#113 What do I do with the pain?

As the Buddha is supposed to have said, "Pain is part of the deal" So pain is a pointer, it holds a lesson, when I learn the lesson the pain is transformed. What isnt transformed is transmitted! If I ignore or deny the pain I never learn the lesson. So lets see what The Gathering community has to say about this topic.

Transcript

Welcome And Community Invitation

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Welcome. If you're listening on your device, which most of you are, um welcome to the gathering. I'm here with 10 or so of my closest, dearest companions online. And uh we'd like to welcome you into a little community. If uh if you have an opportunity, people come here for different reasons. Some are just kicking tires, some are looking for uh some kind of inspiration, some or entertainment even. Um, some are looking for a spiritual home. Whatever the reason you're here, it's good to have you. And and we hope you get something valuable that you can use out of it. The other uh the other thing I would ask you to do is if you uh enjoy this and you can spare a cup of coffee a month, you could become a supporter for three bucks a month, which would help finance the free stuff, right?

A Reading On Initiation And Pain

SPEAKER_03 0:58

So I am gonna do something tonight that um I've not done with you before. I've been I've tapped in a couple books. We're gonna be having some discussions down the road on The Art of Loving by Eric Fraun. This is a good book, but I I got into a a Richard Rohr book that was um popped up in one of our readings with a study governor, and it was about uh male initiation. It's called Adam's Return. But as I'm reading it, as as often I do, I just look for universal themes. So this is all male pronoun because it's supposed to be male initiations, right? Um, initiations into into into the spiritual world. And so he I'm gonna read a little bit of this and talk about it with you, and I think you'll see the the same things I'm seeing. So starts out a Cherokee elder said to his son, Why do you spend your time brooding, my boy? Don't you know you're being driven by great winds across the sky? And then he did a book, uh, a quote out of our book. You have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired before recovery can begin. So this, whether you're doing recovery or whether you're doing uh another discipline, it doesn't matter. The the uh process, we need to be initiated into it. So all great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. What do you do with your pain? So the first lesson of initiation was to teach the young man or the person not to run from pain and in fact not to get rid of any pain until he had first learned his lessons. This is a common theme. When we make mistakes, they produce pain, psychological, emotional, mental, spiritual, right? And if we don't stop and deconstruct it, we never know why it's happening. That's why your fourth step looks the way it did. It's the same thing over and over for decades, right? So human life could not risk being mere self-legitimation and pleasure seeking. A man could not risk always taking the easier way, or he would miss life's central and transformative pattern of descent and ascent. When Augustine called the what Augustine called the Paschal Mystery, creation has a pattern of wisdom. And we dare not shield ourselves from it, or we literally will lose our soul. You can obey commandments, believe doctrines, and attend church services all your life, and still daily abort your soul if you run from the necessary cycle of loss and renewal. Death and resurrection is lived out at every level of the cosmos. But only one species thinks it can avoid it, the human species. So there's three things there: ascent and descent, loss and renewal, death and resurrection, talking about the same thing. Loss of an old idea. And then I get some messaging that I can use to resurrect myself, to connect. So in initiation ceremonies, we see almost universal emphasis on physical, emotional, and social trials. But most people stop there and never look for the actual message behind the trials. What is my pain trying to show me? What is it trying to teach me? It's not a punishment, it's a lesson. And I'm averse to pain. So I keep pushing the pain away, denial, pretending it's not there, that didn't happen, or blaming someone else for it. And I never learn anything. So most people stop there and never look for the actual message behind the behind the trials. They think a daring raft ride down the Colorado or a sit in the army is in itself an initiation. It could be, but most likely it isn't. The real point is not an endurance contest, but a course in listening, waiting, and hoping, which has the effect of deepening and clarifying desire. He just described being in the presence, being in the present tense. Listen, wait, hope. This educates the emotional life, the inner world, the soul, which for some reason we don't think needs education, as the mind does. Once you can grow in this way, you have an inner pattern for ongoing growth throughout your whole life. Everything will teach you and help you mature. As the prophet Jeremiah would say, the law will be intrinsic, written within you. So this is reference to when I was behaving poorly, I always knew it was poor behavior. I always knew in inside, I always had a physical reaction when I was doing something I shouldn't do. That's what this reference is referencing the truth, the law written in you. It's intrinsic to our creation. So I just got more and more desperate. So the real point is not an endurance contest. This education, I'm sorry, Reason, we don't need yeah. Why don't we think our soul needs to be educated? Once we once you grow in this way, you have an inner pattern for ongoing growth throughout your whole life. Everything becomes my teacher. Life is my teacher. It's not an endurance, it's not a punishment, it's the movie I'm in. And I'm asked to learn what the scenes are meaning, what the significance is. Everything will teach you and help you mature. Okay.

