Step 11 at a Men's OA Tool Time Retreat in Oceanside, CA

OK, my name is Frank and I'm a recovered compulsive reader.

Hi everybody,

I thought I'd start with a couple of little housekeeping type things. I was reminded this morning that one of the one of the little rituals that we do in OAPP is when you start working with your sponsor on the steps. They they tell you to bring your big book with you and to write on the title page. The following things above the the title Alcoholics Anonymous on the title page you write, I am willing to go to go to any lengths and then you sign it and you date it. So I now know, I now remember that I started this on

December 15th, 2016. That's when I started to work the steps of my big, big film, the title page,

the title where it has Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous, the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. 4th edition. Yeah. So that that's what you write at the top there. You're right. I am willing to go to any lengths and sign it and date it. And then lower on the page, you write this letter from, from God to you says, dear Frank, you are never going to have your way again as long as you live, love God.

And and she said that, you know, some people said, Oh my gosh, that's terrible. I thought it was fantastic. I sure hope that's true. I never want to have my way again. I want God's way to to happen.

PS If you follow the directions in this book, you will thank me for it one day at a time. So I just like that little ritual that we use to start the OPP working the steps.

Oh, here, I'll read it again.

So this means you guys all got to start working the OA PP program right now, today.

So go get yourself a sponsor and do it. If PS if you follow the directions in this book, you will thank me for it one day at a time. So in other words, the directions that are in this book, the clear cut directions that are in this book is all you need to work the, the, the steps according to the OPP program.

OK.

The other thing I'd like to share a little bit about was that I had a couple of text exchanges with one of my sponsees last night and this morning. And he had had like, I think 5 days of abstinence on day five. And he was going to sit, he was going to have lunch, but he had a part of his lunch 30 minutes before lunch was scheduled to start. I don't know exactly what the circumstances work. And it was an absent food. It was, it was going to be part of his lunch, but he just had it early.

And that little thing, there was enough for him to then go have some other food and have some other food.

And then he binge the rest of the day and text me at the end of the day. And I'm going to start again tomorrow. So what I, what I, what I texted back to him is that, you know, this is, this is one of the reasons why I think counting days is not useful. Because if you're counting days, then once, once you've blown it, you've blown it for the entire day. And I'm going to start again tomorrow. And that's what I did for those 18 years. I was starting tomorrow for 18 years. And that's what got me to 460 lbs.

And that it's, it's more useful to

to take it one moment at a time, not one hour at a time, not one meal at a time, not one day at a time. It's one moment at a time. And, and I, what I have for 12 years now is imperfect abstinence. And by imperfect absence, I mean that there may have been some meals where I had more than I wanted to have. And I finished the meal and I said, boy, I wish I hadn't done that. That was more than I wanted to eat. That's not, you know, that's not the way I would like to eat every day. And I just forgive myself

and, and just stick to it. And, and you know,

I don't use that as the excuse to eat, eat for the rest of the day and start again tomorrow. So that's my point of view. And, and you know, I think that being 100% perfect on your red light foods may be very appropriate. But if you have issues like, you know, timing or quantities or things like that, which is what all I all of my absence was is about quantities for that I have to be willing to forgive myself and and not, you know, start all over just because I had

too much quantity in one meal. So anyway that I wanted to start with that and now I'll get into the step work.

Oops. OK. So step 11 sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Well, you know, if if you read through the 12 steps, read through the big book, every single prayer in there is praying only for knowledge of his will for us in the power to carry it out. They, they emphasize over and over again, you don't pray for somebody else, You don't pray for yourself except if it will be helpful to other people.

So that's that. That instruction has been embedded throughout every prayer that's mentioned in the Big Book. And there's tons of prayers all the way through the Big Book.

Now the prayer is pretty obvious. This is where I'm asking God, You know, I'm basically talking, either I'm talking out loud to God or I'm talking internally in my head to God and asking for something or asking for help or, or whatever it is. But what is meditation? And there are many kinds of meditation. I've I've told you, I've taken the MBSR course and I've taken some other other courses and other things that I won't get into, but this is what this is what I found

ways of describing meditation.

