The steps 4 through 9 at the workshop "Carry This Message: 12 steps and sponsorship" at The Firing Line Group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Minneapolis, MN

Roger Alcoholic.

OK, Tonight we're going to go

a quick dance through 1011 and 12. And before

we begin that, I want to talk a little bit about what we've been talking about for the last three weeks up to this point. Up through the nine steps, the first nine steps in the program recovery, I've been dealing with my past. It's all past tense, old behavior, old harms done to other people, old ideas,

old concepts, old beliefs,

old definitions. And in the process of those first nine exercises, I start practices of new ideas and developing some new concepts and having some different experiences. So when we get the 10:11 and 12:00, we're in the present tense. These are steps that I do now, today, in this moment. And it only concerns me. I'm only concerned with this, this moment, the now present tense right now.

And

there is a some of this I'm going to read a little bit because

it's good to have the context. I think it's good to have the context and, and one of the most,

well, you know, when they're talking about the promises,

there's, there's a,

there's conditions on this stuff and the condition on the promises as if I'm painstaking about this phase, the restitution phase of my recovery. If I'm painstaking, then those promises will come true. And it says sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. And that's because sometimes I'm not so painstaking and I'm lazy and it comes slower, OK,

But going down the

after the promises,

it says are these extravagant promises, We don't think so. They're being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They'll always materialize if we work for them. And the way I work for them is I practice not being who I used to be.

And while I'm cleaning up my past, I don't know for you guys, but I have,

I have some amends that will be going on

the rest of my life. And I had years and years of mess to clean up. It wasn't like, you know, I got here and I thought, well, I'll do my restitution now and I'll be done with that in a couple months and I can move on. I mean

I'm to be doing 1011 and 12 while I'm cleaning up the past. Reason being, if you've done

some

I don't. I don't know what the word is I'm looking for.

I'm not talking about the kind of amend where it's like, how are you 20 bucks? Here's 20 bucks, we're cool. I'm talking about the kinds of amends where I have to go back and I have to think how I've harmed you. What is the exact nature of my wrong towards you. Then I refill it

and it's not an upper.

It's not a good time. Then I also have to bounce this off some people that I trust to see if I do this amendment the way I'm planning to. It won't injure you more, create more dissonance. So that's a process that

can be really taxing emotionally. And if I'm going to stop and wait till all my amends are done to pro ceed,

I won't have the juice to do it. The juice is in today, it's in this moment, it's in now, it's in 1011 and 12. So they go on and they say they'll always materialize if we work for them. And this thought that they'll materialize if I work for them brings me to 10,

which is continued inventory,

vigilance, Watch what I'm thinking. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. There's the instruction. So now I know what I'm supposed to do after I get out of my morning meditation chair with my coffee and whatever else I have going on where I get really screwed into the God idea in the morning. Now I got to go out there and I got to be with all of you, which is a challenge. And it says watch for those things, Selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, fear. When they crop up,

there's a promise we don't talk about a lot.

They're promising me that it's going to happen. So don't be surprised. Don't be disappointed. It doesn't mean you're getting an F in recovery. It just means you're human and your flaws are going to present. And when they do, you ask God to remove it. Talk to someone immediately to see if you don't amend. You make the amend if you need to and then you resolutely turn your thinking to someone you can help.

It's always the solution is to turn to someone I can help you. Remember Bill's story He's saying when everything, when nothing else worked, I go down to the hospital and I work with a guy and I was amazing and lifted up on my feet. Why? Because the root of my problem itself is self centeredness. And when I stop to be there present for you, I'm relieved of that bondage of me because I'm not thinking about me for the hour and a half I'm sitting with you. I'm thinking about geez, I'm glad I'm not him

and what because I'm willing to sit with you.

I can also remember and refill what it was like, so I never forget what it was like to be new because I'm always sitting with guys that remind me of Maine.

But there's a blessing in that also because I can see how far I've been brought as well. So they're always going to direct me to do this. They say not an overnight matter. Practice, practice, practice for a lifetime,

for a lifetime. And if you look at that exercise, if I'm looking for and all this is all the inventory stuff is consciousness raising, it makes me more aware of not what I'm doing, what I'm thinking,

what I'm thinking, what am I being? And

it tells me if I've done this, if I've oh, I'm about to lie, I've inventory principle of Step 4.

