The Fellowship of the Spirit in Bayside, Queens, NY

All right, OK, we are. We're going to look a little bit at Step 10 right now,

if that's OK with everybody.

You know, one of the things I want to talk about just before we move into step 10 is has anybody has ever, I guess everybody in here, has it been exposed to the 12 promises of AA, right.

A lot of meetings that you go to read them, you know, you'll know a new freedom and a new happiness. We're we're, we're we'll be amazed before we're halfway through will not regret the past nor we should shut the door. We're all you know, we know that these promises by heart. The thing is, is what they, they leave out when they put these promises on the wall or they read them as the 12 promises

is they leave out the fact that these promises will materialize for you before you're halfway through the 9th step. Don't think that these promises are just going to happen through osmosis because you're going, you're going to a lot of meetings. These promises happen as a result of spiritual action like, like the, like the promises that we've covered prior to this. Where there's an action step, there's usually a set of promises. There's usually a set of experiences that that

going to have in common after we've taken taken these steps, done this work and and again, the 9th step promises are touted as the 12 promises in a I've got 2 problems with that one. One problem is, is a whole hell of a lot more than 12 promises in a a There's short change in you. The other promise is the other problem I have with it is, is they don't put it in context. You need you need to understand this stuff in context

and in context

before you're halfway through the 9th step. These promises will materialize if you work for them.

Now. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. This thought brings us to Step 10, which which suggests we continue to take personal inventory, continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow an understanding and effectiveness. You know, there's a whole lot of stuff in Step 10A ton of stuff is packed into Step 10. I see Step 10. Step 10 is related a lot to that part of Step 12

where it tells us we need to practice these principles in all of our affairs. Step 10 really is kind of practicing the step principles in a reactive way. When things crop up in our lives, when we have challenges, when we have opportunities, we're supposed to use the lessons that we've learned in the prior steps and the lessons we're going to learn in Step 11 and 12. And we're supposed to be able to apply them in real life situations in real time.

That's kind of what step, step 10 is talking about. We need to start acting like recovered individuals out there because so much of our recovery is, is contingent on, on, on our behavior. You know, it talks, it talks in step 10 about a lot of very, very powerful things. We've entered the world of the spirit. There's a, there's a piece in this book which says, ask yourself what spiritual terms mean

you, what does it mean to have entered the world in the, of the spirit? You know, at the next discussion meeting, why don't you bring that out as a topic? I'd like everybody to share on what's their experience entering the world of the spirit and, and see how many crazy, you know, topics, crazy responses you're going to get for that. This whole thing is spiritual. The whole series of steps is spiritual and it's it's designed to get us in touch with

a power greater than ourselves. It's designed to help us unblock ourselves from a proper way of living in a proper way of relating ourselves to the universe and, and, and in personal relationships and everything else. You know, what is what is the world of the spirit? What, what is that? What does that mean to you? It can mean a lot of things. Some of the some of the great promises in this book

are will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to bath with you.

I love that promise because intuition can be seen as part of the realm of the spirit. To intuitively know something is to know it without conscious thought. You know, like like woman's intuition. They, they, you know, they we've heard about that for 1000 years. It's, it's did you just know you know, there's no reason why you should know. You just kind of know you know without conscious thought, sometimes without actual proof. You know, we, when we, when we move into the world of the spirit, we are going to intuitively

know how to handle situations that used to baffle us. You know what we'll be able to do too, which is amazing. We'll intuitively know how to handle, handle sponsees that would normally baffle us. You know, that is, that's a great application of this principle. Oh, man, I'll, I'll tell you what, before I had experience before I had experience with the steps I sponsored people, you know, I started the one of the first things I learned was how to give good share. You know how to sound good in meetings

because that seemed to be very important in the meanings that I was going to, you know, people who were a little bit funny, a little bit self deprecating, you know, we're not too challenging and kept it to themselves and how stupid they were that day with some silly little thing. Those are the people that, you know, people really enjoyed when they shared and they would pat them on the head. So I started, I started to learn how to give good share in these meetings.