A lot of them involve controlling attention, controlling where I'm placing my attention. They can be, there's mindfulness, which is kind of just noticing where the attention is right now. Oh, I'm paying attention to an inner voice talking. Oh, I'm paying attention to a sound that I heard. Oh, I'm paying attention to how hard the chair is on my butt. You know, just noticing where attention is being directed is mindfulness meditation and, and just noting it, you know, basically noting it and then letting it go. You don't concentrate on it. You don't keep replying to that inner voice. If you

the inner voice, oh, I'm paying attention to inner voice. OK, what's next? And you know, it's cold in this room or it's hot in this room. So it's paying attention to any sensory information, any, any feeling that you have. If a feeling comes up, I'm feeling bored, I'm feeling sick, I'm feeling tired. I'm, you know, pissed at my wife. Notice any kind of feeling that comes up or a thought in the head or any kind of physical sensation, anything at all that you that you notice that you're paying attention to that would be doing mindfulness meditation

and

Buddhists. The pasta and a meditation starts with concentrating on the breathing. So you kind of notice the the the feeling of the air going in and out of your nostril as you breathe in and out. You just breathe in and out. Normally you don't breathe special in any way, but you just notice the feeling of the air going in and out of your nostril and your mind is going to wonder and you'll be thinking about what the hell am I going to do when I finish this meditation? And when you ever whenever you notice that you just bring it back to noticing the air going in and out of the nostril as you breathe in and out. So that's concentrating on the breath. You can pay

bodily sensations. For example, you can do a meditative walking. You can walk someplace and just notice the feelings of your feet touching the ground, the muscles contracting, the air blowing by, something like that, that that's a walking meditation. You could be laying in bed and kind of scanning your body. You could, you could

pay attention to your toes. I don't know about you, but if I pay attention to my toes right now, I kind of feel a tingling in my toes. And then if I move it up to my calves, I feel a little tingling in my calf and I can notice that I'm actually paying attention to that part there as I, as I move my attention up and down through the body. So you can kind of just scan it up and down like that. There's also a progressive relaxation where you relax your calf muscles, then you relax your thigh muscles, then you relax your buttocks, relax your, your body, your arms, your legs, your head, your all the muscles. You just go

the body scanning, relaxing muscles and noticing the sensations of those. Then there's slow movements like yoga. You know, yoga is a form of meditation where you hold a pose for a count and then you go to a different pose. And those are all forms of meditation. A lot of a lot of not a lot, but some of the religious practices that are meditative are, are chanting, chanting. When you get into a rhythm of just chanting a quick phrase over and over again, that's a meditative practice

where rhythmic dancing, you know, you hear a lot of primitive cultures where they do a lot of chancing and chanting and dancing.

Those are all forms of meditation that they're performing in those cultures. And another one is repeating a mantra, the Transcendental Meditation. You're when you pay your, I don't know how many $100, you get a mantra given to you that's special just for you. And you repeat that mantra to yourself over and over again in your head during your meditation. So that that's another way of doing it. And these are all about staying in the now notice every one of those practices is trying to notice what is going on right here, right now. Where is my attention being directed

here right now? And you know, you can notice that my thought is thinking of the past or my thought is thinking of the future, but those are thoughts that are thinking of the past and future. You're having those thoughts right here, right now. So my, as far as I'm concerned, the meditation is all about being in the now, not being in the past, not being in the future. And, and you know that this is Eckhart Tolle has the book The Power of Now. That was one of my that's an outside issue. We shouldn't talk about outside issues, never mind cancel that,

OK.

