Comedy Through The Chaos

Hello, hello, hello. Hi everybody. Hello. Hello. Let's see how this works today. We never know. We never know. I do look kind of like in those old school movies when they would have like a blur on them, like a little sheen. I feel like that works. So see. Hi everybody, I'm Ms. Shannon. A variety of word related things and I hub out of the great state of Minnesota, Minneapolis adjacent. And I'm happy to join you for today's edition of Comedy through the Chaos. If this is working properly, which I think maybe it is, I don't know, we'll see how it ends up doing.

But always happy to join you. I also am the proud parent of an adorable 17 year old kiddo who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. And so I try to talk to you from the perspective. Hello, Joshua, Try to talk to you from these discussions as the world is a very, very difficult place for many of us. So I hope that you are doing your best today to stay as regulated as possible. Here's what I have been doing today. I am very in the land of gratitude that my kiddo got himself off to school this morning.

10 for me and hello from. Oh, there you go. Yeah, gotcha. Hello, Speak wonder. Hello. It is. Let's see, what's the temperature here right now? Let's see, what do we have here in Minnesota? It is currently 9 degrees here in the great state or at least the the city of Minneapolis. I am very happy that my kiddo made it off to school today and to be in a fairly good mood. He was clean and properly dressed for the weather today. It was really interesting is that yesterday he was trying to do that teenagery in the winter thing and maybe he didn't need a coat.

So he stood out there for a couple of seconds. He's like, okay, wiser choices need to be made. And I'm like, I agree with the young man. A coat would be an excellent idea. And the thing I wanted to share with you, I had like what I consider an odd revelation today. And it's a revelation with where I am with my kiddo, where I am as a parent with this particular kiddo, and where I am with my particular variety of parenting guilt. And the revelation that I had today was that some of the necessary measures that I put in because of some of the challenges that we have since I have a kiddo who's on the spectrum, some of the things that I had put on hold actually have turned out to be completely in our best interest, especially with all the additional challenges that we're dealing with now.

So here's the way my particular gift it works. I often feel like I am not doing enough for my kid because a lot of what we do on a regular basis are these big giant adventures and excursions and taking him to these places and doing all of these things. And so that once I sat there and kind of noodled on it, I realized that a lot of that is me projecting onto my kiddo based upon things that I may have wanted to do as a kid, things that I wanted to have access to, hearing her stories or watching people on television that would go on these vacations and do all this stuff.

And that wasn't something that I was in a position to do, you know, as a kiddo. And so once I became a parent, I'm like, well, you know what? I'm going to be a parent that does all these things and takes them and does all this stuff because thank goodness, you know, I have access to other things. But because the universe allows you to navigate the way that you needed to navigate for your particular journey, that's not something that had been a thing that really made sense for us. My, my kiddo and I, it would be very overwhelming for him.

And necess wasn't necess necessarily a safe space, you know, for a variety of reasons. And so we had kind of gotten to the point that we weren't doing a lot of like these big outings and kind of thing. And the thing is that he wasn't necessarily asking for it. It's not like he's pulling up all these things on his phone and sitting there going, mom, you're the worst because you're not taking me to these places. It's something that again, I had internalized this guilt and manufactured this expectation.

And it all just lived in my head. It wasn't based upon any of the factors that were our day to day. And so the realization that I had especially right now, where it's not necessarily the safest time to do a lot of these things or to be out and about more than we already are. So it really did just sink in that I needed to release myself from some of this guilt because it was totally self created. It wasn't that I was doing a bad job or that I wasn't doing enough, or that my son was living his life from a position of lack.

It was something that I had put on us. And the thing that I also had the realization about today was the fact, fact that there's a bunch of stuff that we do do that we're really good at. We're very good at finding things to do here. I've done a really good job of supporting him in this space where he can feel comfortable and have things that he's happy about. He has a list of things that he get. You know, we're very fortunate that he gets to collect. Right now, he's in the collecting beverages. Like, we got so many beverages.

Like, the main thing he's asking me, or a whole bunch of teas when we already got a whole bunch of teas. And the reason he used to do that is because you can see behind me. Mom collects action figures. So certainly not gonna tell him, you know what that stuff you want. Silly, superfluous. I'm like, you know how many action figures and pop figures your mom has? I haven't counted them in a while, so don't hold it against me. So that realization that I had today is that this is something that I was placing on myself as a weird litmus test of whether I was doing enough as a caregiver and whether I was doing it enough as a parent when it wasn't really a milestone that needed to be placed in the first place.

