Sunday Serenity: Gratitude + Generosity

Cadre crew. Happy Sunday. Jason Lennox here. I am your resident recovery champion, here to talk about everything, recovery, mental health, well being, coming at you from a little bit of a different angle this week, a little more up close and personal. But don't worry, the Christmas tree is still here. In fact, we're even closer to it. So hope you enjoy that. This is Sunday Serenity, where I bring you stories from my week and from the weeks of others, and I turn them into experiences that I think are valuable to really set the tone for our weeks.

And, you know, this week I was doing a lot of thinking. It was my birthday Wednesday, so I just had a lot of time to reflect on my own life. But even before that, my birthday was Wednesday. Tuesday I had a couple experiences with someone that I want to tell you about that hopefully really shed some light. And, you know, they have to do with gratitude and generosity. And those are two things that I preach and talk about, you'll see if you haven't already. Often I feel like those are two significant components of well being and recovery and just a healthy state of being and gratitude and generosity.

Showed up on Tuesday with a person in my life. It's my dad's sister, my aunt. She's one of the most near and dear people in my life. And I want to tell you a couple things that she did that made these two things stand out and then touch on it a little more and why it makes such a difference for me. So first of all, in the morning, she posts a picture on Facebook, and it's just one of those things that you can share. And it says, God, today I woke up. I am healthy. I am alive. I am blessed. I apologize for all my complaining.

I am truly grateful for all you have done in my life. Hello. Speak wonder. Good to see you here. So that's what she says. She shares this thing. She's professing her gratitude to the Facebook world. Okay. A fairly standard normal. We see that often, right? So later that night, good evening. Recovery cafe, Frogtown. Sherry. Good to see you. Later that night, I get a message from her. It's a long message. And she said, actually, this one I want to read to make sure I don't mess this up. She sends a message and says, my roommate is a heroin addict and is withdrawing so she can have surgery.

The doctor spoke to her in the room and I overheard everything. She's a nice woman in her sixties. I couldn't help but reaching out. I really like her. I hope you don't mind. I shared your story and told her about your book. She bought it right here, right now on Amazon, and she paid extra to get it delivered here quickly while she's still here. Thanks for helping to understand addiction. m. And as you maybe gathered, she was in the hospital and her roommate is going through a tough time withdrawing and really trying to take next steps to better her health and have surgery.

So I tell you those things because again, she starts the day with this gratitude post, and she ends with, this is what I did for somebody else. She's telling me this directly. She was admitted to the hospital on Monday. And why all this matters is because she, as I asked, is there always something to be grateful for and is there always a way that we can give? And she reminded me that the answer is yes. I believe that's yes. Because here's a woman who I'll give you a little backstory. For 30 years now, over 30 years, well into 30 years, three decades, she's been battling cancer.

So she's had three different rounds. One was a stomach cancer early on, 30 plus years ago, they didn't think she was gonna live. She lived, beat the odds, was good for 15 or 20 years, I think, and then came back, and this time it was breast cancer. She went through a few years of treatment, beat the odds again, and was in remission for a couple years. And 2017, she was diagnosed again. And this time they said, it's terminal. There's nothing we can do. It's everywhere. This is going to end your life.

And for seven years, almost seven years now, she has continued to live with a terminal disease. And every three weeks, she goes through a very intense chemo treatment. She's been doing experimental treatments this entire time. What it looks like for her is once every three weeks, she gets this treatment. It absolutely knocks her down. Sometimes she goes days without being able to get out of bed, but it impacts her for the better part of a week. She does that every three weeks. At the end of the week, she gets up, she runs around sharing the things that she's sharing on Facebook.

That is her life. That is how she looks at the world. She thinks life is just amazing and that she has so much to be grateful for and that. That she's just as blessed as anyone. She's just turned 69 years old, and I don't know if she expected to live this long, but I got to tell you, she lives in gratitude. She's just so grateful for all the things that she has in life and she continues to, from her chair, from her hospital bed, think about ways that she can give back to the people in her life and even those that aren't even strangers sitting in the, in the hospital bed next to her trying to get ready for surgery.

So I just go back to gratitude. Generosity. Boy, I gotta believe that's a huge part of the reason that she's still alive. And I've learned so many lessons from this woman. Thank you, by the way. Recovery cafe, frog tone. Thank you for those kind words and the prayers. She'll take them. She's a warrior and she just, yes, speak, wonder. She lives in gratitude, and, you know, I have so much to be grateful for, and she is one of the greatest things that I have to be grateful for. The lessons that I just continue to learn from her, they're phenomenal.

So again, I just wanted to share a little bit about gratitude, generosity, how they can make such a big difference. And even when someone's in the hospital for the who knows how many times now, there's still something to be grateful for. There's still a way to give. And so pay attention as we, I invite you as we go into this week, I've invited you to do gratitude lists before, but once each day, stop and make a little list. It doesn't even have to be written. Just think about three things to be grateful for.

Do that early in the morning. Think about that and think about why you're grateful for them. So take gratitude into the week, and then generosity. This wasn't planned on her part. We can't always plan it. Sometimes we can. But be spontaneous. And when those opportunities come up to be generous and to give and to make a difference for somebody else, take advantage of them. And when you do write that down, reflect on that, think about what that does. We never really know what it does on the other side.

My aunt's out of the hospital now. Thankfully, she's back home. What's going to happen to that woman, that person who is withdrawing? Hopefully she gets surgery. Maybe she reads that book. Maybe there's something in there that really makes her think differently about life and about an opportunity to get better. So take those things. Take the gratitude. Take the generosity. Go with it. Speak wonder. Yes, we got to be living in gratitude. You authored four books based on gratitude. Please send me a note.

Drop the comments right here. Tell me what those are. I put links in there. I think everybody could use a little bit of that, and I would love to check those books out myself. So hope you all had a great weekend. Hopefully after this, you can understand that, you know, even those of us that are on our deathbeds, if those people can find things to be grateful for and find ways to use their lives to be generous, I know I can. I got a lot. I woke up, I'm healthy, I'm blessed. I have a great job. I have great family.

I have great relationships. I have all of you. And I'm just incredibly grateful to start this holiday season. I'm gonna do my best to be generous and to use those two to create a recipe for absolute well being, healthy, love, and compassion for others. So hope you all have a great week. We will see you all back here next week. And like I said, there they are. There they are. If you're watching, make sure you check out those titles. Speak wonders. Get in a minute at the last second here. So we'll check that out on gratitude.

Be grateful. Be generous. Just be you. Be authentic. We'll talk soon. Cadre crew.