Self-will and Resentment – L – Step Study – Part 1 of 2 – Scott L.

Good morning. I'm Scott Lee, and I'm an alcoholic. And welcome back. If somebody closed those back doors, it would help. And I'd like again to open with a few moments of silence, and let's acknowledge the presence. Amen. Thank you. I would like to quote a friend of mine on two rules. One is the first rule of holes, when you're in one, stop digging. The other one is the First Rule of Cavalry, when the horse is dead, dismount. These concepts are difficult for many of us, and I wanted to pass them along under the For Whatever It's Worth category. we left off on the bottom of page 60 having discovered the first requirement of the third step was to be convinced that any life run on self-will could hardly be a success and then we talked about motive versus principle and it says most people try to live by self-propulsion each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show is forever trying to arrange the lights the ballet the scenery the rest of players in his own way have you noticed that it's not the director they're talking about. That's the director's job. It doesn't even say it's the star of the show. This is one of the bit players. He wants to run the whole thing. Boy, that is my story. And just trying everything I can think of to make it come out my way because I'm a victim of the delusion that I can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if only I manage well. And if you guys would just shape up, I'd be okay. And I'm going to go to page 62 again i'd say there's no way to be completely thorough on this i want to try to get some important points across selfishness self-centeredness that we think is the root of our troubles the rootofourtroubles that must be important driven not not mildly moved along but driven by a hundred forms of fear self-delusion self-seeking and self-pity we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate sometimes they hurt us seemingly without provocation but we invariably find that at some time in the past, we have made decisions based on self, which later placed us in a position to be hurt. And then here comes the best news, I think, in the whole book. So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. Because if it really is the cops and the courts and the blacks and the Russians and the Chinese and the PTA and the ex-wives, if it really has all of them, I'm cooked because I can't do a thing about them and the good news is that i'm the problem that we can work on that's great news says they arise out of ourselves the alcoholics is an extreme example of self-will run right though he usually doesn't think so boy i didn't thinkso i always thought if they'd shape up i'd be okay above everything now that must be important above everything does that sound important above anything we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness got to go we must or it kills us now that's a death threat it kills us we're going to see a lot more death threats as we move on through this work says god makes that possible and there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without his aid that's an important concept because they're going to tell to us twice in the same paragraph when the book's redundant i think it's on things that are extremely important and it says i can't get rid of itself without god's aid it says many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore i was one of those but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help. There that concept is again. I've got to have God'S help. I can't do this myself. I tried and tried and tried. It says, This is the how and the why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. Now hold it. I thought we already had a first over here two pages ago. First requirement was that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. Now we have, first of all, we had to quit playing God. So we have two firsts. That works for alcoholics, don't you think? I mean, I had so many things in first place. Everything was in first places. All right. It says we had the privilege of sitting with a man that I think is a great carrier of this message. And we spent a morning. And he asked me at one point, he said, in the third step, you agreed to quit paying God. And I said, that's right. and he said how did you play God and I said I don't know and he says this is how I played God I got angry with God when somebody died and that's me saying I know who should die and how and when clearly that's my playing God and I tried to manage my own life and the lives around me and the closer you were to me the harder I tried to manage your life my wife and kids got the most of it and myself clearly God's job and not mine And I judged people, and the way I know I judged them is because I had resentment. And there's only one way to get a resentment. You must judge someone, find them guilty, be angry with them, and then feel that anger again because resentment is old anger. It's old anger felt again. The word resent comes from the Latin re, prefix re, means again, like reload, it's something you do again. And sentiri means to feel. So resent means literally in English to feel again. And what you feel is old anger. So the way I know I judge people is because I had resentments. I must have judged. And I also judged myself when I was angry with me. I've added two to that list of ways that I played God. One was that I needed to know. I just needed to known. Whatever it was, I needed it. I needed something to know and that presupposes that if I can find out then I, the great and powerful Oz will be able to change it and that's my own spiritual arrogance that is very simply me playing god the other one was that i was sure that everything that i knew was right and that is me playing god when i think everything i know is right when i can't hold it in an open hand i'm telling him he can't change this that's some of the ways that i play god so it says here this is actually i said to me the third step breaks out into nine parts this is the second one it says first of all we had to quit playing god so i asked this new guy you want to quit playing god did you play god like i just described can you think of any other ways are you willing to stop okay it didn't work well that's a good reason and then