Narcissism And Getting Humbled By Life

SPEAKER_03 6:56

Initiation is not about being a warrior as much as it is about being conscious, awake, and alert. You can only be that way if you're in the present tense. Notice Jesus talks about the same issue. And I am awake is the very meaning of the name Buddha. Maybe that's why initiation was always done in the name in nature and in various forms of solitude. Nature's the only thing that this young man or this person, or as we look at it, as adults coming off a bottom, trying to find this concept of a higher power. Nature's the only thing that I can't be larger than, above, or in control of. So nature's grandeur awakened him to the mystery and its silence, silenced him. If a young man does not learn, or a person does not learn, disrespect early, they'll spend their whole life demanding that everyone and everything listen to him. Sound familiar? Why is he nobody like me? Why aren't you listening to me? Why don't you do what I tell you to do? I've got a script for you. Why aren't you following it? Right? Which creates a tragic deafness and narcissism. It inverts the nature of the universe. Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the few modern self-help movements that has the honesty to tell people they're narcissist and selfish. There you go. Others dance around such an unflattering but obvious truth. It is finally all about one thing. What are you going to do with your pain? And we've been carried, the pain was the stimulus for the drug addiction, the alcoholism, the shopping addiction, the overeating. It was the pain, it was the trauma, it was the indifference, it was the lack of love and affirmation when we're little boys and girls. And then we've accepted the pattern of the culture, which is totally dualistic and externally referred, and we're just suffer. Our gift was that we ran out of rope. Our gift was that bottom. It didn't feel like it when you hit it. And some of us bounce a few times. But the idea is I have to become teachable. And sometimes it takes repeated knocks in the head to become teachable. Because I have to break down this false world I've built, this external world. I am what I do, I am what I have, I am what you think of me. I'm not connected to you. And I'm not connected to God. That's baloney, right? So I am God. There's a selfish, self-centered narcissist. It's all about me. It's a Roger-centered world. And everything that comes into my sphere of influence is the question is, what is this, what is this going to do for me? What do you have for me? What are you going to give me? Oh, nothing? Well, you've now become invisible. Oh, you have something and I want. And when I get it all extracted from you, I'll I'll leave you on the side of the road. So are you going to blame others for it? Because then I can be a victim. Are you going to think that was it has to be fixed, as the Buddha is supposed to have said, pain is part of the deal. I think primarily there's two disciplinarians here: pain and love. And we don't learn from the love in the beginning. We only learn from the pain. Most of us. No one lives on this earth without it. It is the great teacher, although none of us want to admit it. If we don't, here's a big one. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it in the same form. That's why abusers raise abusers. That's why sex addicts raise sex addicts. That's why we transgenerational hatred, right? It's it's trying to get interrupted.

Transform It Or Transmit It

SPEAKER_04 11:10

Someone's joining the meeting. There was a study.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

And it was they were a parapsychologist from Wisconsin were in Belfast in Ireland after the IRA and the whole thing had calmed down, and they were trying to create a break, a cessation in this transgeneral gen transgenerational hatred. So for instance, he had a he had a guy who was this kid's uncle, and the kid hated all the Catholics because the Catholics killed my uncle's brother, who he never met. So the uncle just transmitted, transmitted the hatred to the deaf you. And so they were they were coming into these schools to treat to try and teach the new generation compassion and understanding. And the parents didn't like it because the parents thought that you're going to turn them into a bunch of dormats, a bunch of wimps, compassion and love. What do you mean? And so they were trying to teach the kids. They finally got it in the school system because they were the parents were a lost cause. They weren't going to learn anything because they were stuck in their in their concepts and their history and their belief system. But the kids, so they'd have these kids talk about what's bothering them. So this little girl would say, I hate my little sister. I hate my I hate my big sister. She's mean to me and she doesn't let me do what I want to do, whatever, whatever. And then they would have them put on these red heart glasses, the compassion glasses. What's another way you can see your sister? Well, she's always been good to me. She's always been helpful, you know, and it just you watch the inversion. And that's what this what you don't transform, you transmit. And just think about that. Let it soak in a little bit. Because I pass on my defects just like I pass on the positive things in my character. We're talking, this has been a theme this week for some reason. But our alcoholism is described as it's a the only disease that affects everyone around it. It goes out in a ripple effect, right? If you're in my life, you've been affected by my disease of alcoholism, of narcissistic, selfish, self-centeredness, right? But the same is true for your recovery. As you start reading a different vibration, a different sense of being, and that goodness starts reading it out, that has an effect too. So is there something I haven't transformed yet?

