Meditation at a workshop called Kitchen Table AA in New Orleans, LA

Yes, there's anybody in the hallway that wants to. Yeah. No, no, no. You don't get spiritual. We already are. You don't have to worry about getting

well, OK, You can touch it.

So

good morning, everyone. My name is Jay Stennett, and I'm a grateful member of this fellowship. Hey,

and welcome to our meditation and spiritual workshop.

It's a it's a delight to be here.

Probably the only thing that I like to talk about

as much as a A is about the spiritual path.

Now do the same deal, but just for this morning, I'm going to show you some stuff that's kind of fun

and

it's, you know, I like to say that the pray and meditate the way you drank and used. Just try stuff, see where you end up.

And yeah, you can't do this stuff wrong. And overtime, what's happened is, is I've, I've learned some things, Hey,

and, and so I'm going to, I'm going to share them with you. We're going to do the the awareness exercise.

I'm going to teach you the awareness exercise and before that I'm going to talk about a couple of of couple of fun things.

First of all, I can do on the second day of May in 1979. So I've been at this for a while and I fell in with a group called the 11 Step Group in Manhattan Beach, CA that's been going since 1948.

So they got a little experience

and my wife sponsor

is,

is one of my teachers and,

and I've been going to workshops and doing stuff. I, I think that it's important. I was taught when there was a, there's a book called the either or bookstore in Hermosa Beach, CA. That was a bookstore where beatniks bought books. That's how long it had been around. Really, really cool place. And the tradition where I was, was when you got to be 90 days sober, your sponsor would take you down to this bookstore

and he would walk you around or she would walk you around and show you the different types of it. Because they had all of it. They had Buddhism, they had Taoism and they had, you know, Christianity and they had this and they had that. And, and, and the thing about this bookstore is they owned all the books,

which is weird, but you can actually pull them down, sit down and share and read. It was just great. And you know, so find something that speaks to you.

So I was taught to always have the side of my bed, a big book, 12:00 and 12:00 and then some other non conference approved literature. OK, and

there's some great, you know, I mean, there's just all kinds of great ones. And one of these days I'm going to write a list just for fun. But one one that was very, very good early on was a book called The Feminine Face of God.

What what you know, I mean, you guys stretch it. You gotta stretch it. So before we start this morning, how many of you have a meditative practice?

OK, well then that just changed the workshop altogether. That's really fun. Bunch of fellow travelers.

OK, so one of the things that I found that's quite,

quite fun is let's do a let's do a 3 minute meditation just to kind of kind of drop in. And as opposed to my friend Matthew, I like to just, I've been doing this a while. So I don't, I don't pay attention to timer, you know, so I'm just going to, it'll be about 3 minutes, might be 248, might be 3:20. And then what we'll do is

then I'm going to teach you a fun thing, a fun exercise that I've that I found. Then we'll do, we'll do another three minute meditation

and then after that I'll teach you the awareness exercise, which is, which is a great gateway into the into the thing. So,

so let's just get comfortable and

everybody's caffeinated, everybody's here. So nice to see you guys.

It's always fun when there's more people in the Jacuzzi admit

it's a spiritual jacuzzi.

So one of the things that I learned, I don't know, about 15 years ago, a guy, we were leading a retreat up in Colorado and this, this guy was leaving the meditation in the morning. And he taught me this really fun thing to do to make myself present to start the meditation.

And what we're going to do is we're going to drop our chin to our chest four times. OK,

slowly.

And now

let's bring our left ear

down to our left shoulder

four times.

Some of us carry a lot of tension in our neck.

And now let's take our head and drop it back as far as we can drop it comfortably.

I know you can't believe this, but let's drop our right here

to our right shoulder

and then let's take our chins and just

turn our head towards the wall

to the left four times

and then we'll do the same thing to the right.

And then drop your chin to your chest and circle your head around to the left and all the way around four times.

And then the last instruction is to do the same thing to the right.

So let's do another three.

Thank you.

So did you see how much clearer

the meditation was after doing the exercises here? Had

I like to, I like to say it's like recalibrating the gyroscope. Anytime that I take that extra couple of minutes and invest it in doing that simple exercise, it's amazing how much clearer my meditation is. So now all this stuff I'm sharing with you,

it's what I have found.

