You Are Part Of Something. Reminder If You Need It. ❤️

Happy Thanksgiving. Cadre. It is 1131. It is Shannon from the Cadre team. I hope you can hear me. I'm on a walk, so I'm a little bit messy. I'll stop for a second. Happy Thanksgiving. It's 11:31. I'm here in Iowa today visiting my parents. It's very cold and. But I'm. That's okay. And I'm out here for a pre Thanksgiving walk and I wanted to say hello to you. I wanted to. I was actually inspired this morning by Speak Wonder, one of our contributors who went live live at 10:30am today. She was having a hard day and I was so inspired by the fact that she went live even when she was having a hard day, because that's what we do here on Cadre.

So for those of you who don't know me, I am Shannon. I am part of the Cadre team. I am not a clinician. I'm not a mental health professional. I'm a human who lives with CPTSD anxiety and I have a child with autism that I am a caregiver for. So why am I joining you today? Because today's a hard day. Today can be a beautiful day and today can be a super hard day. I have lived both. You have probably too. I guess what I want to say today is that this is a holiday that we are really socialized to believe, right?

Like, holidays are hallmarked here in the US and probably everywhere. But it's a day when it's hard because there's a lot of stories in the world of what it's supposed to be like, right? So there's stories of you're supposed to have this picture perfect day and the family and all, all the things. And you might not be having a day that looks like that. You might be having a day where you are at home alone. I've been there. You might be having a day where in your basement eating frozen pizza and watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

You might have a day where you are crumpled up on the floor because something really devastating has happened to you. Or this might be the best holiday you've ever had, right? This might be the Thanksgiving of your first baby. It could be any of those things. My message to you today is this. Whatever your holiday is today, if you're crumpled on your floor somewhere, if you're sitting in your car like Speak Wonder was in Erie, Pennsylvania. If you are having the most beautiful Thanksgiving you've ever had, you are part of this larger community.

You're part of a community. You are Part of humanity. You are part of the normal lived experience of holidays that are amazing and holidays that are not amazing. And so I wanted to say to you today, as I do my pre Thanksgiving here in minute here in Iowa today, whatever your day is, is normal. However you feel today is normal. You are part of humanity. Humanity is messy. Humanity is not a Hallmark movie. And so we're all in it, right? We're all in it. Happy Thanksgiving, Junk Food Junkie. And I've had those Thanksgivings where I felt incredibly alone.

But the truth is, is I'm not. And I'm connected to you all here through the screen. I'm connected to Junk Food Junkie. I was connected this morning to Speak Wonder to my friend Becky from Chicago. And we're all here. So if you feel alone, if you look around your room right now and you are technically alone, I just want to remind you that you're not. You're normal. You're human. I'm here. You're here. I've had Thanksgivings in tears, alone, eating pizza and watching planes, trams and automobiles.

And I've had amazing Thanksgiving with people I love. And I want you to know that as part of this community, you are not alone. You are loved. You are valuable. Junk Food Junkie is here. I saw some other folks join Bri. You're valuable. You guys are all valuable. And you all matter. And you matter to us at Cadre, and you matter to every single person that you touch in this world. So if you have no other message today that you hear from the outside world and you feel alone and you feel disconnected, I want you to hear this message and know that you are part of this.

You are part of this community. You are part of all of this beautiful stuff that we're doing together. You're part of my life here in Iowa, where It's cold and 20 degrees, and we're all in this together. We always will be. So that's it. I just want you to play this. If you have to play it a couple times, that's okay. I just want you to have that voice in your head. So. Happy Thanksgiving from Iowa. My hand is freezing. I'm now going to go back into my family dynamic and spend Thanksgiving today in that.

And I'm going to leave it there. But I just. I so appreciate you all. I'm so glad you're part of my life. I'm so glad you're part of the Cadre sphere. And this is a thing that you are part of. We are all here together. And you have a community. So Happy Thanksgiving, everyone from the Cadre Sphere. And we'll see you soon. We'll see you tomorrow. And this day will be great no matter what it is. And if it's not great, that's okay, too. All right, you guys have the best holiday. We'll see you soon.

Happy Thanksgiving.