A weekend workshop on the Steps at the Blueprint for Recovery group in Vancouver, Canada

Well, it depends on the situation again, because it's too vague. Sometimes mending means making payment arrangements and finishing pain paying. Sometimes it means doing an action on a repeated basis. Like I I've had people

asked by relatives to just just call me once a month, all right? So it can be sometimes an ongoing thing

and sometimes the situation warrants that because the person, for whatever reason,

I think that I would, there'd have to be, I don't know that there's a cut and dry way to do any of these.

And I think that you see as you read through this, they give you just examples of different amounts

that become more ideas or suggestions.

And again, ultimately we pray into them.

So I'm not trying to be vague, I just don't know how to be more specific.

So

my understanding when people said that you never finish your amends, I thought they were referring to people that you know you're unable to to reach or contact or that you make contact, but they don't necessarily want to meet with you or they just never reply. What is your opinion on those kind of people that you don't want you to contact them or you can't find or that you or they're just uninterested? We're just uninterested,

right? Well, I think the key here is, is is that I'm willing to do it

if if someone doesn't want anything to do with you, you got to respect that, right? To push yourself on someone that wants nothing to do with you could cause more harm

with a letter. Be appropriate at that time. Not if they say leave them alone,

right? Isn't that still forcing yourself on them?

But what if he'd received an amendment from somebody in the program that wasn't even since here they were just doing it. An insincere man? Yeah, they were just doing it so they could feel better about themselves.

Receiving an amends just so somebody could feel better about themselves that isn't you don't really perceive as an amends.

You know, I talked about eliminating the goofy amends, right? That would be between. I think that there's a certain responsibility for a sponsor to sit with the sponsee and to listen to what's, what's going to be done here because you're dealing with someone that isn't familiar with making amends. And hopefully,

hopefully the sponsor has had experience with making amends, right and knows what to listen for. And hopefully we'll continue to bring God into the situation and, and prayer into the situation to get clear on, on that. You know, I, I have a Asian sponsee and someone in the program came to him

to make amends to him

and she made amends to him for for acting like she liked him,

which you really didn't.

I know. Ouch.

I mean,

that was real hurtful to this particular person because he

these won't go into that. But the other thing that I want to bring up, there's somebody else got up at the podium and she was so happy that she finally, after never not seeing her father for many, many years, when she heard he was dying, she went to the hospital and and to make amends to him. And what she did was she went and she told him all the things that he did to hurt her

throughout her lifetime.

And she was so happy because she said he just smiled, closed his eyes and died.

And she was so proud of that. And I'm, and I was thinking, God, you know, he, he was probably glad because he was finally being the getaway. He couldn't get out of bed. He, he was stuck there till you know, so he had to die

anyway, you know.

Back there,

praying for a shorter list of resentments.

Some.

Yeah,

All right, that's going back to the four step, praying about shortening a list, a long list of resentments.

Someone called me up, they wanted me to to listen to their fifth step and

and we're talking and I don't listen to 5th steps from people that don't write inventory the way I write inventory.

Just my thing.

And I asked him, I saw how many names do you have in the first column? He said 2000.

And he hasn't finished the inventory yet. And he hadn't really gotten too far through it. He just kind of wanted some help through it. And I says, you want, if you want my help through it, we're going to have to talk about about shortening this thing. He, he had every politician, more politician, more politicians than I even knew existed on his list.

And he had, he had the Armed Services. He had, he wanted to be an actor. He had all the actors that he resented because they were successful and he and he couldn't break into the industry and but he had them all listed separately. And I said no, take all the actors and say performers that became successful in the industry. Just group them all together.

You know, write one page and list all their names in the first column if you want. But it's all the same thing,

right? And I, I went through some of that stuff with him and, and he got angry with me and hung up. He says, he says, he says, where's God in this? You know, and I don't.

And I was like, I was minimizing his victimization of the that he was suffering from the world. And it's like, OK, and what's the value of you holding on to all of this, right? And,

and he, as far as I know, he never finished

an inventory ever.

So

he would have been better off to write on 30 of them just to see how it worked and then go back to the list and

30 or 50 of them and just to see how it worked and then go back and see what am I really angry at now?

Welcome back

somebody humming the That Cheer song.

All right. So 10:00 and 11:00,

it's not uncommon for me to talk about things that are different than what a lot of people, what some people, how some people approach things in the steps. And the 10th step is another one of those places

I'm going to talk about some things that don't include

writing inventory.