And in fact, an implicit goal of meditation as far as I'm concerned is the decreased thinking. Now you can't sit there and think I'm going to decrease thinking. I'm going to decrease thinking because you're thinking about thinking, you know, so it's not possible to do it by actually thinking that I'm going to decrease thinking. That's not going to work because you're just going to be thinking about decreasing thinking. That's all you're going to do. You're going to change the subject from whatever you're thinking about before to thinking about decreasing thinking. But it's if you, if you do these meditative practices,

you'll notice little blank spots. Hey, I didn't have a thought for a while there. You know, if you notice the thought come up and that's what you're noticing. Oh, there's a thought that came up. Once you say, oh, there's a thought that came up, you can then notice the sensation in your body. And that means you're not noticing a thought at that point. So whenever you're noticing something that's not a thought that that means that you are successful and not not having a thought at that moment. Now, it may just be moments, you know it, it's hard to tell how often we think because we're still used to it. We think all the time, you know, as you're driving down the road,

thinking about what you're going to do when you get there, where we think about what happened before he left or whatever it is that you're doing. You know, there's lots of things that you can think about. So this is my my view of meditation and this is based on my experience. So I'm allowed to share that here, but I'm not allowed to share any books or anything like that. And, you know, there's a lot of religious meditations that, that, you know, lots of religions have meditations even, you know, you don't think of Christian as being a meditative religion very much, but a lot of, a lot of Christian sects that are monastic sects that, you know,

little way in a monastery for a long period of time, they're meditating there. That's what they're doing is they're meditating. They're not, they're praying and meditating. They're used doing both praying and meditating. So even even Christian religion has parts of the religion that do a lot of meditation. I, I never heard about meditation in my Catholic upbringing, but there are monastic traditions and Catholics that do do have meditation. And then there's secular programs like the MBSR that I mentioned.

So, so that's that's my view of meditation.

Now let's go and look at what the big book says.

First of all, I I searched for meditation outside of step 11 and there were four mentions altogether of meditation. Three of them are are like this. In meditation we ask God. This is on page 69. In meditation we ask God this is about the sex inventory. By the way, in meditation we ask God what we should do about each specific matter if the right answer will come if we want it. On page 83, also on step nine, it says

as we clean house with our family, asking each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindness and love. And page 164 in a vision for you, it says

God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. So those all sound kind of like prayers to me because you're asking God for something. Then there's another mention of meditation, which is in the family afterwards. And it says the family can be invited to join in morning meditation and they can take part in the daily discussion without rancor and bias. So maybe that's actually doing meditation with your family, or it might be doing prayer with your family.

I've, I've heard more of prayer, family prayers than family meditations, but maybe that's family prayer time.

So now let's continue with step 11 itself. And they say step 11 suggests prayer and meditation. So beyond this point here inside the body of step 11, there are two mentions of the word prayer and there are two mentions of the word meditation. But there are six other places where it says we ask God for something.

So I would claim that there are actually 8 total mentions of prayer in this step, 11 here and two mentions of meditation. Now I'm going to go through this once and then going to go back and go through it again. We shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer. Better man than us are using it constantly. It works if you have the proper attitude and work at it. It would be easy to be vague about this matter, yet we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions. So their bill is saying it's going to make some valuable suggestions about prayer.

Then he says, when we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? 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 of what we could do for others, at what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift and to worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others.

After making our review of After me, after making our review, we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken. Now this is what a lot of people mistakenly call the 10 step written practice at night. This is obviously in the 11th step in the big book. So it is not 10th step is 11th, 11th step written practice at night. So that's the evening practice. And then there's the following practice. It says on awakening, Let us thank, let us think about the 24 hours ahead.

We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self pity, dishonest or self seeking motives. Under these conditions we employ our mental facilities with assurance for all gods. For after all, God gave us brains to use our thought. Life will be placed on a much higher place when our thoughts, when our thinking is clear of wrong motives.

So that's sounding like a prayer to me there. And the next paragraph talks about thinking and prayer. It says

and thinking about our day. We may face indecision. We may be able to determine which course to take. Here. We ask God for inspiration and intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don't struggle. We are often surprised how the right prayers come after we have cried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the brain. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times

pay for this presumption and all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We have come to rely on it. So everything I've read so far all seems like prayer to me. It's asking God and thinking and things like that. And then the next paragraph says we usually conclude this period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all throughout the day what our next step is to be, and it goes on from there. So he's claiming that this was meditation here and I, it just doesn't sound like

to me. And then the next paragraph is the other mention of the word meditation where it says if circumstances, circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation and goes on from there. So, you know, I hope I don't get kicked out of the big Book Thumpers club for saying this, but I don't think Bill really understood meditation. I think that what Bill thought was that prayer and meditation were like synonyms. Prayer is where you maybe, maybe prayer is where you're asking God for something and meditation is where our prayer

you're talking to God maybe, and meditation is where you're asking God and maybe listening for him to answer you. And that's the meditative part of listening for the answer, listening for that intuitive thought, which which is fine. You know, those are all wonderful practices, but I just don't think they're meditation. So I suggest that you look for a source of meditation outside of the big book. That's my anti big book thumpers club thing. But let me go back and look. Look at these the practices themselves again.