SPEAKER_04 14:05

I think that is an absolute, he says.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

If we do not learn this all-important spiritual lesson, at least one, maybe all of the following things will happen. One, you become inflexible, blaming, and petty. Two, we need other people to hate in order to expel our own inner negativity. Three, we'll play the victim in some form as a means of false power. You can use that victimist for manipulation, can't you? Or we'll spend much of our life seeking security and status as a cover-up for our lack of a substantial sense of self. This is the false self's game. Will you please tell me who I am? Am I good enough now? And you become a chameleon to figure out how to get the approval that you never got, the affirmation you never got. And then the the last the fifth one is we'll pass on our deadness to our family, children, and friends. That's the radiation. That's the uh that's the idea of the ripple effect. So what do I do with my pain is the question that's on the table, y'all.

Personal Shares On Living With Pain

SPEAKER_04 15:31

I'll go first.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

That last bit, that last few minutes there. Um So I guess the you know what I could relate to a lot of that and I think the you know, at least my my story or my thoughts tonight is it's the acceptance that you know this is this is gonna be a you know that question is you know what to do with pain is gonna be with me till I'm you know in a uh on another level until I'm no longer walking the earth. And it's I I think the difference for me is that um you know, before it was I I had a solution and it was anesthesia of whatever alcohol being the primary. Um and now, you know, I I think it's just you know being patient with myself to be able to get my head around the fact that you know it can be transcended without being transmitted. But it it seems like the the further I go with this, it's like the you know the the layer of onion metaphor where I just I keep running into new levels of pain and places where I didn't think that it existed and how it's particularly how it's impacted my my family. So it becomes a little bit more profound and takes a little bit more time for me to to process, but um I think it's you know just uh it's just you gotta have patience with it. And if if I don't, um you know, all of that old behavior's maybe the alcohol, but the behavior, you know, the the those last sentences that we share with the victimhood and pettiness and you know passive-aggressive ways of of transmitting it to others, is is still there.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

It's all yeah, it's all done with me trying to protect me from the fear and the shame. You know, the pain is if you look at it in terms of karma, you reap what you sow, the pain is just karma is a benign corrective response. When I'm off the beam, I create pain, and the pain is reflected back to me so I can learn what I'm doing wrong. But we always push, we always push the consequence away with the pain. And when you do that, you push the answer away too. Because there's no introspection, there's no reverse engineering. It's all why'd you do that to me? I can't trust anybody, you know. It goes on and on. Yeah, thanks, Paul.

SPEAKER_10 18:57

Justin. Justin, alcoholic hand. Wow. Boy, did I need this meeting? Um, I lived in the pain all day today, and I at moments I didn't even realize. Um you were talking earlier, you know, the narcissism and the self-centeredness. I was throwing a pity party about every five minutes today. And it just, you know, like I'd be like, what else? What else? And I just kept going. And then I had this moment where I was sitting there and I and I know it's not me. I know it's the beast, because the beast said, Boy, you've awoken yourself. Now what? And I and I and I had this moment of just deep fear that came across saying, you know, sometimes I wish I would have just stayed. Uh I wouldn't have known that there is this other side. And that's this fear, because it's like I have this fear now that which is the beast saying, This is not gonna last. You will not keep searching. And I like what you said about in the reading, you know, we train our brains to learn stuff, but what about our soul? What about that? What about that that is what I needed to hear tonight more than anything else? Because today I was stuck in brain, uh, crazy town, beast had me going every every way, which but the right way. And I um I didn't breathe, I didn't pray, I didn't, I didn't do anything. I just blamed everybody for my shitty day, even knowing all I had to do was look in the mirror and say, take a breath, dude. Take a breath. Um so that's all I got. Thank you. Oh God, I'm so glad I'm here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

Should have read your text earlier today. Yeah. Yeah. So that's right. The the training for our soul, our spirit is those 12 steps. That is spiritual direction. And as I can form my thinking and my energy towards the ideas in the steps, admission, submission, restitution, prayer meditation, construction of a new life. As I gear my thinking in that direction, things transform, they change. Because we literally create our reality. We create our reality. You know, Justin created hell today, and yesterday had a great day. Well, what's the difference? There's no difference in the day, there's a difference in Justin, in where I'm coming from. And that's why we spend so much Time thinking about or thinking. Where's that coming from? Selfish, dishonest, resentful, fearful, shame. Thanks for that. I can't think we're talking about what do you do with your pain? Morphine. Want to go next?