It says that this thought brings us to Step 10, which suggests that we continue to take personal inventory.

And I look at it, personal inventory, it's like a fourth step without a first column,

right? Because it's no longer about them,

right? It's it's no longer about,

it's more about me being away to my own behavior.

Now

I talked about

talked about the

the maintenance and growth that it talks about in the fourth step and it refers to it differently in here

talks about

to grow an understanding and effectiveness,

right.

Anyway, I'll get back to reading that in a minute.

I think that a lot of

a lot of what I hear in the program has more to do with seeking comfort than seeking God

right pissed off at somebody. So I'm going to write inventory so I can get comfortable.

I,

I, they spent a long time through the process here in the book discouraging me or Lenny or helping me see that what I need is reliance on God. Yet in the 10th step, what you see is more human reliance than than in any other step, right? I'm supposed to call my sponsor with everything,

right? And the problem with that is that is that it's it's so easy to develop a reliance on another human being.

Now I know that it's stepping on some toes when I talk about this stuff and I know that it's common. And

and I and I'm not saying, and I think it's really important to have a relationship with someone and to build that relationship that we have trust,

right? But I also believe that we have to that how we respond to a ten step can be really helpful, right? And by talking about how to respond to a ten step, I will put more responsibility on the sponsee to do something before they even make the call

right? Which actually in the long run will make it easier on the sponsor

because

hopefully what I'm encouraging here is not a dependence on me, but on a dependence on this power

when I'm working with people. I work with a few people and I certainly don't want to field phone calls from all of them every day,

right? I don't tell them to call me or not to call me, right? They, they know that they can call me whenever they want, but it's usually with, with questions like how to work with somebody, you know, what do you, how do you respond to this?

And I'm going to talk a little bit about how I listen to a ten step and how I share a ten step when I do. But I'm also going to put a twist to it.

Hey, 10:00 and 11:00

are real similar to six and seven from a certain perspective and that is in six. Remember, we looked, we looked at those questions, we look back over this, the six steps for the five first five steps and asked, can I see my behavior that was objectionable

and

am I willing to turn to God for help with that? That was six and seven, seeing the behavior that we found objectionable

become willing to turn to God for all of those things, right? We've gone through this process in eight and nine. Usually when I start them with 10 and 11, they haven't finished that yet, but it's an exercise in

in

and an opportunity to access that power and direct and use that power in all these difficult situations.

So now we're getting into step 10 and just like I separate 6:00 and 7:00,

like define six and seven like that. I draw a line through 10 and 11

and I look at 10 is what I do in my interaction with you,

right? And 11 is how I is what I do with my interaction with God and my relationship with God. You could also say 10 is about my relationship with you and 11 is my relationship with God,

right? That's how I separate the two.

So even though it talks about God in the 10th step, it's going to be about me remembering that I need to turn to God,

but remembering that commitment to the relationship.

All right, so now we meet need more action without which we find that faith without works is dead.

I'll just keep if I read that already. OK, we have a list of persons we have harmed

and to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took inventory. You know what?

I'm sorry

my page flipped over. I have this book that I normally use that is so well used that when you open it to a page, it just stays there. And I'm trying to break in this new book, but it's constantly throwing me into constantly flipping back over to pages.

Something didn't sound right. It just didn't quite catch it right away. OK, Step 10. This thought brings us to Step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.

We vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. So what would vigorously commencing this way of living look like? All right,

right. I think that any spiritual path that you go on is going to have some kind of mindfulness practice attached to it,

right? And this is no different, but, but in order to

stay awake and, and do what it says here, right, I have to make this commitment to it.

And,

and as we go, we're going to be making mistakes and we're probably going to have more harms that we create and we're going to continue to clean up the past. So I'll as we're finishing the night step, we're probably going to be creating some new harms, but we just keep on taking it through the process.

We have entered the world of the Spirit,

and that's for me, that place inside of me,

right? And there's another way to look at that. And some people look at the fact that we've entered the world of the Spirit, meaning we've entered a world where with a reliance on God rather than a reliance on people or rather than a reliance on ourselves. You had a question.

Oh, I'm sorry, page 84.

Sure, no problem. Second indebted paragraph.

