Sunday Serenity

Good evening and happy Sunday to the Cadre Sphere. My name is Jason Lennox, and I'm your resident recovery champion, here to talk about all things recovery, mental health, wellness. And this is my series titled Sunday Serenity. And I think serenity aligns very well, actually, with the theme for the month for Cadre, which is Saber. And when I look up Saber and I think about the definition, I think about really learning to appreciate the moment and appreciate the present and just live in today. And that's why I believe so strongly that serenity is key.

Because for people like me who struggle with drugs, with alcohol, with mental health, when I'm not, I don't have some level of serenity in my life, I tend to look outside for other things, external things to stimulate my mind to create that pleasure. All the things. Hey, Emily, good to see you here. Happy Sunday to you. So savor aligns very well with serenity, in my opinion. And I was thinking about, what are the things that I do? What are the things that we can do to create more serenity? To be able to savor, to be able to appreciate, to be present and just appreciate what is.

And I'm going to give you three examples, not all of which worked incredibly well, but I'm going to just tell you anyway. They're all within the last. Call it 36 hours. So I'll start with yesterday. I have a cousin who's getting married, and I'm in his wedding. It's in September, and his bachelor party was to take a bus, a party bus from southern Minnesota to the Twins game, Stop at the casino, stop at a bar. I don't drink. It's not my thing. It's not my scene. I don't mind the Twins game, but I knew what I was up against.

I knew I was going to be riding a bus with a lot of drunk people and a lot of alcohol and things like that going on. And, you know, frankly, if I take it a step further in terms of my honesty, just conversations and things and people who, you know, maybe extreme, if you will, in terms of politics and things like that. So I just knew it was going to be a little bit rowdy, a little bit rough, and it was hard for me, and I just had to keep having conversations. I talked to a couple people in my life.

So to be able to appreciate the moment, because the real reason I was there was for my cousin. This is his first marriage, I assume his only marriage. I'm in his wedding. It's just really important for me to remember that that's why I'm there. No matter who's going to be there, who I agree with, who I disagree with, how much I like or dislike what's happening. It was important for me to just remember this is his day, and I want it to be a good day. So I had to have conversations with before, with people before, to prepare myself to remove the things that allow me to be a little more present.

And so I had those conversations, and again, I just continued to tell myself, this is my cousin's day, and I will do everything to make it about him and make sure he has a good experience. So that was one example, and again, that's the one that maybe didn't work as well because, you know, in the middle of a lot of things happening, a lot of noise, a big crowd, people who are a little more intoxicated, that was a little bit challenging. And I was tired and didn't want to be out all night, but nonetheless, I made it.

I'm alive, I'm here. I was able to appreciate the time and look at my cousin and watch the experience he got to have. The second example I'll give you, I just went outside about an hour ago and sat on the pool deck and sun sets down on the chair that I'm sitting in. And I was just really thinking, how do I clear my head for the Sunday serenity and really be able to have just a clear mind and something I can frame up for you all in terms of saber serenity, all the things I'm sitting out there and I remember, I recall back, I don't know, three, four years ago, one of my employers, we would get together and get the group together, and everybody would share a little space and talk about how they're dealing with things.

Things were challenging with COVID With all the things that were happening in and around Minneapolis over the last five years, there's just been a lot. And so one of the exercises that a therapist led the group through was the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 exercise, which I just did outside. If you don't know, it's typically used for anxiety, but I think it's just a good way to clear my mind, clear our minds to be able to just be a little more present. So it's five things that I can see, four things that I can feel.

So I'm going to identify these five things I can see, four things I can feel, three things I can hear, two things I can smell, and one thing I can taste. And. And I think five, for me, the five things I could see I could see the sun. I could see the wind blowing the leaves. I could see my legs right in front of me. I was sitting in a chair with my legs up. I could see the gentleman to the left of me who was standing by the grill having a conversation. And then I could see the little fireplace right below my feet and the things that I could feel.

I could feel the sun beating down. I could feel the wind coming through. I could feel the one leg on top of the other. And I could feel the chair that was holding me up, holding my arms. Specifically, three things I could hear. I could hear people talking in the background. I could hear the wind blowing, and I could hear some music going. Two things I could smell. I could smell the smoke from the grill and then the seasoned meat that they were cooking, which, by the way, smelled very, very good.