So when we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfishly, selfish, dishonest, or afraid?

That's exactly the list that we have for the 10th step. Those four items are exactly the same list. So it's it's all about selfishness and self centeredness. We're asking where were we selfish and self-centered throughout the day?

Have we do we owe an apology? So if we if we find that we did that during the day, but we didn't make an amends for it right there on the spot, we're noticing it here at this point and we can catch up on that and we can make the amends as soon as can. You know, the idea is to make the amends as soon as you can. If you didn't do it at the time, it's a great idea to review it at night and see, oh, I didn't do it at that time. I can do it tomorrow morning or, you know, like maybe I can call them right now. So, so if you find somebody, you know that you owe an apology that goes on to your men's list that you're going to take care of as soon as you can.

Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? And this is asking, did I did that? Did I do that fifth step part of it? Did I contact my sponsor and tell him about how I fell below my, what I wanted it to be at? I, I wasn't as unselfish as I wanted to be and I was selfish and self-centered. And, you know, become humble again with my sponsor by telling him that where we kind and loving towards all. You know, we're supposed to after, after we when we're doing our tent step, we're then supposed to be try to be helpful to somebody else.

So this is asking where we kind and loving to all. What could we have done better? What would have been a better thing to do? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Probably. Or were we thinking of what we could do for others? That's what we that's what the 10th step asks us to do, to think of what we can do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life. But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection for that would diminish our usefulness to others. So in other words, don't beat yourself up about it. You know, if you've discovered something, some 10 steps that you needed to make during

stay there that you didn't make, don't beat yourself up about it. And then after, after making our review, we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken. Do I need to contact my sponsor and tell them about what I did that I forgot to contact him about? Do I need to make an amendment to the person that I, that I wronged and ask, ask God what we should do about that. So, you know, and, and a lot of people talk about doing this in writing and, and that's, that's great too. Writing is a different way of talking, You know, it, it, it uses different circuits in the brain or something.

Things can come out in writing that you wouldn't have said verbally. So I think a writing is a good thing. Now, I have to tell you, I've never gotten this practice going on a regular basis in my own, in my own, in my own life here. And this is that's a deficit. Don't, don't, don't follow my example. Be better than me. Do this practice at night. It's a good thing to do. It'll be very valuable.

So that's the evening practice. And then on awakening, let us think about the 24 hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking. So this is kind of setting the practice for the entire day here. I'm going to ask God to direct my thinking through the day, especially asking that it be divorced from self pity, dishonest, or self seeking motives. Again, these are all selfish and self-centered ways of thinking. So I'm asking God that please help me not think selfishly and self centeredly.

Under these conditions, we can employ our mental facilities with assurance

for after all, God gave us brains to use. That goes along with the line where it says that, you know, asking to be relieved of this. I can't remember the quote, Maybe one of you guys can remember it, where you say that that's the proper use of the, well, asking for God's will, something like that is the proper use of the will. I can't remember. Nobody here can remember. I, I mentioned it yesterday. You guys don't remember what I told you. I don't remember what I told you either. So, but somewhere in the book, the big book there talks about that's the proper use of the will. And that's what this is here. This is the proper use of the will

that asking God to help me be divorced from selfish and self-centered thinking so and then and then and continue it in thinking about our day, we may face indecision, we may be unable, we may be we may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask for God. Here we ask God for inspiration and intuitive thought or a decision. And that's again the conduit is everywhere that I've seen it. The conduit that that gets God's will communicated to me comes to that inspiration or intuitive thought.