So you hear a lot of people talk about 1011 as maintenance steps,

but here's it says or next function is to grow an understanding and effectiveness,

right? Again, maintenance is just about seeking comfort

and and that's the way it's usually approached. But what is growing in understanding and effectiveness mean,

right? I have to keep watching for what that means because that's going to change

and we're going to talk about that as well, especially when we get into 11

says this is not an overnight matter. It should continue for a lifetime.

So

typically what you hear is, and again, even people in my Home group,

right inventory and share it with sponsors, you know, so I, I even step on toes of people that I'm that see me on a regular basis. So, and I know that there's people here that, that I'm probably stepped on their toes by talking about this, this way, but it's just a different perspective that I want to that I want to share.

And that's, but it says here that we continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. It doesn't say we continue to write about selfishness, dishonesty, resembling fear,

right? Because if I'm being mindful as I go through the day and watching my behavior,

right, I keep bringing that word. I mean, watching it, you know, seeing more behavior that we find objectionable, right? And when these crop up, not if they crop up, but when they crop up, we ask God at once to remove them.

I

So how fast does it take a resentment to separate you from a good place?

It's at once, right? It's at once vigorously, right. You know, I get separated at once

here it says we watch for these things to crop up. And it once turned to God to remove,

not to remove the people, but to remove the resentment.

We discussed them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we've harmed anyone,

right? So where's your sponsor going to be in? In the context of immediately

right? Sponsor would be later right?

It doesn't say someone else,

right?

Sometimes

I think that it means two different things here. I think that's, yes, sometimes you're sharing it with somebody

like a, a, someone you trust, like a sponsor. But sometime in practice, that someone is the person that you're talking to,

not someone else.

They're the people that would be more productive, most productive to discuss this with,

right? Maybe something came out of your mouth that you realize, oh, I'm going the wrong direction here, right? It would be a good place to be mindful of that. It'd be a good place to be to be mindful of that as it's happening, to watch for it to crop up, right? Ask God to help you with it,

right? And then straighten out what you've done right away before the hole gets any deeper, hopefully

right.

Who says we can we make amends quickly? If we've harmed anyone quickly, sometimes is immediately

right. So the focus here for me and the practice of my focus here is not to just go through the days screwing up and just dealing with it later, but to watch for the issues to come up, watch for that behavior to come up, turn to God at once, right, and straighten it out.

To

to do your damage control right away before it gets any worse.

And when then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code. See, the person you're going to probably need love and tolerance for is the person that you're that you're holding back from that you've just possibly harmed, right? They are possibly the one that you should turn your thoughts to that you should. You can help,

right? So again, I just want to say this, that it's not always.

I said ideally we do it immediately.

It's not always what happens

right, but as we try to do it immediately, we try to live this way, right, You start to watch for the opportunities, call them opportunities with situations that you need to turn to God for help with to to go in. Consider what it how it why it's affecting you to take your personal inventory. You know, why do this you know, I see the why does this ruffle my feathers, right? Ask God to show you what He would have you be with this person and

hang on and watch for it. Start watching for that stuff instead of waiting for it

right when it was. When it slips out,

see if you can straighten it out right away. That that I believe

is a little can be a little harder, but anybody that's that's done this a while finds that they're probably doing that anyway. But I believe that to stress that part of it is important because again,

where does the where does the trust come from for me to live a life based on a God reliance, right?

But what could be better than to constantly watch for situations where I fall short, to turn to God at once to help me and to see that it works, right? That's where the growth comes in, right? That's where the, because they're not talking about just personal growth. They're talking about spiritual growth. And spiritual growth to me is, is is being me being able to

more and more effectively turn to God for help at A at a

had a good or improving level all the time

says. And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol, for by this time sanity will have returned.

We will seldom be interested in liquor and if tempted we recoil from it is from a hot flame.

Remember back in Page 24 is said we're talked about insanity as beings like touching a hot stove. Like with alcohol. I burned myself over and over

Here it's talking about recoiling from it, from a hot flank. That's from as from it as from a hot flame,

because we react sanely and normally and we will find that this has happened automatically,

right? I didn't fix myself, right? But I've been changed.

The process has changed me. We will see that our new attitude towards liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part.

It just comes, and that is the miracle of it. We're not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed.

It does not exist for us. So

the problem with alcohol has been removed.

My alcoholism hasn't

right.

It's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels.

Does everyone know what a Laurel is?

