Sunday Serenity

Good afternoon and happy Sunday. I'm just straightening out here. Bear with me. Happy Sunday, everybody in the Cadre sphere. It's been a couple weeks. Glad to be back here. My name is Jason Lennox and I'm your resident recovery champion. What that means is I've just been a person in recovery for going on 15 years now, and I'm just a champion of the work, of the industry of having conversation and being here for people. And, you know, I'm here to talk about everything, recovery, mental health and well being that comes with it.

This is my series. Good afternoon, Jules. Good to see you. This is my series titled Sunday Serenity. And you know, when I talk about serenity and I think about serenity, it's such a. Perhaps the most critical component of my recovery anyway because I know that the consequence of not being serene and having chaos and all the things that happened in my life back in the day was that I would always seek pleasure elsewhere. So I believe serenity is the core of everything we do in recovery and really as people.

So that's. That's what's behind Sunday Serenity. That's a little bit about who I am. It's good to see some people chiming in here again. It's been a couple weeks. Thanks for bearing with me. I've been back and forth dealing with some family things and in tough places. So I'm going a little bit early because I'm flying out of town again here in just a couple hours and happy to be with you. But what I want to talk about today, Sunday Serenity, this Sunday is the power of the pause. And it's not something.

Hey, good to see you, Luke, good to see you as always. And Larry as well. Good to see the people joining in. So the power of the pause is such a critical component for me. I'll give you a historical context and I'll give you a live example. I wasn't going to talk about this. I didn't have any intention until just a couple hours ago. And I had to kind of practice in my own world. And that's why we use our lived experience here to share. I'll give you the example first. I'm seeing something and I'm on social media and I see a comment that kind of gets me a little bit worked up.

It's just something that I thought was a little bit insensitive and it was related to something with my brother. And so perhaps there's. I'm just a. It's just easier for me to get worked up. Got to spend some time with him this weekend actually got married. So it was great to kind of be there and participate and support that expedited ceremony for him. But nonetheless, it's a comment that's made. It's something that I feel a little bit, is a little bit insensitive and it's a family member and I know that's not the intention.

And my first reaction is to comment and to share my perspective and share what I thought and how I thought it was unfair and sensitive, all the things to my little brother. But I didn't. I paused because this lesson I've learned is so critical. I paused and I actually reached out and talked to somebody else who I'm close with and just shared where my thoughts were. And so we talked through and you know, after a half hour back and forth, it's like, yeah, there's not really any good that's coming out of me sharing a response to that particular comment.

It's something I just need to work on letting go. One, for my own sake. But two, because it's just not going to produce a positive outcome anywhere around. So that's a real life example of the power of the pause and what that can do. It can prevent something like that from snowballing quickly into two family members who maybe would have conflict. And you know, in this kind of time, that's the last thing that's needed. I want to give you an example. This is one of the best lines I ever heard. This is a former colleague, she was a very high level leader in this industry and, and led a couple different companies.

And I would reach out and, you know, talk through things with her every once in a while. And she gave me some of the best advice I've ever been given, especially professionally. But I believe this applies here too. It really is about the power of the pause. I maybe got upset at some point as a coworker and I was drafting an email, just kind of talking through. And she said, jason, I'm going to tell you something I've learned over the years. Always if you feel yourself getting worked up and you're ready to respond to something in that state of mind, wait 24 hours.

You don't have to throw it away or scrap it. Just let it sit for 24 hours. And if after 24 hours you come back and there's still the thought and there's still all of this here, send the email, look at what you're writing, maybe modify it and send the email. And I gotta tell you, if I'm Being completely honest, that maybe saved me a job or two throughout my professional career. Because we all get worked up. This is our tendency. We all get. We tend. We will get worked up, and we say things that maybe we don't necessarily mean, or we don't mean them in that kind of way, or it's just not the right timing.

