Rules Of Engagement

Good morning, Cadre. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, wherever you are. I am in Silver Spring, Maryland. It's a sunny, beautiful day. As I look west, we have this panoramic view. We live on the 16th floor of this building and we can just see west from our balcony and from my office window. And the sun used to set because we go on the balcony to watch the sunset. My husband and I used to set over there. I'll do it this way. It used to set over there and then, you know, when we moved in in April.

And then slowly it's been setting, setting, setting, setting, setting, you know, till it's setting over there. And I probably do that till December 21, right? And then it'll start moving back. So. Welcome to your live stream. Very excited. We're still talking about harvest and the topic this week is Preparing for rest and renewal. And I like the phrasing of this topic, not rest and renewal, but Preparing for rest and renewal. Hello, Shannon. Welcome. Preparing for Rest and Renewal, which is different than rest and Renewal.

And I am a Virgo from North America and my friend, I had a friend, Susie, who very into astrology and what she says about Virgos is because we were born in harvest time, late August through September, we like, we're not super a*** or whatever it is that people want to say about us using that old Freudian term, but that we actually like to prepare people for winter. We like to make sure people are prepared for winter. And I can see that in myself. You know, I make my own vegan yogurt. I don't like dairy yogurt that much, but vegan yogurt is fine and I like the probiotics.

So I make my own, right? And you know, I've been making my own seed crackers because top seeds crackers are delicious. But $9 for a box is a lot of dollars. Hello, Speak Wonder is a lot of dollars for a box. Anyway, so this idea of not just rest and renewal, but preparing ourselves for rest and renewal I very, very much like. And there are a lot of rules of engagement that I think that I have that apply here. But one of the first things we have to do is give ourselves permission to rest. That is part of the preparation is permission.

You know, permission is preparation because if we don't give ourselves permission, we won't do it or we won't fully do it or what have you. Can we assign me as mayor of the Cadre sphere? Sure. Just ask Luke. I mean, Luke is. It would be up to him. I think Luke Might maybe Luke is governor or president of the Cadre sphere. Would I be happy to be mayor maybe of the just of the personal growth area? I don't know. Or the addictions? Who knows? No, there's plenty of people doing that. That would be fun.

Thank you for thinking that we have to give ourselves permission for rest and renewal. My mother. I've been thinking a lot about my mother lately because I'm doing some work on some early issues that came up around my mom and she made everything right. Like, she made amends to me and we talked all about all these issues. But I've realized even though my mother apologized and I've forgiven her, it doesn't mean I'm not still grappling with some of the issues that are left over. So I've been thinking about my mother and.

And one of the things she would do is if she saw me, I wanted to do something, but I didn't quite know whether I was gonna do it or whether I could do it or whether I should do it, she would say, well, if you. She would say this to strangers. If you need somebody to give you permission, I'm giving you permission. If you just need to hear that someone is giving you permission, I am giving you permission. And I, being my mother's daughter, also do this for other people a lot now because I know how useful it was.

So if any of you are waiting for permission to rest and renew, I, Betsy Hodges, on October, what is it? 28th, 29th, 2025, I give you permission to rest and to prepare for rest, to actually plan it, to actually give you see two eyes. I'm certainly the mayor of this live stream. I am mayor of this live stream. Thank you very much, Shannon and speak wonder. I am mayor of the live stream. But you have permission to rest. If you need someone to give you permission, it's me. If you need just an external voice saying it's okay, here's your external voice saying that it's okay.

Rule of engagement number nine is use what you have. Use what you have. And often that means I want to look around my like, if I have to solve a problem, I want to look around the house for the solution before I go buy something to solve it. This happened with a water bottle. Like the. I have a really great water bottle. I wish I had it here. And on my last trip, I bring water bottle. On my trip, the handle broke off. I'll put a picture of the hand. I'll put a picture of this in the chat, in the app.

When we're done. It broke off, but it broke off cleanly. And I found the piece, and I brought it in my hotel room, and I brought it back with me. And I have a little drawer of stuff that will help me fix things. You know, it's got some tools in it. It's got, like, super glue in it, and it has this silicone glue that you can use to fix things you eat with, because it's. You can eat. It's okay. It's. You can ingest it. I mean, you don't ingest it. You know what I'm saying? You can fix things you eat with, as opposed to other glues where you would not want to use super glue and then pour your food in and then eat that food because it would leach whatever terrible things.

