Sunday Serenity

Good Sunday evening, Cadre. I want to first wish a happy Mother's day to all the moms out there who might be watching now and maybe those who will be watching later. This is a special day for me. I know some of us are fortunate to have good relationships with our mothers, and I am extra fortunate to have relationships with, well, many motherly figures, but a couple that I truly consider like moms. So I want to wish you all, if you're a mom, if you have a mom, happy Mother's day to you. If this is a hard day, it is for some people as well.

Hope you're hanging in there. I was thinking about moms and just some of the thoughts and some of the ideas and things that we talk about and think about when moms come to mind. And oftentimes it's like what moms didn't do and blame. And I know I was a person who struggled for some time, really believing that some of the places that I ended up in life had to do with my mom and family and just the way that I grew up. And so there was a lot of that going on for me. And I know that's a lot of us out there.

We come to this world and we're brought up in a way, and we think maybe it's supposed to look like one thing and it's not. And, you know, we start to judge and maybe place a little blame. But the reality is most moms don't walk into this thing with a manual. But I wasn't one of them. Again. I was a person who looked back and I thought, well, if this could have been different or if this could have looked like this. And the thing I want to talk about tonight, by the way, for those of you joining, I'm Jason Lennox.

I'm your resident recovery champion, and I'm in recovery from substance use disorder, mental health. I would just say generally, I'm a wellbeing fanatic. How can we continue to get better and improve our lives? And this is Sunday serenity, where I talk about things that help us do that help us to stay well, maybe think about things a little bit differently, because, you know, I think the healthier we are, especially those of us who are in recovery from something, the better chances. The better chances that we have to continue on.

So talking tonight again, happy Mother's day to the mothers out there. But I'm talking a little bit about blame and maybe we'll get into forgiveness. But, you know, I always had a relationship with my mom, and it was rocky up and down. I was in a really bad place from junior high all the way until I was 24. I was, you know, I was in the thick of it, getting in a lot of trouble, drugs, alcohol, running the show. And of course, I was going to b*** heads with people, especially some of those that were closest to me.

But again, I think what's important is, you know, understanding. And I understand this today, but it took a long time, it took me years into my recovery to realize this, that moms don't always come with all the direction and the manual and how do you handle this situation? Some people get better guidance than others, but there are women out there, and if you're one of them, kudos to you, that are starting and rolling single and not a whole lot of guidance in terms of parents. And so kudos to you.

But what it took for me to really reshape that perspective and that relationship for me personally was coming to the conclusion, and I did six or seven years into recovery, that maybe my mom, maybe my parents, maybe the people who were there and responsible for me as I grew up, maybe they did the best that they could with what they had and what they knew. I want to repeat that. Maybe they did the best that they could with what they had and what they knew. And, you know, when I could start to think about things that way, it really opened my mind up to, well, one, think about things differently, but also create some room for forgiveness and some space there and pull out that negative.

Because when, when we think about blame and when we talk about, like, this person's responsible for that and it's, there's some negativity associated with that, I'm putting the blame there and I'm actually adding intent to the mix. Like, somehow people are out here doing these things. Or maybe I wasn't raised in a way I thought I would be. Or maybe, you know, I didn't do the things I wanted to do. I didn't get to be who I wanted to be. All those things again, that I can make up and place blame on others, but it creates a negative intent.

And so I think when I could ask myself that question, maybe were they just perhaps doing the best they could with what they had and what they knew at that time? And again, that altered the trajectory of my relationships and my recovery and the people in my life, the way in which I looked at them. And as I was actually ironically thinking about this, I'm driving. I'm coming back from a day of, as I mentioned, I have a couple people that I get to call mom. And so bouncing around, seeing some people doing some food.

So I'm on my way home, and I'm frustrated with another relationship in my life. And, you know, I started to go down that path of applying intent and thinking about somebody who's just, you know, why are they doing this? And this is causing pain and this is creating this. And it was when I was thinking about this, and I immediately had to stop myself and think, apply the logic, you know, I can't. It's so unnatural for us to do that and for me to do that that I can literally be thinking about how I could communicate this, yet at the same time thinking about a relationship in my life and not following, not practicing what I preach.

But I did. Then, thankfully, it's a moment of revelation. And I realized maybe that person is just doing the best they can with what they have and what they know. And again, the thing I want people to hear is that doesn't erase responsibility. That doesn't mean that there aren't people out there. There aren't situations where people have bad intentions and do things maliciously that actually happens. And I'm not saying we wipe that away and just chalk it all up to, well, they're just doing the best that they can.

Now, you could actually argue that because if someone's malicious, they have bad intention. That's where they're at. That's what they're doing. That's what they know. Maybe those are the only tools they have. Different topic. But what it at least what it does is it allows me to strip away the blame, the bad intention, and start from possibility, which is maybe that is what's happening. Maybe. Maybe this person or these people are hurting, and maybe this is just all that they know to do at this point in time.

And immediately when I could do that, it just stopped everything, right? Stops all of the negative thinking and the blame and kind of the anger and the resentment. And it lets me step back and think, you know, maybe that's what's going on, maybe. And what helps me and if you've been there, maybe try to apply this is I was out there doing drugs, drinking alcohol, hurting people for a long time. I hurt a lot of people in ways that I regretted significantly and did things that I could never take back.

And so it's easier. It's probably a little bit easier for me to understand what that's like and that compassion and that grace. For I look back at my old self and think, that's not actually the person I was, but that is who that is. That is what I knew and the best I could do with what I had at that time. And so it helped me also to create some forgiveness and space for myself. But point being, that that allows me then to have a little more grace for other people. And I just think that's so key.

And on Mother's Day, you know, I've seen and I see way too many relationships out there where they're broken and people are mad. And these kinds of days, they go down in history, either in a good way or in a not so good way. And I just can't live my life experiencing the not so good ways. And sometimes that's really hard. That means I got to suck it up, and I got to try to practice forgiveness, and I got to try to practice these principles I'm sharing here. And I got to try to tell myself, maybe these people, maybe it's just all they know how to do right now.

And that's hard when we're angry, when we're upset, and when we're hurting, because we do get hurt from these things. Again, it doesn't erase people's responsibility for that, but it does erase the closed minded approach that I would have. Because as soon as I say that this person is doing.