The idea is for you to find what works for you.

The whole thing about the spirituality of the 12 step movement is that what we're doing is we're just trying stuff,

make an experiment. Now, what's an experiment? An experiment is that I have a hypothesis. I think that this is and I'm going to do certain things. I'm going to follow a recipe and see what the result is, right. So if I'm going to have a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, I got to go through the stuff. Well, it's the same thing with the meditative process. You know, you try stuff and if you try it for three weeks now I'm going to,

I'm going to teach you

something of my,

my friend

Lee taught me. And this is, this is called the awareness exercise. And we are all designed to be able to be in communion with ever whatever it is that creates this. And, and we have an antenna, we have a faculty that's beyond our, our, our normal senses.

And it's called the awareness faculty. And why it is that we aren't taught when we're young to do it, I have no idea. But that's just one of the things in Western culture that is not been something that we've that, that we've been taught to do. So what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to

get comfortable, OK? And I want you to close your eyes

and I want you to

put your awareness

on your left knee.

Now I want you to really concentrate

on your left knee,

really bring it. I mean intently

focus on your left knee.

Now I want you to shift your awareness to your right elbow.

Bring it focus

intently

now. What happened

to your left knee?

So open your eyes.

So see, we can shift our awareness to any spot

at any time. OK,

Now I don't know about you guys, but occasionally I'm in situations where there are people that are acting inappropriately in front of me, right? I'm engaged with different folks. And so if I can, if I can move my awareness in my body, then I can also move my awareness of my consciousness at any time. OK, So what I want you to do now is I want you to to close your eyes.

And for the purpose of this,

we're going to

decide that there's two pieces of us.

There's the

I am,

which is the

that one that we're all part of.

And then there's J.

And I want you to, I want you to go up into your skull,

and I want you to go inside of your skull.

I want you to go to the very top of your brain,

in that place between your

your brain and the and and the bone.

I want you to bring your awareness there.

Now, for some folks, it's a little easier to go up,

maybe an inch above your cranium.

What Into the crown chakra?

Some folks Maybe it's a little bit easier to go to the back of the

the skull,

but in that space in there,

you can feel

a separation.

As I start to look down at my

the J,

let's let's just go up to the top of our head again

and let's look down through

our skull,

down our neck,

just in our mind's eye,

down our throat

and into our heart space.

And let's just spend a minute running back and forth,

bringing the energy from the top of our head,

through our skull,

relax our jaw,

down our neck

and into our heart space.

And then let's take the elevator back up.

Heart,

neck,

a jaw,

up to the top of our head.

Let's go down one more time.

And then back up to the top.

And as we look down from

this, I am space

into our personal sense.

Let's very softly

inside of our own

and it silently

say be still.

And then

go down just just maybe 1/4 inch

and no.

And then let's drop a little bit further.

And I am.

Still

and no,

I am.

And let's bring our awareness slowly repeating this

down into our heart space.

It'll take a couple of minutes,

but actually feel

each part of your body,

each part of your head

be still.

I am.

Down into our nose and our nostrils,

Into our ears.

Be still

and no,

I am

now into our mouths.

Feel the sensation of the air

be still.

And no,

I am.

Into our throats

be still.

And no,

I am.

Finally, let's drop into our hearts.

Be still.

And

no,

I am

I.

Thank you.

So this technique,

if you felt the separation,

the observer if you will,

if you get a relationship with that.

And it's just done with practice.

Anytime, anywhere, in any situation that you're in, you can pop into the observer

and you don't have to be stuck in whatever it is that you're stuck in.

3 dimensions to four bang.

If you try this exercise for three months

and you can, you can take it all the way down

through your body,

down to your feet and back up. Be a 20 minute, 30 minute, 40 minute meditation.

You get a relationship

with this part of you, the I am part.

You can pop into it in any situation. You do that every day for 90 days. You'll your life will change in a radical manner.

It's just an experiment.

There is a there's a website, it's the #3

minutespluralofsilence.org.

And on it there's a wheel.

And on that wheel, there's a dozen different symbols,

dozen different ways to meditate. And my teacher and I put that that that website together on there. There's an Infinity symbol. And the Infinity symbol is an 8 that's laid on its side.

