#97 Where are you? Alignment

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Chapters

• 0:03 Support And Setup
• 0:34 Roger’s Recovery And Tonight’s Pivot
• 0:47 Elephant And Dog: The Power Of Love
• 2:46 Keating’s First Step: Wounds And Needs
• 4:46 Fear, Shame, And The False Self
• 7:03 Alignment With Higher Principles
• 11:27 Presenting Ourselves To Be Transformed
• 16:09 Starting Points For A Higher Power
• 20:03 Meditation, Focus, And The Beast
• 22:41 Practice, Community, And Pain As Teacher
• 24:58 Floor Opens: Tears, Honesty, Connection
• 29:21 Where Did God Go: Displacement
• 33:00 Cultural Programming And True Safety
• 38:42 Emotional Debris And The Baggage Dream
• 46:45 Presence, Powerlessness, And Paradox
• 50:59 Who Are You: Closing And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_05: 0:03

Before we get going, um if you're listening to this, we could use some supporters to help defer the cost, the expense of keeping this thing going. And when you go to a download a talk, there's a link on the bottom that says support the show. It's not a show, but it's a conversation. Buzzprout calls it a show. And you can uh click there to donate. And it's three, five, eight, ten dollars a month, I think, are the options. But it'd be grateful, great, greatly um helpful for me. So I'm Roger. I've been in recovery since October 11th, 1978. There's a couple of things. I had an idea of where I wanted to go tonight, and then something intervened. And what intervened was I saw a couple of documentaries on interspecies relationships. And there was this baby elephant whose mother had died, and it was blind, and it was in a refuge. And there was a there was a black lab that was a guy's guard dog for his cows. This is in Africa. And that his owner got killed by the lions, and he couldn't keep he couldn't keep them safe. So both these animals were grieving. They wouldn't take food or anything. They were just slowly dying. And uh the guy that was in charge of the refuge got a wild idea about see if he could put them together in the they put the uh elephant, which was non-responsive to anybody or anything, in a room, and they brought the lab in. And the lab slowly over time um moved closer and closer, and they developed a vocabulary of grunts and sounds, and the lab became its caretaker. And it, I mean, literally, they saved each other's lives. And I was looking at it, I was thinking, that's the power of love, that's the power of compassion, empathy. And living souls have that, you know. If you have a pet, you know, animals have emotions, they have feelings, they did, they do dreams, they do all that stuff. So anyway, it was really um, it was moving to me because there's pictures of this dog walking this elephant around with the leash in his mouth, the elephant's holding the leash in his mouth, and the dog's just being a guide for him. And then later on, the elephant's grown, and the dog's like 18, and he's going blind, and now the elephant's leading the dog. It just was so beautiful, and it was it was so uh, it was moving. That's what it was. So I was thinking about alignment. There's a a book I've been taking my men's group through called Divine Therapy and Addiction by Thomas Keating. Excellent book. And what it is is Thomas Keating was a Cistercian monk. He was not in AA, but he was a very big promoter of it, of the steps. And this book is a series of interviews that he did over eight years with this interviewer on the steps. And this is uh a little riff on the first step, powerlessness in the human condition. And he's talking about as little boys and girls, excuse me, you can't not be traumatized, right? So he's talking about it as and he's saying the first step highlights the fact that all human beings are deeply wounded. From earliest childhood, we started on a path to self-consciousness without any idea of what happens, happiness actually is, apart from the gratification of our instinctive needs. In our vernacular, we call it social security and sex, right? And he breaks it down to need for survival, security, affection, esteem, approval, power, and control. And these attitudes are essential for the baby to survive childhood unscarred. But then you have a problem because everyone, of course, is deprived in some degree because no parents are perfect. And even if they are they can't control the environment, teachers and important others that enter the child's life. So this poor little creature may feel isolated in a potentially hostile world. That was the first coherent thought that I had growing up. The first idea that coalesced in me was I'm not safe. And we talk about selfish self-centeredness. That's just a protective device. We it's come to be a flaw for us, but when you look back on it, that selfishness was about me protecting myself from getting hurt, getting hurt anymore, right? The two big ones for me were um indifference and abandonment. And those two things, this is what happens when you're going through the day sometimes, and and all of a sudden you strike a weird mood or a weird emotion comes up. Those traumas, those experiences are stored in our subconscious. And when something happens in the world in the day, as we're going through it, that activates that memory, you get a really weird emotional response that's not proportional to the stimulus. A lot of times you can't even tell what the stimulus was. So, what's the opposite of addiction? Connection. Our addiction is our break from the divine. We all came in perfect, right? Little boys and girls, little babies, just flawless. And then as we get programmed by our families, our tribe, our religion, our whatever, the culture, right? We lose that divine identity and we take on the worldly side. You know, one of Jesus' challenges was you got to be in the world, but not of it. You can't be defined by this stuff, or you'll go nuts. It'll eat you alive, right? So I did talk a long time ago about this addiction being the break with that connection. So what we've done is we've tried to reconnect, but through the platform of the three-dimensional world, materialism, money, education, quote unquote success, right? The drive for success was on, right? I'll prove to you I'm someone. I'm trying to prove to me I'm someone because I get some messaging that hasn't been very helpful. I'm not safe there. Apparently, is something wrong with me because I can't get any of these