someone else. I'd love to see these and see some engagement. I'll be doing this every Monday.

Monday motion. They always start with an action. Build that. Get that action going. It builds momentum. That motion turns into momentum and it causes change. So I challenge you to think about how you're going to show up in the world, not just for yourself, but for someone else. And what type of motion can you get going today? It's Monday. We're coming in hot. Let's choose an action that's going to get that motion going. That's going to build the momentum that's going to create change. So let's get after it today.

Have a great day. Reach out to me on Cadre. You can find me on social media. Rose612 Other than that, have a good day. Let's start in action. That's going to get some momentum going. That can create some change. Have a good day. Thanks for sharing this time with me. All right, peace out.