The 4 Seasons Workshop at the 1st NM Indian AA Convention in Albuquerque, NM

When we come back from our break, we're gonna then talk about the medicine wheel's concepts and laws and how do they fit to steps Because then they make you want to look forward to doing the steps. So let's take about a 14 minute break. This really helps me a lot, but he does it in such ways that I never forget it. Like, he draws things on the ground and things. But when I was, talking to him about a problem one time and his one showed me, he said there's a 2 move.

There's 2 things that you need to know, where you are and where you're going. As soon as you have that, then everything can move. So you can't move if you just have this. You can't move if you just have that. You need to have them both.

But he said to me, he said, what you do too much, he said, is you asked the question why. He said, no. That's a different place. Why, he says, is like there. So what I really wanna know is where am I now in relationship to where I am going?

But he said, Don, he says, what you do? He says, you. Why did I do that? Why did that happen? Why?

He said, you do that. Why dance? He was giving me his drum like, why? Why? Why?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

And sometimes it'll cry for months. Sometimes for years. See, but that is that is a ego trick question. It is. See, the ego won't want you to grow.

It wants you to stay. It knows that if you get these two answers, you will grow and start to move. See, why is that insane question. I'm talking about in terms of moving. What happens if I know why?

Then they'll say, well, why that? Why? Then see, now you have to dance again. So when we come into these steps, it's about coming on that red road. So in step 1, you locate, and step 2, you create the vision.

And then you you it allows you to go on, you see, to the to the next steps. So does that make sense? But why? Why? Why?

Question, you know, we we we dance sometimes for a long time. We don't need to do that. But sometimes, people even guide us to that Hawaii dance too much. It's too much. See, we have in recovery, we have to get ourselves well so we can help our people, and we don't need to, you know, fly it, quiet our way there.

Yeah. Any questions on that? So do you think that you could, in this manner, personally do the first half of step 1? The mind map works pretty good because it triggers levels even, you know, if you take them out 2 or 3 levels, it's pretty easy to do in doing that work. Alright.

Then we wanna go on to the next exercise. And if you look in, this book on page 13, These questions there's 9 questions. These questions come out of the big book on page 52, And these are what's called from the paragraph called the unmanageability paragraph. So I'll just read it really quick and it says in this paragraph, somebody recognized it. It says, we have to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems the same readiness to change our point of view.

That's like the mouse and the eagle. Our readiness to change, look at it differently. Then it makes 9 statements. It says we were having trouble with personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional natures.

We were afraid of misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. We had a feeling of uselessness. We're full of fear. We were unhappy.

We couldn't seem to be a real help to other people. That's called the unmanageability paragraph. So all we've done is taken those statements, we're having trouble with personal relationships, and flip them into a question. Am I having problems with personal relationships? See, I need to locate in that area of unmanageability how what are the results currently going on in my life in the terms of relationships.

How am I doing? See, in that area. So what we want to do is to break into work groups again and do another mind map. So we want to, there altogether, there's 9 questions here. So we wanna break the men into 2 groups this time and the women into 2 groups.

So we would like the the men's group, we would like you to take a look at unmanageability in personal relationships. So and we want the group 1 of the women to also look at unmanageability in personal relationships. So one way, to do that is you take a look at relationships. Like, one way sometimes I look at the second part of step 1 is I say to myself, there's 9 islands. If I could look at my life that way, there's 9 islands.

1 is personal personal relationships. The second question says my emotional nature, full of fear, misery, depression. Let's say that I could get in a helicopter and I look at my island of personal relationships and that I could, like, from the point of view of the evil. So if I just get, like, in a helicopter and I say, today I'm gonna go look at I'm gonna observe me in relationships. So I get in a helicopter, go up in the air, I fly out to a little island that's got all the people I've been in relationships with, then I could just stop that helicopter, and I just looked down, and I could watch myself and another person.