essential needs satisfied in a manner that I can interpret that and understand it. I'm not saying my parents didn't love me. I'm saying it didn't appear to me to be loving because I didn't understand their story. And you all have parents, and you know this too. Our parents have stories. They have they were kids, they were brought up. And a lot of times that parenting, especially up to the World War II generation, um, you're just duplicating what you were brought up in. You know, my dad didn't parent, he raised kids because he came from a farming background where you raise crops, you raise kids. So you water them, you feed them, and you let them have their experience. And every once in a while you got to knock them off the side of the head to get their attention. So there's another book by Keating called Human Condition. And it's a little tiny book, but it's really powerful. And the first half of the book is, Where are you? It's God asking the question, where are you? This is about that. What have you aligned with? What are you what are you connected to? I've aligned with money, I've aligned with fear, I've aligned with education, I've aligned with business, I've aligned with worldly success, I've aligned with materialism, I've aligned with shame. No matter what I do, I still don't feel like I'm good enough. Fear, I never feel safe. When so when you're externally referred and say money is your idea of security, you'll never have enough money. Because you'll set a target, a goal, you get the money, or you get the prestige, you get the a-a-h, the attaboy, and the applause, and inside you still feel like a fraud. That's the shame. I don't feel like I deserve it even when I get it. And the other piece of this when I'm externally referred is I always end up needing more of whatever it is. Whatever it is. So in another way of addressing this, it's it's about alignment. What do you what are you connected to? What do you what are you harmonizing with? So there's some some uh alignment synonyms, agreement, state of harmony or court, coordination. What are you tracking with, right? Conformity, compliance with standards or norms, ensuring consistency. There's no there's no consistency in the world. It's always changing. It's always changing, but there is consistency in our spiritual program because it's always changing too, but it's always evolving to something better. So harmony dis ease, uncomfortable, I'm out of harmony with who I be in here that I don't know is different than who I be out here. So until this external thing falls apart, I really don't have an emotion uh a motivation to seek anything. What am I synchronized with? Consistency, right? Um adjustment, coordination, harmonized. What's my orientation? So it's and if you if you've done this work, you know what we're talking about. It's what are the principles you're aligned with? Because we all have the same instinct, social security is sexual thing. That's not the problem. The problem is how they're deployed, how they're used. And if I'm driven, if my base is fear and shame, which mine was, that's never ever going to be satisfying. It's always gonna be a producer of dissonance and chaos and not helpful. But not having any idea there's an alternative way to approach this. I'm living this way. I'm living out of that fear, I'm living out of the shame. I'm living out of pessimism, I'm living out of sarcasm, I'm living out of dishonesty and resistance, closed-mindedness, dammit. I can't be taught anything because if I admit that I need some help, that confirms my shame that I'm a failure. Can't have that. So I've cut myself off from any sense of community. I might be a worker among workers, I might be have a position in my career or my job or my whatever family community, but that's not a connection for me. It's it's posturing, it's I'm getting the picture out here to look right because I don't tell dare tell anyone what it feels like inside. So our defects, our flaws, and our orientation, this isn't safe, fear and shame for me. Um I I build a prison. I build a prison constructed out of the false self, out of those lower ideas. The hardest thing on the earth to do here is to change your mind. We can nod and agree with a bunch of stuff, but that doesn't mean it's active in our lives. That doesn't mean it's present in our daily activities or thoughts and actions, right? So I have to get aligned with a different set of practices, right? So in our recovery world, it's prayer meditation, self-examination, inventory, and all predicated around the idea that there is a power greater than me that I can align with, connect with, establish a relationship with, and that will transform who I be. I don't transform me. I present me to be transformed. I present me to be changed, because if I could change me, I would have. See you later, right? So when when you look at the process of the steps, it's all about me presenting myself to new ideas. The first one, the big one, is powerlessness, right? And then that's connected to this idea, and that's why you like submanageable, because you don't have power to manage it to your satisfaction, which promotes the the necessity of finding the power that you can engage with, establish a relationship with that can transform your experience. I have to acquiesce to that. So that those first two steps are critical because they're the foundation. So I don't have to believe like anyone else believes, but I gotta find something I can believe that makes sense to me. It's a truth for me. Right? It's a truth for me. If it's the baby Jesus, fine. If it's the Holy Spirit, fine. If it's Buddha or someone else, fine. Vishnu, I don't know. But it's got to be of an infinite, an infinite source, not finite. And so part of the part of the deal here is the ego wants to know, wants to be able to confirm and identify, codify this whole thing. If I can tell you my concept of God and explain how God interacts with me, it's not God. Because part of that has to be unknowable, indefinable, has to be a mystery. That's the faith part, right? That's the faith part. So I don't know what you do, but I was resistant as hell to this idea of a higher power because of what? Because of experiences that I had had as a boy getting um institutionalized in a religion that I didn't choose, and having it explained to me in a way that didn't make sense. And so I assumed when I left that, that I left