Sunday Serenity: From Resentment To Gratitude

Hey, good evening. Happy Sunday to everybody in the Cadre sphere. Last day of November, believe it or not. That's hard to believe. We've got December starting tomorrow. Happy to be coming here to you with Sunday Serenity. It's a series I do every single Sunday starting at 7pm Tonight's at 7:30 because I had a family event, the Christmas Opry, which goes right in line with my Christmas tree there. Getting incredibly excited and in the Christmas spirit. So that's me. I'm again Jason Lennox and like to say I'm your resident recovery champion, which just means I'm a champion for this work for all the people, for recovery, just for general well being.

And my recovery comes from substances, alcohol, mental health, all things. I speak wonder. Evening, Sherry. Good to see you here. Yes. Pennsylvania, I don't know what you got out there. I always like to do a little check in, but Pennsylvania I know gets some pretty dicey weather sometimes. We got hit with a storm this weekend. Haven't seen this kind of snow in November. I know, least a little while in Minnesota. But nonetheless it was a good weekend. So again, here to talk about all things recovery and in my title.

Yes, thank you, Sherry. It was a birthday weekend, Thanksgiving birthday. We did it all. So excited to be here for another, another trip around the sun. Five inches of snow out there. So we're getting sprinkled across the northern parts. So that's good. But I wanted to talk tonight about resentment and really how I've learned over the years to turn resentment into gratitude. And there's a huge part of that has nothing to do with me. It was somebody that I spent some time with, who I consider a dear mentor early in my recovery.

And when we met and we started working through the 12 steps of, of recovery, we got to the fourth and the fifth step, which are writing down an inventory of all the people that I was mad at, all the things I was afraid of, and all the people I'd harmed. And it's a moment that maybe some of you have heard about, but I just can't emphasize it enough for me how much it changed my life. And the moment was as we started to read, he said, tell me who you're mad at. Let's start with that resentments list.

And the first one on my list was my father who had passed away at that point. And by the way, this is really, really relevant and kind of current right now because my birthday was yesterday. I turned 39. That was the age my father passed away. So it's just all Kind of very fresh in my mind, and I've been thinking about it a lot. But he had passed away by that point. This is almost 15 years ago. So he had been gone for almost 10 years, maybe six, seven years, something like that. And he said, okay, tell me why you're mad at him.

Well, he drank, he did the drugs, he had a chance to be with his kids, and instead, that's the life he chose. And because of it, he ended up dead. We didn't have our father around for a whole lot. And I'm upset about that. Right. I miss out on a lot of things that, you know, a lot of kids get. So I shared that. And he said, yeah, that makes sense why you'd be mad. So knowing what I know about you, he said, let's turn over to your harm done to others. And I want you to point out on that list where your son is, because, in fact, you've been absent from his life for the past four or five years.

So let's go take a look at that list and see where he is. I flip the page, my son's nowhere to be found on that list. And he said, so you see, here's the thing. We can get so sick and we can get so twisted up in our own minds that we can't even see the reality. And the reality for you is that you did to your son exactly what your father did to you. You're so mad at your own father that you can't even see that you did that. And it was kind of a slap in the face kind of moment. Not in a bad way, but just stunning, right?

Like, I'd never really heard it like that. But he went on to say, not just like drowning out the resentment, but he went on to say, maybe you should actually be grateful for this man, because the fact is, you wouldn't be here even talking to me if it wasn't for him. Do you see that? Like, he's responsible for half your DNA. So you wouldn't be here to complain about him if it wasn't for him. And you've got an opportunity now in these rooms of recovery, to do something that he couldn't do. There was something that stopped him from getting it, but that doesn't mean that that was his choice.

And you have the opportunity to change your trajectory and do something different and live a life that he didn't get to live. So maybe you can show a little bit of gratitud. And so it was just this moment for me that was really life changing. That really helped me go, oh, I get it. I see it. I see it for what it is. I was doing the same thing, and I wasn't consciously away from my son. In fact, I don't even recall the fact that there was a split and that I just went on and spent four or five years doing what I was doing.

It was the addiction running the show, and I really. There was no thought in the matter. So it's not an excuse, but that's the reality. This thing is a disease, and that's what happens. So it really helped me, and I'm so glad it did, because, you know, within three or four years, I got back into touch with my dad's family and my aunt, who many of you have listened to and you know about, and I got to spend a lot of time with her. And because I had a different perspective on my father, I got to listen to my aunts and other family members, and I got to hear what they said about my father, which was that he was really a brilliant man.