SPEAKER_08 22:25

Go ahead. You and you were reading that, and I couldn't agree with, you know, and I agree with what you know that's been said here is this idea of you know, particularly I noticed this one event that happened with my son when he was younger. And I wrote it all down because I was lameless in this situation. I was the victim. And I I mean I just wrote and wrote and wrote, and I thought, I will never get caught alone in the car with him again. This is awful. He's like ruined my time. And so um, you know, the beauty of the steps in this program, and you know, and working it is so then I went back later on, I looked at it and I was like, wow, you were not the victim here. You were the problem, you know. It was like such an eye-opener because it was like it would have taken so little to have made this an incredibly pleasant trip. But I was so attached to these other things of how I wanted to be and the time I wanted to show up and all of these things. And it was like, ah, I would have wanted to push myself out of the car if I'd been my son. I get that. Um, but if I hadn't written it down as the victim, I couldn't go back and look at it and think, oh, yeah, there you are. And you were not the victim. You were the problem.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

And that always is what we come back to. It's me. It's me. You know, this line in here, I didn't expound on it when I read it, but this thing about you can obey commandments, believe doctrines, and attend church services all your life and still daily abort your soul if you run from a necessary cycle of loss and renewal from the lessons, right? Well, you can easily say you can go to meetings, you can do the steps, you can have a sponsor, but if you don't do it, it's not going to transform you. And you're just going to sit there and go, well, I tried that and it didn't work. I need this death and resurrection metaphor. That's the dying to self. That's the death of the false self and the birth of the divine that I've always been, the spirit that I've always been. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_04 24:38

What do I do with my pain? Andy alcoholic. And eh?

SPEAKER_14 24:55

This is great, Roger. This is a good one.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

Um you know what me.

SPEAKER_14 25:02

I mean, they are. They're so all they always the funny thing is, it's like a recording. I'd say the same thing every week, but it is the I um I never know what you're gonna come with. It's always something that hits. And like this one was big words. The victim, man, I used to be a great, I played that role really well. Um also you talked about how like you say the line of like, don't you? I gave you this or I have a script for what you're supposed to say, and you're not following it. Well, I'm writing the script, I'm not sharing it, but I'm also editing the script as we go. So it's changing during the process. And that thing that hit me big of like the victim, when I'm the victim, I can't learn from the pain because it's what why is this happening to me instead of what am I supposed to learn? And and what really hits it, it's like in the in Justin hit it on Justin had a rough day, but what does he do? He comes, the practices, you come to the gathering, you come to a meeting, Kathy writes, you know, for me, it's the the inventory at the end of the day. It's not optional for me not to do. How do I show up today? Was I selfish, resentful, afraid? You know, do I give to others? Do I need to share something? By doing the practice, you talk about the drug traps, Raj. By committing to this is what I'm gonna do. The third step, I'm making a decision and I'm gonna show that I've made it by starting off in the morning, watching it throughout the day when I can, and doing it again at the end of the day. I don't allow myself then by doing those things to slide too far into the victim role. I fall into it, but I I have a lower tolerance for that pain that comes along with living that way now and can snap it and like what Paul talked about, like I can learn from it. It can be the teacher, I can, you know, see that and it can turn me towards back towards the light, you know? It's great.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

I didn't even know I was in pain. I thought it was intense and focused and had a lot of drive. And I was I I was more like a bulldozer. If you're in the way, I'm sorry, but you're in the way, and this is my path, and so you have to get on board or get the hell out of the way, right? Frustration, futility, that was what was under it all of it, and I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it, and that's why I was almost dead by the time I was 30. Because the anesthetic quit working. Nothing worked. You gotta get to that point, this point he's talking about the other books he talks about the second half of life. I need to have that breakdown to have the breakthrough.

SPEAKER_04 27:41

Who else? Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

And I don't know this for a fact, I'm just saying when I have a day like that, I go back and I look, what did I do something different today? Oh, I forgot I didn't do all my my readings this morning, or I didn't do my prayer, I didn't do my 10 minutes of quiet. I didn't, oh, or first I went and ran the errands and then I came back and did it. You know, there's always something that I I broke the pattern with it, and I need to understand that. And the way you learn what is the pain. Had a bad day. Well, who created the bad day? I did, but the beast wants me to think you all created it for me. Yeah. Um, just at a sidebar, Kathy, the way you don't get thrown out of the car is your wear your seat, Bill.

SPEAKER_11 28:39

Who's next? Yeah, this is Bill. Um Alan uh Clutters Anonymous. Um and uh yeah, I mean, my uh I recently uh like Friday, I did something that um I really regret it. And I know for a fact what I did with my pain, I beat myself up. And and so all day Saturday I was completely just shrunk and and self-absorbed. And I think I think what I'm describing is um pride and selfish self-centeredness. It was that's what I was all day. I all I could think about was the pain that I was in and the stupid decision I made. Um and so um when you talk about the steps being um uh one of some of the training, I think one of the things is the print, one principle of the steps is uh is honesty. And so I was so grateful to have uh my wife there. And in the past, I've had friends, community group, uh, just to be able to get some truth, to to talk about what happened. I don't even know what the lesson is most of the time. Um and and so it takes some processing with other people, and then just to kind of get out of the out of the pain and out of the shame and all that stuff. So um, but I do think um that what operates often in me in that is that false self-thing you talked about is that we're not connected to God. Well, you know, this idea that um I did something bad. I know I got I got it in my head probably from childhood, and now uh God wants something to do with me. And I know it's a lie. I know it's a lie. Um, but it's getting moving it from the the head to the heart. Um, and so maybe that's the lesson. Um, I really don't know what it is, but just I think my prayers, and I always pray this carefully and humbly is is just for for humility because um yeah, that that uh that day was so so uh lost in self. Um so, anyways, I I just am grateful for um a place to say it out loud and and and be um honest and have you know people in my life that I can share it with and share it with you guys too. I'm grateful for this group. Um, and then just uh briefly, the chair back there. It has a bunch of it. I knew you were gonna ask.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