So people mistakenly thought that I actually had a clue and they would come up and they would ask me, ask me to sponsor them. And

my pat answer was sure, what do you want me to do? I mean, I mean, Can you imagine? This is like my first year. I started, I started sponsoring people and, and, and I found, you know, we're going to get into this more tomorrow when we're talking about step 12. But I, but I found, you know, I found that

until you have experience with something, it's very, very difficult to pass it on. You know, the spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. It talks about that in this step, the spiritual life is something that needs to be lived, that needs to be practiced as an alcoholic and, and a, you know, a pseudo intellectual alcoholic. I I also have read tractor trailer loads of books.

I love to learn things intellectually and, and not have to go out on the playing field with them.

You know what I mean? Like, just give me the book. Just give me the book on, you know, meditation for dummies. I'll know 45 different ways to meditate, you know, will I actually do them all? Well, no, but, you know, I'll be able to speak intelligently on them, you know, you know, I mean, that's the, that's the wrong way to approach this stuff. We need to put this stuff into

into practice and we need to actually live it. And you know what? We don't have to do it perfectly. We really don't. We can botch it up

would rather botch something up real bad than wait until I can do it perfect in the spiritual world, because, you know, we, we, we get the benefits of our actions. A lot of times we don't get the benefits of our intentions or our knowledge. You know, lack of knowledge is not our problem. Lack of lack of intention is not our problem. Lack of power is our problem. And we get the power by applying these, these these spiritual principles. And a wonderful, a wonderful step

is, is step 10. We continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. Continue to watch for that. You know, this is a great exercise. I give this to my sponsees. I'll say, look, take a week. And what I want you to do is I want you to stay aware. I want you to stay conscious of one of these things and watch for it. So you're going to watch for fear or you're going to watch for resentment. You're going to watch for dishonesty, You're going to watch for selfishness. And when these things crop up,

we ask God it wants to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we've harmed anyone. That's an incredibly valuable

skill set to possess as an alcoholic because what happens is when you do this, you catch things before they start rolling downhill, gaining momentum and weight. You know what I mean? You catch it before it has a chance to continue to hurt you and hurt you and hurt you. Looking back on the things that hurt me in my life, with my resentments and my fears, I could never break away. If you did something or if, if I perceive that you did something,

I held on to that the rest of my life. You know what I mean? I and I used to tell people I'm German and that's why I did it, you know, you know, but what it was was I was alcoholic and that's why I did it. I was going to get you, you know, it might take me 10 years, 20 years, but you know, so rather than let somebody, something like that, sit in my consciousness and corrode my spiritual condition, Step 10 is asking me to apply the disciplines that I've learned

and we'll learn with the rest of the steps in an immediate fashion. You know, I'll give you a, for instance, in an application,

there was, there was something that happened to me not too long ago. And what it was, was I made a decision based on self, which caused some problems in the future. What it was, was there was a high school principal that wanted me to do some, some things. And I, I reasoned that I'll tell you what, instead of doing that, I'm going to do this other thing because that's going to work out better

and he'll probably be fine with it anyway and forget he asked me anyway. And so I went ahead and I did what I wanted to do, not what he asked me to do. It's only his school. And, and what happened was he got, he, he got wind of it. He saw what I did. He understood that I was acting, you know,

against his wishes and not following a chain of command and all this other stuff. And I immediately went into his office when I recognized that this was this was becoming a problem.

And I told them exactly what I did. I said, this is exactly what I did. You know, I understood exactly what you asked me to do. I thought by doing this, you know, not only would it solve your problem, but it would solve mine. I was wrong. And and you know, that's an immediate application of of these of these principles.

You know, we don't want to wait till the end of the year when we do inventory to catch some of this stuff. You know, we want we want to take care of this in real time so that we can stay spiritually fit. Remember what it said in in in on page 174, the step book. We drink because of our disobedience to spiritual principles. So these must become

habits to us, they must become habitual. These, these examples of how to operate

in, in a spiritual way, in a moral way.

Um, then we resolutely torn our thoughts towards someone we can help love and tolerance of others is our code. Now that's a big paragraph, that one paragraph. There's asking us to do a whole lot of stuff. And then right away they start to give us some of the promises that are going to come if we've worked our way up through and are starting to apply step 10 in our life. There are some amazing promises. Now, these are not the promises you see up on the wall.