it says next we decided so here's the decision we refer to in the third steps next we decide that hereafter in this drama of life god was going to be our director he is the principal we are his agents he is the father and we are his children. I say, have you made that decision? He says, yes. I say, okay, what I want you to do is to read that back to me now in the first person. We're going to formally make this decision. I want You to make it formally out loud if you're ready. If you're not ready, and I had a guy not too long ago say, I'm not sure I'm ready. I said, great. Take some time. Take a few days and think about this. This is a big deal. This is a big deal. And when they're ready, they say, I have decided that hereafter in this realm of life, God is going to be my director. He is the principal. I am his agent. He is the father. I'm his child. And I say, congratulations. I think you've made an excellent decision. You and I are going to make a pact. And the pact is that that decision will stand until the day you formally change it with me or with a sponsor or spiritual advisor that comes after me. Do we have a pact? We do. Shake hands. The decision stands. My third step decision stands. I made it a long time ago. The implementation is better on some days than others, but the decision stands and then it says most good ideas are simple and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arts through which we pass to freedom. Keystone is the one that holds it all in place. If you know anything about architecture, the key stone is that strange shaped one right in the middle that makes it all work. So that's the reference here that this is so important. This is what makes it all work. And then we have the third step, promises. It says when we sincerely took such a position, that's the position of God as a director and he's the principal and I'm his agent and he're the father and I am his child, took such position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new employer. Now that's who I work for. Being all powerful, he provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well. Established on such a footing, we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. How about that? It had a death threat on the page before saying that if I don't get rid of this selfishness, it's going to kill me. And having taken this simple position, it says now that I am already beginning to be less and more self-centered and less and much less interested in ourselves our little plants and designs starts immediately. Will you all please close that door? More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. That's out of self. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of his presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow, or the hereafter. We were reborn. Powerful, powerful, powerful set of promises. And then we have the third step prayer, which I would suggest that the third piece of the third step is to read that prayer. Not to pray it, but to read it. And I'm going to read and talk about it. It says, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. May I do thy well always. I would note that the word amen does not appear. That's just an observation. Let's talk about what the prayer says to me. I offer my self to thee. I'm not saying come on and help me out a little bit with this and then I'll take it from here. That's not what it says. I'm offering myself, all of me to God to build with me and do with me as he will. Sometimes to build something somewhere we got to tear down some of what's already there. Relieve me of the bondage of self. I am bound to self. I'm imprisoned in self. It's my problem that I may better do as well. Take away my difficulties so that others may see what you can do so that other people and others will be helped also. and then I'm asking that I might do as well always. And so having read that and talked to someone about what it means, here's a direction. It says we thought well before taking this step. And if you have not done this, I'd like to recommend that you think well because I'm going to tell you that your life is going to change and you're not going to like some of the changes. You are not goingto like someofthechanges. But this is a package deal. It is absolutely a package. Think about bowling balls. My will, God's will, pick one. And it's not 95 and 5. I'll take sex and money and he can cover the rest. That is not the package. Some of this you are not going to like. But overall, it's a spectacular package. It's the best package there is. I'm convinced of it. And I'm confused by the fact that it's so expensive. I'm also convinced that the parts that I don't like are the ones that help me the most. Rarely have I learned anything when I was up on one of the peaks. When I'm on the pink cloud, which is my favorite place, I don't learn much. What I learn is in the valleys when I'm making the mistakes. If you ask me truthfully what do I want, I want to take the rest of my life off with pay. I've gotten a lot of lessons. Isn't that enough? Can we quit here? Can I just ride the cloud? I'll trade the pink in for a lavender, but can I just rid? That's my will. And yet some of these things that I don' t like have brought me some of the greatest blessings, have brought me some of the greatest lessons. So I need to tell somebody new that the book says to think well, and I think that's the fourth piece of this step, is having read this thing, you better stop and think. You want to take a couple days on this? I'm good with it. Take a couple of days. And then it says we found it desirable to take this spiritual step with an understanding person. So it's suggesting that you want someone to witness your third-step prayer. so you would have to i would think is the fourth of the fifth piece is to select somebody and the sixth piece would be to ask them all right i'm just kind of making this up as i go but it kind of lays out in a logical fashion to me if i do it this way and then it says the wording was of course quite optional so it says i can write my own third step prayer and that to me is is the next piece is you could write your own prayer and i encourage someone to do that this fellow i just asked if he want to write his own praises everything i'm touching i'm screwing up i think i'm gonna do it just