So I'll tell you, probably of every 10 times that I heard her voice and actually practice that, out of 10 times, nine of them, I wasn't even thinking about it. 24 hours later, the draft was deleted. There was nothing to send. There was no point. That was the end of story. And then one out of those 10, maybe one out of 10, maybe one out of 20, I would maybe modify and just kind of reframe and just, you know, there may be. There's still something to share, but it's in a much different way. So anyway, the 24 hours always gives me a little bit of a different perspective, gives me the ability to kind of step back and look at the situation for what it is and go, is this really going to be helpful, or is this actually just going to make matters worse?

And I'm telling you, if I can think of the top five pieces of professional advice I've had over the years, that's one of them. Yes, Larry. Keeps us in control, keeps us from being controlled, filters emotions and unnecessary attention. And again, and I give you the example today of the power of the pause and what that can do. I could have been on the plane here in a couple hours, engaged in a toxic conversation or a conversation that isn't going anywhere that's kind of creating some divide between me and somebody that I love.

And, you know, the power of the pause prevents that kind of thing. The last thing I'll say is this. You know, I speak to groups and treatment centers and people in early recovery all the time. And what I like to say is, I mean, I may be in this recovery thing for about 15 years now, but I'm still just like everybody else sitting in this, in these chairs. We're all the same. We all have this same line of thinking. We have this human condition that causes us to react, that causes us to persevere. Personalized things that causes us to think things that aren't necessarily true or weren't intended.

The difference between people who've gotten through recovery a little bit is that we've come up with tools to stop those thoughts and feelings from becoming actions that hurt other people or even ourselves, that create situations that we end up regretting. I used to have these thoughts, I used to have these reactions, I used to have these feelings and I would go, go, go, go. And you know, know what happens is we end up saying things and doing things that we don't intend to do and we don't want to do.

And for me, as somebody who struggled with drugs and alcohol, then I wouldn't feel good about that. And what do we tend to do when we don't feel good about the things we say and do we cope with this thing called drugs and alcohol? And so it would keep this vicious cycle going for me. And I believe that recovery, thankfully has given me the tools to say, okay, these thoughts, they might come, these feelings, they might come. But I'm wiser than that. I know that this, I need to filter these things out.

I need to be able to pause. I need to use all the wisdom that other people around me. I need to use those people around me. I talk all the time about who's in our circle and who helps us and who do we have to lean on to keep us in check, to keep us in order to keep us honest and to keep us moving in the right direction, doing the right things. And that's so critical. So I think we all have these little things that sneak up from time to time. It's just about how do we deal with it. And for me, that power of the pause.

I'm glad that this, this thing happened here today because I haven't been reminded of this in a little while. This whole 24 hour rule and just the pause first. And it really is a very important thing for me, again professionally. But personally, I think there's so much in our interactions with people and how we get upset and you know, that's what the steps and the principles of recovery and through all forms of recovery teach us is how do we clean up all these things that we've done and like the things that we've said and the ways in which we've harmed people.

But how do we actually prevent it from happening again? How do we take inventory and how do we continuously look at ourselves and try to grow and do better and be better so that when we get into these situations where there could be conflict or there could be tension, we know how to step back, we know how to retreat a little bit and you know, we don't make matters worse. That's what's important. And so it was a very timely lesson for me. I believe that power of the pause is invaluable. And even if it's just a matter of seconds.

We're in conversation and I can just pause for 30 seconds. Boy, that can make just such a difference sometimes. And it can go from me saying something very rude and perhaps even cruel, even if that's not the intention to Hey, I think it's just time to step away from this conversation. We'll come back to it. I'm not ready for it right now, so I find so much value in that. I hope you do too. I'm grateful that we got to spend a little time here together this week and be back again next Sunday for another version of Sunday serenity.

Do a little posting here, here and there between then. Love to hear your thoughts, ideas, and things you might want to chat about. You want me to bring to these sessions? So hope you're all having a wonderful day. If you're here in Minnesota, you're always talking and thinking about how cold it is. It's almost 50 degrees out there today. It's beautiful. I hope you've gotten a chance to get out and about if you're somewhere warm already. It's supposed to be warm this time of year. Good get out and about, but grateful to be here.

Hope you all have wonderful weeks and look forward to coming back and doing it again next week. Have a good one, everyone.