These are not the promises that are referred to as the the 12 promises of a a, but they're extraordinary. Listen to some of these problems, promises. We've ceased fighting anything or anyone. Can you imagine that? Does that mean, does that think that's what they mean?

We cease fighting anything or anyone, even our family, even our coworkers, even our Home group members, you know, during the slow, painful business meetings, you know she's fighting anything or anyone, our children. Is that what this could mean?

For by this time, sanity will have returned. That's that's pretty good news. Remember, in the second step, it talks about being restored to sanity. This is when it happens. It happens. You know, here in the 10 step promises that we will be restored to sanity. The type of sanity that they're talking about is alcoholic insanity, which is power, choice and control. The ability to control how

when we put alcohol in our body is basically what they're talking about.

If we can if we can think sanely and normally about alcohol, then we can think sanely and normally that we better not put it in our bodies and that's that's what that's what happens this the power greater than ourselves is working in US and through us and enabling us to think sanely and normally where it concerns alcohol and we now have a defense a power greater than ourselves is the defense from putting another drink in our body. Well, seldom being interested in liquor, if tempted, we

coil from it is from a hot flame, we react sanely and normally we find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. That's the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. So basically Bill is saying 16 different ways that the alcohol problem has been removed. Now, does that mean we're not an alcoholic anymore? Absolutely not. Does that mean we're cured of alcoholism? Absolutely not. The but the problem has been removed

and it'll give us it'll give us some some specifics in a few minutes. We feel as though we've been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We've not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We renew the cocky nor are we afraid. That's our experience. This is react. This is how we react as so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition. Here it is again. It's our job to keep

in fit spiritual condition. I don't even think we can do that without God's help,

but if we ask God to help us stay and fit spiritual condition and to seek to grow in knowledge and and understanding of his will, you know that's God does make does not make too hard terms for those who seek him. The, the hoop is the hoop you have to jump through is larger than you think it is. And, and you have a real good shot by this time of, of achieving

conscious contact with and a power with the God of your understanding and,

and to be able to experience the power that becomes available with that relationship that can keep you in this safe and protected state. But there's some qualifications here. You know, it's not like your problems been removed. Don't worry about it. You can leave a A and go back to the Rotary Club. That's not basically what they're saying. They're saying it's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. Laurels are yesterday's accomplishments.

We are headed for trouble if we do for alcohol as a subtle, subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Here it is again contingent on our maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's willing to all our activities. How can I best serve thee? Thy will not mind be done. These are thoughts and prayers which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our world power along this line all we want.

It is the proper use of the will.

So you know, step 10 is an amazing step. Step Step 10 is practicing the principles in all of our affairs in all time, in real time. And Step 10 is a way to broaden and deepen our relationship with God. If we continue to apply Step 10, we are going to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This isn't about a steady state. This isn't. Some people have described Step 10 and 11 as maintenance state steps.

That can be true. But I think it I think they're bigger than that. I think they're growth steps. And when we continue to practice these things, we're going to grow and understanding and effectiveness. We're going to grow spiritually. We're going to enlarge our spiritual life through work and self sacrifice for others. We're going to do we're going to be about the right the right business and all of that is going to contribute to our part of the maintenance of our

spiritual condition. You know, our part of the deal. Remember the deal we made at step three. God Ioffer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as I will. We made a deal in step three. We made a deal to be, you know, on God's team helping, helping God's children. Every single one of the steps, The third step, the 7th step prayer. It's all about help me to be more effective helping other people.

That's our part of the bargain. That's why we have to be available. We have to be willing

to help the still sick and suffering alcoholic. That's why we have to be willing to answer the phone at 2:00 in the morning with somebody who's on some psychotic rant, you know, you know, wanting to kill themselves or something, you know, any, you know, that's why we have to go to the go to the detox and, you know, listen, listen to the the insane drunks, you know, talking about their drama. We got to be willing to do a lot of these things

because we need to be available. We need to be present to fulfill our part of the bargain.

God's part of the bargain is to relieve us of this bondage of self, to help place us in a position where we can grow and effectiveness and understanding and heal. And we're not ever going to be cured of alcoholism, but we can get to the point where we're recovered from it.