This doesn't do that. So I did that first, and I let it cure overnight. And then Sugru, which is a different moldable, moldable silicone glue. The handle's black, and I had black Sugru, but I thought it would be fun. Since the bottle is white, I used white Sugru, and I really put it on the seams. And then I let that cure overnight, and I didn't have to buy a new top from my water bottle. Use what you have. Anyway, that was a. That was a side quest. Usually that's what I mean when I say, use what you have.

It's also an invitation to use up what I have. I have a lot of pens and stationery, and Gretchen Rubin calls it spending out. Just use what I have. You know, one of the reasons I have, like, a stack of notebooks and a whole bunch of pens is so that if I run out, I just have another one. I don't have to wait. These. You know, I do that with things that are important to me, but I also use them. So I do my best to use up, and I do use them. But when I say use what you have here, it's a third meaning, which is when you're preparing for rest and renewal, use what you have.

Use the time you have. Use the options you have when you're preparing. Like if that. If rest and renewal means you get a half an hour on Saturday while your best friend watches the baby, okay? Use what you have. Do what you can. This is related to number 19, which I got from John Acuff, which is some beats none. Some beats none. 30 minutes on Saturday afternoon is better than 0 minutes on any day of the week. You know what I'm saying? Like, preparing for rest and renewal Rule rule number two, start from where you are, not from where you think you should be, not where you wish you were.

Start from where you are. If you have 30 minutes on Saturday afternoon, then prepare to use that to best advantage. If you have five minutes a day in the morning when you wake up, but you haven't gotten out of bed yet to do a little reflection, great, whatever it is, use what you have. Some Beats None. Doing a little bit is better than doing none. John Acoff talks about this. If he plans for a six mile run and he can only do two and a half miles, well, fine. Some Beats None. It used to be, oh, he wouldn't go for a run at all.

I million things like that. For me in the mornings I do spiritual time and I try and do 20 to 30 minutes. Yes, John. I mean, all credit to John Acuff for Some Beats None. It's one of his main soundtracks. You can actually buy Acuff merch that has that on. I have a T shirt that says Some Beats none. And I have a Tumblr that says Some Beats None. I just love Some Beats None. Whatever you can do. I lost my train of thought because I was so excited about Some Beats none. But rule number 33, it took me a long time, as you can see by the number, to put this one on my list because I had internalized it so fully.

As an elected official who has campaigned, you know, I have been part of other people's campaigns, campaigns, and I ran for office four times myself. Rule number 33 is a big political aphorism that I apply to life, which is plan your work. Work your plan. Prepare, you know, prepare for rest and renewal. I just, I love that. Preparing for it. Get ready for it. We're entering winter, right? That is a time when we can all snuggle in a little bit. Higa, of course, is big. I'm from the Midwest. I know what it is to be snowed in together and the community that that creates.

Plan your work and then work your plan. It's an anxiety strategy. It's an anxiety management strategy. In the political context it means put your campaign plan together, right? There are different philosophies about campaigning and varies depending on what your resources are. Do you have a lot of people and volunteers? Do you have a lot of money? Do you have a lot of both? Do you have a lot of neither? What is the. What does the electorate look like? What is it? What are the. All that, right? Make your own campaign plan and then work your plan.

Don't work Someone else's plan. You see somebody else doing something there at that event. When you plan to go to this event, well, you planned your work, now work your plan. It doesn't matter that candidate, you know, Z is over at this event and candidate Y is over at that event. Event. We decided I would be here. We decided I would be here. Plan your work and work your plan. Now what does that mean for preparing for rest and renewal? Well, plan your rest and renewal, then do it. Because the boogeyman of, oh, I shouldn't rest, or oh, If I did 30 more minutes of work, or oh, I know I should rest, but I have all this on my plate.

Whatever it is, those gremlins are going to start chattering at you from all over. Shouldn't rest because I don't know why. I mean, there are hundreds of books about why Americans, especially Protestant heritage, you know, that's infused our culture. We just feel like the solution to every problem is work harder and work more. And that is not the solution to every problem, as a matter of fact. And rest. When I took the risk, I was mayor of a large American city, you know, mid sized American city, busy.

That's code for pretty busy with some consequential things. There were times when I could not rest and renew, right? There were times when things were clutch. I've talked about some of them, but for the most part I was able to take the risk to go to my AA meeting to do my workouts and to get some sleep to go to bed. And it took me a while to learn that I could do that. And frantic overwork is not a virtue. Thank you. And what I found was this. It blew me away. It blew me away. My work was better and I could do more of it.