It says talk to someone immediately. Principal of Step 5, accountability and honesty, ask God to remove it. Principle of 6:00 and 7:00

not my business and I'm powerless. OK, resolutely turn my thoughts to someone I can help get out of self, be useful to others. Principle of 11 and 12. Now why did I do that? Because I made a decision in step three to turn my thinking of my actions in the direction of these steps, this power, this God idea. And I did that because I came to believe in the necessity of it in Step 2. And I did that because I recognize that I'm powerless and I can't manage my life in step one. So you see, if I'm going to

this exercise for a lifetime, I'm in the steps. I mean all of the steps in principle. And I need to be in all of them in principle to stay plugged in to the juice, the God stuff, to keep reminding me what is mine and what is yours. Where does my stuff stop and where is the God stuff begin? So write any prayer, discernment,

show me what I need to be, and then give me the power. Now that you give me the direction, give me the power to do that. Because frankly, I'm not too interested in how you're feeling today. I'm more interested in how I'm feeling. So there's who that's a miraculous event right there when my attitude shifts. And I do it anyway. Not necessarily because I'm virtuous or want to be a great guy or even care about you, but because I know it's a thing I'm supposed to do.

I'm supposed to be available,

to be used as an instrument, and if it helps find, if it doesn't, it will serve me.

I will always sense the presence of my creator in that exercise.

Good doc.

You know, coming through step 9, we've,

we've walked through the really the disaster of our lives and the disaster of our attitudes and thoughts. And, and there's some really good reasons for that. One is it helps us gain some perspective. And that's something that that we don't have until we get to this point. And, and the reason that that's so important is because from here on out, we're going to need a perspective to, to make some decisions and they get some sense of what,

what direction our life and it needs to go in.

The other thing is kind of like I mentioned last week and Roger just mentioned, without an awareness, you can't change anything. You know, if I'm not aware that I have it, nothing's going to change. So that has to come first

and it and it's kind of like,

you know, God's kind of doing for us here, kind of the same thing that happens when we go to our sponsor and we say go and explain all the things that are happening in our lives and we feel like we're revealing this to our sponsor. Well, the truth of the matter is

we're not revealing it to our sponsor at all. Our sponsor of these any good at all already knows it

because he's experienced and he can see that by our attitudes that we're going to do exactly the same way. So it's not, not a question of us telling our sponsor what's going on in our lives. It's a question of us stating what's going on in our lives that our sponsor knows that we know.

It's a, it's a, it's a self-awareness kind of thing. If I tell you what's going on with me now, we both know that I know what's going on with me.

And that's, that's part of that's part of what's happening here. The other thing is that that what we've gone through are all of the roadblocks that stand between US and God. We hopefully, if we've been diligent about what we've done, we've looked at all the things, all the attitudes, all the actions that we have in our lives that have stood between our relationship between US and God and us and the people around us

and, and we've gained some awareness of that. So we know what to look for in the future.

So we know what to look for and when we realize we need help. And, and the other thing is that earlier in the book, it talks about being rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence. And, and it that used that phrase used to baffle me for a long time until Roger and I were actually doing a study on a guy by the name of Butterwork Butterworth, a book that he wrote and and he spelled it out right in there.

And the way it works is this. The first dimension is the physical dimension. That means that's when we

feel cold or we feel hot or that kind of thing. The next dimension is the emotional dimension, and that's fear, anger, those kinds of things. The third dimension is the intellectual. That's where we get our resentments. And the 4th dimension is a spiritual dimension, and the spiritual dimension uses the information from all the other three, but all the decisions are based on spiritual principle.