I always watch your chair.

SPEAKER_11 31:09

There's a box of really unnecessary papers and files in there that I gotta get rid of it. I can't. So I just I threw that flower vase on top to make it look a little bit better. So that but uh, anyways, yeah. So thank you so much uh for the uh um for for this uh topic. Um really grateful. Good to have you aboard, Bill.

SPEAKER_03 31:33

What do I do with my pain?

Coming Off The Cross With Help

SPEAKER_03 31:35

We hand it off to God. The things that we're powerless of are we give to God, and we ask to learn, you know, when we're when we're stuck like Justin was today and Bill was describing the other day, we're literally on our cross. We're total victim and we're nailed to our mistake. And we to come down off it, we have to come down with understanding. I have to see this differently.

SPEAKER_04 32:04

Well, Cathy.

SPEAKER_07 32:10

Allie, I'm an alcoholic. I had gum surgery, so not doing a lot of talking. Um but um thank God for G chat GPT, so I've saved many friends from the incessant like, is this normal? Is this normal? Um but um so the topic of pain, um yeah, uh that's been uh it was basically the gum surgery, it's very painful. And um it just um what I found fascinating about it is well, in the bad way, is like how much my alcoholic brain will try to find loopholes in like the recovery list of things to do. I mean, they're very clear about you know, these things that you you know you shouldn't do, like you know, berries, anything with texture. I'm busy thinking after the first day of being knocked out, like, well, but I love strawberries. So maybe I could throw one in a couple of these into the blender, and that will help. Okay, it burns the shit out of my bad mouth, but I'm like, well, no, I'm okay. That was that was probably just a bad experiment. So now, you know, and I'm so tired. I'm gonna try some coffee, but I don't know it's and I'll just be like, the thing I put toast in a blender because I was like craving it, like I can't, there's no texture, but it's just these things I'm like, oh my God. I, you know, the and and then I'll have these moments of like um clarity of like, oh, well, if I stop putting spice or you know, anything with texture in the blender, if I stop doing these things, wow, you know, my mouth doesn't hurt as much. But it's literally like a revelation each time because there's part of me that thinks the rules don't apply to me. And or I'm gonna I'll follow part of them, you know, no exercise, you know, until a little. But it's just this so this whole idea with pain, 100% self-created. I mean, the so it's there's a lesson, but um, and I think partly because I've never spent so much time inactive, but my brain just will take off on this plotting and scheming and um just start obsessing. And um, because there's something I can't have that I want, and it'll go to any length to get it, not recognizing I'm tearing up my mouth, which is just delaying the pain. It's that so um it's just been very um okay, it's been a little alarming, uh, but it's that it's just that obsession and that the amount of like I said, optional suffering I will take on to get my way, to get my way, I guess. And um, so it's um you know, that's it's like the Buddhist thing that there's optional suffering, you know, there's certain things. And um I've just been um it's just been really hard, also because haven't been able to go out much. I still can't I have to puree everything. Um and so it's just and you it's your mouth, so you know the stitches and the cut, whatever. It's so um, but anyway, so when it comes to pain, there's a there's a lesson, but I'm just um like with drinking. Like, is there a way I can drink without consequences? No, but I'm gonna keep trying. Or is there a way to do things where I can, you know, um over exercise or do how can I get out of it? Or it's just I really have to be like, okay, it's literally like a little like it's ADHD of like, no, no, focus, focus. Because again, it's that short-term relief, or you know, just not looking at the big picture, not thinking, oh, I'm learning, and if I don't do this, this doesn't happen. It's like um, yeah, it's it's just been like it's a sort of horse, you know, just amazing how I mean, if only this I could transfer that energy and mind focus and concentration to the positive parts of the recovery, I'd be you know, killing it. But um anyway, so I've been doing a lot of meetings lately too, because the last thing I'll just say is it's also been um the first time in a long time. It's just me time because um we're just recovering. And so it's so great to be here. I've been looking forward to this and um yeah, just so enjoy hearing what you have to say. Thanks for letting me share.