It wasn't like I was going to go out there and get some trophy or some award and say that I was a better mom because I took him to all of these places. And so I'm so glad that it's actually not something that I have to live in the land of disappointment, because it wasn't like, oh, we were going to do this thing. And I feel like maybe we shouldn't be in that space. He's getting to do all of the stuff that he normally likes to do, and. And we've done a good job of that, and he's happy. And we're doing our best to find safety in the spaces that we're in and to make sure that things are in a position to work the way that we need them to work.

That gives him the best. The best opportunities possible. So that is what I came to the realization today. And if I was gonna frame it for you, and maybe you might be able to think about it, is what's something that you're not giving yourself credit for that you're actually really good at? Because, you know, I've been. I've done a good job of collecting a lot of things that give him joy and collecting things that we can do together. Even sometimes when he doesn't want to do something together, I've had to let that go because I'm like, look at all these games we shall play, young person.

And he's like, I'm a teenager. Get away from me. Okay, fair enough. I see you for that today. Thank you for letting me know. And my parenting ego and I scurry away and I find something to do with myself and occupy myself. But I do think it's been really an interesting process as I think about. But look at all the other things that you've done, and these are the things that make the best sense for where you are right now and what you need to do. For a variety of reasons, including safety, self regulation, proper caregiving, all of the resources that he needs right now.

That is what we're doing right now. And I'm glad that it's not the other way around. I'm actually really glad that I don't have to tell them, you know, that thing that you got really used to going to. Yeah, we don't get to do that right now. So it's kind of worked itself out that some of these goal posts that I had, where we were gonna go and do all these things, and this was gonna be the year that I put him back in swim lessons stuff, I'm kind of glad that those got put on hold just organically on their own so that I don't really have to sit there and feel like there's something that we're not doing.

Because doesn't the universe just give you enough things as it is that you could sit there and go, oh, I'm not doing enough. Why do we add those things on ourselves? You know? And maybe you're better at it than I am, but I do feel like that's something that I do to myself, is that I'm the one that adds on this thing that would have been an achievement, this thing that would have been a new milestone, this thing that I decided would have been, ha, ha, look, we've made it, when that really isn't the reality.

So if you can merely take a little bit of time right now to go through your personal Rolodex and go, what is it that I'm not giving myself credit for right now? What is it that I'm letting myself live in the land of feeling guilty about for not doing? And what is it that you actually are doing that you should be going, hey, good job. I'm glad that I got that done. So think on that over the next week. Figure out a way to keep yourselves safe and provided for. And safety is a complex situations. So for so many of us right now.

What I'm going to do is that I was given as I dropped him off at school, I was given a grocery list of additional beverages that I'm going to pick up for him between now and when I pick him up for school. And I'm going to count that as my version of you did enough today, Mom. It was cool. So what are you gonna do today that is enough? Good job figuring out the answer to that question. I do plan on being back here on Saturday at 10am Central as we have another version of comedy through the chaos.

You can go ahead and look in the schedule. I already did post what I think I'm going to talk when we come back for Saturday. But if there's something else that would be something that you would like us to hold space for, you let us know. You can always let us know by putting your comments in the chats. You can always let us know if you see us posting any video or any content throughout the week. And there's something that led us to call, oh my gosh, it looks like I'm crying. I'm not. I just, I don't know, choked on something.

Everything's fine. So there's something that you would like us to cover. If there's a way we can hold greater space for you, please let us know. If there's a certain way that you'd like us to continue to build out the community so that you feel supported and amplified in a certain way, please let us know that as well. I do believe my friend Rachel, she's going to be on here later today and feel free to pop around if you misspeak wonder this morning. Her replay is available for you as well and I always appreciate you going on and seeing what she has going on as well.

So for me, I'm going to pack some things up, put on a few more layers before I head out into the 9 degrees Minnesota weather, figure out some safe passage for myself and then see what we end up doing this weekend. And so I hope to see you here in the Cadre sphere. Please continue to be good to yourself and the people that are in your circle. I hope that the day treats you well. If it does not, shame on it. Not shame on you. See you back here soon. It.