It's like the feathered wreath that they put around a horse that's won a race.

We can get so spiritually intoxicated that we kind of can fall into that trap,

right? Look how spiritually I spiritual I've become and look how much I know about this stuff and

look how many people I sponsor. Look at this, look at that. And it's like, you know, and all of a sudden you find yourself back

going, going through, taking a newcomer through the book and you're starting

back of the circle and triangle on page one. And you're talking about being in balance between your mind, body and spirit and that circle and triangle, you know, and, and asking those questions is where you at with your meetings? Where are you at in your recovery process? And where are you at with working with others? And you see that somehow I've I'm not. I'm no longer quite in the center of that triangle and I'm veering off to One Direction or another, no longer centered in my own spiritual path

because I get so full of myself that my,

my ego rebuilds itself and I and I sometimes can't even see it.

It's resting on my laurels, saying, you know, I've got everything I need to get from a A so I don't need to work any harder or this or to say that this is as as much as I can grow. This is as much as I can get from this program. I've already got it all. And on my own experience has been

I, I must have gone through this, the

step process a dozen times,

right? And some people think, well, why would you want to? My perspective is why wouldn't you,

right? If you haven't tried it, try it. Right.

It's why I've worked with plenty of people that have gone through the steps with other people and never actually went through the book or have it explained its way. I have friends that like going through with different people every time they go through,

you know, mix it up a little bit, keep it interesting, hear different perspectives. And we have people in my group are familiar with a term called step guide where you keep your sponsor, but you have go through the steps with various people

just to get it, just to mix it up a little bit, keep it interesting.

You know, where, where else can growth come from, right? Unless I have an open mind that maybe there's more for me,

it says it's easy. Let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism.

That can be confusing for some people because in the front of the book it says we recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

All right, So in the beginning it says that we recover, and here in the end it says we're never cured of alcoholism,

right? I like to again, we look at this as a threefold problem,

right?

Physically,

I have the physical craving for alcohol and as long as I never take a drink again, I'm never going to have that craving

pour the consequences of of my drinking.

And then there's the mental part, the mental insanity, the obsessions, the obsessions of alcohol. The obsessions to drink are different than the thinking of drinking. A lot of times you hear someone say I'm thinking of drinking or they'll call you up and say I'm thinking of drinking.

And it's truth is that they're thinking they're not drinking of not drinking. That's why they're calling you because if they had the obsession, right, they wouldn't be calling you, right?

And it says that we recover from that, that there is a process to take you to a place where you where you couldn't drink even if you wanted to, right? Because from a spiritual place, from a fit spiritual condition, I couldn't, I couldn't take a drink.

But it says here that we're never cured of alcoholism. And I believe that that's the spiritual side of the problem,

right? That

there's a condition that I don't think anybody, not even not Alcoholics and not non Alcoholics can escape from. And, and and that's, that's this yearning for something more spiritually,

right? This, this, the spiritual side of my alcoholism doesn't get, I don't recover from that. It just gets suppressed, right. And I have to acknowledge that

because

what it follows up with is what we really have is a daily pre. Sorry.

What we really have is a daily repriv contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

A daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of her spiritual condition.

So that means it doesn't matter what we've done in the past spiritually,

and it doesn't matter what we plan to do in the future,

right? What we're looking at here in the 10th step is what am I willing to do today

to maintain and grow a spiritual way of life,

right? And every day is going to bring about different challenges. And what that's going to look like

says every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities, not just in the morning, not just at night, but

but into all of our activities.

That becomes my practice, Watching for watching for opportunities,

watching for behavior that I find objectionable,

and practicing turning to God for help with that. And it's through that practice. It's through that

seeing varied situations over and over again and how how it's those situations are solved by a simple reliance on God.

All right, with all I know, I have to say I don't do it perfectly and sometimes I'm really bad at it,

right? Again, I'm just human, right?

But but I've had enough experiences to know that it really works

all right. And, and it's a practice. And I and I and I try to practice my practice.

How can I best serve thee? Thy will not mine be got be done. These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our willpower along this line. All we wish is the proper use of the will,

right? You've heard all kinds of things like

you can't trust your alcoholic mind. You can't talk about stinking thinking and, and I'm talking like, like,

like, like we're never going to be

live up to what a normal person could live up to because we're got a damaged mind. And I don't, I don't buy that. I think some of the people around here are much sharper than a lot of people that have seen outside of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And, and I think I think we have strong wills, just not went just not when it comes to not drinking on our own power.