So say it would be I would just, could hover over that. So I look at me and my children. Then I could move over just a little bit and look at me and my mate. Now look at me and somebody at work. And what I wanna look down and see is how am I managing that.

So you think back to your experiences. So since you and your spouse and you think back to like how you handle that. So you see them do something, then you watch you. How do you do it? Am I trying to maneuver them?

Am I trying to hit one of their buttons? Am I trying to make them, see, get pissed? Do I put fear in them? Am I withholding information? Do I give them the silent treatment?

See, I wanna take a look at what is going on there, see how do I do my children or whatever that relationship is. But when I observe it, I don't wanna see what are they doing only, What I'm really looking for, uh-huh, and when they did that, how am I reacting to what they're doing? Do I lie? Do I manipulate? Am I cheating?

Am I attacking them? Am I withholding? Do I get angry? Do I run? Do I attack?

How do I handle that conflict in relationships? Get the idea for that? I wanna look at me, my part of it. So you look at the whole thing and then so when you look at unmanageability in relationships then I want you to do a mind map on how are you reacting to what is going on there. See, I need to know what to own.

Now you say, yeah, but they're doing this. That's true. And what they're doing is unfair. That's true. But how are you reacting to what they are doing?

Doesn't matter what it is. And the thing is is to don't judge it, you know. Is this isn't about judging what's going on. It's just about observing it. We'll all be done.

See. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. See, I need to get an idea of how am I behaving and reacting, not the reasons, but I just need to see what my behavior is.

Does that make sense? The second question it says, we couldn't control our emotional nature. So that, you will see, isn't a question. How do I do my emotional nature? So what I wanna look at emotionally is when I'm in it, when I'm in that emotion then how do I react?

What do I do? So I would take that little helicopter ride and I would go to the next island. Emotional nature. So all that I would do is look at when I get over there, say one of my emotions is anger. So I'm with another person.

So I just watch. What do I do? See. I see it taking place. I get that tension feeling inside.

Slam the door, out the door I go. See. I won't talk. I come back and I look, because you don't talk for months. You won't say anything.

See, you freeze up. When you go and you retaliate, you know, how sometimes you'll be you'll leave a place or whatever and you sit in your car and I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna kick their ass and then we're gonna do this and we're gonna go down and I'm gonna trip and let the air of their tires and then I'm gonna I'm gonna go around and then I'm gonna you know, you just go fantasizing and all the stuff you're gonna do to them. You know how this could be a way that I react. How do I behave when a emotion is there? What happens when I'm happy?

See. Do I start to look around? Oh, no. When's the other shoe gonna drop? See, it can't stay like this.

So you get the idea of that? Just to look at some emotions and see how are we are we controlling it or is it controlling us? When I get angry, when I look at it, do I just have to do what it says? Do I make, like, after it's done, do I feel really shameful? Like after I run my lips or whatever, then after I make a little vow?

I'm not gonna do this again. I'm not gonna do this again. I promise. Then the next time, I do it again. See.

And then I feel more guilt and more shame. Or does it lead me to the drink or does it lead me to a drug? See, does it? How does that work? So, we would like if we can just get the men over here and the women over there, that would be the easiest.

Will you divide them into 2 groups then? And give one of them personal relationships and the other an emotional Here? I guess it's probably done for now, The one they did on the personal relations. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

We started out with our children, and I guess the first thing we have was a lot of fear. We were insecure about how we're raising them or, you know, the things that we're doing because often it wasn't right. Financial insecurity, which caused us to, sometimes make them feel guilty and shameful. Oh, you can't have this. You can't have that because we don't have this.

I think yet most of us can say we spent that money on other things. It caused them hardship. Our someone men mentioned that their own their stepchildren caused them to have, have, safety fears. Gave them a lot of double messages. Conditional love.

Didn't love them. They did something good or bad, you know, depending upon we we gave them our love depending upon what they were doing. It's very frustrating as a parent. Both of us could go back to our parents, didn't learn how to be those kind of parents. So there's a lot of frustration in that because anger, shame, guilt, remorse, and sadness, jealousy, abandonment, neglectful, selfish, trying to be perfect, abandon abandon them emotionally, intellectually, and physically, spiritually.

