Step 11 at a sponsorship and 12 Step workshop in Dallas, TX

Step 11 I'm going to talk a little bit about

what the big book says about step 11. And then if I don't die from the

electrical fire malfunction, and then I'm going to leave the rest of the time for Michael to talk about Step 12, carrying the message sponsorship principles, because that's why we're all here. That's what we're doing.

So back on 85, he talked about

what the 10 step looks on a consistent day-to-day, moment to moment basis. And one thing that's so important about doing steps 1011 and 12 is that they sort of all work in conjunction with one another. And so if I'm neglecting to do step 10 and things are getting stuck sideways and I'm not, I don't have the ability or excuse me, the humility to get in front of my sponsor and say here's what's going on and they stay stuck. My 11th step becomes fairly ineffective because I've got things that are blocking me off like we talked about earlier.

And if I can't, if I can't have a relationship with my creator, then I'm pretty much running on my power and pretty much running on my ideas. And that becomes a problem, especially when we want to look at sponsorship. So it's sort of selfish of me not to do a tense step because it's not just about me. I need to seek the power from the source that I have something to give to the new people. So that's sort of a different way to think about it. So on 85

talks about developing a vital 6th sense talks about seeking a relationship. And if you think about a relationship and it's most like basic form, it's a relationship cannot

sustain or grow without communication. And so if I think about prayer, meditation as the simplicity of talking and listening, then it doesn't seem so big and far off and hard to understand and and complicated. Sometimes when you don't have any experience with prayer, any experience with meditation, it can sort of be this vague. I don't know what this is going to look like. Am I going to be chanting on the floor in a Lotus position with the fairy dust? And I mean, what, what does this have to look like? So if I can sort of set aside what I think I know or what I've

or my past experiences and just say, let's just see what happens one more time. I don't have to figure this out. I don't have to understand and I don't have to pray and meditate the same way Holly does or the same way Lewis does. I can have my own relationship with my creator, but the book is going to give me simplistic directions and some experience as far as what are some general things that I can do to sort of grow this relationship. So it says step 11 suggest prayer and meditation.

Some of us that have been praying for a while just been praying,

just talking, making a list. Bless it. Without the meditation I heard Michael talk about one time, it would be as silly as me saying I don't really know how to, I don't know where I am, I don't know how to get home from here. Can you give me directions? And as soon as that person begins to speak, I walk away. That was silly and didn't get anything accomplished and ineffective. So it's going to negate that. I do both of those things in conjunction in order for this to work,

so it's better men than we are using it constantly. It works if we have the proper attitude

and work at it. What is that proper attitude when it comes to prayer meditation is that I'm going to practice discipline, which is something I don't know how to do. We've already, we Alcoholics are undisciplined people, are we not? But so I'm going to have to practice this deal. And sometimes we do stuff like this. I prayed and I meditate and I don't feel any different. So I'm just done with that. Well, let's try some consistencies, another principle that I'm not good with. Let's try some consistency with this and see what happens. Says it'd be easy to be vague about this matter, but we believe we can make some definite

valuable suggestions. So First off, they're going to talk about this nightly review and then they're going to talk about what do I do in the morning? So at night I'm going to sit down. I'm going to review my day what constructively, because either one or two things are happening. I'm either looking at my day and hitting all the high points and patting myself on the back, or I'm looking at my day and hitting all the low points and beating myself up. We're going to do this constructively. We're going to look at all aspects of it and we're going to answer these questions specifically, where was I? Resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid

one more time not new information. We've already seen this in four step Where was I those things do I owe an apology? Did I miss something? Have I kept something to myself which should be discussed with another person at once. You seeing some familiarity here steps 459 it's all showing up again because 1011 and 12 is how do I put this into practice? Michael talked about it. Growing and understanding and effectiveness in that 10 step is all the things that I've already learned. How do I

work with them now? It's one thing to be able to read them in a book and speak about them. It's another thing to be able to put them into actual application on a daily basis. So here's what we're learning to do. Was I kind and loving toward all? I always hate that they put the Word all in there 'cause I kind and loving towards all. Was I love and service to God and His other kids? What could I have done better? That's that effectiveness and understanding. How could I handle that differently? Could I have stopped and brought God into the situation instead of immediately reacting and thinking I knew how to handle it?

Was I thinking of myself most of the time, selfish and self-centered? Or was I thinking what if I could do for others, of what I could pack into the stream of life? So I'm not just going to breeze through these questions when I'm doing this at night. I'm actually going to take the time go back over the events of the day and review it based upon what they're asking me. Where was I with this? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse, or morbid reflection. Where are my martyrs?

Where are you? Raise your hand. I know you are the sponsor, all of you, but OK, right?

This is the point in which I slump into my chair and go, well, I just messed up one more day and just didn't get it right. Welcome to your tribe. None of us are getting it right. But do you have the ability to lay aside your ego and say, yeah, I didn't get it right today again, but here's what I can do differently, right? And work with that stuff. Where are you going to go? To the source, to the source of the power. I'm going to go there first. I'm going to discuss this stuff with my sponsor too, as it crops up. So it's asking me really is how well did I do

today not going to drift into that morbid reflection? It's not a shame game, for that would diminish my usefulness to others. See how that in and of itself is selfish? Me thinking about me and how much I suck does not help you. It just gets me thinking about me. I can see how I can do it differently. Why for the women I sponsor so I can teach them something, It's so not about me. After making our review, we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.

That sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? I'm reviewing my day,

asking myself these questions, looking at corrective measures, asking God for what corrective measures I, I can take. And then I can take that into the next day so that when I wake up and I'm doing this stuff, it talks about on awakening. I'm reflecting back on that nightly review. Oh yeah. Yesterday I was really seeing how I was interjecting my opinion quite a bit when nobody asked. I was doing this quite a bit. Oh, I really see that. So now I'm morning meditation. I've got that in the front of my mind.

God today helped me make those corrective measures. Is there somebody I need to apologize to after I've spoken with my sponsor that morning?

Is there something I need to do to correct that stuff, or do I need to just be aware of it so that I'm not doing it anymore? I'm going to be asking for some direction on that.

The hard thing to do is to continue to admit it.

Like Michael said, pick up that 10,000 LB phone because I'm real quick to go to God and I'm real quick to try to clean it up. But I sure enough don't want to call Julie and admit that I've done it happened to me two weeks ago. I'm like, I know I just admitted this two days ago and I really don't want to admit it again, but there it is. I had to have to get that stuff out. You do. You either have the willingness or you don't. So on awakening, let us think about the 24 hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. I put a star by that word. Consider,

my gosh, whatever it is that you think you may be doing, God may have other ideas.

I consider my plans. I'm considering. I need to go to work. I need to go to this meeting tonight. I need to meet with somebody. What else do you have to consider? What? What might happen? Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that to be divorced from self,

self pity, dishonest or self seeking motives. That is something that is one of the first prayers that comes to my mind as my eyes begin to flutter in the morning. I'm immediately seeking that power from God. Please direct my thinking. It does not take long for me to just get crazy. I'm in there brushing my teeth ruin in a day. And I know when she says that here's what I'm going to say and when he shows up, here's what I'm going to do. And it's like, Oh my God,

let's pause, let's get back. Let's get back with God. That's why it says on awakening. On awakening, I'm going to get in line with what it is that God needs me to do. Under these conditions, we can employ our mental faculties with assurance. For after all, God gave us brains to use our thought. Life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. See this whole idea of I'm going to work these steps and get somewhere differently. I'm going to set self

over here and attempt to walk this line called God's will.

I don't always know what I'm doing, but I'm going to continue to practice principles and continue to seek direction and when I'm wrong, I'm going to admit it and I'm going to clean it up when I need to see how this works. This is not about being perfect. I'm sure not going to be perfect today. In fact, I have that written at the very top line of this page. I'm not going to be perfect today, but I'm going to attempt to get in line with God's will, walk that path and see what happens. So I'm going to start the day that way and I'm going to end the day that way and everything in between. I'm going to be on a consistent tense step

as it comes up, and then it's going to go on to talk about facing indecision, asking God for inspiration and intuitive thought or a decision. Relax and take it easy. That's the first time I've heard that in the book. Notice where it's placed. First time in meditation with God, That's where you get to do it. I haven't seen it anywhere else. We don't struggle. We're often surprised how the riot answers will come when after we've tried this for a while, first time I pause and go into meditation and ask

answer. It might not be that I'm getting the answer I think I'm getting. It's possible that my mind has conjured something up and I'm going to call it God's will

right off the bat. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm practicing with these principles. I'm attempting to work with prayer, meditation. I'm going to be seeking some guidance. Otherwise, I'm going to be doing all kinds of things, calling it God's will and he doesn't know anything about it. So it says what used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. That's one of the coolest promises in this stuff. I think it's my opinion. Gradually

this stuff becomes a working part of mine. The 6th sense is developed into a. It's ingrained in you and all the sudden you're living in this 4th dimension, right?

Your eyes are open, your spirit has been awakened, and you can see and sense things that you would ordinarily have missed. Watch this happen. Watch you walk into a room,

nothing or nothing ordinary about any of this in ordinary, excuse me, and all of a sudden you feel drawn to somebody, you're sensing something and you feel something come over you that says go and go introduce yourself, go speak to that person. Go whatever the case may be, watch what God can do with that stuff. It you have to be awake to do it. You really, really do. But if you've kept a consistent 10 step, you're seeking that power. God will place you in positions, place you in situations where you can be

and you can rely on it, right. So when those idea they're coming in, you're not going, is this crazy or is this from God, because I can't tell the difference. Gradually it comes to a point where you know and you're able to rely upon it. Pretty cool. Nevertheless, we find our thinking will as time passes, be more and more on the planet inspiration. We come to rely upon it. And then it talks about this period of meditation that we conclude our morning stuff with a prayer that we've shown off of the day what our next step is to be.