like it says in here i said hold that thought don't let that one get away and then the next piece would be to pray the prayer and uh if my count's any good that's that's nine options or not not nine options it's nine separate pieces in the third step and so that was the first requirement to uh to observe that or be convinced that playing that any life run on itself could hardly be a success to quit playing God to decide that God's going to run my life to read the prayer to think well about the prayer to figure out who I'd like to witness my prayer to ask them to write a prayer myself if I want to and then to pray it I think that counts nine alright and so I like to break these things up into little bitty pieces to spoon feed this seems to work pretty well. How would you all feel about us doing this prayer together? Is that good with everybody? Those who are not comfortable if you're new anybody here sober less than 60 days? Okay tremendous I'm glad you're here. If you have not thought well about this prayer I'd like to encourage you not to do this with us. Whatever you need to do is good with me I'm not telling you what to do but give that some consideration because I promise you your life's going to change and you're not going to like some of it But, oh, the package is spectacular. The package is great. I mean, I lost an 84 Riviera convertible, okay? I mean some of this you're not going to like. I really did. But what I'd like to do now for those who are so inclined is let's take a few moments of silence. And if you have your book handy or if you happen to know the prayer, we'll do it together. prayer God I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power thy love and thy way of life may I do thy will always thank you a friend of mine observed that the uh the next place the word amen appears is at the end of the seventh step prayer on page 76 and that that may be everything from the beginning of god offer myself to thee to that amen as a prayer i don't know i think it's a very interesting observation and i present it as such quite sincerely now i hear around the fellowship the discussion rages as to when to do a fourth step. And I've heard people say, don't do a four-step too soon, you may drink. I have so far never yet seen anybody do a floor step too soon and drink. I've seen a few hundred thousand go too slowly. But I haven't seen anybody go too fast. Is that your experience too? Yeah, because the steps are designed to bring me relief. That's what they're for. They don't look like it. They don't look like it. If you're new, don't the steps look like they're designed to punish you, especially 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10? Don't they look like that? That's what they look liked to me. That's when I saw they're going to pound me into the pavement for this, for being this bad guy I've been. That was one of the many, many things I was wrong about. The steps actually brought me relief, and that's what this four-step will do. The book is not, and I hear some people say we'll do one step a year. Well, what page is that on? And I hear people say don't make any major decisions the first year. That third step looks like a relatively major decision to me. I don't make any decisions at all without consulting your sponsor. I think that's a pretty good plan, but anyway, the book is not specific about when to do a fourth step, and I do have some fun with this, okay? It's not specific. It makes two time references, and I'll tell a new person if the book gives leeway, I give leeway. It makes two time references. As far as I'm concerned, you can use either one of those or anything in between. Does that seem fair? Okay, that's how we'll approach it. So the bottom of page 63, it begins, it says next. That's a time reference. Next. All right, so that's one time reference We launched out on the course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal house cleaning, which many of us had never attempted. Though our decision, okay, we saw the third step decision talked about how to do that formally was a vital vital from the latin word vita or vita i'm not sure it's how pronounced means life okay this is the death threat this means you only have to dothat if you want to live all right though our decision was avital and crucial step it could have little permanent effect unless at once that's a time reference at once so you do your four-step either next or at once or anything in between. I'm prepared to give all the leeway the book gives, okay? I'm a very, very gentle sponsor. Very, very gentile. I am used to getting my own way, however. Okay. Unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face and be rid. Isn't that interesting? Be rid. It's going to tell us be rid again on this page. It's redundant. It must be important. And in the fourth step, we are going to be rid. And I'd like to observe that in writing, only thing you're going to get rid of is ink and paper. The fourth step is not about writing. There is writing involved. But it is the observations and prayers in my experience that changed my life and the other lives I've seen change by doing this work. If you get your mind hung up on the fourth step being about writing, I think you're gonna miss the parts that'll change your life. And I think we're going to come to some of that information here shortly. Okay, to face and be rid of the things in our cells which have been blocking us. Here's the good news again. I'm the problem. Our liquor was but a symptom, so we had to get down to causes and conditions. Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory. This was step four. A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Now, the businesses that I'm familiar with take a computer update every night. You can think of that as the evening half of the 11th step. But once a year, they do a full tear-down inventory. That seems to me to be the reference here. Taking a commercial inventory as a fact-finding and a fact‑facing process is an effort to discover the truth about the stock in trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsaleable goods to get rid of, it says again, get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values. We did exactly the same thing with our lives. exactly the same thing with our lives we took stock honestly first we searched out the flaw in our makeup which caused our failure there's a good news again flaws in my makeup that caused my failure being convinced itself manifested in various ways is what had defeated us we considered its common manifestations the common the manifestations of self that we inventory and step four are resentment fear and sexual misconduct we do not have a sex inventory There is no direction in this book that says, write down all the things from the sexual category that you did that you thought were right and good. That direction is not in here. So we do not inventory sex per se. We inventory sexual misconduct only. And the format that the book seems to use is it is a series of lists, observations, and prayers. The lists are all written. The observations, few are written. Most are not written. And none of the prayers are written And it's been my experience that the unwritten observations and prayers are what are life-changing in step four. They are the portions that get rid. I see some people grinning and nodding. I'm real glad to hear that, okay? Because the fact that the actual four steps in this book is big news in a lot of places, all right? I have seen an awful lot of treatment center guides, and I don't want to get off on that, but I don' t think too much of them. As a matter of fact, I think they're killing people with them because this thing is powerful. and I've never seen anything that touches it. Okay, resentment is the number one offender. Gee, I would have thought it was sexual misconduct, wouldn't you? I thought that was the one that was eating me up the worst. The book says resentment is number one Offender. We talked about resentment is old anger based on having judged somebody. It destroys. Now there's an interesting word, destroys. Wow, destroys, that's a death threat, okay? Death threat, destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease. Holy mackerel, is this bad stuff? It's got to go. For we've been not only mentally and physically ill, we've Been spiritually sick. And when the spiritual malady, which is another word for sickness, is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. So what we're going to do now is search for directions. The assumption is going to be when I sponsor someone that they want what the people who wrote this book had. And that was long-term happy contented productive recovery not thirsty for a drink right so if that's what you want then the assumption will be that if these people say they read something you'll read it if they say they wrote something you're right it if they said they observed something you will stop and see if you can see it also if they they prayed something that you will pray it that's what i asked for from the men that i sponsor because that's all we're going to do this all I know how to do. It says, in dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. That is a very general description. They're going to tell us quite specifically how to do that. I don't consider that to be a direction. It says, we listed people, institutions, or principals with whom we were angry. Calls for a list. Think about a list for a minute. Think about the word list. I'm not going to call it a list, but I'm going to say, I don' t know that I've ever seen a list that ran across the page. Think about your last laundry list. Was it not a series of words and phrases that ran, a grocery list runs down the page, right? A list runs down the page. And if I sponsor somebody, I stop here because it's been my experience that if I give them too much at once, they try to do it all at once. I think so many of us, certainly me when I was new, read the rest of this chapter, sat down, drew a line under it mentally and added it all up and said, it says write the story of your life and make sure to write down every rotten thing you ever did. That's not what it says. That is not it. And anyway, so at this point it calls for a list. Now, I would say now, you're probably wondering what color ink to use and what color paper. Was anybody wondering that? It's amazing how many new guys will say yeah. I mean, you can't say anything. On page 67, it says when we saw our faults, we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. Well, that's not specific. that doesn't say black ink and white paper that could very easily be black paper and white ink and I'll go either way on that okay but I'm not dealing with yellow paper and blue ink I'll tell you right now and do I think you can do one as well on yellow paper with blue ink no I do not because I'm scared to judge these directions I'm afraid to say well I don't have to do this one because when I open that door There's no telling what else I'm going to let in. So I'm very much a literalist, but I say again, I'm not as hung up as I appear to be. It is the content that matters. And I sponsored a guy, and he kept saying, I don't believe this is going to work for me. And I kept saying okay, do you believe that I believe this will work for you? And he said yeah. I said well that's good enough, we'll go on my belief. Now here's what I want you to do next. His head was so screwed up he could not argue with it kind of logic. and he's sober to this day and he went down to the art store and he bought an inch thick of eight and a half by eleven sheets of black paper and two pens that wrote white ink and got a three hole punch and a loose leaf notebook and he did his four step in black and white. No problem. No problem, I'm up for that. I always offer that option to the men that I sponsor. Black ink, white paper, black paper white ink either way but but that's the only two ways because the book gave that leeway and uh what most of them do is go down and get a spiral notebook now it's interesting i've noticed that they tend to get one either has a white cover or a black cover and and i rather like that and um what i like to ask i wish i had brought one and i did not if somebody got a spiral can i use your notebook here for a minute george to just kind of show what i'd like to do and then And so we'll assume this is a spiral notebook. What I like to do is on this first page, this is the title page, you want to write something like, This is my fourth step. Please put it down. If I find you with it, I will kill you and hide your body. Okay? Make your point. Okay? And the