Safety In Change — Navigating Uncertainty

>> All right. What is going on? All right. It's Matt Hill here and new to the cadre platform. I already love it here so much. This is alive. I'm sharing just for a few minutes just around navigating big life changes as we all do, which is I can think of no, like I love this theme around safety. I think safety is foundational to everything. Safety can often seem very lame. Every time I talk with my father, he always finishes the call by saying, "Love you and be safe." And I, for a long time, hated that he said, "Be safe," because it just irked me .

It bothered me. How do you keep telling me to be safe? What's up, Jules? Good morning. Good morning. We are talking about making some big shifts in life and how to navigate these and so glad you're with us. And I was just sharing just with calls my father. He always ends the call and just says, "Hey, love you, be safe." And it always irked me until recently, and I realized why it irked to me, everything that triggers us, is something for us to work with. And I realized that I actually didn't feel safe.

And it irked me every time he said that, because it was kind of like a reminder in my subconscious to say, "Hey, somebody's telling you and reminding you to be safe because you're not safe." And so that's why it irritated me, not to see what it is, it's just this loving father that wants his son to be safe. And so I love the theme of safety, going back to that, navigating life, big life changes. There's acknowledging the universal piece of this is that every one of us faces seasons that end and new ones that begin and sometimes by choice and others by force.

And we often think by force that something's happening to me. I'm a victim of circumstance and why is this happening, and oftentimes in our small season and point of view and aperture where we're going to see the world, it seems random, it seems unfair, it seems inconvenient, and I just want to get through this. And so what I want to shape though is the only way that we get access to our medicine, some people use the potential, right, it's like, "Oh, we need to fulfill and meet our potential and everything.

What I'm more interested in, how do we get access to our medicine?" We each come into our world, into this world. I truly believe this with medicine that is meant, that we are meant to give as a gift to others. And the only way we get access to that is through trials and hard things. And when I started like really seeing that, wow, at the other side of hard seasons and been through divorce and different addictions and these types of seasons that I was trying to break and work with and everything on the other side of it, I realized that I had this medicine, I had this felt sense and safety of like, "I just moved through something and now everybody else feels safe with me."

So it's going to like the nature of change. So change isn't, it's not the exceptions to the rule, right? So life is seasonal, birth, death, growth, rebirth, all of that, right? So the problem is not change itself, it's that our attachment to what was and our fear of what will be, okay? So one, just normalizing the discomfort, it's supposed to feel destabilizing. So if you're in this season of particular shift and uncertainty and everything, understand that it won't last forever, but there is, it is here for a reason, it's not random, okay?

I'm going to share three anchors with you around navigating change that I think are critical with this. What's up, Carrie? Three anchors to navigate change, one is just pause and acknowledge the ending, okay? So our entire lives is like ending of one thing and then something new and the only way we can move on to something new is if we end, if we end and actually have that moment and this season acknowledgement of this is ending, this is no longer here. And so we're going to honor that and I want to talk about grief a little bit because this is where grief gets a bad rap and we think of grief as this bad thing, of like we're just grief only comes with like if we're mourning a loved one or it comes in a really hard and painful circumstance of season, that may be the case and it doesn't mean it's bad or anything, it may be the case, but grief is just about death in general, shows up whenever something ends or changes, okay?

So even when the change is good, grief is still present and needs to be honored . So you get this promotion, you moved to a different city, you get married, you quit the job, you start the new thing, a part of you still aches for the old rhythm. That's how we're wired. We get attached to certain things and so if anything's ending, even if it's a good ending, there's still a grieving process, right? And still that ache, it's grief doing its job, okay? So grief slows us down when everything in the season of change wants to speed us up and it forces us to actually feel the weight of what's gone so you don't drag it half buried into the next chapter of our lives.

And so it's like grief is like the body's way of insisting on an honest exit interview with your own life. I used to be in recruiting and so we used to do exit interviews all the time and so grief is actually like hold you in place and says like no, no, no, no, we're going to feel this. This is good for us to feel this before we rush on to the next thing. So it grief empties us, it strips us and reminds us of our need to enter this new season with humility with a softness, a little bit undone maybe with that and then that's where real openness lives, okay?

So grief is a gift. It helps in a season of change by being this uncomfortable bridge in a sense and lets you honor what was and metabolize the law, step into what's next without being haunted by what makes the new season feel like an actual beginning, not just a frantic distraction from an ending. So, all right, second anchor here, lean into the unknown, mystery is our friend , it doesn't feel like it and our whole body's freaking out, it's like new, this is new, we don't know this, we want to go back to what's old and so the in between is uncomfortable but it is sacred.

