Sunday Serenity - Monday Version

Good morning to everyone in the Cadre sphere. Maybe it's afternoon where you're at. Morning in the central time zone. I'm actually in the eastern time zone now, so it's just past noon. But it's good to be here with you on Monday. Usually doing this on Sunday, Sunday serenity. But I put a note in the community that I would be traveling. So here we are Monday morning, Monday afternoon, depending on where you are. It's good to be with you. My name is Jason Lennox, and I am your resident recovery champion.

And what that means is I'm here to talk about all things recovery from substance use, from mental health, and really just incorporating general wellness in my series here in the live streams is entitled Sunday Serenity. And you know, it's kind of fitting, yesterday I didn't make it, as I told you, because I was traveling. And Sunday and Serenity, it would have been very easy for those two not to go together yesterday for me. I want to talk a little bit today about perspective and really the way that we can shape the way that our experience is happening.

Hey, Speak wonder. It's good to see you here, Jules, as well. But perspective is so critical. And by the way, I'm going to start with a disclaimer that I'm not always the best at this. Tuning in from Pennsylvania. Love it. So you're on the Eastern time zone with me. I'm not always the best at kind of reframing and reshaping things. I have my faults just like everyone else. Good afternoon, Jules. So just know that. But I do want to share these examples when they happen because they're really just magical.

And there are moments where I go, oh, my gosh, this could have gone one of two ways. So to set the stage a little bit, I've been sharing a little bit about some things personally that have been happening. My brother is. My younger brother received a stage 4 cancer diagnosis at the beginning of the year, very beginning of the year, in the first couple days. And so the first six weeks of the year, I was in and out of hospitals just trying to really be there and do everything I can for him. And I felt like he was in a position where he was stable enough, he was out of the hospital that I could come see.

My aunt been trying to come see for at least once a month, for years since she's been terminally diagnosed herself with cancer. She's been battling it for 34 years. She's one of the most important people in my life. So I've been coming regularly So I get on a plane and it's February 13th again, six weeks into the year. My brother. Things feel good the morning that I arrive. I'm after midnight anyhow. I wake up in the morning and the first conversation we have, my aunt says they're stopping all the treatments.

I'm going on hospice. It's just. It's time. It's time. She's very much at peace with it. Okay? We all knew it was coming, so there's a little bit of peace behind that too. But it's still. It's still hard. So I knew then that I would want to get out and spend even more time. So this is trip number four in four weeks. So I'm back and forth. I'll come back a little bit. So I've been running around a lot is my point in all this. And it's actually created quite a bit of stress and anxiety in my own life personally.

But I just want to set the stage for at least the last five days, because I look back and go, what was I doing? So I get home from Massachusetts, Wednesday, back to Minnesota, and I'm home for a day. I have Thursday there to kind of catch up, do some laundry, do some things like that Friday, it turns out my cousin's father in law, who I knew was very well known and just a good man, his wake was on Friday. So I drove an hour to be at the wake and then go to dinner and didn't get home until after midnight.

So it was a long day, long night. And then I wake up Saturday just in time to do a quick workout, get a couple things done, and then head back down an hour again for the funeral. Spend some more time with family an hour back, get a little sleep Saturday night, Sunday morning again, like, just enough time to maybe like start laundry and do some things. And then I gotta drive another hour for a birthday party. It's a one and a half hour party that I can be there and then an hour back and I get home just in time to pack.

There's just enough time for me to pack my bags, get picked up by an Uber, to get to the airport to come back to Massachusetts. So all this is just happening in like really quick time. There's just not a lot of room for error. I get to the airport and I get through security very quickly. 15 minutes. I was, you know, I was doing. I was doing good. I get to the gate and, you know, it would have been time to really start boarding. And as soon as I get there, they had just updated it canceled flight.

Oh, my. You've got to be kidding me. And, you know, it was interesting that my mind didn't go down that path. And I quickly got onto my app and went, where else can I. Can I fly into Boston? I look, sure enough, there's a Boston flight that's leaving about an hour later. It just happened to be delayed. So it was still. There was still enough time for me to kind of run all the way across the airport, grab a bite to eat along the way. And as I'm sitting there, I was eating a little bit and also had a car rental that I then had to change because I'm flying into a completely different city, state, everything.

So I'm calling him on the phone with Enterprise and it's. It's just all kinds of things. I end up getting into Boston after we have this really delayed flight. 12:30, 1:00, whatever. Now I've got an extra long drive. It's a couple hours. So I get to my aunt's place about 3am, the top of the mountain. I arrive and of course, she's somewhat awake, so I spend a little time there. Anyhow, my point in all this, that's just setting the stage for kind of the chaos that felt like the week. As I was sitting there thinking, when I was sitting at caribou eating in the airport, I was, wow, what a blessing.

What a blessing to be able to have so many. And I've had this question. People talk and we talk about, you know, a lot of funerals and a lot of people passing and a lot of birthday parties, all these things. That's really like, my life is full of those things. And I just kept thinking, what a blessing to know enough people that are meaningful enough to have funerals regularly, to have birthday parties regularly, to be part of those things, even if it does mean driving, even if it does mean sacrificing a little time.

It really is a blessing that I never really thought I would have. I was secluded in my old lifestyle. I think we all isolate. We don't have those relationships. And so I just looked back at that and went, what a blessing. The second thing I want to talk about is the whole.