So we started that with our with our children like that. Some of the people didn't have have kids, but they said some of the same things with our parents. Where did we go from? No. We went to men.

We had 2 2 different things. Some of us with with relations with men, we chose men who are alcoholic. Other people chose men who are codependent, who are saviors, rescuers. In all of it, we're manipulative, try to change them, calm them, control them. Some people were super responsible because their alcohol didn't work.

There's a lot of emotional shutdown, a lot of pain, which which which, caused to act out. Very abusive, sex addicts, lies, stealing, having affairs, threatening, lot of fear of rejection. Someone fought as murder. Everybody. Tried to make them miserable and continually keeping confusion in the relationship.

Lots of confusion. Also very self righteous, Playing the victim to the tune there, playing mom, lots of fear. Trying to change them. Let's see. Where did we go from there?

I think we went to you guys with to ourselves? How we felt for ourselves, how we reacted to ourselves. We were very fearful, disappointed in our behaviors and actions, led to a lot of shame and guilt, felt inferior to others, low self esteem, gross, lot of self pity. Why is this happening to me? Bewildered.

What is happening to me? Confused, suicidal, lot of anger, and self hate towards ourselves. Towards our creator, a lot of us said that it was nonexistent. There was no no feeling of a creator. A Lot of fear, lot of aloneness, real big about any kind of relationship that there may be, testing how powerful that that person might be, mistrustful, ambivalent, uncaring, a punishing, anger, sense of loss, powerless, undeserving, and unworthy.

Part of that was was, it that that the things that we had done, the things that we had experienced, the how we were, caused us to caused us to, be real mistrustful and and believe that no matter what we're going to help, no matter what, there was gonna be no higher power that was gonna help us because of the things that we had done the way that we were. Towards the parents, the relationship with the parents' reactions, a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, Abusive. Neglectful. And abusive, emotionally, spiritually, physically, sexually. There's a lot of double messages, a lot of conditional love.

We found that it was real generational with the children, generational dysfunction and abandonment. A lot of the same things in our relationship with the children are there with our relationship with the parent. For the employer, out to get me never satisfied, became workaholics, r r, perfectionist, lied, skipped work, stole money, jealous of coworkers, irresponsible, self justified, just not putting in what whatever it was that we were supposed to do. Most of them probably got fired somewhat way down the line. We went ahead at the at the end since there were some time and tried to think about how we were today, And with with ourselves, forgiving, nurturing, self respect, learning or teachable, willing to learn, and accepting.

Someone still self recriminating for days, still. And with our creator, understanding, openly accepting, loving, kind, forgiving, strong, not alone, prayerful, Try to learn the lessons as they come. People say it was their best friend. They felt very loved, and it was awesome. Also, still that willful, that self will, which causes an unmanageability in certain areas of our lives.

Same mistake gets, done over and over, and a lot of shame and guilt over that. What do you think? There's a lot of Yeah. I think I'm gonna just stay repashing the whole stuff. Well, let me see.

The relationship between step 12 is what? Is it Where are we now? In relationship to where are we going? So if we have all that perfection in the first step, there's no need to go on and say this now. Maybe that's Everything's totally gliding.

I'm walking with them also. So you're listing your perfection is causing you unmanageability? Is that what this is? We're looking at the second half of the first step as we're looking at unmanageability. So are these issues causing unmanageability in your life?

Yes. Can perfectionism cause unmanageability? Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

So what was your question? So what you're looking at in that step is when I look at the results in my life today, these are the results. This is what's in the water coming from the lake. These are the results that I see. Does that make sense?

These are the results that I am experiencing. That's the best I've seen in terms of looking at the results of what can can happen just in, you know, in personal relationships. Because it just drives you nuts trying to, you know, in a very, very time consuming, energy consuming loss of sleep, just feeling insane and powerless and trying to whatever. Could we have the men do theirs on, relationships? George.