We can be recovered without necessarily being cured. And I'll tell you what, I want to be in a, in a state known as recovered. That's where I want to live. Because I'll say this again, I don't, I don't mind dying with alcoholism. I don't want to die from it. I

go ahead.

Well, I'm a little bit more of a stickler when it comes to step 10 than Chris because I it's been my belief and I was raised up that the instructions of the book are the instructions of the book. So you do exactly what it says. So let me give you like a little bit of a real time thing of what doing a ten step looks like, right?

One my sponsor had me and I had the women I sponsor start reading 804088 when they're writing their four step.

So we continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear when they crop up, right?

I hate reading with the mic. I have to be over here. So OK, So we continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment of fear when they crop up. We ask God to remove them. So I watch the my job in the 10th step is to be aware and awake, to stay awake and to be present in this moment. When I realized that I've lost, I lost contact with the present moment is when I'm in fear, right? We know what fear feels like. We feel that anxiety in the pit of our stomach. So my job is to pay attention, to be present, to be in my body, in the right here and right now.

And watch my reactions at first, you know, at first I don't even really know what I'm thinking because my mind is owning me. My mind is screaming at me all the time, right?

So what I'm really watching for is the physical reactions to the things that are going on in my mind. When, you know, when we think about something that's unpleasant, we have that visceral anxiety sense, right? And I watch for that experience and I say, what's going on here?

I watch for that reaction. And I say I'm uncomfortable when I'm uncomfortable. It's been, it was taught to me that, you know, I am my problem. You are my solution. So if I'm uncomfortable, it has to do with me. There must be something going on within me that is causing my discomfort.

So where am I being selfish, self seeking, dishonest, frightened, inconsiderate, right? So I watch for these things going on in me. Now at this point I've been watching and pausing and watching and pausing for quite a long time. So I don't necessarily have to get to the point where I have a physical anxiety reaction to my thoughts. I often my thoughts will float through my mind. I recognize them, see them say, wow, that's a selfish thought and it goes.

But my job is to become present to the things that are going on in my mind. Because when I'm not present to the thoughts that I have, my thoughts own me because I give them power, because I create a reality based or story, a reality based on whatever thought that I'm having. If I'm not aware of what I'm thinking, there's nothing that I could do about it.

So my job is to wake up to my reactions to things that are going on in my mind. So if I'm having an interaction with my husband, my child, my boss, a co-worker, a friend, you know, sponsee who whatever I watch for how I'm interreacting to what's going on.

I, I watch within me because we have a watcher and we have a Walker. Do you know, ever hear of that concept? The watcher and the Walker, our walkers, you know, the person who goes through our life and the watcher is that spiritual being that kind of floats up above everything that's going on.

That's that God kernel that I was talking to about our soul or spirit, she, whatever you want to call it, you know, there's that spiritual energy that observes what's going on in the right here, right now, right? So our job in step 10 is to wake up to and pay attention to these things. First, we pay attention to our body because a lot of times our mind is so loud, we can't pick out the thoughts or the things that are disturbing us. So we pay attention to what's going on with us physically.

Once we experience something physically, we can stop and say, well, I just had an anxiety reaction. What was I thinking that provoked that? What was the delusion attached to that thought that provoked the anxiety reaction? Because I was taught that if I'm in fear right then I'm in delusion. Because fear is ultimately delusional. Because it's based in an all or nothing proposition.

You know fear. Fear is always, always a lie. Because there's always an exception to everything.

And fear tells me that there isn't. Fear tells me about tomorrow. Fear tells me about yesterday. Fear doesn't exist in this present moment because you can't really be afraid of the present moment because nothing is going on in the present moment. The only thing that's going on in the present moment is the right here, right now, right? I can't have any fear about that because I'm just here breathing. I'm just here being my fear when it's attached to my thoughts have to do with what's going to happen 5 minutes from now,

10 minutes from now, two weeks from now, next year.

That has absolutely nothing to do with where I'm at. So the first thing I do in step 10 is I stop.

What am I thinking? What am I experiencing? What delusions are going on with this thought process? A really good tip is called the foot check. You ever do the foot check? I worked with paranoid schizophrenics and schizophren people with schizophrenic disorder for a really, really long time. And they get in a lot of anxiety. You know, they think, you know, they're, they're checking the windows to see, you know, like the, you know, the aliens are coming in to probe them and things like that. So I'll stop them and I'll say, where are you?