the God idea right there, too. So here's the challenge. I get sober when I'm 30. I've got an eight-year-old's concept of God. I don't know. I've read the words, choose your own concept, but I can't let go of the concept I have. You say higher power, I know you're talking about God. The steps say, power greater yourself, then it says God, you know. So what am I gonna do with that? But I have to find a starting point. It's just a starting point, it's not the definitive answer to the question. It's just where can I start? For me, I can start with this. This is a phenomenon. I went through what we colloquially call our bottom, had a moment and uh a realization, not one that I hadn't had before, but this words, this line came through me. I'm done in post, I can't do this. And I've never had a moment that was more true or deep than that idea. The idea came through me, and I recognized it as the truth with a capital T. And there was no argument left in me. That's how it started. And some of you know the story too. I was I was a musician, I took, I did uh my detox on the street. Took, I think, about five days, and about eight, nine days into that thing, I was back playing in clubs, and I'm in this environment that is my environment. Free drugs, free booze, available women. And we talk about temptation, but God isn't what tempts us, our thinking is what tempts us. The false self is what's tempting me. The temptation doesn't come from out here, it comes from in here, right? And because I don't have the power to resist it, I acquiesce. But I'm now in a position where I aligned with an idea. I'm done, I'm toast, I can't do this. I didn't know what it meant. And frankly, I didn't think I was gonna stop drinking and doing drugs and being a wild man for the rest of my life. I didn't know that what it meant at the time. I just know that it was and it was profound. So then that later evolved into a mystery because I'm now well into this thing, a couple of years into this thing, and I have no excuse for why I'm still standing. Because I was not the poster child for 12-step recovery. I was the poster child for what not to do, and I was the example of the bad example, so off we go. But the point of this alignment idea is we're always aligned with something. It's just like meditation. We're always meditating on something. Where's mine? Where's mine? That's a meditation. I need I need a new car, that can be a meditation. I need a new relationship, that can be meditation. Meditation essentially is whatever you're focusing the mind on. In our case, whatever the beast, the false self, is focusing the mind on. Because I'm not thinking out of choice, I'm thinking purely for reaction. So we have this idea, and Silkworth talked about it, talked about it in the doctor's opinion. So I know it's wrong with you, but I just don't know how to flip the switch. I know you're coming from this dark negative place that's usurious and negative and harmful to you and anyone around you, lower principles, values. And I know what you need to get to. I need to get you over here to to empathy, compassion, tolerance, non-judgmentalism, peace, faith, hope, prayer, meditation. I need to get you over there, but I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to do that. So we do it one idea at a time, don't we? You don't come in and sign up for the whole the whole smorgasbord. You come in, most of us come in because we have a drinking problem or drinking a drug problem. That's what we think the problem is. And then when you remove that substance, take the band-aid off, you start looking at the bullet hole. It's like, oh my God. This is serious and it's deep. So the question is about alignment. What are you aligned to? How do I align myself? You know, if the opposite of addiction is connection, what am I connecting to? How will I know if it's a higher idea or a lower idea by the fruit it bears, by the result you get? It's a just universe. You practice negativity, negativity comes into your life. You practice positivity, positivity comes into your life. You do it inconsistently, your life's inconsistent, right? That's what we're learning. That's why we call it a practice. You have to practice this stuff. You have to practice it every day. We don't start out practicing every day because we can't remember what we're supposed to practice and why and how. And these things are all they have a cute cumulative effect. And then the prime disciplinarian in this in the early stages is pain. I'm hurting. I'm hurting. And then you go to your meeting and you listen. We got a community here. You go to your meeting, that's a community. You sit down with your sponsor, that's another community. And we listen to people share their experience. Some of it I relate to, some of it I don't. But every once in a while you'll hear someone and you go, mm-hmm. That's precisely what I'm going through right now. And so then you hear how they got through it, or how they're getting through it, or what the lesson was in it. Because there's a lesson in everything. And when I'm pushing away the pain, I'm pushing away the answer. So alignment's a question. How do you, how do you connect to what you call your higher power? I don't care what you call it, it doesn't matter. But you always know it by the effect. If I'm in the groove, if I'm in, if I'm spiritually fit, things roll out differently than when I'm not. When I'm full of fear or anxiety or resentment, right? Or I'm living in the past, living in the future. That's the beast's favorite trick, isn't it? Because the only time you can practice anything is right now. And if you're not right, if you're not here right now, that's Ecartoles. There's clock time, we've got a meeting at seven o'clock. So we do that. There's psych time, which is state of mind. And there's the third time is now, the present tense. And the present tense is the only thing that's real. The future, whether it's five seconds from now or 50 years from now, hasn't happened, and the past is dead. And we spend most of our time going back and forth between the two, and we spend very little time in the present. Very little time in the present. Practice the presence. Practice the presence of God. Well, God only exists in this moment. So, floor's open. Any uh thoughts, experiences you've had with this? Growing to come into alignment with a higher set of values, principles, and what's the result?