George. The group of men that I sat with, we centered ourselves with ourselves. We started ourselves. Looking down in the view of a helicopter, we tried to examine how we felt and how we viewed things during the past due to the. Because of guilt, self hatred, resentment, lack of confidence, self self will, Self, comment on self confidence.

Control of of our emotions are always mostly out of control. Okay. With that in mind, we moved to our family life, which whether it be wife or girlfriend. And there we discussed the possibilities of a financial situation. There was never enough money for me, my beer.

What the hell? You don't need no more diapers. Use a handkerchief. Very gay, very I'm going on. Very gay, very selfish on the money.

Withdrawn. Didn't wanna share anything with anybody. The reason for getting drunk because the wife was always nagging at me. Her wife was always nagging. Sexual relationship, it was either too much or not enough or it never Not trusting.

A lot of jealousy when you when you're drunk and you're carrying on some other man looks at her, you're gonna get much jealous of him. Not her, but him. Like the thing. Anger. Like, it comes all anger.

Then I moved over to the our relationship with our children, and there was a lot of not any support physical support as they're working on school projects. I couldn't be bothered with that. I'm speaking for the group. And when I say I, I mean, it's a group. Couldn't be bothered with it.

Just we sit in pick up, get drunk, and go in there, spend time with you. Quality time is at snow now. There's pool projects. What else have we appear? Pardon me?

It is what I'm trying to get to in here. Just just ignore them. They were just a piece of furniture that was in the way. Get the hell out of the way. I don't have time to bother with Then we got on down to our parents and how we sort of looked at them.

There was a lot of anger. We were jealous, rebellious. We, defined them that no matter what what they said, they were wrong. Another reason, go get drunk or skip school or whatever age group we happen to be at the time. We touched on love.

A big exclamation point should be a big question mark there on the cloud. Love love was there, but we couldn't show it. And this goes for the children and and the wife or girlfriend environment. It was there. We had a vast ass backward ways of showing that.

It just didn't work. It just didn't work. We moved over to coworkers and employers. There, there was a lot of jealousy involved, back stabbing, creating turmoil turmoils to try to get ahead in the political game in any corporate or industry level. The big head, I always knew more than the other one, so I have to get paid more type of thing.

Mhmm. Which ended up into disputes with the with the administration getting fired. Getting transpired. Yeah. Neighbors in the community life.

We've always had disputes, trespassing. Turn your horses loose. Let them feed on the neighbor's apple trees. He won't care. Anger, disagreement, fear, self self will against in in in the, community.

I personally was in small community of edge with about 20 22 years out there. I couldn't be bothered with them. I couldn't go vote on the name to change the name of the post office or any of that stuff. That was my personal experience with the community. My neighbors, I ignored them until I needed something.

Then I called them. Friends. Friends, I think we could sort of classify as neighbors in the community, although I had no friends in my neighborhood. Again, I'm speaking for myself. All my friends were somewhere else because they knew that they had no way.

Yeah. One thing that I I feel that we should have touched on, we didn't apologize. I mean, we neglected what the ladies did. I thought up here the creator. That was a good one.

Just blew we just blew past it. It just blew past us. Any questions in there? No. Right.

Is there any questions on that? On that one? I think it's really good we're looking at this gender wise. This feels very comfortable. I think so.

Yes. I felt like, looking at the unmanageability of my life back in my dreaming days was, not nearly so useful may have been focused on today. How is my life unmanageable? Or now that I don't drink, and my system, my life suddenly become manageable? And, or, you know, can I now manage my life in sobriety?

And, that that exercise seems to me would have been more, helpful. Today, to help me, acknowledge, yeah, my life is a manageable today. So and those that because and you know, what am I gonna do about the person I was 8 years ago? The person I'm trying to work, today in this place. So that evidence from the intangibility, you know, through the stuff today.