Click on that. My friend Dulce is doing a form of this meditation, 10 minutes. You can just pop into it and it's a, it's a marvelous, marvelous practice.

Now, the other thing that I'd like to really urge you to do is

how many of you live with

another person?

OK, cool.

So and how many of you have a pet?

Don't don't live with another person or do OK. So

in our literature it says if circumstances warrant.

Has anybody here ever had a warrant?

Fairly serious thing, right? OK,

circumstances weren't We Invite our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation.

Now, there's something that happens when two people meditate that's more powerful than one person meditates.

And so I really, really highly recommend that you try meditating with other people in your household.

When I was single and my daughter would come and visit me, she hold my timer.

OK, She later on, she'd bring the chimes,

but something happens if you happen to be in a in a relationship with somebody. One of the things that that we found and there's a,

my wife and I actually wrote a book called Loving Sober, a Field Guide to spiritual intimacy.

And you can go on and just that, you can go into iTunes or you can go to Loving Sober Calm, and you can download it for free

because we wanted it to be a gift. And in it, there's a section on spiritual intimacy. And one of the things that we found is, is that if you sit and touch your loved one while you're meditating for three minutes,

the day is entirely different than when you don't.

And again, this is just an experiment. If you got roommates,

you don't have to touch your roommate unless it's a touching roommate situation,

which is all of meditation in itself, but I digress. But the, the, the, the fun thing is, is see how your household works when you sit and meditate for 5 minutes together because all roommate situations are a little stressful, right? I mean, if they just act a little bit better, everything would be fun.

But if you sit and meditate together, it's incredible the difference that will happen in that day. So try it for a couple days, then stop. Don't do it

and see the difference.

And so that's The thing, is that this spiritual path that we want, because we're all going to be sober forever, right?

So we get to try a bunch of stuff

and you can't do it wrong. So the last thing I'd like to do is just invite. If anybody's got any questions or anything, I'd be delighted to share my experience.

I got a question, yes. All right, so de meditation and all, maybe, maybe I'm seeking an answer to God for His will.

How do I know

when I'm meditating that he's speaking to me? Oh, OK, cool. Everybody hear the question? OK, so the question is, I got to do this for the tape anyway, right? Throw something at me if I don't remember. OK, The question is how do I know

whether it's the voice of God

or just my mind when I'm in deep meditation? So

anybody think that my mind's too busy to meditate?

Well it's not in nobody in this room but maybe maybe you have some sponsees

who would tell you that.

Well my mines too busy. I've got a DDQP.

My thing on that is, do you think Bill and Bob didn't?

I mean, those guys were really toasted. Have you read their stories in the book? I mean, these guys were fried

and they came up with a technique, or they were taught a technique in the Oxford Group called How to Listen.

OK. And what you do is, is that you get a pen and a piece of paper. Now also on that website #3 minutes ofsilence.org at the 7:00 hour, that the infinities symbols on the 3:00 hour, at the 7:00 hour is the symbol of initiatives of change. And in that there's a.

A technique called How to Listen. It's, it's the Oxford Group form of meditation. And it's, it's very, very easy.

And what you do is you get your coffee right. And they said that, that a Symphony never plays until it, it warms up and all that we're doing in the morning when we're when we're meditating. So we're just warming up. OK. And

their deal was, again, that we're all designed to be able to be in communication with whatever this power is.

They called it Jesus. They called it God because that was

that was their their training and understanding.

But it works for anybody with with any type of faith or no faith. This is a great thing. I'm an atheist. OK, we'll hear. Try this. And so you, what you do is that you sit quietly

and

you asked specifically

for direction.

If you got a problem, you ask, you know, and then you always have a piece of paper and a pen. My Oxford group friends, they all carry. I'm a, I'm a member of initiatives of change, which is the current day thing of the OG. And and they, they always carry a little book depend with them and they'll sit

and and what you do is, is that you write down every thought that comes in your mind, every thought,

good thoughts, bad thoughts,

holy thoughts, unholy thought,

even when you think, Oh, I'm just thinking.

In fact, I'm not sure we're going to. I'm not sure we're going to.