SPEAKER_04: 23:12

Floor's open.

SPEAKER_02: 23:18

I'm an alcoholic addict and just a child of God as I understand him. And um, I you know, one thing that I've um learned from my extensive study of Bill Wilson is that he never worked the steps because his experience came before they even developed the steps. And one thing that I then I realized that he did that was critical was that he cried. When he was in that hospital, I mean he says it, you know, like from Napoleon saying, I cry is a channel in the demonic. Well, humble is a channel in the demonic crime. It is a lonesome, begging just whimper, just um. Um I found that when my allow myself to crime in a way that is just hurting. I feel my connection with the mother is just like like he said like I'm gonna say I'm how I feel about something. Like just feel that you're really hungry from my mom. I am so angry that my um because I just feel like um this is me as a as a girl. Um never get treated the same. We're not equal boys. We are steered into the direction of where we are supposed to go. This is um an occupation, we're pushed into the direction of what we need to be. Homemakers and caregivers and channel bearers and and into those things, and and men are steered into their occupational things, and even I I looked at things like literacy for women, and literacy for women has been low from the beginning of time, and only just the last hundred and fifty years have we actually gained almost equality in literacy still today. Two-thirds of the world's population lives illiterate on adult women, and I just had a really good crying about the inequality of it, and I felt some kind of some kind of warm presence that reassured me that it's okay to be upset about the truth, and feeling the truth like that is the kind of honesty that helps me connect with the mind. I don't know if other people have tried that or done that, but if you're willing to let some tears fall, I suggest trying it. Um it's worked for me, and I just I don't know what else to say, but um it did something for Bill Wilson when he was at the bottom, very bottom of his room. So anybody who hits that really rock bottom, like he said, smash the ego totally. Because when you're in the place where you all you can do is just cry, your ego is gone. So for what it's worth, uh that's what I got. Thanks. You bet.

SPEAKER_05: 26:32

You know, about tears, the natives have a saying, when you cry from bitterness and resentment, the tears are salty. When you cry from joy and love, the tears are sweet. The tears cleanse us all, that's the idea.

SPEAKER_04: 26:52

Who else?