Look down at your feet. Where are your feet? Well, I'm in the living room.

Where are you in the living room, Mom? In the living room at, you know, 1234. You know, W End Ave. OK, Where is West End Ave. Whitehall, PA. What day is it? You know, July 4th, what year, blah, blah, blah. Does what you're thinking about have anything to do with where you are right now? Where your feet are in this time in this place? No, Ignore it.

Ignore it,

it's none of my business.

So I watch for my reactions, and as I get better at watching my reactions, I can watch my thoughts because I begin to realize and see and become awake to what I'm thinking and think. Thoughts like anything else. I mean, trying to control your thoughts, you know, that's like trying to herd cats with hoses. There's no point to it. Let him go. They're just thoughts. If I don't give them any validity, if I don't give them any power, they have no power over me.

Their weather, I watch for them. I pause

when something disturbs me. I ask God to remove him. Then what do I do? I discuss him immediately. I pick up the phone. I have 10 step buddies. That's what we call them. Ten step. This is what I said. I'm a little bit more literal than pick up the phone. OK, so I'm being selfish, dishonest, self seeking and frightening. Somebody's not doing what I want, right? I washed myself. React to that.

I saw the thought process that was attached to that.

I ask God to remove it. I pick up the phone at an appropriate time or place. Like you know, you don't pick it up in front of your boss and be like, by the way, my boss isn't doing what he wants or what I want. I take a moment, I go in the ladies room, whatever I got to do, I pick up the phone. I call someone, I say I'm being selfish and self-centered. People aren't doing what I want. I'm in fear. I want to control the situation. I ask God to remove it. What can I do to be of service to you today?

Click,

we're ten step buddies. I'm not calling up with drama. I'm not here to hash out my second column. What I'm doing is I'm calling somebody, turning my thoughts to someone else,

he says. We discuss them immediately with someone and make amends quickly. If we have harmed anyone, if there isn't a corrective action that needs to be taken, take it. Boom,

boom, now, next, now stay on top of it. Present moment. Now, now, because here's the other thing is when I start to procrastinate, when there's when there's an amended, a corrective action that needs to be taken based on thought or selfishness or dishonesty that I experienced and I reacted to what was going on in my head because I lost, I lost my place in time in the present moment. I reacted to something,

then I behaved in a certain way that harms you if I avoid cleaning up that mess. And right here, right now, you know what happens.

I create a story about it

and they created another story about it. And then I'm rationalizing. I'm creating this story and I'm prolonging something that could have been taken care of with a few words. Jim, really sorry I snapped off at you. In fact, my husband called me while my GPS was going wonky in traffic in Manhattan yesterday, and he's trying to tell me how to drive on top of the GPS on my phone and I stopped. I was like, I can't talk to you right now. I'm stuck in traffic. Click

two seconds later. I'm really sorry I reacted that way. I apologize. I shouldn't have snapped at you. That's simple.

It doesn't have to be that hard,

but the idea here is this is that a lot of times I've experienced or I've worked with people who do the 10 step in their mind and doing the 10 step in their mind without following the little instructions. A lot of times what happens is they're holding on to all kinds of things, holding on to all kinds of things. So they're 10 stepping. They're seeing what their selfish, dishonest, self seeking and frightened. They're asking God to remove them, but they're not doing the other part of that,

which is speaking to somebody

and taking constructive action.

So there's that whole gamut that goes into the 10th step, you know, and I found that when I applied that discipline to my life, it's amazing how how incredible my relationships became, how how much less I reacted to the things that went on in my head and how present I was able to become because this, this step really is. And it really is about the present moment. It's about being here right now and not losing contact with that. And The thing is, is that, you know, where people were human, we

contact. I lose contact at with that all the time. And when my mind wanders off into the future or wanders back into the past, I watch for that. And

that has absolutely nothing to do with what's going on right now. It's none of my business. Boom, God, remove it,