So wherever your higher power is that where it would, that's where it would make you be making the connection to you. And remember that I just turned that into my higher power. We relax and take it easy. We don't struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while and you know it. Relaxed, Yes, sure.

How did I best serve the? I will not mind me that these are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our willpower along this line

all we wish. It is the proper use of the will. That's it. That's exactly what

yeah, 85 OK, Yeah. So that's the proper use of the will and that's what it's talking about here is asking for asking God to help us be divorced from selfish and self-centered motion. Thoughts

so, so we, we, we relax and take it easy and that's when the intuitive thought comes. You know, if I'm struggling and thinking, if I'm trying to think of the right answer, think, think, think, think, think, you know, should I do this should I do that? You know, that's not that's not waiting for the intuitive thought to come that's trying to think the answer through and and that's not that doesn't allow room for the intuitive thought. You know, the intuitive thought is kind of like a little whisper saying, oh, you know, maybe consider this and if I'm thinking, thinking, thinking, there's no room for me to hear that little intuitive thought, that little whisper. So that's

that's again why meditation is a useful thing. It helps to quiet down that thinking and make it easier to hear that intuitive thought. We are, we are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. So you're getting a stronger and stronger connection to your higher power by doing this practice throughout the day.

Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times.

We might pay for this presumption and all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. I think what they're talking about there is that I think it was God's inspiration, but it was actually me telling me to do this, you know, So you, it's, it's, you got to be careful about whether or not it's really coming from your higher power and intuitive thought or an inspiration, or whether it's just me thinking that's an intuitive thought or inspiration and it's really me wanting to get my way.

So nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely on it.

So, so this is the very valuable part of this step here. As far as I'm concerned, it's all it's, it's a, it's a very valuable prayers in the evening and, and looking at our day and, and taking an inventory of our day. And it's valuable in the morning to ask that our prayers be directed towards helping other people instead of being towards selfish and self self-centered motives. And, and to ask for God's help as we go through the day and, and to pay attention to that intuitive voice, the intuitive voice in our head.

So

and then this is where he says and we conclude this period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be that we be given whatever we need to take care of and of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self will and are careful to make no request to our for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time in doing this and it doesn't work. You can easily see why. You know, I can remember in Catholic grade school,

you know, they were taught about prayer. And so our family was pretty poor. You know, we had ten kids all together by the time my mom was finished and

and my dad worked a factory job. In fact, he had to have two jobs to try to make up for that. And my mom wasn't working outside the home. And so money was always very tight. And I would pray that we get that we win the lottery, you know, that we win a big prizes in time and it never happened. And I got so disillusioned, you know, God wasn't working. That's praying for selfishness, self-centered motives. That was that was my prayer. That wasn't working back then, you know, so that that was part of what soured me on God 'cause he didn't answer my prayers, you know,

So

and then they, they suggest asking, you can ask your friends and family to join you in your meditation or your prayer. And if your religious denomination requires a definite morning devotion, Bills recommends you do that. So if your religion that you're in says do this in the morning or do this in the evening, follow, follow their practices, attend to that. Also,

sometimes the members of religious bodies will memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we've been discussing. So there are many helpful books. So he's also suggesting you go out and look for other books. So go out and look for a meditation book that that might be a good thing to do too.

Suggestions might also be obtained from one priest, minister, rabbi. Be quick to see where people, religious people are right? Make use of what they offer. So ignore, ignore what what they that they don't, what they don't say right and and pay attention to what did you say right. And then this the the last paragraph of of step 11 suggests that we pray throughout the day. As we go through the day, we pause when agitated or doubtful. We ask for the right thought or action.

We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show.

So when we're agitated or doubtful, I mean that that could be if it gets strong enough, it could be a condition to do a tense step about if we get too agitated and or you know, whatever, or too afraid. If that's what the doubt is that a fear, then that might be a point for a test up. But if if we're not at that point of requiring A10 step, we ask for the right thought or action and we constantly remind ourselves that we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day,

thy will be done. Now that is a wonderful idea. I wish the hell I did that. If I did that many times a day, I think I would be much better off than I am right now.