So in the first nine steps, really what we're doing is walking through those other 3 dimensions

in our lives and seeing how they work or don't work,

see what kind of information is there. And now having done that, having practiced that, having gained that perspective, we're in a position now to practice living in the 4th dimension, practice living on the idea that, yeah, I feel as scared today as I did a long time ago, but my decision making is different. I respond differently to that fear or yeah, I pick up a resentment just as easily as I did before I got drunk. But

today, my decision making around that resentment is much, much different. I see it from a different perspective and I respond to it in a much, much different way. So this is kind of a, as Roger said, now we're going to really get into into the present. We've reviewed the past and hopefully we've learned from it. We've seen the roadblocks that we put up ahead of us ourselves. And now we're going to start looking at being able to,

to deal with those roadblocks when we put them up right away

and build that relationship with our higher power.

Emmett Fox talks about spiritual conversion experience in four stages. Admission, which is what our first step is, submission, which is US, Ego deflation at depth, which is 2 through 7. And restitution is the third phase, 8:00 and 9:00. And then in In Fox's vernacular, the 4th

stage is construction of a new life.

Not a reconstruction, not a rebuilding,

but constructing a new life. And that was really good news for me because

when you talked about being restored,

you know, that means like you were

at some point in the past before all this stuff happened. I don't ever have a restoration point that I desire to go to. You know, when I looked at my life, I mean, as far back as I can remember as a kid, I just God, I was, I don't want to be restored to anything. But when I got this other idea, you're going to build something new, you're going to get something new. You know, the book talks about it is their expression is we're reborn, new slate,

new slate. The problem is, is it doesn't look like that because we're dragging pieces

of our old ideas, our favorite things that are usually the most toxic for us to hold onto. We let those kind of play in the background. Usually it's a money sex thing or, you know, some, some something that God would have no interest in, you know, and I just want to keep an option open for me, you understand, in case I get too restless, need something

to take the edge off, you know.

So

when I to put this in context of working with guys, when I work with guys and they're new, it doesn't say to do this, but I have them do this right away while we're getting ready to go through the steps and we're qualifying and getting to know each other. I say start doing this right away. And, and you're going to, you're going to need to write it down, get a little spiral pad and carry it around with you and watch for this stuff during the day. And the ones that do it are

are pretty impressed

with how sick they are. And that's a good thing, because if I can be impressed with how sick I am, that translating translates into a necessity that starts building in me to find an additional power, a power other than me. So this is kind of like encourage him to be desperate, encourage him to see how screwed up their life really is and let him, let him find the, the evidence for themselves, you know, so, so I have him write it, you know, and they,

they generally don't like it,

but the ones that do it really, it's really a valuable exercise. They go kind of, am I going to have to do this the rest of my life? I said, no, no, no. After a while, it will be part of the way you think. But right now it's not, it's very contrary to the way you think. So we're going to stop and deliberately think about each question and idea and write it out. And then we'll talk about, about mistakes that were made during the day and, and we'll see what corrections might be indicated. But all of this just raises my awareness

of how pathetic I am.

But it's it's, it's commonly confused with the next step because people I need to do 11 step on that. No, you need to do a tenth step. That's what you do between the morning discipline and the evening discipline. Is this idea. In the old days they used to call it spot check inventory as you're going through the day. Check, check, check. I have guys I work with and I said every couple hours, just going to the employee bathroom, put yourself in the stall and reflect on the last couple hours.

Just stop and reflect. It's so contrary to the way our ego wants us to be in the world,

wants us to go, go, go, go, do do do do. Make it happen. Make it happen quick now 5 minutes ago.

So it's a valuable exercise. And they say do this

for the rest of your life, Just do that. Which leads you to the next discipline, which is the prayer and meditation component, the 11th step. So they tell you how to start the day and they tell you what to do when you get into the day and you get scared. Indecision. What does it say? Says pause

and ask for an intuitive thought or direction. It doesn't say start up again.