admit it to somebody, keep going boom, make amends if it if it's necessary. I've been in class where I've turned to the person next to me and I said, you know, I'm judging the crap out of the professor. I'm being selfish and self-centered and I want things to go to my way. Is there anything I could do to be of service to you today? They looked at me and said no cool. Boom done. You know, it's amazing how these things and it's also amazing how much when you practice this, how much the fellowship of the spirit continues to grow because we're sharing with

one another, we're being human with one another. We're not putting up fronts or pretending to be spiritual giants. We're being human beings having a human experience together, working together. So we have, I have these ten step buddies and I'm a ten step buddy with a bunch of people and I get phone calls all the time, text messages for people at work. I love the text message, a ten step text message, dude, it works wonderfully. Step into the bathroom, make that quick phone call. Man, it is amazing how much that tiny step makes such a huge difference

in terms of whether or not I'm going to carry this around or whether I can get back into the present moment. The when I first started practice, the practicing this, I had to make 10 or 15 phone calls a day. It really sucked. The better I got at this, the more I was able to adhere to this discipline, the less time I had to pick up the phone or turn to some stranger on the street. And it was amazing to me how humbling it was to have to pick up. You know, I'm 10 years sober and I got to make 15 phone calls because my kids are pissing me off,

you know, But how amazing it was, how humbling it was,

how invigorating it was, and how incredible it was in my relationships, you know? So this is something that I don't think I can overemphasize the practical application of this, you know, and it really has to do. This isn't the 10th step, is not something you do at night. That's the 11th step.

I hear that all the time. People say, well, I do my 10th step at night really, because the nightly review says step, you know, step 11, suggest prayer, meditation. And then we have those 12 questions. But there's an amazing thing in those 12 questions. It asks if we have kept something to ourselves. So it's asking you in the nightly review, did you do a ten step? Because that's The thing is like, I'll, I'll see my selfishness, I'll see that stuff, whatever. But I, God forbid I humble myself and discuss it with another human being.

Ain't doing that,

No. So for me, this is a vital part of the discipline of 10 and 11 is turning and sharing not my drama, but my 4th column. And there are times in this in during the day where I might have to put pen to paper. I had to do that very early on, too, you know, when there was a resentment that came up and I knew I had to write it out. I knew it was something that needed to be written out. Put pen to paper, man.

Kill a tree. Save your life,

seriously, you know, and like, why let something grow? You know, why put off something? Why make it worse? If I see something that's going on, if I see that I actually have a resentment that needs to be written out, if I take the action and write it out right then right there, you know, making it make an appointment, 5th step it, get it done. Boom.

I don't have to create something. I don't have to create wreckage out of that. I can simply take care of it. And it's amazing to me how many people have, you know, I'll be talking to somebody and they'll be like, well, you know, I have 1015 years sober. Well, when's the last time you've been through one through 90 like eight or nine years ago?

OK, well you have you been working a perfect 1011 and 12?

Well, to define that, do you write nightly review every night? No. Do do morning meditation every day? No. Do you take quiet time at night? No. Do you pause? No. Do you watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment of fear? No.

Well, and you want to know why you're fucked up?

No, but seriously, think about that for a minute. Think about that for a minute. We do all this incredible work. We make all these incredible amends. We do all this stuff. We write this beautiful inventory that should be like mounted on the wall, right? We do this a powerful fist up. We start knocking on doors, doing all this stuff. And I don't want to pause.

I don't want to tell somebody I'm having a hard time. I don't want to pick up that phone. I don't want to write out a nightly review.

I'm too spiritual for that. I've evolved past that, really.

I don't know if the book ever says that we evolved past the disciplines of 10 and 11. That's not been my experience, you know, and this is this is where ego will write a check that our spirit can't cash. And it's been my experience when I stay in these disciplines and I do exactly what they say, I'm a literal fundamental letter of the law, sort of big book person. I don't make stuff up.