I just don't think of it. I mean, I, I guess I need to ask for God's help to remember to do that. But thy will be done. Is that, you know, I love short prayers. There's a short prayer, thy will be done. You know, you can't get much shorter than that. So I, I need to, I need to try to remember to do that prayer many times a day. We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self pity or foolish decisions. So we're much, much less likely to be selfish and self-centered. If we keep saying thy will be done,

we become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily for we are

if we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves. Remember the actor that wanted to control the play and make everybody do what he wanted to do in the play. That's how you get burned out. Whereas if you keep asking thy will be done, that's asking the director to direct you in the play, not to make everybody else do it. And then it concludes what it works. It really does. So that's the end of step 11. And I also took a look at the a 12 and 12 for step 11. And that's where they have the prayer of Saint Francis. And then the

that he suggests is to slowly say that prayer and to really pay attention to the words of the prayer. So, you know, that's kind of getting closer to meditation, but it's still kind of is like a prayer. It's kind of like slow prayer. Maybe that's what Bill thinks meditation is, slow prayer, something like that. I don't know. Yes,

with each of these things, but I mean it. It would be to me. It sounds overwhelming. Yes. Well, you know, as I told you, I am, I am preaching, but I don't practice this. I preach this, but I don't practice it. I wish I did more of this

that what I do do is I do do meditation. I told you that I've got 2011, 2113 days now of meditating at least once a day, once a day. And the, the average is probably at least 1/2 hour. The average over that whole time is at least 1/2 hour, which means that sometimes it was an hour of meditation and sometimes it was 5 minutes. So you know, I, I somewhere in that range of 5 minutes to an hour of meditation is what I do each day. And I think the average over that seven-year period is still about 1/2 hour.

So,

so that's, that's my major step 11 practice is the meditation part of it there, the short prayers throughout the day. You know, those, those, those I don't do anywhere near as often as what this is suggesting. And I like I said, I don't do the evening written practice. I don't do that the written 10 step practice that they suggest. And I and I don't particularly go through this exact thing in the morning when I pray. A lot of times I meditate in the morning because I find that if I meditate at night, I often fall asleep.

I meditate in the morning, I'm less likely to fall asleep. So, so I kind of have a morning practice, which is typically meditation. But if I get to the end of the day and I haven't meditated, I will meditate at the end of the day too, instead, instead of in the morning. So I don't do this, you know, I'm not saying I'm anything like a St. I think somebody that could do this entire thing very religiously every single day would be a St. I don't know, maybe, maybe they wouldn't, but they'd be on the way to becoming the same. So yeah, it's do the best you can. You know,

I, I don't do any of the steps perfectly. You know, even even step one, like I said, I have occasional meals where I eat more than I wanted to. That's not doing step one perfectly. If I was step one perfect, that would have exactly what my food plan would be and I would, you know, do everything perfect, but I don't. So just do your best

and just do something. Yeah. Listen, I, I also, you know, I said that, you know, I should be doing Step 10 at least two or three times a day.

I probably average less than once a day. That's probably the truth of what I average is less than once a day. I won't tell you how much less than once a day because that would be embarrassing, but but it's average less than once a day is what I do a ten step and I know that I I have at least two or three opportunities every day to do it. There's at least two or three times when I get pissed off by somebody driving or by what my wife says to me or, you know, the, the great, the great thing is sometimes now when my wife says something to me, I notice it and I just don't respond. You know, I don't, I don't give my usual

rejoined or, or point out that she was saying something very rude to me or anything like that. Just let her say it. And so that's kind of like a little text,

you know, I do know a lot of people that do The Morning readers, you know,

for today those, there's several of them that we have. I know a lot of people do those. So that's kind of a form of prayer and meditation that they do every single day. I don't even do that, but that's one thing you get into. It's just one page to read and and there's usually some kind of meditative thought that you could meditate on if you wanted to do a 5 minute meditation.

Yeah, and you're right. Contemplation what you say the prayer slowly, that is kind of a form of meditation. It's and that's what a lot of the monastic orders do.

And and you know, by the way, that eleven step prayer is the prayer of Saint Francis, my namesake. So I'm I'm 100% in favor of the prayer of Saint Francis there.