It says pause. So if I got a question about something that's going on with you and I'm about to pull the trigger, you know, I'm famous for shooting now and aiming later. And I'm about to pull the trigger and I remember I'll pause. Pause. Oh, yeah. OK, I'm pausing. I'll just plan a different way to kill you. You know, I'm positive. But what do I do in that pause? I'm supposed to invite

a higher idea in

God if you want, higher power if you want. So what I learned was I thought I was

a bag of reactions. You did this, I did this, you did this, I did this, you did this, I did this. And there was no space between the stimulus and the response. I was just a little pinball. And people would say, you know, that's just the way he is. I would say that's just the way I am because it was the way I always was when I found out from this process and slowing this down is

those were automated responses. Those are things we all have. These

usually connected to a series of ideas that we call beliefs

that when you press B3, I go to B3 and after you do that long enough, it's automated. I don't even it's not even conscious. I'm in that situation. Oh, I feel uncomfortable. Boom, here comes the five options to disrupt the room and I don't even have to think about it. And what this said it actually a non alcoholic helped me with this.

The metaphor used was a gap, and in that gap between stimulus

and response, a reaction in my case was a space. And what we do with prayer meditation is we increase that space

and invite God in, and then we can choose a response instead of a reaction. Reaction I got no control over. It's hardwired. It feels hardwired. But what I've learned from this exercise is that it's not it. It seems like it. The appearance is like that. But I find out occasionally I am successful. I stop, I pause, and something else happens instead of what I thought was going to happen. Sometimes for years, all I could do is just the pause was shut up.

Just don't do any of the things that are coming to your mind. Remove yourself from the room. Because if I didn't remove myself from the room I was going to have at you, I just had to move, get away. And you know, eventually I got some insights from that's really hard when you sponsor yourself to do much, to do much growing in those areas. So it was really trial and error for me, but that's why I started learning.

There is a space there. Now it becomes a choice.

And what all this 10th and 11th step stuff is talking about is what are you choosing from?

What's your palate? If you're choosing from selfish self centeredness, you've got anger, you've got fear, you've got anxiety, you've got resentment, you've got intimidation,

violence,

all different kinds of force. If I choose from a recovery palette or a God idea, I've got

patience tolerance. Patience Intolerance will always work.

You could. That's a go to card for me. Just practice patience and tolerance, Jesus

usefulness, prayer, meditation and

kindness,

or just the umbrella of love.

Practice. And what I practice out of comes with its own set of consequences.

I'm not punished for what I do, I'm punished by what I do.

This concept, if we are all of the same source, we all of one creation,

we all have the same Father, the same creator, then we're all related.

And this idea of resentment being poisoned to me, for me to hold you in that place, I have to be down with you. So what I do to you, I do to me. It's a law. It just is so and so when I sit with you and I'm kind and I'm loving and I'm patient, that is done to me. It's not mysterious. I've been doing it to me my whole life,

thinking it was you doing it to me.

I was punished by my actions. I was punished by my thinking, not for it. Built in, built in. And you know that from your own experience. As I turn myself and I start doing these steps, different things start happening. Takes time to see him because there's usually such a pile of crap from the days we were drinking that it takes some time to dig out from under all those old consequences and stuff. But eventually you start going. You know,

I have to admit, things are changing. Things are changing. There are some areas here that are getting better. And curiously, the areas that aren't getting better, the ones I'm ignoring,

I wonder if there's a connection there

talking about step 10. And, and

I'm, I'm a list maker by nature and, and I can make lists and I love to organize things. And matter of fact, my sponsor asked me one time. He said, once you get aid organized, then what are you going to do? And I didn't have an answer for him, but so he kind of got my attention that way. But it, but anyway, when I, when I got to step 10 for the first time, I made this enormous project out of it and put together this whole list of consulted all kinds of literature to come up with the right inventory questions and, and put it together.

This was before personal computers and, and so I took it down to the local print shop and had them typeset it and put it in pads and they, you know, I had this whole case of stuff and I think I used about two of those and that was the end of that. But today

really all I do when it was a ten step is is this and is to say actually up until today is to say God, I pray that I've been an instrument of peace in the lives I've touched. And as soon as I say that

any, anything that's happened to me during the day, that doesn't qualify as that comes to mind. But, but you know, one of the benefits I have is, is hanging out with Roger. And, and as we talk and share our spiritual journey, one of the things I learned in the last year was to change the way I prayed. Instead of asking for something, to thank God for something. And, and that has to do with expectations. If I'm asking for something, then I'm expecting that I don't have it,

but if I'm praying and thanking him for it, then I'm expecting that I will have it. So it changes my internal focus. And, and so starting after tonight, now my prayer is going to be thank you that you gave me this, the guidance and the strength to be an instrument of peace in the lives I've touched. And it'll be interesting to see how that changes my understanding of my day and how it changes my inventory process.