Isn't that interesting? You've been sober a while and you're still going to be asking what's your next step to be like? Michael talked about there's no graduation point where suddenly I don't need this. Suddenly I'm sober enough and I know what's best and I know how to proceed from there. And you will see that sometimes when people you sponsor, all the sudden things start going well and they don't need this anymore. They got it. I don't need your idea. I don't need your direction. I don't need you. I don't need you. Good luck with that

because what this says is it's consistent. I'm going to be asking each morning for God to show me what my next step is to be, that He give me whatever I need to take care of such problems. And I'm going to ask especially for freedom from self will. Why? Because the problem was not the bottle, it was the bondage itself. All along. Bottle was a symptom and I'm careful to make no request for myself. Only I can pray for myself if others will be benefited.

This is an easy way to think about that. If if I'm praying for something for me, it's for me to be something for somebody else or to do something for somebody else. Can I pray to be a more effective sponsor? Sure. Can I pray to be more loving and kind with my family members? Yes, because that benefits other. Do I need to make a wish list and treat God like Santa Claus? No Have I done that? Yes, my whole life up to the point that I got sober. Here's a list of problems I need you to take care of. Here is the list of material things I need to materialize.

Here's how I need this timeline to work. Go wow,

don't you know God just sat back and went anyway,

moving on with that day. No, that's not how I'm praying today. I'm praying for me to be more effective for somebody else. That's what this is about. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that. Some of us more than others. It talks about being able to ask other people into our morning meditation. You've got family members that want to join you and that's something that you guys want to do. Cool, that's cool. It it says that there's all kinds of books that we can bring into this. There's all kinds of stuff that can be utilized.

There's lots of people that will pull out all kinds of material in their morning prayer meditation. That's fine. The book even says so.

It says there's many helpful books also. But what I need to understand is for these purposes, for my sobriety, this is what's necessary. This book, this information, this modality. If you additionally belong to a certain denomination, you want to incorporate that in your morning meditation. Cool. Don't tell somebody you sponsor they have to do that

because they don't. They don't. So just be clear. If you want to add something awesome, but we don't have to do that. So it says as we go through the day, we pause. Oh my God, I could stop in the middle of the day when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action. It never dawned on me to pause. One time in my entire life, if I thought something, I said it. I felt like doing something. I did it with no regard to how that might affect other people or me.

Now it's saying I this is the direction I'm going to take any time

that I'm agitated or doubtful. If you're in question about whether you should say something, don't

question about whether you should do something. Pause, pause. And this doesn't mean for three seconds,

think about what that really means. Pause and ask for the right thought or action. So am I asking, what do you think I should do, Michael? No pause and ask for the right thought or action. Who does that come from? The source of power that I'm seeking. See how that works? And here's something that's really cool. I didn't know for a while. You can stay in the pause for a hot minute. There are things that I've been in pause for days, weeks, months. And I stay there until I'm giving clear direction for my creator about what to do. And until then I don't

need to touch it. Makes sense.

Less painful weight of living is when you can learn to pause. OK,

constantly reminding myself that I'm no longer running the show. Humbly saying to myself many times each day, Thy will be done.

I'm not running the show because it was never my show to begin with. It's God's show,

but I jumped up on stage and started snapping my fingers and now I'm attempting to live different when I have the urge to do that to go stay in your seat, stay in your seat, stay in your seat, pause, ask God for the right thoughts and actions and stay in my seat. Shut up and remind myself Thy will be done because I did it. Audrey's will be done for a long time and lots, lots of damage done with that. I'm in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self pity or foolish decisions.

Everybody knows what a self-imposed crisis is, right?

Some of you are nodding because you know and I know you know some of those crosses

is excitement seems like a weird thing to to not want to have right or much that it would be in danger. Never walked into a car lot just going to look drove off of the brand new car. What happened? You got excited bought the car didn't have the money for it, but you bought it. Now we're talking about being able to see things that we couldn't see before and those thoughts that come to us of no, that's not what we're going to do. That doesn't come from us. That comes from a conscious contact with

greater than us. Now it's saying I'm going to be in less danger of making decisions based on excitement, fear, anger, worry, self pity or foolish decisions. I'm going to become much more efficient and that what we're after. I don't tire so easily from not burning up energy foolishly as I did when I was trying to arrange life to suit myself. Sometimes I have to read it in first person so that really comes alive for me. I didn't get here exhausted because I was drinking too much. I got her exhausted because I was arranging life, burning up the energy, foolishly

trying to get it to suit my needs. 0 consideration for you people. Unless I could somehow weave that into the story,

I'm going to do this differently. And I don't know how to do that. And it's clear because it says we Alcoholics are on discipline. But more importantly, the line above it says it works. It really does. It really does. But when you're reading this, it seems like, how would that work? Just do it just like everything else. Like, let that be your like, new slogan Nike. Just do it.

You don't have to understand it, You don't have to believe it, you don't have to agree with it. That's probably one of the most freeing things I learned in sobriety when I thought, well, that doesn't make sense. And somebody said it doesn't have to, you just have to do it. And I was like, OK, then I can, I can get with that. Doesn't have to make sense. I just have to do it. And all the sudden I'm in conscious contact with this power that's running everything and I get to meet me and God gets to be God. Julie always says, let's get that simple relationship straight. Let God be God and you be you.