When I was properly rested and nourished physically, emotionally and spiritually, it felt like a risk. But when I did it, what I found was that I got more done in less time and I felt better about it and myself and the world. I have remembered that ever since. I've remembered that ever since that taking care of myself, rest and renewal is part of making sure that everything's in good working order so I can just keep moving forward in my life on my goals in the world, making the difference that I want to make.

Wow, what a game changer. I've spent a lot of time working on getting better sleep in the last two years and it is paying off. When you're a woman of a certain age, which is code for perimenopausal or menopausal Hi, Rosie. We're debating whether I can run for mayor of Cadre. Whatever I'm doing isn't. I've worked on my sleep and it's made a huge difference. Like, it's worked. And when you're perimenopausal and menopausal, sometimes not. Your mileage may vary. But for a lot of women, our sleep goes down the tube sometimes because we're having night sweats or whatever.

Not me. I just, for whatever reason, compounded by some terrible body metrics left over from my early trauma. And I'm sleeping so much better because one day at a time, piece by piece, I've been putting the pieces in place to get better sleep. That was preparing for rest and renewal. So some things I do, this isn't even everything. I wear an eye mask. We have a noise machine. I wear a breathe because I read the book Breathe by James Nest. Breath by James Nestor. Game changer. I wear Breathe. Right.

I am on hrt. When I went on HRT and progesterone, that really helped my. My sleep a lot, particularly my deep sleep. I do visualizations. I'm very careful about what I do before I go to bed. I have a routine, etc. So I did a lot of preparing for rest and renewal so that I could take advantage of sleep, which I love to sleep. I knew I was sleeping a good cadence, meaning I go to bed at night roughly the same time and I get up roughly the same time. During football season, if one of my teams is playing on Sunday night or Monday night or Thursday night, I will stay up a little bit late if the game is good, but in general.

And then I let myself sleep in a little. Like I took an 825 class today instead of the 710 class today because I watched the football game last night to the very end because I love football. Anyway, preparing for rest and renewal, that's what we're talking about here. So use what you have. Start from where you are, not from where you wish you were. Use what you have. Some beats. None. Plan your work. Work your plan. All preceded by giving yourself permission to rest and renew. Knowing that it feels like a risk until you see the payoff.

And then it feels like a risk not to prepare and follow through on the plans to rest and renew. That's what I got for you this week, Cadre. That's what I got for you. I'll leave with two things. One, every November around Thanksgiving, if we're not traveling, I plan for it. Otherwise, if we are traveling For Thanksgiving, I take two days, two and a half days usually, and I do a full review of the year and. And a full preparation for what my goals are going to be for the following year that is also preparing to rest and renew.

I'm not going to mention I haven't mentioned Bruce Springsteen even one time. Somebody knows me well. So three things. One, I do a retreat. I plan it now, like I have the days on my calendar as an annual thing. But I really start drilling down now to make sure I protect that time. There was a second one that I was going to leave you with about rest and renewal. And what was it? I don't know what it was. Something brilliant that we're all sad that you're going to miss. But Bruce trumps everything I have seen.

I recommend the movie Deliver Me From Nowhere, which is a unusual biopic about a rock star. It is not about, oh, the ascent to global stardom. It is about the pause he took between his biggest album to date, the river and Born in the usa, his biggest album ever in terms of sales. In between comes in between. He wrote, recorded and released an album called Nebraska, which is a very quiet, kind of dark album because he was in a very quiet, dark period of his life where he was having to. Or getting to confront himself.

The word depression, the word is never mentioned in, in the entire film, but it's a film about a man going through that darkness. But he's not doing it alone, even though he feels alone, but he's not alone. And he's got this amazing friend and a woman who makes a difference in his life. He took a pause. And as he's grappling with his own childhood, every performance is brilliant. He's grappling with his own childhood and he's writing this very dark album. And brilliant. Brilliant. Bruce has said, if you want to enjoy my music, listen to anything.

If you want to understand my music, listen to Nebraska. And I can. I can see that. Based on the book Deliver Me From Nowhere by Warren Zanes, which is nonfiction and amazing, but it's about a man hitting bottom and what happens from there. And it's easier to watch than films like that often are because we know he's okay. He's on the press tour talking about it. You know he's okay. And. And he was willing to share this part of his life. And it's getting mixed reviews, but so far my observation is.