Optional Suffering And Self-Created Pain

SPEAKER_03 36:57

Thanks, Allie. I've had some pretty extensive oral surgery as well. And one of the things that I found that helps the healing is gargling with warm salt water. It'll sting a little bit, but it really promotes the healing.

SPEAKER_07 37:14

That's on the naughty list. Don't think I think but I pre that was um I appreciate that. Everyone goes through it and sorrow, but thank you.

SPEAKER_04 37:29

Who else?

SPEAKER_13 37:35

I'm Tom, uh alcoholic. Hey Tom. I'm really struggling with this, and uh what's real interesting is I can't even and and and and thanks to Bill said a couple words here a few minutes ago, I said really being being honest and humility. I had a I I really had trouble like admitting pain. And when I look at it, I really set my whole life up. If there was something that I thought maybe I wasn't good at, well, I didn't do it, and then I would set up a a full court press or a fight in another arena and just go blasting through it and getting it done my way, you know, and then having to crash, having drinks at night to crash and get up and do it again. But I set my whole life up as this fight. And uh that is painful, but uh but I did I did not want to admit I had pain. As I said, it's I've been sitting here listening to everyone, and um, I used to joke it's kind of funny, you know, with humility. You know, I know I see people with humility, and I made a comment. I said, you know, I'm very proud of my humility. But yet um yeah, it's really, it's really uh it's really a good one. And no, and it's silly when I said earlier, maybe this maybe this is a good one. They said, I've been, you know, playing golf for probably, I don't know, 40 years or 50, you know, playing bad golf for the whole time and always complaining about it, setting up as a fight, but you can't beat up that little ball, getting pissed off and back, occasionally making a good check. And then my my wife took a video of my swing and she said, Well, this is what you look like. And I said, Oh my God, this is that's horrible. I said, I'm gonna get some, I'm gonna get lessons. And I felt all of a sudden like the pain's going away. I played yesterday and I played, hit the ball better than ever at a higher score, and I wasn't angry. But I was but it's interesting. So maybe that's still within it. As I said, I'm um um intrigued by it, and but really I'm really more at the point of life that really is more of a letting go. The intensity is there, the focus is there, but really it is about relationship with God that gets more comes back with with that without the pain of of fighting. So so I that's it. I'll uh I'll stop. But it's really great.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

One of the things that you were talking about, um the aversion to the pain is I just switch, I switch uh trajectories, I switch directions, and I find something else. The pain was always to me a symbol of failure. And I'm supposed to be perfect. And so when I'm scared, like when I came into AA, I heard everyone talking about fear, and I thought, what a bunch of wimps. I'm not afraid of anything. I've had guns put up to my hand, I've been in car wrecks, I've been fear was not one of the things. Maybe anger, but not fear. And then some one of the old guys set me aside and said, I hate to tell you this, but anger is a secondary emotion. The primary emotion of anger is fear, and I went from being afraid of nothing to being afraid of everything. But it was liberating, it wasn't fun, but it was the the beginning of the change.

SPEAKER_04 41:07

Who else pain?

SPEAKER_12 41:15

No, that's an alcoholic. Hey Doug. Roger, quite a what a topic. I think back on it, and it's uh if I think on it too hard, it's really confusing how I dealt with it. I drank. Yeah. Uh because I didn't understand part of what would happen is you just described it, the fear and or anger, you know, or the fear leading into the anger. Part I remember distinctly thinking uh if someone or something uh caused me pain, my first thought was, I don't deserve this. I don't deserve this. What did I do? I I didn't do anything, you know. Why, why, why do I hurt? And the interesting thing about that was when I I uh alcoholism got me to the point where I could not describe feelings. And I went through a a special discussion, even in treatment, of the counselor trying to bring me up to date basically on what a feeling is. My my reply when I was asked, what is a feeling was, I know if I hit my finger with a hammer, that hurts. That's a feeling. But she said, No, beyond that, you know, what's the feeling? I didn't know. I'd lost it, you know. Uh so the frustration with pain or the thought of impending doom, I think uh, you know, some of the literature talks about uh this whole thing of being responsible for myself and how I feel, and what do I do about it? Like feelings aren't good or bad, they're a feeling is a feeling. Uh very difficult. Uh recently last year, my wife was very sick. She had a very serious infection. And uh at one point wasn't there was no guarantee of recovery. Uh, you know, how do I handle that pain? Uh the the helplessness. I I'm not a doctor. I can't help her. I can talk to docs, I can ask questions. Uh but I also found out that that drove me pretty close to the God of my understanding, saying, God, I don't know what the hell to do here. You know, how do I handle this? This could be an incredible. Lost to me if I lose her. How do I react to this? How can I help her through this process? And uh it worked, you know. Uh through through sharing it at meetings and talking with people who were really important to me, uh, and talking about it took up took off it took some of the hard edges off the pain because I was able basically to give away part of it, but also come to an understanding that hey, I'm not as damn strong as I think I am physically, mentally, or otherwise. Uh, and to begin to understand a little bit more that the God of my understanding is the source of power, not me. Not me. And I gotta I gotta be really open and honest when I reach that point. Uh, because I I recalled doing that when I when I would drink, uh, when I wasn't able to deal with it or find out what to do with it, was to drink. That solved everything. So I'm I'm forever grateful that uh really I I guess when I boil it down for myself, pain taught me how to be grateful. It actually did. It it taught me how to be grateful that uh, you know, I don't have to handle it all by myself, that there are ways of doing it. And uh I continue to learn, and that's why you know meetings like this are so so important to me. I uh the older I get, the more I begin to understand. I really don't know much. I uh I'm teachable, I'm teachable, so I guess I'll just be quiet and pay attention. Thanks.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