SPEAKER_01: 26:59

I'm Kirsten, I'll go. I like what Gwen said about about the tears. Um it it it's it just struck me that when I'm in my most despairing times, that's when I need God the most. And that's when I am on my knees, bawling, sobbing, whatever. And it's because I have, for whatever reason, fear, shame, guilt, worry, anxiety, um, forgot God. And I I found myself in that low, low, dark, dark place. And I'm I have nothing else to do but just cry. And that's what does connect me to God. That's because there's nothing else that will help except my relationship that I'm building and can you know, continue to build with the creator. And it's comforting and it's soothing, and I mean, because there is no other place to go with that kind of grieving. And so what you said spoke to me in that way. And and crying doesn't it doesn't, you know, worry me. I don't feel like I'm gonna go, you know, to the sideboard or anything when I become full of despair or sadness, grief. Um, I just I'm okay with it now. I don't have to, I've ripped off the band-aid and looking at the bullet hole. I love that, Roger. Um, looking at the bullet hole, you know, and what is in there is a lack of compassion, empathy, empathy, a lack of powerlessness, a lack of all the stuff that we have to um learn to use in the right way or employ compassion, empathy, knowing our limits, knowing our powerlessness, and all of that sort of thing. Anyway, that's where faith comes in for me, is when I'm at my lowest. Then it's the brightest, biggest connection. And with that, I'll pass.

SPEAKER_05: 29:03

Thanks, Kirsten. I'm not debating what you said, but this idea, where did God go? The real question is, what did I put in place of God? Because that spirit is always there. It's omnipresent in and through us. When it appears to be gone, it's because I've displaced it with something else. Fear eclipses it, shame eclipses it. Wandering off the path for whatever reason. I got real into getting money for a while, and oh, that has its own bankruptcy, right? So anyway, thank you. Who else?

SPEAKER_03: 29:49

Um, there were so many things that um that were really hitting me here. Um the things that you said about um the hardest thing to do is to change the mind and and then also what am i aligning to like i have been it's not pretty it's just not pretty uh you know i'm aligning with work i'm aligning with i'm meditating on health issues it's um you know a lot a lot of that kind of stuff um the other thing too is this morning Cheryl and I were doing a reading and in this reading it says one thing to be sure of is that um it is the journey with me this is God um there does come a joy known to those who suffer with me but this is not the result of the suffering but the result of the close intimacy with me to which suffering drove you you know the um and and you said about when I push away the pain I'm pushing away the answer like I I I could not imagine walking through pain or fear um with a higher power couldn't I couldn't even imagine that and and I I get to do that now and it feels a lot different um there was a time when I was sick like pretty sick and uh felt like I can't do anything I just felt that sick and my brother was very sick they didn't know if he was gonna make it and at that time the closeness the intimacy I felt with that higher power was incredible it was incredible I I wasn't trying to get my fingers in there to move it around do anything like that I really just surrendered everything and if that means that he needs to die there you go that's I mean and I couldn't believe that this was coming out of my thoughts my my mouth anything like that um the other thing that you had talked about was um that eight-year-old conception and uh I know that I want to increase that relationship and I've watched you know in reflection not you know right now but in reflection I see that you know I didn't even want to call it God I couldn't even say like God or father or anything like that or Jesus none of that I can't I've got to and I called my higher power Drew because I could say that and then it changed to God then it was father and then you know and I love how that evolved and it was it was in the rooms that these people taught me this it really it really was um this I I feel like I'm rambling but um a lot of inventory questions out of this for me and uh I appreciate everybody share thank you thanks Barb good to see you evening everybody Gareth addict and alcoholic hi Gareth thank you so much for your service Roger um and so good to hear your lead and thank you everybody for the I've got something out of each of the different shares this whole what what am I do you know what the like the I've just never heard it phrased in that way or maybe I'm able to hear it now when I wasn't able to hear what am I aligning to?