It's it's nice to look at at too from 8 or 10 years ago. Well, the purpose of that is to give a format that you can go do it personally. Somebody who's in maybe 6 months or a year, they will have that. If you're sober longer you probably will have you tend to have as almost as much, but you would have different content in it, but still be an issue. Yeah, or degree of that.

You had something? Think of that even people know that gender wise. I know that I can relate to most of the things that are on the on the male side as well. It is just I think a part of it is just what we look at first. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Because I can relate to it. I mean, that's it. And I I know about the things that are Take that. It's just a It's just a matter of of what we pull out first and we're going through what we feel first, that immediate reaction, you know, and then get down to all those cognitive issues issues are all all there as oncologist.

I guess that's what makes us all oncology when we go to meetings and relate to each other. Yeah. As relationship with this painting. But it's it's need to be Okay. Can we have the woman who did the one on emotional nature?

We couldn't control our emotional nature. What we started with was the image of the volcano. Thinking of it in several different levels, and this bottom level, we thought were our childhood or real, primitive or early, emotions that all got together in here, and there are good ones and bad ones. Unworthiness, powerlessness, ecstasy, joy, love, guilt, our spirituality, the neglect, abandonment, terror, violation, and trauma that we suffered, fear, shame, inadequacy, trust, hope, and rage, and the image being that this is all under their boiling away. And the the mountain itself of the volcano volcano is all those things which we put around ourselves to protect us from all those feelings underneath and all those motives underneath.

And what we get is, sex what we came up with in here was development religious, esteem or low self esteem, substance abuse, promiscuity, codependency, accomplishments, greed, envy, and all these and this is our our river of denial here. And all these things will will also cause cracks. These are things are made up. Our mountain is made up of these things, but they all also break out of our river denial and cause cracks and violation. But while we're still under pressure here, different things come out.

And our masks come out. Our masks covering ourselves, codependency walls, emotional walls, anger, depression, traumatism, physical ailments. On the top of the list is PMS. Migraine, stomach, ulcers, vision problems, cancer, lines on our face, gray hair, diabetes, overweight, arthritis, anorexia, bulimia, nervous ticks. We've become lonely.

We are isolated. We have self pity. We use creative creativity as an outlet let of these emotions, but good things can come from that. Escapism, manipulation, religious fanaticism as as opposed to spirituality, shopping, soap operas, sex, gambling, the need to have things, possessions, pulling us in. We become overachievers or underachievers.

We run, we are spiritually bankrupt at that time. We use charm, we enable, and we take care of people. And this this is what's happening. And the result of which is when our temperature being here on the side goes up and it blows, we can experience evil in our lives through others and through ourselves. And we at that point, we become spiritual suicide in our lives, strange mental blank spots, uncontrolled rage, binge eating, or all kinds of obsession, psychotic breaks, total recklessness, irresponsibility, screaming, unhealthy relationships, basically entire breakdowns of all member that emotional Feel like this this is done by the 2nd grade compared to that one.

Best angle on this. I think what we did was we started this how good are we at controlling our emotional natures and we started off, it seemed like, with today and kind of digressed or kind of, like, moved into years ago in drinking and drugs, and so it covers all territory. And we start with anger and, we couldn't control that very well. Out of anger, all sorts of things came. Let's see.

Anger, resentment, jealousy, shame, guilt, envy, suicide, child abuse, moodiness, spitefulness, violence, abuse, all sorts of health issues, stress, depression, and one of the first things that was stated was anger as a cover for fear, and so you're in a fearful area that you can't control when you're in that anger area. We had rage, loss of control, and then that went into all of the things that might be said, which started out with fuck you. I don't give a damn. I hate you, I never wanna see you again, I'm leaving or get the hell out, and then you've been replaced. Let's see.

That was all in anger. We had greed, gambling, fraud, workaholism, dishonesty, stealing, conning, lying. We have love, sex, places. I'm still I'm not sure what that meant. We'd love places, I think.