This is where the magic is, the in between, do not rush in this season, as much as you can please do not rush and it's what I've learned so much and every, I've had so many seasons of shifts as we all have and so many of those seasons I ran through it, wanting to get past it, prove to myself and others that I'm all right, no need to do that, take advantage of those moments of these bridge seasons with that. And then the third anchor is translate pain into medicine, okay, I've used this word medicine again, I'm all about medicine.

Every difficulty carries a gift for the next season. So we asked ourselves these questions and like what did the season teach me, what strength did it build, what am I carrying forward? So your story isn't random, okay, and this is the most important thing that I'm going to share. But on one second, Jules said I applied for another job last week after being in public safety for over 20 years, the anxiety of waiting to hear from HR is very difficult for me. Completely relate with that Jules and I love your comment, thank you so much for sharing.

What you just pointed to is exactly really, really hard and that's what makes it special. But if you've ever seen a movie for love of the game, not for love of the game, a league of their own Tom Hanks is sharing with Daddy Henson the catcher and he says, he 's talking about baseball and he says, of course the game is hard, he goes, the hard is what makes it great. And so the same thing with this and I don't want to apply like a hall marquee, just see the silver lining Jules with that, but it is not random that that job search is happening the way it is for you.

And I'll bet you'll have the reasons why that job search is what it is sooner than later at the other side of this. What I would say is and again, I hope this doesn't sound hall marquee is just to feel what it is in those like, what is that anxiety teaching you? What is like anxiety feel like in your body, right? What is safety feel like in that? Are you safe to feel anxious? Is that okay to feel anxious? Maybe the season is teaching you that anxiety isn't a foe. Maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a guide with that.

And again, I don't say that rightly because I've had a lot of really, really hard seasons. So Jules hang in there and then that job search, somebody's going to be lucky to have you I know. And the last thing, again, is translating pain into medicine. So Jules, if we're going to keep applying that, that you have medicine to offer us on the other side of this job search in this job search, even in this anxiety, being able to share it openly without shame and to say, I'm feeling anxious. This is really hard.

That is a blessing and a gift to everyone around you because it gives us all permission now to feel whatever it is that's alive and present for us. If I say anxiety is not okay, then I'm going to bury that. Oh, Jules, seems great. She's handling this job search, great. She's not feeling any anxiety when I don't have permission to feel anxiety around you. So thank you for sharing that. You're so, so amazing. Let me share closing vision with everyone here. Change is not here to ruin us. It is here to reveal us.

Let me say that again. Change is not here to ruin us. It's here to reveal us. I believe we all dropped into this, under this planet, in this wild human experience and we have no idea why we're, why we're here, what we're doing. And part of it, part of it is we've forgotten. It's like the men in black thing got hit by the light and then we like lose our memory. We've forgotten I think why we're here, who we are, why we're here. And so then trials and tribulations and these seasons like Jules is sharing that she's in, it reveals to us, it helps us remember.

Jogs, our memory, it's, oh, I am love. And in this season of hardship, it reminds me, I am love and I can give that to others. And so it's not random. It's always going to be happy, always going to happen. Jules right at the end of this job search. And there'll likely be another season for you and you're building these muscles to handle those. And so the seasons don't get easier, you just get stronger. And so I really believe that. And so let me just finish with this. When the next season comes and it will, don't ask, how do I survive this?

How do I get through this? What I would encourage you to ask is, what is the season calling me to become? What is the next version of myself look like, feel like? And what would safety feel like in this season of pain and suffering and hardship and disorientation and confusion and frustration when it seems like everybody else has got to figure it out. And I feel like I am lost. What is that feeling and that experience have for you? And so I bet it's magical. I bet it's be a real blessing to me and everybody else as well.

All right. That is it. This is a quick little shot. But if I can encourage anybody that's listening again to this, even the recording of this is if you were in a season of big shifts, congratulations. I am eager to see what you become on the other side of that. What you become on the other side of that is likely a more true version of you and that's more of like your essence, what's essential of you and not the masks and the things that we're trying to be and pretend. So I love you all and thank you for stepping into seasons of change and then bringing the medicine back to us all.

And Jules at the end, anxiety is full of excitement, fear and guilt for possibly leaving. I love that you're seeing the gifts and you're in that feeling of anxiety and remember it's a feeling that you are not anxious. You're feeling anxious. And so it's not you. It's a feeling. It doesn't mean it's bad or good. It's here for you. It's a friend and a foe. So I love you so much. Jules, thank you so much for what you contributed. I'm so thankful for you. And everybody else in cadre community, love you lots.