I don't take things away. You know, we, I talked about it last night and I'll, you know, I'll kind of wrap it up with this. No, do it. Last night. I said that, you know, this is a recipe, right? This is a recipe for a spiritual experience. Like we can add stuff, but we don't take it away. And it's amazing to me how much in 10 and 11 people take things away. How much, you know, how much we get so busy living and doing and whatever that we stop to do the very things, you know, it's like this. And I, you know, I have a sponsor who's Mr. So, like, sometimes I have to, like, break down,

you know, the concepts of the big book and the steps in a very, very simple way for her to understand it. And she was talking, I was talking about the necessity for a relationship with God, you know, really talking about the second step. But I was trying to put it in a very simple way. And I asked her. I said, well, you know, when you meet somebody on the street and you, you know, you're introduced to them, do they become your friend? And she was like, well, yeah, you know, people I know are my friends. I said, yeah, but how do you get to know them

while I talk to them?

Yeah. So, you know, you have to pick up the phone. You have to go to meetings or you maybe meet them for coffee, and you have interactions and you talk to them, right? Yeah. That's how you have a friend. I said, well, can you know what about God? Is God your friend? Well, yeah. I said you talk to him. No,

you know, it's amazing to me how much, you know, I'll do all this work. I'll have all these spiritual experiences and then I'll, I'll stop in that, in that relationship, that interaction with God, where I start and I pull back and I was like, well, thanks God for saving me from the alcoholic, you know, death. Thank you so much for bringing me back from the gates of hell. Thank you so much for restoring me to sanity. Thank you so much. I'll see you later. Bye.

So you know, our relationship with God is truly a relationship and it requires effort and communication. It efforts, it requires prayer and meditation. It requires being conscious and aware of when my ego starts to cut God out and take over. And really, that's what the 10 Steps all about is about. Being awake to that. Being awake to when my ego begins to take over and I begin to recreate reality in my image.

When I start to become the creator, instead of having a creator

and we, we stay awake to that by staying awake to the present moment and watching for these things. I want you to close your eyes for a minute. Everybody close your eyes

and just take a couple deep breaths,

OK? Did you guys observe any thoughts, any reactions, anything going on within your body or within your mind while you were taking those couple deep breaths?

Whether something that flowed through, just an idea, you know, anything.

OK. See that thing that you experienced that floated through, that was the Walker

and the thing that observed it is the watcher.

And what we try to do with the 10 step is go through our day with the watcher, watching the Walker but not engaging in it. And when we engage the Walker, we pause. We ask God to ever to

to take it away.

We turn, we ask, we speak. This is what we do. And if we can do this on a daily basis, when we can watch for these things, when we can be awake to them, we never have to fall asleep again.

It might get away from us for a moment, but we can always bring it back. We never have to go to sleep. We never have to be in the coma. You never have to go back into the Matrix. I always think about that when we talk about following this, you know, being asleep, dreaming that you're awake and think about the Matrix, right? You guys ever watch the Matrix? Or am I just a dork? OK. You know, the Matrix, you're plugged in and you know, the the Matrix dictates your reality, right? When you wake up, you realize that, you know, the world is full of suffering. It's not perfect. And, you know, food isn't as wonderful and things are cold and it's kind of scary. And machines run the entire world and

basically a battery for their like, you know, cities, right? But the matrix that you're comfy and you're soft and you're all these things, but nothing and everything you experience is not real. It's all part of the reality created for you to keep you asleep and to keep you a slave, right?

Reality is difficult and uncomfortable. We face things about ourselves. We see things about ourselves that kind of sucks sometimes. Sometimes we have to be the bigger person. I can remember going to my sponsor, like, why do I have to make the because you can. Why do you have to be the bigger person? Because you can,

you know,

being awake doesn't mean that it's always, you know, puppy dogs and sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes it's about taking it on the chin. Sometimes it's about letting go of what we want. What I want does not matter.

Letting go of those attachments, not always being perfect, not always looking good,

but for me, I would rather have the discomfort of being awake at times to the things that are going on within me, then falling asleep and being the slave to my mind again.

Because my mind does not own me. And just because I think it doesn't mean that it is real. I have this thing and I'll finish up with this. I have like this thing where I think I'm fat. All women think they're fat, right? My husband wants to kill me. I've had four children and I'm really, really not fat. But I have this obsession that I am because my mind tells me that I am. And he'll look at me some days and he'll be like, really? And you get a Since when did you start listening to your mind?

Oh, good point. My mind tells me I'm fat. That does not make me fat. My perception is distorted,

and when I can wake up and be aware of that, be aware of that truth, I don't have to react to it. It does not have to become my truth.