Bars. Yeah. The bars, etcetera. Life, addiction, abuse, insecurity, security, drinking, drugs and booze. We then we had excitement.

These are all the ones that were listed. From excitement was danger, wild and crazy behavior, risk taking, violence, theft, and adrenaline, and open mindedness and closed mindedness, then jealousy, envy, insecurity, self pity, violence, loss of loss of conscience, and jail, and then fear and sadness were were true. Alright. So that does that make sense when you take a look at unmanageability of those certain areas? You guys, this this is really good.

I mean, it and I know accumulative, it doesn't mean everyone has to have every one of these. But it's to give an idea of which one is is mine that's causing, issues. So any questions on that as a as a process of how to look at the first half of step 1, the unmanageability? Alright. Now I'd like you to go back in the same work groups.

And what I'd like you to do this time is take that information. So remember the relationship between step 1 and step 2. So in this area of personal relationships is step 1, so then to create that vision in relationships. So in other words, if I take that information from step 1, now I'm going to take that unmanageability and build a vision. So the question is, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore me to be they didn't change?

Am I willing to believe that there's a power? She came to believe that a power grader could. So what would be the picture or the image or the mind map of how I would be in that relationship, whether they changed or not? And not asking the question, well, how would the Creator do that or when is He gonna do it, but does the power exist to make me that way? You take a look at these emotional natures, you do the same thing, where you have anger and all of those normal reactions.

So you take that emotion and and you build that vision. How would you have you be? See, we're really looking at the development and step 2 of the being, not the doing. We are human we are spiritual beings. Right?

We are human beings, not human doings. So he really set the vision in step 2 to to put in the vision the Being. Now you know, if I just take a look at myself, say I really have a temper and I'm really angry and I know that, so say that my mind map I, you know, I write that out anger, I'm jealous, I attack, I you know, whatever. So then I take that to step 2 and I start to create that vision. Well, what would it look like if we didn't have one?

Well, I'd be very patient, I would be understanding, I'd be kind. Then there's there's little people, like when you write steps they come the little people, about this tall. So you'll start to write and say, I've got a temper and I'm angry or whatever. So I'll start to write, Well, I could see if it was working, I'd be very very patient and I'd be tolerant. That's when little people come, they hop up and they tug on your ear and they say, Who you trying to shit?

Patient. Yeah. Right. See? So you gotta kinda snap the little people off.

Right? So all of step 2 is done outside of the current belief system. This is very, very important. All of step 2 is always done outside of the current belief system. It's in the land of impossibilities beyond what you can any way ever possibly see through the world's greatest whatever.

So it's all done out here. It's beyond your belief system. So all step 2 work is done beyond the belief system. So came to believe that a power greater than myself could, say I was an angry person, temper, made me gentle, kind, loving, be patient. So very often you build it, you have to snap off the little people.

Right? Because they whisper in your ear, you strange shit. Right? You be patient, kind of intolerant. Right.

You've been in this way for 4 years. But do not get trapped by the question of how is it gonna happen. See, don't worry about that. Or when when is that one gonna happen? Right?

So I want you to take those back into the same groups. Yes. Oh, go ahead. And just to build that vision so what you'll end up doing is creating that vision in those two areas that we're using, for example, personal relationships, emotional nature, and build out mind map visions for step 2. Yes.

Well, when you get the relationship, if I'm ask seeing your question right, let's just say Well, the reason I ask is because this That's the instruction in sets inventory. Yeah. But I well, what I do is just take that and try to get these rollers. Well, the way that I look at if you take a look at the steps, it's very precise on what to do. Every instruction is there is how I look at that.

Because if you take a look at, the current reality, what's going on now and you create that vision, what the steps do, it's it's why the vision you set in step 2 becomes your, spiritual awakening in step 12 because the rest of the steps sort out the blockages, all the character defects that are standing between you and that ideal that you set. And it's a spiritual process that starts to reveal that. So suppose that I don't own something up there. Suppose I leave it out. Right?