Almost made me want to go back out there and see if I could jump in and spoil the. The party a little bit, but have my own plans for dinner, so. And then one thing I could taste, I was eating some carrots, so I could taste some carrots. So anyway, I went through that exercise, and they say, take a few deep breaths and then identify the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And all of a sudden, for the next 10 minutes, I just experienced those moments just a little bit differently. The sun, it felt amazing. It was almost putting me to sleep.

But I could hear the guy next to me, and he was having a conversation with somebody. I was just crystal clear on what that conversation was. I just thought it was great. Amazing. Sometimes those things can just annoy me if I'm just trying to sit there and experience some peace and you get all the noise. But it really put me in tune with what was going on. So the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 is another mechanism, I think, that really helps us create space for serenity and to be able to savor and appreciate the moment.

And then the last thing, sometimes a little bit like the bachelor party story, sometimes we just know things aren't going to be that good. We know there's going to be emotion. We're aware that that's what's going to happen. And sometimes we just need to create that, get it out and let it go. And I'll give you the example. Yesterday, I ran a 5k with my brother, my younger brother, and maybe, you know, maybe you don't. He was diagnosed with stage four cancer, lung cancer, specifically, this was a lung cancer foundation.

Putting it on A Breath of Hope yesterday. And when he was diagnosed in January, when the family was just Looking for, like, what's the prognosis? What's the timeline? All the things we just kept asking all the questions to the doctors. His doctor, his primary doctor, oncologist just said, I don't know, I don't have all those answers. I'm just telling you, I'm gonna do everything I can to get you that 5k that I'm gonna go to in August. He sits on the board. And so anyway, it was really, really an important and meaningful thing.

And I knew that that would have an impact on me and potentially prevent me from experiencing the joy, the moments, the things with him. So as I was driving in, I just, you know, I kind of triggered it and put myself through it, and I put on a song that I knew would, you know, bring me back to those moments in January and February and all the things that I can remember as we dealt with that. And it immediately brought actually more tears and kind of emotions than I anticipated. But I had that 15 minute drive to get there, and that's what came out.

And I got to kind of let go of that side of things and go, okay, yep, this is going to be hard. I'm experiencing this. This has a very significant meaning to me. But I got out of the way and that was the end of it. That was it. I got out and, you know, the next time that I caught myself on camera, we were all smiling, laughing, ready to. To get rocking and running the 5K. And then we ran it, which was hard to savor that sometimes because it was humid, it just rained, and I ended up running way longer than I wanted to or thought I was going to, but nonetheless got to experience that event yesterday and those times and the, you know, meaningful time with family in a different way and didn't have to kind of fight off all those negative emotions because I just knew then they were coming.

And I proactively put myself through that. So I think those are just a few examples. I just wanted to give examples of what are the things that I can do that I've actually just done in the last 36 hours to really create space, to savor the moment, to appreciate, to be present, and to live in the serenity that I love to talk about. Because again, I think when we can find serenity, when we can have serene lives, we're much less likely to go back out there and look for kind of all those stimulating things, all those dopamine hits that we used to, when we looked for drugs, the alcohol, and all the other things that contribute to addiction.

So those are just a few ways that real live recent examples that I was able to share and hopefully you can grab something from those. But again, it's just we have many, many tools and mechanisms. We just gotta find ways to clear this space to put ourselves in a good place where we can experience in the moment because there are a lot of them. I just returned from 18 days on the road and I can't tell you how many of those moments out in nature and seeing all the things. I just was in awe because I was able to create that space and so it's very important to me.

Hopefully it is to you. And I look forward to the month of August where we get to talk more about savor the word savor and how we really learn to appreciate the moments and the things because we live in a world I'll speak for myself. Or it's easy to get caught up in what's next and it's easy to look at the next vacation. Sometimes I'm not even finished with one and I'm already looking forward to the next so. Or I'm looking forward to getting home from that. So I think it's important to find ways and proactively use those ways to regularly stay present.

So I'm looking forward to this month and sharing more real live examples. Would love to hear from you as well. Always feel free to drop yours into the into the chat. But for now I'm going to let you go and wish you all wonderful weeks and we'll see you back to do it again next week. Bye Bye.