Because really, I, from my experience, I understand what I'm trying to say, what I'm trying to do.

A couple things. One, obviously, like I said, I'm trying to find the roadblocks that I've set up for myself and do what's necessary to, to dismantle them, you know, to admit that I'm wrong or to, to go make an amend or, or do whatever I need to do. And that's another thing that we've spent time talking about. There's a big difference between me saying you're right or saying I'm wrong. That's a whole, that's a whole different experience. Is it much easier to say, Oh, yeah, you're right

than it is to say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm wrong,

You know, it's that kind of thing. But, but again, a lot of this, and we've been talking about it last week and this week, a lot of it has to do

with how we think and, and the words we use to describe to ourselves what we're up to and what we're involved in, control the way we think.

And, and so a lot of what we're doing in 10, I think, and it's been my experience is, is really dealing with that saying to myself, OK, this is what I went on in that situation. How was I thinking about that? And then kind of almost reverse engineer it and say, well, I took, if I can't figure out what I was thinking, look at the action and say, well,

if, if Roger took that action, what would he be thinking? I can always figure that out, you know. So I just say, well, OK, Roger did it. So what was he thinking? Well, I'm, I'm like Roger. So I must have been thinking something pretty close to the same thing.

And and so that's another way to inventory.

One of the things that we've been studying lately and is another way that I inventory is

we've been studying several things, all of which point to the idea that we bring into by our the way we think we bring the things into our lives that we experience. So

the question is, look at what I'm experiencing. What must I have been thinking

to bring that into my life? And, and it's easy if I'm enjoying whatever it is. It's a little more difficult if it's something that I find unpleasant because I don't want to think and I don't want to admit that I thought whatever it took to bring that into my life, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to admit to that at all. But it's another, it's another inventory process for those who are sponsoring. There's another kind of inventory process that I use on occasion,

especially when I get frustrated with the people I'm sponsoring. I just use the analogy that birds of a feather flock together.

So what is it

in them that I don't like?

And I can identify that pretty easily. And then I I say, well, birds of a feather flock together. So where is that in my life?

Because they they're gathering around me. So there must be a commonality there someplace, you know, which again is, is, is kind of a interesting inventory to take

and, and,

and there's a change that has to happen to take those kinds of inventories. And the change is this. I can take an inventory that says, OK,

I see what Roger's doing, how am I not like that and take that kind of an inventory. Or I can say, OK, Roger's doing this, I don't like it. Where is that in my life?

How do I do that in my life

and assume that we have common elements all the way through. You know, one of us might be be less impatient than the other and the other might be less aggressive than the other. I mean, but it'll all balance out and we all have the same qualities. The quantities are different, but the qualities are all the same. So if I see something in somebody, OK, where is that in me?

And if you stop and think about that, especially with like coworkers or people, you run into that, you feel a real jackasses, you know,

it's like, OK, where's that in me? Now there's an interesting inventory to take. You know, I see what he or she is doing. How do I do that? How do I manifest that same idea? How do I manifest that same attitude? Where, when and how

and it really has it really has some interesting results. It and, and, and what I'm trying to do really is I'm trying to, the way I think about this is I'm trying my life is like a jigsaw puzzle,

you know, and, and I'm trying to get a perspective on it, as I said. And I can't see the whole thing. I don't know where the corner pieces are, and I certainly don't know where the middle pieces go together, but I can identify each piece just as it is.

And then in my 11th step, I can take that to my higher power and say, well, here are the pieces that I've found today.

Please help me put them together,

you know, please help me understand how they connect and what they connect to and who they connect with and, and, and try to come at it from that perspective of I don't know what's going on in my life. I don't know what my life really is in a sense. And I don't know where it's going. I don't know where it should go. But if I can bring the pieces to to my higher power that

I find, then my higher power can help me see how though each one fits into the other

and how that leads me forward.