It doesn't show up. It's whatever I own set the vision for, then that is where the conflict occurs to reveal where the blockages are so I don't see it. It's very, very powerful. You grow very powerfully, very quickly, and very sound. It's a conflict guiding system.

Right? This this is the conflict that created me a system of harmony, so it's a system of conflict through the steps gives you the harmony. It will show you the blockages. You leave it out and don't own it, you're not gonna see it. You cannot fix that which you don't admit is broke.

It's like you can't give away what you don't have, you know, instead of a number of different ways. So if you could go back into your same work groups and create that vision of step 2. If you need to take those sheets with you, feel free to take Now we also know that the principle for step 2 is hope. So the first, the principle for step 1 is honesty, be honest. Recognize, acknowledge, recognize, acknowledge that whatever is going on this is me that's going on.

So what you would have when you finish step 12, you'd have these 9 areas in step 1, then you take that and you create these 9 areas of the vision in step 2 just like you did. You just did 2 of them. Now why is it that it turns out to be the Principle of Hope? So we want to explain that very quickly. The creative subconscious has 2 other functions.

1 of its second functions is to solve and to resolve problems. That's one of his functions. Anytime I give it a problem, it has to go solve it. And the third function it has is to turn on my drive or the energy system. So I have every time I give my mind a problem, it turns on an energy system to solve that problem.

So I have a creativity system inside of my mind and an energy system. So the human being is always designed to have order in its life. Order in the life means that whatever I picture in here, I see it outside. So let's just say that I was born with my fingers together. That's the way I was born.

Then one morning I wake up and the alarm clock goes off, and I reach out and shut the alarm clock off and it goes, That's when I noticed it. See? In my mind, my fingers are supposed to be together and they're apart. So our energy system kicks on and I I have to go and restore it back to order. Now I have order in my life.

See? So it's always working to restore order. So let's say I live in this house for 50 years. Let's say I live in it for 15 years. And then all of a sudden, somebody gives me idea, I had to paint the house.

Now all this time nothing's bothered me. So what they do is through my senses, they start I start to paint a picture inside of my house, what would that house look like if it was painted. So over a period of time, I will create a new vision inside of my mind of this house. It's gonna be blue, and it's gonna have white trim, and it's gonna be a picket fence. So I get the idea in my mind of the end result.

So I create inside of myself a vision. Now what happens as soon as I get that vision inside say I come driving up to the house one day and I pull in the driveway or whatever, and I look at it and I go, Jesus, look at that. Wreck. Who could live in such a thing? The paint's peeling and even the doors are cracked.

So what happens is I when I put the vision in, then I become discontent with the old. All of a sudden I notice where it's broke, so it's a complex system kicks in. When, this created subconscious, what it does is anytime it sees a difference so when I have a picture of the house that is blue and it's got white trim and it's painted, and I look at it, I have just given myself a problem. A problem is any time what I see out here is different from here. So it turns on an energy system, a creativity system.

So I take vacation, I go to the hardware store, I get the paint, I get the bushy as I come home. See, I set everything up and I start painting Monday, Monday night, Tuesday, Wednesday night. Anybody comes along, I give them a brush. Pry, I'll paint. Get here.

Scrape here. Do this. Paint Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Then Sunday afternoon, I'll take the last stroke of the brush, I step back and I look at the house. Pictures match.

That house out there looks like how the picture is and you just go It claps right on the lawn. I couldn't have went another day. Am I glad I finished it now? No. If there was another day of painting, your energy system would have stayed intact.

So you get the idea? Now what happens in step 2? 1st you look at unmanageability. You look at the old house, then you go to step 2 and you start looking at this vision of myself. I see myself to be spiritual, patient, tolerant, kind, having courage.

See. So I start to put that idea inside of my house. Now what happens? I put that possibility of that vision in step 2. It turns on a problem solving system and it gives me the drive and the energy to go to step 3.