And I think that what it's talking about here for me is just to align that will with God's will,

you know, because along with what I'm capable of and along with what God's capable of through me, right, It's,

it's just an awesome team.

Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from him who has all knowledge and power. If we have careful, carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of his Spirit into us. To some extent, we have become God conscious. We have begun to develop this vital 6th sense.

See, I've, I've always believed completely on what I could see or taste or hear or, you know, all my physical senses. I trusted completely.

Yeah, but but where did that get me?

Right? Because even though I, you know, even though I see situations, my inventory showed me that I didn't necessarily perceive them how I see them now after writing an inventory,

right? I, I saw that I can't necessarily trust my physical senses, even my mind sometimes, you know, from an insane place. I would. It was completely rational to say I don't want to drink again, but I drank anyway.

And then in sobriety, and it's from a spiritual place, being frustrated with something and

say a drink would fix it, knowing that that's not true and knowing that I couldn't drink

anyway,

right? What they're talking about here is starting to develop a reliance on a on 1/6 sense. And it's something that I've always ignored

and,

and it's, it's not something that I can reason. It's something that I have to live. And it's through living it that I that I built more trust with it by seeing it work.

Typically what happens is I, I, I'll go through the section step 10 with someone I'm working with and I send them home with a practice for a week. I say, OK,

I want you to practice being mindful, watching the situations that your, your interactions, right? And practice bringing God, turning to God in those situations, right?

You know, you say you're on a spiritual path. Start living like it,

right?

Start living like it.

Don't give them a lot of complicated things to look at. Just watch your behavior, right and practice bringing God into your interactions, right?

Do that for a week, and then when we get together again, we go through step 11 the following week. I try to break it up so that they see some separation in between the two

because it's so easy to go. I'm in 1011,

right? Just like I'm in eight and nine. It's like they could have made them one step almost the way we sometimes think about it. So sometimes breaking them up like this will just help someone get a deeper understanding of the of the different parts of this.

So step 11 is at the bottom of page 85.

Step 11 suggests prayer and meditation.

Now you'll hear all kinds of different definitions of prayer and meditation. Certainly I have my,

but you always have to look at the context that something's used in to know which definition is correct. And if you look up the word prayer in a big dictionary, I think I have 3 pages of prayer in a six inch thick disk dictionary.

So you have to go back to the to the context that it's used in. And I believe that the context is used in here is is prayer means we asked God

and meditation.

Meditation doesn't necessarily mean, but I know if it's an 11 step meeting or 11 step topic, you'll get people talking about how long they sit in meditation

or what they were the Buddhist path or whatever they're into. I said.

I tell people that don't let your sign silent meditation get in the way of your 11th step.

I, you know, because meditation just means directed thought. All right, if it's silent meditation, we're directing our thoughts to silence, right? But what it's doing, it's not going to talk about a silent meditation here. It's going to talk about a contemplative meditation where we're directing our thoughts to a particular particular ideas. It says we shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer.

Now I always read that as shy being like afraid to show you that I'm that I'm praying. But shy also means short, like 11 is 1 short of a dozen,

right? And I think that fits better with the context for me,

although I have had people argue that. But I'm sticking to what I've what I like. So we shouldn't be short on this matter of prayer. Better than better men than me are using it constantly.

It works if we have the proper attitude and work at it, right.

There is some responsibility that I have to take to be on a spiritual path.

I'm going to have to work at it.

I just have to understand what I can work on and what I can't work on.

It

would be easy to be vague about this matter, yet we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions. All right? So they're not going to be vague here. They're going to give us some definite and valuable suggestions. So you're not going to have to look anywhere else but right here for what the 11th step is supposed to look like.

So says when we retire at night, we constructively, not destructively, but constructively review our day.

Where were we? Resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid?

Do we owe an apology?

Now? That sounds a lot like another inventory, doesn't it?

So what's the difference between continuing to take personal inventory of the 10th step and

asking where was I resentful, selfish or dishonest or afraid? In the 11th step? Some people will think, well, just Bill was redundant, and I don't think that was true. I think the difference is in the explanation in the text where it says in the 10th step we watch for those things to crop up right?