You know, you reminded me I go through some of these things too. And uh we're powerless, but we're not helpless.

unknown 46:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:12

And when you run up against something like you were describing, Doug, there's no human way, there's no human power in me that can change the facts or the circumstance. So the only thing I can change is how I'm looking at it. And that's that's handing off that fear, that's the six and seven proposition. Take this, take my fear. What's the fear? Remove my fear and direct my attention to what you'd have me be. So you said it. How can I be useful? How could I be helpful to her? That's the only thing I can do, right? Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 46:46

Well Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

Um I uh hi there. Um, can you hear me? Yeah.

unknown 47:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

Um I loved what Allie was talking about with this optional pain, or just thinking like the rules don't apply to me, this won't hurt. I'm different, kind of alcoholic thinking about about pain. Like, I really want total someone to put the put it in a blender or whatever. I I have those same kinds of crazy ass thinking sometimes. It's just like, yeah, but not me, you know, kind of thing. Anyway, optional pain. I was been thinking this whole meeting. I wonder how much of my pain is truly optional. Because um, you know, I don't have anything tragic, not good going on right now in my life that would, you know, cause me a whole lot of grief. Mine's kind of my grieving kind of is just ongoing every day for years and years and years about this or that. But luckily for me, luckily for me, this idea that when Richard Rohr, I read super early on in sobriety that what you don't trans transform or transmute, you transmit. And he was talking about fear, and of course, anger, and for me, I had a real anger management problem. And so, you know, just morphing understanding that when I am in fear or in pain, usually for me, pain is fear, and yeah, um, like even the grieving, you know, stuff. If I can fill that hole, the fear hole with God, if whatever it is that's coming up for me is asking to be seen, to just sit with it, know it's temporary, share it with you guys, share it with God, the creator. That someone else said here, when we share it, it cuts it in half, you know. Like when Doug was talking about talking about it with people, it it lightens the load. And I think that's what we're all here for. I mean, the God in you all, and the God in me, we're here to do that stuff. We give it away, we we lighten, lighten the issue by by being present with others who are in pain, and by if I'm in pain, reaching out to you guys. Um I like I said, I've been sitting here this whole meeting going, God, when was the last time I was really like on my knees in pain? And I'm not being arrogant, I just really can't remember exactly when that was. You know, falling to pieces, pain, pain, pain. But when I do that, I usually call my voices of reason, members of AA, spiritual director. Um there's this ongoing stuff for me. Like my husband has been a stork survivor for 17 years. It's ongoing. We've been through so many different stages of the grieving process, and and some days it is really futile, that futility Roger was talking about in the beginning of the meeting, like futility and frustration and victim stance and all that stuff. But I don't know, I guess because of AA, because of this program and self-survey and understanding how small I really am in this world, you know, just the humility part, which I had none of before, absolutely zero. Um, it's it's just like everything's fine. It's just fine. I don't have to. I mean, this is this is what I've been given, the life I've been given. I either love what I've been given or I suffer, you know. So anyway, I don't know if that made any sense at all, but I really appreciate everyone else's shares today. And uh uh especially loved Allie's because I think we're alike in our weird thinking. No offense to you, Allie. But I'm really glad you're here too, even with your gum pain. And uh I love seeing you all every couple weeks, and with that I'll test.

SPEAKER_03 51:29

Thanks, Kirsten.