And it actually makes life a lot easier to live

because it just, it takes that responsibility away from me where I got to figure it all out.

So it's a lot different figuring it out than it is just finding the pieces, the pieces I can find. That's a little easier task and and that seems to work pretty well for me.

There's so many things. If I didn't have dementia, I would be more coherent.

When Dennis and I do this, I just I wish I could keep notes of what I what was triggered, but I can't. So here we go.

One of the things

that you were talking about that we've studied a lot in dealing with difficult people,

one of the one of the great questions is what would have had to have happened to me in my life

to make me exhibit that behavior. As soon as I can do that, I flip into compassion and empathy

from oh, you're an inconvenience and you're going to have to be eliminated.

You're on the list. You know

thoughts are causal. It's not a coincidence that Step 10 is about what are you thinking, because thinking

becomes action. Thinking will manifest. Everything that we look at in this room, everything that we can see, touch and feel in the material plane started as an idea. It started as pure energy

and ideas have power. They have enormous power.

A really good positive example is Bill and Bob sitting together

in that first conversation and holy moly, some pieces came together and look what happened.

Look what happened from this little chip of a book. You know, it's pretty amazing. So

the 10 step

gets me vigilant about what I'm thinking because that's going to turn into what I'm doing. The 11th step says, now here

God meets you in your thinking. That's where God appears to me, is in my ideas. If I'm full of resentment and selfishness and in consideration and fear, there is no way for that higher set of ideas to penetrate my consciousness. So the 10th step gets me

to where I've got a handle, a relative handle on this. The 11 step introduces me to the exercises to induce the power, which is prayer, meditation. And, and Dennis talked about prayer is a really interesting thing. I think for me, it's my belief that every prayer is answered and a lot of our prayers are unconscious. But Dennis was talking about about how we pray. You know, I start out

atheistic and became agnostic, so I did. You know, I started out praying profanely

because you said I had to pray once a day, and I did. Thanks for another shitty day. That was my morning prayer and my evening prayer. And what I'll report to you is that doesn't make much for progress, but

but just the act of doing it is an ascension to the idea that there's some authority other than me, even though it was not defined to me. So when we get into this idea of prayer, there's all kinds of different prayers and there's all kinds of different ways of praying and there's all kinds of different

disciplines of prayer, and they all work, and they work fundamentally for one reason, because the people that are using them believe them.

OK, But now to get to this idea that Dennis was talking about,

about how I pray, you know, a lot of times you hear stuff in the fellowship. Here's one expectation is a premeditated resentment. Have you ever heard that that's bullshit. I mean, it is, it's not utter 100% bullshit, but it's it is relative to me have an expectation of you. But all my prayer, all my meditation, all my step work

is based on an expectancy that this power does exist

and it is going to do something for me.

There's an expectation there. Yes, no, yes, absolutely. I have an you told me surrender and I can expect if I do the line of the book, to paraphrase if, if I do God's will, God will supply me with what I need, not what I want, what I need. I don't know the difference. So what shows up evidently is what I need because a lot of times it's not on the list of what I want.

But

it becomes a challenge to read the context, the spiritual context of my day. So what am I praying when I'm praying

the Aramaic, The word ask. We have asked in all our prayers and it's a direction to ask. But the Aramaic. In the original writing, ask was a synonym for claim.

Now that's a whole different thing. If this power is there and it's all there,

your inheritance is waiting for you. Literally. If I am part of the creator, like begets like, right? Dogs make dogs. Cats make cats. God makes Whatever the God force is, makes

it's. We're in its image.

So I am divine in essence. Now it's pretty buried

under the personality and the culturalization and all the baloney, but it's there. That's what the the book talks about, the fundamental idea of God deep down with every man, woman, child, the fundamental idea energy. So

I, like Dennis, have experimented with my prayer because this is how my prayer is answered. I ask for patience.

I don't do that anymore because when you ask for patience, you get a lot of things that try your patience so you can build your tolerance muscles.

When I ask for strength, I get a lot of things

that make me stronger.