SPEAKER_00: 33:45

Yeah I'm aligning aligning to all of the things that society teaches me to align to to a job to money prestige all of these things that I think have validated me all my life and I realise now that only by coming to the rooms and listening to people like you that they have no availability to validate me. You know I don't know why it's the way you said it is just like it's like it's just hit me in the face. I'm very I'm going through some situations, aren't we all um isn't the world, isn't life I'm so deeply connected to church at the moment I cannot understand why I was dealing with the situation last week and I decided to go to um All Souls Mass at St. Patrick's I go there two or three times a week but I went to this special service with a few of my friends in recovery and they knew about the issues I was going through and literally we all I hadn't I haven't so much evidence that that God for me is God my higher power is working so for me. Like it's like this sermon that this guy that this archbishop talked about was like it was just like feeding into every challenge that I was going through even the names of the people it was like we were all just so got like gobsmacked and I think that I'm feeling that sense of safety that I've never ever felt before. And I think I'm starting to align to a higher consciousness that is just I'm a better person where I'm in the rooms of AA or I'm in the environment of a building that relates to connecting to my higher power. I don't need a cathedral to connect to God I I can I can the vessel is there the vessel is me like you said it's like what am I aligning to in meditation often or not is to get away from some level of anger resentment or pain because I want to push it away because I don't want to sit in it. Like you said I'm pushing away the solution so I think that this for me has been quite a significant um and this awakening that I'm going through I think is so led by that like I'm so aware that we have no control. I've come to Orlando for this work event and I've been I was trying to book this place and every time it kept trying to book I couldn't book it and then I'd end up with something else. Anyway when I just got here today and I sorted it out I've booked a place and literally two blocks away is like the AA Clubhouse it just is it's a it baffles me but it doesn't you know like I've I just know that my hand is not in it.

SPEAKER_06: 36:58

And when I put my hand in it like I was trying to sort it out for three days it goes wrong I get irritable it costs me money and if I just let it be but I don't know how to do that sometimes because my shame wants me to be right like be right and I love that phrase I forget who says it might be you says I'm here to get it right not be right you know so yeah so so powerful I think the alignment for me is is super super powerful like I'm aligning to the wrong things Gareth like come on you know but anyway thanks let me share thanks Gareth we are programmed by our culture and the programming is how you're gonna achieve happiness there is no happiness in material things money houses cars careers there's a a modicum of success by the world standard but you can have all that how many people do you know that have been wildly successful andor famous that blew their brains up committed suicide why because it just wasn't enough so we have to understand this is be in the world but not of it we have to understand that we're gonna have to be involved in this world in a certain way but we can't have it be the dominating force in our decisions because it always ends up in suffering doesn't it I suffer from my choices I suffer from my choices I'm not being punished by some capricious deity it's built into us I'm not punished but for my thinking but by my thinking I'm not punished for my actions but by my actions and once I get hit to that I I start shifting the alignment but it takes time because this program is so systemic and and the external is about highly competitive highly competitive it's all dualistic win lose good bad winner loser right and what we're hungry for and what we're trying to do here in these little communities is create a culture of compassion of kindness love right so yeah thanks Gareth good to see you my friend who else hey Roger Paul alcohol hi Paul yeah this is uh powerful stuff and I guess I'd I've been a part of um reading you know going through that keating book that that Roger mentioned and I've had some experience with that that I wanted to share but um before I do I was Barb what you were I just want to share this when you were describing you know what what you were going through when your brother was ill and and how you got to a you know the the state that you were in to to be able to go through that the thing the the word that just popped into my head was fearlessness you got yourself to a a state of fearlessness that you know um I don't know just wanted to share that just figured figured I'd throw it out there but um so what I was aligned with when I was a little kid was also fear and shame and I was convinced that everybody had a a rule book and an operator's manual on how to how to live life and I didn't have either one of them and um you know it was I was I always felt I was you know one or two steps behind everybody and and full of fear and shame and what what you know what I did or what I'm starting to realize now is um I was building these constructs for life you know external referral if we talk about I wasn't I mean I wasn't even aware of what I was doing and I've done you know literally done this you know from that point of you know being an eight year old uh you know until I got into the program and you know started to to make some of these discoveries and awakenings um I was building basically a house of cards right and there was nothing of substance that was behind it or holding it up and so really what that meant to me for you know the last or you know the experience that I had for probably the last 20 years of of being in active alcoholism was literally everything was going through them going through the motions for me. There was no state of presence that I was or rarely was I ever in a a state of presence I was you know either worrying about the future or ruminating on the past. That was those were the two states that I was in constantly and um so as you know as we kind of roll forward into um some of these concepts and realigning ourselves with with the higher principles um and that's that's really what's been able to to give different results for me in terms of becoming more present. And yeah I mean the alcohol is one thing and um you know getting beyond that to to really recognize what was going on is um you know as we're all experiencing it's life changing but what what's coming up now lately with this Keating book is um kind of that discovery of how how I was building those constructs early in life and um kind of an awareness of I don't know that I've really dealt with them at at a level in which you know they've they've been truly processed. And how that's showing up today is the Keating refers to or he's got a term in that book it's called emotional debris there's a lot of emotional debris that's cycling around in my subconscious and how it's showing up is since we've started reading this book I've had this repetitive dream you know almost like clockwork we we meet every two weeks we read the book and for sure within the next day or two I'm having a dream about literally being in different parts stages of my life and I'm ironically carrying around baggage and I'm so concerned about making sure that I don't lose this baggage that it it becomes the obsession of the dream and I'm going from place to place I could be traveling and you know I I can't ever let that baggage out of my eye and I have to you know in the dream I'm questioning why do I why do I need other shit? And it's just bizarre and powerful and uh I think to me it's just a a uh an indicator that there's still more work to be done. So that's really all I got. Thanks appreciate that's a great metaphor what do you think the baggage symbolizes all that fear and shame and all all the things that I tried to avoid with those constructs that I built you know like I'm the you know I'm the coolest dude that ever walked the face of the earth right and you know that that construct and how how am I still trying to hang on to stuff like that you know there's another angle the beast is the baggage and it's like you can't let go of me can't let go of me because I am you right that's that's good.

