Sunday Serenity: Morning Routines

Good evening and happy Sunday to the Cadre crew. This is Sunday Serenity. My name is Jason Lennox, and I like to say I'm your resident recovery champion here to talk about all things recovery from substances, mental health, and also we have a lot of well being in because well being is such a huge part of what our world needs, but especially what we need, you know, those of us who struggle with substances. How do we get well? How do we stay well? There's recovery from substance use disorder, that's one thing.

And then there are just continued levels of wellness and well being beyond that. And I'm grateful to be here. So again, Sunday serenity. Good evening. Speak wonder, Jules. Good to see everybody. I am always grateful when you guys show up and engage here, hoping for a little engagement tonight as well. But this is Sunday serenity. And the title tonight that I added was morning routines. Good evening, Jules. Great to see you. And morning routines are so critical, really, the way that we start our days makes such a difference.

And, you know, I know we all know what happens when days don't start well, that just continues to trickle down, and it's a snowball effect. And so I am very intentional in my life, and this has evolved so much for me in the morning, but I'm very intentional. I wake up extra early, I'm awake, you know, anywhere between 430 and five every single morning. And I typically, you know, get going and start doing the things that I do professionally and personally, you know, six and a little after. But I leave myself that window of time in the beginning to really, you know, go through the routine that I've established.

And it actually was based on a guy, Hal Elrod, I believe is his name, and he wrote a book titled Miracle Morning. And so what he did was spend ten minutes doing six different things, and I believe I have five of those in my routine. So I tried that. An hour got a little bit long for me. So, like I said, I've kind of evolved over time and landed at the routine that I'm going to share with you. But as I'm doing this, I really would love to hear what your favorite morning routines are. The things that matter most, the things that bring serenity, peace, and well being throughout the day.

I'll share mine, and maybe I'll get a few takeaways. Maybe it'll trigger some thoughts for you, and we can just share from there. But the six things that I do, actually, maybe more than six, I'll just. I'll start. The first thing I do is I set three intentions for the day. So, three possibilities that I create. Am I going to be the possibility of inspiration, for example, love, joy, freedom, fun, all those kinds of things. And I have a group that I've been a part of to probably a group of six to eight ever changing.

People come, people go. There have been a core three or four of us for several years now, and we have this group on WhatsApp, and we all communicate there. Not all, but I do. Every single morning. It's like clockwork. And that's where I share my three possibilities, intentions, as I call them. So three intentions comes first. Then three things I'm grateful for, and I don't share that with anybody. But I do make a point to journal about three things I'm grateful for, and I like to think about why I'm grateful for them and go a little bit deeper than just writing them on paper.

Write down three things that I want to accomplish in the day, three important things. If I do nothing else, what are the three things I want to get done? So a lot of threes. So, again, three intentions. Three things I'm grateful for, and then three things I want to accomplish throughout the day. Then I set my schedule in the upper right corner. Now I'm going. I set my schedule and kind of set a plan for exercise. And sometimes that's just stretching and going for a walk. Other times, it's going to the gym.

I go to the gym about every other day, so. m. to enjoy a cup of coffee, looking at the lake, and listening to the birds. I love it. I've actually wanted to do more of that. I am enjoying my coffee while I'm doing all of this, but. But to just be able to sit, look, listen, observe. Love it, love it, love it, Jules. So I set my intention with the exercise, and then, you know, the. The next thing I do is dedicate the day. And so I think about somebody in my life and make a dedication, and that's the person that I dedicate that day, too.

Then I'll say a little prayer, and then lastly, I will do some reading. Most days. Some days, I'm not. You know, I run out of time where I'm not there, and I don't get to the reading, but most days I do. And so those are the things that I do every single morning. And typically, that's a 15 to 35 minutes exercise, depending on how much I do in each of them. But that's something that I try to do every single day. And I thought it would be worth sharing. I would love to hear what you think about which ones of those you would try on and what you think would be most effective or anything else that you do in your own morning routines that you find effective.

Because the more we can share here and the more ideas, I think, the better. But I think the most important one for me tends to be the dedication. And I actually started that exercise because I was trying to be more mindful of eating. And how do I eat a little bit slower, and how do I just pay attention a little more and just slow down? And so the dedication was really, anytime I would eat, anytime I would be moving quickly, I would use that time to think of that person, and naturally, that would.

That would allow me to slow down. So the dedication was huge and speak wonders. Chiming in the. Taking the dog for a walk in the woods, then coffee on the patio. Look, you guys, you people, you've got it figured out. That's what I want to be doing is, again, spending that downtime and maybe not staring at a screen and typing and doing all those things, but just sitting. So inspiring me to continue down that path and keep dedicating time to that. But the dedication, like I said, is the most important.

I just give you an example of why. I mean, first of all, it makes me think of other people, and it really makes me think about what they mean to me. Because I'm not just saying, you know, this is the person I dedicate this day to. No, this is why. This is who they are in my life. This is what I want for them. This is what I hope for them. This is what I pray for them. It really makes a difference. And it's not always about people that I'm in good relationship with or that, you know, I feel. I feel great about or that I respect highly.

In fact, the last couple days, I'll just give you an example. One was an ex partner of mine who I know was celebrating a recovery anniversary. And regardless of what happened and maybe things didn't work out, I wanted her to, you know, I just felt the need and urge to do that. And so I dedicated that day and just continued to wish and hope for, you know, great things in her life. And then today, there's someone who, you know, just growing some feelings toward. Not in a good way. I mean, just, you know, some resentment, some things that happened and, you know, just recently.

And so as recently as yesterday, having some thoughts and, you know, not the greatest. I dedicated the day to that person today, this morning, and I really noticed that, you know, I began to look at that person differently and think about that person differently. And even if I had, you know, justification for some of the things that I was upset about, you know, it doesn't do me any good. And by the way, I just believe that a lot of times when people do these kinds of things or when we're upset like this, you know, everybody's just set some level on the spectrum of the wellness and well being.

And, you know, when we're not over here on the side that has us a little more, well, then we do things. And there's oftentimes, most of the time, I believe in intention in that. And so it's easy for me when I can do a dedication like that, to strip back all those negative feelings and just realize that, you know, people are people and I still want the best for them and I still want good relationships, and I just want to see through some of those things. So that's my take on morning routines. Again, I think the dedication is my favorite.

Jules said you like that as well. Everybody give that one a try. I just think that one's so valuable and it just. It breaks down walls that we could put up otherwise. You know, we get going in those thoughts of resentment and we can continue down that path hard and fast. And before we know it, you know, we're saying things and doing things that we might regret, so. And it's just a great exercise. It doesn't. It's not always about removing resentments or anything like that. Dedicating the day to someone just allows me to think of them.

I think about why they matter so much. And oftentimes that results in me sharing that and reaching out to that person. And so I just think it's a great exercise in general. So that's my morning routine. Try to do that every day. I would love if you keep dropping in after comments or things that work for you. I'm grateful that you've all joined and shared a little bit, and I'm going to do my best to work on jewels and speak wonder, using that inspiration to just dedicate a little time to do nothing.

So really appreciate you all joining. I hope you all have wonderful weeks. It's been a great Sunday here. We finally got a little bit of decent weather in Minnesota. It's been raining like crazy, so it's nice to get outside, but I am signing off now. Really look forward to seeing you all next week. Have wonderful weeks. Try the morning routines.