Surrender As A Daily Practice

SPEAKER_03 51:31

You know, pain is not optional, but suffering is optional. Pain is part of life, it's part of the progression, it's part of being human. But suffering, that's the clinging. We can do something about the suffering.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

Hey, Kathy, alcoholic. Hi, hi Ryan, Kathy. Hi, other Kathy and everybody. Um, yeah, I was thinking about when have I been in pain lately, and uh well, I was in church, and um because I went to support a fellow sober sister who got baptized, and then I had to sit there in the church for the whole sermon, which I found very painful. So um then I had to meditate, you know, because yeah, anyways, and so I think though the pain was the fear for her, and the you know, the fear I can't control what she does or the other people, or how she takes in her higher power. I can't control any of that, and I can be happy for her and for her family, and then participate in the fellowship after that whole painful sermon. But um my meditation, you know, breathing in, breathing out. Um, but I really was, I think, f afraid for her because uh I don't know what her higher power is like, but it's not like mine. And um so I felt kind of a lot of pain, but the meditation helped, you know, kind of move it through my heart, and I could still um, you know, be there for her and for what her uh celebration was going on um in that whole uh you know structured situation. But um I found it kind of painful, and I I was thinking um somebody else is talking about like hitting your finger with a hammer. Well, physical pain, there's psychological pain, there's uh, you know, there's lots of different kinds of pain. And um somebody said grief that's a special kind of pain. So I mean, I think uh there's whole books on it that I when I went to school I studied. So um uh so thanks, Roger, for that topic, and uh good to see everybody.

SPEAKER_03 55:01

You know, another way of thinking about pain is like six and seven, I take what I'm clinging to and I consign it to the creator. Pain is a purifier. It's it metaphorically, it's like being in a crucible, it's burning off the lie. If I can find a way to look at it, it's helpful because it's pointing me at what doesn't work, and if I can't examine it and find out reverse engineer and find out what the principle under that feeling, that emotion, that attitude is, I can't change. I can't change, and so I stay in the pain until it burns off the the lie, and I become willing to surrender, to give it up, another surrender, another surrender, another surrender. There's all kinds of surrenders to this, right? There's not I didn't surrender in 1978. I surrendered alcohol and drugs. But the process of the steps is an incremental surrendering. And the longer you're here, the deeper it goes, and you're always put in front of something that you got to let go of. Because I'm averse to pain now. I used to live in pain and thought it was the normal way to be. I thought life was supposed to be miserable. And now, as I've grown out of that, when when pain hits me, I could almost always turn into constructive activity and figure out what the hell is going on, right? And I might, you know. Before I got in recovery, a bad day could be six months long. You know, I don't know when it's gonna end, right? But now a bad day is maybe five, ten minutes because we practice these tools, these techniques to turn it our attitudes around, and we we incrementally get free and we get better at doing it, and the better we get at doing it, the less time we spend fooling around with stuff that doesn't work. You can declare anything, but your the quality of your life and your relationships around you tell you where you're at. Tell you how you're doing anyone else? I thought this would be a kind of an interesting topic tonight.

Aging And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_03 57:26

It makes you think, doesn't it? It's like, yeah, how do I deal with pain? Oh boy. Anyone else want to share, or you want to be done? Laurie, you got anything you want to throw in? David Alcoholic. Oh, there's Dave. Hi, Dave.

SPEAKER_09 57:46

You know, when you talk about physical pain, if I didn't have any in the morning when I wake up, I might think I would be dead. You know, because I I have a ton of physical pain. But by the end of this month, I will be officially in assisted living, and to find somebody to help me line all this stuff up was a complete bother because I'm not that guy. I'm used to busting and you know, bullying my way through everything, and uh, I got into a system that I know absolutely nothing about, so I had to have somebody help me, and it just it got for me a lot, but uh a biggest part of the body was was when stuff didn't happen quickly right now. So I know I gotta get into a system, but you know, it's just that way, but I I don't like that idea, but uh it took me a while to find some place that would uh I can get into, and the bad part about it is it's in St. Paul for crying out loud.

SPEAKER_03 59:17

You mean you'll be closer to Kathy.

SPEAKER_09 59:20

Well, uh another 10 minutes down the road, maybe a little more, you're in Wisconsin for crying out loud. You know, so you know, going over to that neck of neck of the woods is gonna be interesting, basically, for the people I'll get to me, and uh figuring out how I'm gonna you know do my life. So it's it's kind of exciting, it's kind of a pain in the backside, you know, but it's all these little things that I know I will get through. And that's the whole thing. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:01

Thanks, Dave. So uh we're out of time. Do you want to close with a prayer? Maybe the third step prayer would be appropriate. Wanna do that? Okay, unmute yourselves and we can all do it together. Ready? Three, two, one. God offer myself is the me and to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:39

I can better do that.

SPEAKER_10 1:00:40

Do thy will take away my difficulty. My difficulties of that power. We have live me. I do that as well. Always, always.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:58

We're just almost at twelve thousand downloads. Can you imagine what that sounds like to somebody driving on the road with this phone listening? All right, thanks. I'll see you the first Wednesday of July.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:11

Thanks, Roger. Thanks, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:13

Thanks, Roger.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

Thanks, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:15

See ya.