Oh, you know what? Tomorrow morning,

I'll teach this. We'll do this method together. OK, We'll do this method together tomorrow morning

because it really it's, it's been a, it's been a great joy to me. But So what happens is, is that you, you write down everything that comes

and then what? And then you do what what's there? Because people will come across your mind.

You'll remember something. You might remember a right that needs to be wrong.

You might remember

you know something to do, you know something that you ought to, ought to do, might be something at work, might be something at your home, but you write it all down. Now The thing is, is whether I know that

that it's the voice of God or not. Well, what we do is that we in the Oxford group, they had, they called it checking. And you would, you would get together with a couple people and you'd say, well, this is what my guidance was today. And they'd say that sounds pretty good or that doesn't sound very good, but you can check yourself because all you need to do is

does what is down here.

If you have a question about it, how does it? How does it match up with the spiritual literature that I read?

How does it match up with my responsibilities for my family or to my country,

my community?

You know when it says

I'm supposed to take the girl from the adolescent treatment center to Las Vegas and become a professional gambler,

you know it just might be a little bit off, right? So we can we can see not that's not it. OK, I

but if the thought is

you know I've always wanted. Or if the say the thought is

my cousin,

my cousin Shannon

and

I should call her

and you do it's an experiment again, you got, you got that. I mean, you try the stuff, you follow the the instructions that come down and you'll say it's thinking and all that. Now that the group said, you know that well, what if I don't get anything? Well,

it may be that you haven't finished the steps.

We got to clear the channel.

OK, now you can start. This great thing about the 11th step is you started at any time, but it gets clear as we get clearer. And what the steps are designed to do is they're designed to clear the channel so that I can be available to enjoy this gift of this Life.

OK.

So that's what we do is we get that, get that stuff done. But, but in the instruction that's in the on the web page, it, it's, there are four things. It's there may be something I need to set right that I haven't. There may be a, an indulgence that I'm unwilling to give up. There may be a relationship that I'm in that's not right.

I mean, why would why would, how would that block me spiritually?

So anyway that that kind of thing. I mean, so this is all really, really practical,

but thank you and we'll do that tomorrow morning.

Anybody got? Yes, miss.

OK, it's the #3

and then minutes. Plural of silence. Got minutes

ofsilence.org because we found in this in this eleven step group, the three minutes is more than enough. You start at 3 minutes. I don't have enough time to meditate. You got 3 minutes, you'd be late 3 minutes to anything, right? I mean, come on. And and so that's that's it. Yes, Sir.

OK, another question. Yes, Sir.

Like techniques or advice would you have? I've always had trouble, like when I get up in the morning, meditation and prayer is not on the line. Like it's not that my mind is too busy, it's just that I think of it. Well, So what you do is you put an orange card on your door and you go. What's that?

It's the prayer and meditation card. Or you get some stupid crocheted thing at the store that says,

but you don't turn on the you don't turn on the television. Like, I haven't had television for 20,

four years. Why is he so happy?

Because I pay attention to what's in front of me. I don't pay attention to what people tell me that I'm supposed to be thinking about.

I pay attention to what's in front of me.

Well, isn't that sticking your head in the sand? No, I've ended up in working with

refugee communities in Guatemala and Belize. I've ended up all kinds of different places doing all kinds of wonderful things by just being intentive to what's in front of me.

Does that answer the question? Yeah. You know, just don't turn on the TV. That's the OR, or, you know, it's like, well,

I just downloaded

the entire

death metal collection.

Don't listen to that first. You know, I mean, it's just, you know, just wait and, and if you need to, you just put it on top of your phone and OK, I'm going to do that before I get on Facebook.

It's an investment And, and again, it is completely counterintuitive,

The third dimensional

thing or collective consciousness is going to be screaming at you to do everything, everything it can to keep you from rising.

But you're part of a a now. You can do anything, even that.

Anybody else? Yes, Sir.

Well, it's a great question that the question is well, my partner and I, we got our schedules are different. How do we do that? Well, I got

goosebumps all over me

'cause I mean, there's, there's so many wonderful things that have happened, one of which is Skype

or FaceTime if you're both on, on an Apple product. No, no, no, just a second, just a second. Let me, let me go.

