Sunday Serenity

Good evening and happy Sunday to the Cadre sphere. Happy Mother's Day. It's Mother's Day 2025. My name is Jason Lennox and I am your resident recovery champion, here to talk about all things recovery, mental health, well being. But on this especially important day, Mother's Day, hey, good evening, Sherry. Happy Mother's Day to you. On this special day, I really want to talk about moms because, you know, I think moms are champions of this world and I just feel it's an appropriate day to honor the women who are mothers and then the rest of us, who everybody here has a mother.

If we're here for, we're on this planet and you know, one half of our parents are mothers, so. Hello. Speak, wonder. It's good to see everyone here. So again, Jason Lennox and I want to talk a little bit tonight about and in case you can't tell, I gave you a different view of my place. So now you get the other side. I could give you the whole tour of this place from the chair that I'm sitting in. But anyway, this is the view you get this week. It's beautiful. I'm sitting here looking out the window.

So sunny. Almost 90 degrees here in Minnesota. I think record breaking temperatures for this early in May. So again, good evening, Jules. Good to see you. But yeah, I want to talk about moms in three ways. I just was fortunate enough to come from dinner and celebrating with four. There were four moms there. My sister in law, my great aunt, one of my cousins, and then my mom. And we had a great time getting together. Jules is cooking on the grill. What are you cooking? Is it steak? Is it burgers, hot dogs?

I'm very interested. I just had a salmon bowl. It's kind of my go to salmon, rice, broccoli, edamame, carrots. Snuck a few french fries in from my mom's plate. Maybe a couple tater tots, maybe part of a cheese curd. See, that's the thing. I pick the healthy, like the lighter meals and then I can just kind of snack a little bit from the others. But I love grill cooking. Love this time of year where we get to get outside and enjoy the sun. Steak, hot dogs and zucchini. Zucchini is where it's at. Haven't had zucchini in a while, but zucchini comes good.

It's good in many fashion. Zucchini noodles. But love a good steak to have one of those every once in a while. So again, want to talk about moms and I think three, three Things I think about when I think of moms first, just the relationship with mothers. And I know we don't always have the best relationships with our moms, especially for those of us who go through what we go through and we put them through what we put them through. Those relationships sometimes are strained by the time we find recovery.

I know mine was. Even though my mom is actually the one who drove me to treatment, she was there, she was doing whatever she could. We just had a very strained relationship and it took a long time for me to kind of get past some of the things I needed to and probably imagine her as well. But moms are, again, half the reason we're here. There's one woman that gave birth to all of us, and whether that's mom, whether that's adopted mom, we've all grown up typically with some kind of mother figure. And I think that's such an important relationship.

It has been for me. I've been very blessed, actually. Last night got to take what I call ma out for dinner. She's the one that took me in when I was early in recovery and didn't really have a place to go. So she became a second mother and really just a huge blessing. So we got to go out to eat and have a little ice cream and just spend a little time together. So that was great. I got to see another cousin yesterday, celebrate her a little bit. And then again today, several people, four moms that I got to have dinner with who are very important in my life.

And I think, you know, that mother relationship, whether it's biological, adopted, bonus mom, aunts. I look at my aunts and great aunts, they're. They're just such motherly figures. They're so critical, they're nurturing, they're emotionally safe. And again, not all, but I'm just speaking from my lens here. These are the people in my life that I know I can go to and I can count on and that I can open up to and be a little vulnerable with. And they're. They just to just have that side that's really caring.

And I've been so fortunate to have so many, so many mother type figures in my life, but especially the two that I consider primarily mothers. So that is such an important relationship. And took me a long time to re. Establish one of those, my biological mother. And you know, that that took something for me because I was upset, I was mad, I was angry about the way certain things had gone in my life. And it was through a lot of deep work that I Just had to realize, like, you know what, my mom and I believe this wholeheartedly.

She did everything that she knew how to do with what she had. I mean, none of us are really given a playbook. And so I really had to just lean into that and understand that she will do whatever she can. And to this day she will, she'll do whatever she can to help and support and be there and, you know, don't know if I can ask for a whole lot more than that. So the second relation, the second type of mom that I want to talk about and really honor tonight is the mom who's in recovery. Some of you I know have children and you know, having to add the complexity of recovery.

And I used to, I was just in Ireland a week or so ago and the one treatment program I was able to go see was actually a program for moms with children where they could bring their kids with to treatment. Ironically, five years ago, I used to run one of those programs. I oversaw about a one year turnaround of that program where we kind of rebuilt it, established a new culture and it was, it was on top of my day job. So it was absolutely brutal in terms of workload and what that did to me mentally some days.