While I'm interacting in a relationship with you people, and in the 11th step, it's about a contemplative meditation between me and God. And if I'm going to write inventory, it's usually after the fact. And if you're writing inventory for a 10th step, I wonder if it should really be called an 11 step inventory,

right? Again, I pissed people off by talking about that too, because we're so used to just calling it a tense that

and I'm just saying that it seems to me that that it would fit more into context here by calling that inventory an 11 step.

I think the confusion there lies in it talks about doing an inventory at step 10 and the 12:00 and 12:00. I think that's the what? I'm just joking. No, you said the 12:00 and 12:00. I said the one

and I think that Bill Wilson was kind of confusing that way. He said one thing in the big book continues later. He did something. Well, you have to remember that the I don't want to beat up on the 12:00 and 12:00 because it's got it certainly has its value.

But those were essays in the Grapevine and they weren't originally. Yes, they were essays in the Grapevine that were pulled into a book

and the

so for it to be a story or an essay for one month, it didn't it lost. I think some focuses and even Bill never suggested that that was supposed to replace the big book for a step guide. So the fact that there's place, there's a lot of places that get contradicted and then and I truthfully, I don't even find it helpful with the traditions. If you want a good book on the traditions, pick up Language of the Heart. Also Bill's writing

right? There's a section there on each 12 step in order

that's

isn't doesn't have all the stories around it that build uses in the 12 and 12 and you'll understand it better out of the language of the heart than you you might out of the 12 and 12. I did. That was my experience.

So

see, it's still sounding like an inventory here. Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving towards all? What could we have done better?

Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time, or were we thinking what we could do for others, what we could pack into the stream of life?

But we should be careful not to drift and to worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish or usefulness to others.

Now,

I've been guilty of making these lists of things that these questions to answer at night and to tediously look at each one of those questions and and to see what applies to my day.

But what I really found was is that if you look at this whole thing, it's basically saying how did you behave?

How did you behave to the people with the people around you,

which is kind of consistent to what I've been talking about throughout the process here,

right? How did I behave and when I started looking at at it this way,

the next sentence kind of made just it just hit me as what they were talking about with this next part here it says after making more review, we ask God's forgiveness and require what corrective measures should be taken. I always thought, why am I asking God's forgiveness here for looking at my at my, at my interactions with people. And I realized is that anything that comes up in this nightly review in this when I retire at night

is

is going to be things that were a result of ignoring God,

right? What I'm reviewing here at night is how well did I tense them?

The 10 step is, is a mindfulness practice when I'm bringing God into all of my activities. And now I'm looking at where did I fall short? And here is the biggest place that growth can come from because now

just like six and seven, where I've reviewed all this stuff from the past and I'm willing to turn to God for help with this. Now I'm just looking at today. Where did I fall short, right? And, and I become willing to turn to God for help with us tomorrow,

right,

Because it says here on upon awakening, on awakening. I don't know. I keep saying upon, but I know it's on awakening. Let us think about the 24 hours ahead. It says we consider our plans for the day,

but that used to mean to me, as I say, OK, I'm going to wake up at this time and then I'm going to eat breakfast, take a shower, get to work, come home, get ready, go to a meeting, right? Well, a couple days of that, it got really boring. And it's like, how can I?

And what occurred to me was, is that is that this is a practice and what I need to, what I need to consider in my plans for the day is at night, I looked at how well did I tense that? I identify where I fall short, where I'm not bringing God into my life and where it's causing problems. So when I consider my plans for the day, I look at what was it that came up in the review

that I can bring in today to do better with today,

right. All right, I'm, I'm not nice to that person at the meeting because he's so annoying when he talks to you. So I do things to to that he doesn't want to talk to me.

I see that's objectionable on a number of different levels and it comes up in my lightly review. So when I consider my plans for the day, it's like, OK, today when I see him, I'm going to shake his hand.

But going into it, I'm going to, I'm going to pray into it, ask God to help me have the kindness and patience and tolerance that it's going to be necessary

to have this interaction

right.

I have

a brother in my life that's, that's not doing well. And I, I hate hearing about

he's sick. He's got, he's got hepatitis C and diabetes and some other stuff. And I don't, I don't want to hear how sick he is. I want to hear that he got up, took a walk and he's on a diet and losing weight and, and feeling healthier than he's ever helped felt or in a long time at least. And I want to hear that he's doing well. I don't want to hear how. I don't want to hear about the doctors again. I don't want to hear about