And

you didn't say swing shift or anything. So The thing is, is that we spirituality can be, we know that spiritual vibration can be transmitted electronically. How do we know that? How many of you have listened to XA, right? I mean, I get in my head and I'm absolutely confused, right? About who I am and what's going on and I can drop an X,

A tape in at one of my friends

and all sudden

my entire consciousness is different. I've been elevated.

OK, so the same thing is true. Like when we started we we'd before they had the the the Skype, my wife and I would meditate. We just get on the phone together wherever I was in the world and we meditate then does it have to be the morning, the morning watch back to the the the question before about

most spiritual teachers say start.

Yeah, that this is

this is the common welfare. Good. Good job, Nick.

Yeah. Yeah. So wake him up. Yeah. It's OK. No, he was meditating.

Yeah, it was deep,

but the but the but anyway, the the The thing is, is that we we do it over the phone. Now the morning is when we set our consciousness up. Back to the thing about

how does the Symphony start? Well, they they warm up and so we warm up. So

that's it. Now if they're geographically undesirable or it's tenant

always, The thing is, is meditating doesn't matter when you do it. It's like kissing, OK, I normally do it at night. OK, well that's fine. But The thing is, is that in the morning or when say that they wake up at 11:00 and you're already off at work, go outside, spend 3 minutes together when their consciousness is is flowering.

Anybody else? Yeah, well, just say anybody else but Nick,

because he's already asked again. Then this will be the last one because we got a We're going to have a little break. Yes Sir,

I am old and

I guess like from

realized had negative thinking right negative attitude. So past few years I came across like stuff like positive monitors and stuff like that. And I

throughout the day just tell myself those things are, I can read them, I can meditate on them. I mean, well, affirmations, affirmations are are great. Again, pray and meditate the way you drank and use Tristep.

Just try it, see where you end up. So what's the question? Do I use affirmations? No, not particularly. It's never been. When I was when I was newly sober, they told me to

one of the hardest meditations I ever had was standing in front of a mirror naked and saying I love you.

That was really, really hard.

I like that.

Like that, this is what we call spiritual evolution

back to the spiritual Jacuzzi. But yeah, but no, no, no. So I mean, like my, my current meditation practice right now is I have this insight timer and I've always got some different teacher that I'm, I'm listening to. Currently. It's a guy by the name of Matt Collins Kahn. He's got a bunch of stuff on YouTube. I I find him to be fine because he's about 40 and he doesn't use medieval language.

And

and the other, but so my current thing is and thanks for this, Nick, so that I can go to the inside timer. Are you guys familiar with the inside timer? It's an app and it's an app that you can get for free or you can spend, I think it's 399 to get the the one that's and you literally can

pick figure out the kind of bell you like.

You can set it for X amount of time. It's really fun. And I set mine to go off every 22 minutes. So every 22 minutes this thing will go off. I don't do it when I'm leaving a retreat, but it'll it'll literally go off and nobody knows. Well, my boss, he he he

cool.

And whenever I hear that, what I do is I put my my hand on my heart

and I say,

I love you.

Welcome home.

I trust you.

Please forgive me

for not paying attention

because I never had a relationship with my innocence. I'm not a child bearer so the whole inner child thing is never really worth with me but but coming home to my innocence has been a wonderful thing. And then I ask, am I doing right now?

Is this for the highest good of all?

Because I can be in a conversation with somebody, I hear that thing go off and I may be talking about nonsense

3rd dimensional stuff. And all I have to do is change my attitude a little bit

and we can elevate

the conversation

so that we're talking about something important instead of just

isn't it lame?

Instead of

the other thing that I do is a spiritual practice is I try very hard, not try very hard because it's a, it's a reflex. Now,

is that when I'm ending a conversation with anybody, asking them, is there anything that I can do for you?

See what happens when you pull that one out

because it's amazing what people will tell you

And back to the thing about writing stuff down or the like be but it's it's incredible what

what's available when you just ask. So that's the things that I do to keep my consciousness elevated instead of reminding myself

are using an affirmation.

OK,

well, all right, let's let's go like caffeine up get a little, you know, I think we got some speed balls out there. Alcoholic speedball, donut and coffee.

Thank you so very much.