I can't wait to do 4. I gotta do 5. I wanna do 6. I wanna do the amends. Because you're working off an energy system.

That's why step 2 is a principle of hope. Hope means I create do you really think I could be that way? See? But you look at yourself and you're not. And that's what you want.

Is you want to create the discontent. Get the idea of that? That's why you do step 2 with that vision. And then once you get that vision, you see when you remember in step 11 where it says, Be careful resting on your laurels? What that means is the pictures match.

When the pictures match your energy system shuts down and you're resting on laurels. You might be setting yourself up for a drunk. See? It's when the pictures match. So what we're doing in this process is to put this vision inside to turn on an energy system to look forward to doing the next step.

I can't wait. See? So instead of trying to avoid meetings and doing that, you just start gathering information. I want to grow. I want to do this.

But there's an an energy system inside also is turned on. Does that make sense? All right. Let's see what some of these visions are. Let's take this one here first.

This one is on what is this personal relationships? Yeah. Yeah. Could we do this one? See what's really nice too about this one, it even has a vision, a picture, and branches, and so when the mind sees that, the mind gets all excited and some of the things that are freedom, harmony, laughter, wisdom, serenity, balance, love, joy, caring, purpose, and here's integration, connectedness, selflessness, purpose, clearlessness, growth, intuition, dreams, financial security, and goes down into the root spiritual growth and our mother, the earth.

Unconditional love, creativity, peace, songs, sincerity, opportunity, patience, kindness, respect, humility, consciousness, reality, celebration, spontaneity, courage, hope, sharing, and play. I have an affirmation. Really? I celebrate my life. I am a courageous, strong, connected, worthy woman.

Joyfully, abundantly, sharing my gifts from the creator. Alright. Now I see you think those hard statements like that's why affirmations also work. Because when you say that with that emotion, I see myself as a strong woman, whatever. And when you feel that going in, you create that new image and it turns on an energy system.

That's just an excellent, excellent, way to look at that step. If you say that every day it turns on more energy, and more energy, and more energy. See? And it just continues to drive always for that picture. Now remember we talked about the Medicine Wheel Treatings that says there are 2 worlds that exist, seen world, unseen world.

Both are run by a set of principle laws and values. If I design my being or conduct my thinking in harmony with those principal laws and values, there's certain results I will see in my life. So if I develop my being, serenity, wisdom, caring, humor, spontaneity. That's it. That's it.

You see? So as we go through rest of the steps and remove those blockages, and all of a sudden you come out to see that's sweetie were all along. Then this is the one that drives. So the creative subconscious, as you develop that picture, maintains sanity. You must be like that new picture.

So anytime you act dishonest, tension will occur in your system. You know, correct for the mistake to get you back to be honest. If you don't care, see, you know, correct so you got you're just naturally caring. So it's a way step 2 always comes out that way to align with those principles that the Great Spirit gave to us. As you live like this, you're going to have good results.

Okay? Could we have, this group here? My name is Bert. I'm an alcoholic. Alright.

With the thought that we have created all these problems and most of these subjects, have got the problems because of what we did and that we must change our thoughts and that to grow spiritually we must grow downwards inside ourselves and cut some of these off. We create the circle with a vision, a wheel with a vision of self restored and address the subject of peace, action, love, freedom, realistic self appraisal, tolerance, affection, respect, honesty, in harmony with creation, getting on the terms of work instead of on bad terms of idle. Creativity. Being spiritually aware. Defendant and truth and true friendship with defendant, Sharing, having a good God relationship, and again, being able to change and having the willingness to change.

And, most important, the lack of self, addressing, our ego, trying to get rid of our ego. Happiness, forgiveness, and finally, trying to have decent moral. And that's as far as we go. I find it not easy. Thank you very much.

Alright. And sometimes step 2 is not easy because we're not used to thinking that way. But that's why it's good you do it in a group level. Those associations start to help us see because you really want to do a good job in step 2, so you don't cheat yourself in step 12. As long as you didn't do the work, what the hell?