He was just like you, Jason. He had this heart, and, like, even in the worst of his times, he wanted to just make sure that the people around him were all right and that he took care of who he could. He really was a very generous person. And he tried. It wasn't for lack of trying. He went to more treatments and detox centers and all the things than anyone they had known. So it was. I got to hear these things through the lens of, I want to do something. I want to be able to do something my father couldn't.

And now I get to live this life, and I think about him all the time, and I think about the legacy and the way that I get to carry the work that he couldn't do, that he's no longer here to do, and I get to live my life in his honor. And again, when I walked into recovery, I was so mad at the man. He was first on my resentments list, and there was nothing that was going to change that. But it was this moment with this man, this mentor, that really taught me how to take this number one resentment in my life and turn it into a life of gratitude for the person who created me.

That's where I started. That's where Jason Lennox started, was with this man. And so it really was kind of a huge moment, like a very big, pivotal moment in life that helped me start to turn and apply that in other ways and other people who maybe upset me or maybe I'm having resentments with. I'm able to really look at differently and really stop myself and go, okay, but where is this person actually adding value to my life? Because they do. I mean, they tell us in recovery, if you pray for somebody, you say these things and you think along those lines that somehow that resentment goes away.

And I've done all those things and gotten to the point with people who, again, I've had resentment toward that. I've then had such value added to my own life because of them. And I would miss those opportunities if I didn't know how to take resentment and go, how do I dissect this? How do I get rid of this? How do I make this go away? And I know it's not always easy, and I know there are certain things that people do to us that are really hard to kind of get past. And. And so I'm not saying, like, it's an easy thing and it's just doable in any scenario, but I'm telling you from my own experience, the biggest resentment of my life turned into somebody that I'm so incredibly grateful for.

And I've gotten to know now for the many years that he's been gone, I've gotten to know him more than I did when he was actually here. And again, I can apply that to many, many areas of my life. So I just think there's so much value. We have social media, and I hear people all the time. They. They don't want to see somebody, they're mad at this person, they're going to block them, they're going to unfollow, they're going to do that. I know that's an easy tendency to get into, but for me, I always step back and go, no, what's happening up here?

Because this is where the problem is. It isn't actually what these other people are doing most of the time anyway. And even if it is, it's still about how I'm processing that and, you know, keeping my own thoughts in line with what I want to do for this world. So I always challenge myself on that. And again, if I got resentment going on, which it happens, we're all human. We're all going to get p***** off. We're all going to be mad for different reasons. We come up with stories sometimes there are real things.

That's the reality. So we just have to get better at how do we actually handle those. And I know for me it's again, turning to gratitude and thinking about how people add value. But maybe second in line to that is I need to have people in my life that I can bounce these things off, that I can share about some of these things with because they help me clearly identify the facts which most of the time are not what I'm thinking and what I create in my own head. So, yeah, I love all the, the comments.

Great to see you here, Emily, as always. And yeah, the mentor, you know, the guy was almost 40 years into recovery, so I was willing to listen to just about anything he said. He's still alive. I think he must be 50 be pushing 55 years of recovery at this point. I was very succinct right to the point. And he let me have it. And that's what I needed. And it really. I'll say it again for the third time. It turned my greatest resentment into one of my greatest honors. I really feel that way about my father today.

And it started in that little corner down in the Alano Club in Owatonna, Minnesota. So, yeah, replace resentment with gratitude. And it's not always easy, but it is possible, and I know that. So hopefully you can take that and apply that. Maybe you've got a few resentments going on right now. I was just thinking before I got on about a few things, and few people are even just kind of, you know, maybe they're just rubbing us the wrong way a little bit. But, yeah, think about how those people actually add value, because people add value to our lives if we can keep our minds open to it, that's for sure.

I know that's my experience over and over. So grateful. I'm grateful for this holiday weekend, for the beginning of another trip around the sun, but most of all for the people who were there for me that taught me these things because I did not have the capacity to learn on my own. At that point in my life, I was so sick that I needed people to show me. And I still, in many scenarios, many instances in my life, I still need people to be here, to. To show me, to guide me, to clear things up. Because when they get stuck up here, we know it can be not a great outcome.

So hopefully you all had wonderful holiday weekends as well and that you have fun weeks planned or at least ease back into work, whatever the case might be. I'm looking forward to coming back and doing it again next Sunday and we'll chat a little more then. Until then again, hope you all have wonderful weeks. It was great to see you all. Thanks. Bye. Bye.