But it was one of the most rewarding jobs I'd ever had too, because being there with the kids and watching the moms and seeing that they could actually come to treatment because again, like the moms sometimes have two options. One, either I'm going to go get help or two, I'm going to be with my kids. And the natural instinct for most moms is to be with the kids and so they don't get help. So these programs are great. On the flip side, watching these moms who just 24, seven, there's no break. There is no.

The child is always there. It just adds another level of stress and makes it really hard to focus on recovery and going to groups and doing all those things, all kinds of those things. So I just applaud and honor the moms who not only are dealing with kind of raising children, sometimes doing it alone, but children who, you know, might also that strained relationship because of what addiction can do. In our relationships, it's another level of complexity that, you know, if you haven't experienced it and I haven't, I won't even pretend to understand.

But I've been able to witness it and see how hard that can really be and how much extra energy that takes. So want to create space to honor the moms in recovery who are Doing recovery and doing the mom thing at the same time. And then third one, the last one I want to talk about here to honor them, the moms on Mother's Day is those. Those that aren't here anymore. I know this day can be incredibly hard. Again, I told you I was fortunate enough to spend time with lots of mothers, including two that I consider my.

My mom's and the people I can go to. But there are plenty of us out there, out here that just, you know, we lost mom, or maybe their relationship isn't good, so it's just not there, and it doesn't feel good and it's sad and all those things. So I just want to create space because I know this day can be a hard day, too. And I, you know, recently lost an aunt who is probably the emotionally the closest person in my life, and she passed a little over a month ago, about a month and a half ago. And she always would tell me, you're my other son, and I'm more like your mom than your aunt.

And she was right. It was always that safety net and that person that I would go to first and that I would talk to. So I know through that experience, not my biological mother, but that's what she meant to me. And not having her here was hard because I made my rounds, I made my calls, I sent my messages, and I just wanted to send that one, and I wanted to make that call. And I realized that that's just not going to happen again. And so if you're in that position, really, I feel for you. I hope you're able to have some peace and do something to celebrate, maybe the good memories.

Maybe you're a mom yourself, and now you get to carry that on and focus more on your own children. But I also want to honor the moms who are no longer here and the people, those of us who are dealing with, you know, moms or mother, like, figures that are no longer here because, you know, there. There are a lot of those, too. Everybody wants to celebrate this day. It's Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day. And I know people in my life who've lost their mothers and, you know, recently or mothers who have lost children.

One of my good friends who passed away over the fall and, you know, just talking with his mom, it's. It's just. Can be a really hard day. And so I want to honor that. But most of all, I just want to end and land with this and spin it back to what I started with which is moms are the true champions of this world. I can't tell you how much I get to watch and the mother of my son and his grandmother and just all the people that I get to see, my cousins and watching the kids grow up in the way that people just do this mother thing without a real playbook and, you know, just trying to figure it out as they go along.

I just find it so amazing and fascinating, the instinctual kind of forces at play. You moms out there, you're the champions of this world. World. I'm so grateful for the many mom type figures in my life that have helped along the way. And that I get to interact with it really is a different skill. And I just appreciate it so much. So if that's you, this is your day, and I hope you got to celebrate and feel special because really, really, you are. And even if things haven't been that great, I told you that's the way I felt with my own mom.

Like, we're all just doing the best we can with what we have at the time, right? And, you know, sometimes that doesn't feel like it's enough. But we give ourselves grace and we know as we get into recovery, we'll do everything we can to kind of, you know, live out life and do it in a meaningful way in a way that, you know, we feel good about. So, so grateful. You're welcome, everybody. You all deserve all the praise. Moms of the world, again, I just think you're the real champions and I'm so grateful for everything that you do.

Grateful to be able to share with you on this lovely Mother's Day. And I think now I might actually go get a little cup of ice cream, just as I'm not a mom. But, you know, told you, my auntie, she's not here. I didn't really get to talk with her. So maybe I'll go have a conversation over, over some ice cream and end the day that way. So it's a beautiful day. Thank you all for chiming in and joining and participating. And again, if you're the mom out there, go you. If you've got moms, go them. If they're not here, still go them.

Sorry that you. You don't have this kind of special moment maybe like you once did, but they're always there. The memories are there and we keep honoring even long after people are gone. So I look forward to catching up with you all next week, doing this again. And until then, if you're in Minnesota, enjoy this wonderful week of weather talk soon.