And I would I was getting my prayers answered all the time and I was thinking, Jesus, this isn't working. This is not working at all because that's not my picture as I'll ask, it'll be given, I'll wake up and everything will be fine. No, it was being given. I was asking for strength. So I was giving things to build up my character. I was asking for tolerance. I was given things that made me impatient when I

so quit doing that.

So the prayer becomes pray from gratitude. Like Doc was it thank you for the patience I have. Thank you for the courage, thank you for the strength and I'm willing to grow towards more, but thank you, it comes from gratitude. That's a different that's a whole different approach than coming from need. When I pray to be rid of this fear, what happens?

I get more fear. I get more fear dumped on me and tell I do that

obscene thing. I surrender.

I go right back to step one with whatever it is I'm praying on

and fear, especially

because I'm praying from fear. So God says, yes, you may have some more fear. That's exactly what you asked for. You're claiming it, You get it, you get it. And so that gave me a template to look at. You know, this makes me understand, helps me understand, gives me a context that I can look at the world and don't know. That explains Dachau, that explains genocide, that explains the horrible things

man can do to man. Because it's not that God isn't present,

it's that man takes that God energy and focuses it through the lens of his consciousness. You get a Gandhi, you get an Adolf Hitler. It's the same power being used completely differently.

See what I'm saying? This is just my own little theology. You don't have to cop to it, but it's really helped me make sense out of how everything works because I can't have, I can't have a philosophy or a theology, a concept of God that doesn't take the totality, and I can't have a God that only works for a A. But it doesn't work at work. It doesn't work when I'm out there in the street with these jerks cutting me off in traffic and the people with 29 things and the 10 item or less line.

You know,

I need to have a way of viewing that whole thing that keeps me referred to God

are to this power. Meditation is the same thing. I heard Joseph Campbell, non alcoholic, I heard him on a radio show one night and he said meditation. It's very simple. It's whatever you're thinking. And I thought, you know, meditation, little Himalayan in a diaper hovering 2 feet over the snow Oming. You know, that was my concept of meditation which was far advanced to my concept of prayer when I started

and when I heard that it it some dots connected. So

try this on. So when my meditation is, where's mine?

Where's mine? I prayed this morning. I read those two silly little books and I left the house and there it was again.

Life God. Where's God in that? I don't see any God in that. You know, I didn't take the God with me. I just tuned me up and I left me in the chair. I have to have a way of walking through all this experience and having it be

coherent for me. So the question, my meditation is where is mine? I go out and I go, well, he's got a new truck where's mine? He's got a New Girl. Where's mine? He's got 2. Where's mine? Where's mine, where's mine? And your your head will go out and collect all the data to ensure you that you don't have enough of whatever it is you think you need. And someone else has got more than their share. And you're right back into this squirrel cage mentality. Come home. And I don't know why also. And I just

I kicked a hole in the wall, but my meditation all day was where's mine? So it was a it was a it was a perception of lack. Where's mine? When it's gratitude, it's thank you. Look it all. I have more clothes than I can wear in a day. I have more food than I can eat in a day. I have a roof over my head. Thank you. I have people I trust that I can call that will tell me the truth. Thank you. Or their version of the truth. Thank you.

You know, I have some relationship with this mystery

power God. I mean, it's a totally different orientation. If I can walk out, my meditation can be thank you or my meditation be. How can I help? Will you quit yawning? You're making me tired,

but look at Kelly's. You, you guys get done.

But if I can. Now we're back to step 10 and join it with 11. If I can consciously choose

how I'm going to think about today, what can I give to this day? Line out of the book, See what you can pack into the stream of life rather than what can you get what's instead of what's in it for me? How can I help? New meditation? It's a very simple mission statement. How can I help? It works every day. How can I help? And then when I look back on the day, I should be able to see evidence of how I helped, evidence of how I didn't help, evidence of things that need to be improved. But all this is just raising my awareness of what needs to be done. Then I ask God for insight in that

to be teachable, to learn, to have some insight, and I move on. I don't beat myself up with the information.

The inventory becomes a constructive tool in the 11th step.