SPEAKER_05: 45:22

I like that a lot and then human condition book the first question is where are you? Meaning where are you literally in relationship to me, your God and then the second half is who are you who are you so anyone else please there it is. Yeah you got superpowers Roger you can read my mind I'm always sitting here we've been doing this a while Tom and I'm watching you I'm watching you I watch anyone else and I'm watching you chew out these ideas. Yeah I'm you come up and you go back and you come up and go back so I just called you out.

SPEAKER_07: 46:44

All right yeah I'm Tom alcoholic Tom and um my my higher power as God always has been I've been very involved with organized religion Catholic faith since I was you know born into it my as a young child and um really since um my sobriety about five years ago um it it's really come alive and I think what Paul was talking about the word presence and that's the greatest gift of sobriety is presence. And um probably the biggest thing about powerlessness that's what kept me away from not stopping drinking. I drink whatever drank a long time you know but always thought I had it under control would drink to the point where I'd crash but when I'd crash I'd be at home and I could get up and do business and take care of everything. And so it it didn't didn't fall apart. I could never say that I was powerless over it. And um but then when I could say and I do say that I'm powerless over alcohol there's a great sense of um freedom and really it's back on a big like Bible verse but the verse was you know uh I'm the vine you're the branches and really saying that with without God we're powerless. But that doesn't make me weak and that's the that's the that's the gift that I've gotten over the in the in the the last couple of years with the sense of presence due to sobriety so I can be present with people but I'm when I say I'm powerless over alcohol not say I I am I know that I am also at the same time with God I'm all powerful and so that's not a bad thing to be able to say we're powerless. And and for me that that that's my experience. So yeah that's what I was ruminating about Roger.

SPEAKER_05: 48:37

You saw you saw me thinking yeah thanks Tom You know it's one of the paradoxes of this whole idea for me to find the power I have to first admit that I'm powerless. So we s submit to the idea I have no power which opens the door for the power the real power it's interesting who else I have something else I could share.

SPEAKER_02: 49:19

Go again um be brief be brief Gwen okay I'll be really quick um one thing that I have learned about um my idea of God is that I've had to do some like relearning of what I've been taught and what I've been taught was um what I've learned is that there's a book that says let us make men an umbr image which suggests that there's two not one and then when there's marriage mum's they say um let the two become one when you get married and that kind of suggests that the mom there are two men and women and they're equal so we was talking about about God the father but I'm thinking that there's a missing component then of God the mother and some men have God the father to look to for their image but women have not had God the mother to look to as their mirror image and that's just been something that has opened up to me recently and then I've been working on aligning with that and it's really taken shape in in ways that I haven't predicted and I'd be interested to find out if anybody else has been like looking that at that as um a subject of study.

SPEAKER_05: 50:49

So that's all I got thanks I was to say the second half of that book the question is who are you? Not what do you do but who are you? Who do you be? What are the principles that you build your character on and project out of so if no one has anything else they want to share we can close her up. Anyone got anything you want to put in before we log off I'll take that silence as a no so if you want uh if you like these conversations you want more of them look up the podcast it'll be uh it'll be available tonight this one will be but there's a bunch of them up there that are helpful so we'll I'll stop this recording now and we can go