other thing I would tell you... I do. That's what I tell them. All right. And then this is one page. When you turn it, it's one page. We're going to do a four-column inventory. The first column is going to be, it says, we listed people, institutions, or principles with whom we are angry. So this is what I'm going to refer to the chart on the facing page. So at the top of the margin on the left-hand page, you write, I'm resentful at. In the middle of the left hand page, you write the cause. About a third of the way across the right hand page you write affects my, and you just put the number four above the other half of that second page. We're going to get to that later because we're going to use this whole thing as one page. And then what I want them to do is, at this point, we're talking about sponsorship. I'm sponsoring a fellow right now, and I have his permission to talk. By the way, I have permission to tell every story I tell up here. I wouldn't tell him if I didn't. And I have His permission to say, well, I'm going to tell you what I'm talking about. He's a stay-at-home dad. his wife works, and his child takes a nap from noon to one five days a week. I expect him to do at least five 30-minute periods a week on his recovery program. I don't think the recovery program should have a negative effect on any other part of your life. That's what I think. And that's what i expect from him is five a week now if he had six kids and was working two and a half jobs it'd be a whole different thing all right so you have to know something about somebody talk about how much of this they need to do there's only 168 hours in a week and if you work 40 hours you got a half hour drive both ways to work that's another five and you sleep eight hours a night and you go to seven meetings a weekand you mow the lawn you take the kids a little league practice and you eat three times a day you start adding that up folks that doesn't leave much so i think we have to be careful about that i also don't think it's possible to move too quickly you through the steps. One of my mentors will take, I think he likes to do this with people who've been, they say they've been in and out of the program. They haven't. They've been in and Out of the Fellowship. People don't go in and OUT of the Program. People do these 12 steps, stay sober, period. But in and OUt of the fellowship, he'll sit down on a Saturday morning and take them into step 9 in a day. I don't have any problem with that, but I don't typically do it that way. So what I want them to do is to sit down for a 30-minute period, and I want him scheduled. Typically, I ask for three a week with a guy with a wife and a couple of kids and a 40-hour-a-week job. I want three 30-minute periods a week, and I want you to schedule them. And Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is not a schedule. Monday from 6 p.m. until 6.30 p.м. is a schedule, and like anything else on your schedule that's important, it's not subject to cancellation. It might have to change. Holy cow, I didn't know we had the Little League game. Well, great, instead of doing it at 6 o'clock at night, you did it at 9.30, no problem, right? But I don't want to hear about cancellations, and I have them call me every Sunday and give me next week's schedule because this is about, you know how to eat an elephant, right? One bite at a time, baby. Yeah, one of these days that sucker's gone and that's what this four-step's about. It's about taking the next bite. That's all we can focus on, just the next bit. I think a lot of people get started on this four step and they give themselves the responsibility for completing the four step and if that's your mindset, then you hate yourself until it's done. If you and your sponsor can agree on how much time a week you should spend on it and you spend that time on it, you can feel good about yourself while you're in the process. I think we felt bad about ourselves long enough. Now those are opinions. I apologize for that. That's just how I do this. So I want them to take the first five minutes of this 30-minute period in prayer and meditation. I recommend that they ask for clarity and courage, clarity to see what God would have them see, courage to write it down and whatever else they want to do suits me fine but I want five minutes of prayer and medication and then the next 25 minutes Writing down names, and I like them to just puke them, just as fast as you can think of them. And you write down one name, and then you skip one line. Those were not estimates, all right? Those are exact numbers, right? One name, skip, one line, and they say, now wait, now I get to my dad, I've looked ahead, I got a lot I want to write. I say, I don't care. One name. One line. That's how we're going to do this. Skip a name, write a name. Skip a line, write an image. When you get to the bottom of this page, you must turn because we've already seen that we're going to need this other side. So you turn the page, write the column headings again, and start puking names again. And it's everybody that you can ever think of that you've been angry with. Everybody, even if you think you're over it. Everybody. Everything. There should be a major political party, at least one, all right? Several political figures. Concept. Is that the Infernal Revenue Service? Sure. Any number of government agencies, religious bodies, communism, foreign countries. It could be absolutely anything you've ever been angry with. And the rule is when in doubt, write it out. If you're not sure, put it down. It won't hurt anything. When we get to the end of this, if we discover you don't really have a resentment there, nothing lost. If you don't put it down and we don't dig it out of you, the book says it will destroy you. Let's make the safe mistake. When in doubt, write it out. Anybody, anything you've ever been angry with, write them down. And I want them to puke him for the first couple of sessions and forgive me for saying it. They were just as fast as you can write them Down. So I had one boy tell me, he says, I'm only got three or four. I said, well, that's fine. Just sit down and see what you get 60 out of his first 30-minute session. He's still sober too. I get all the curveballs. I think it's great. And then when they start slowing down, when you sit for two or three minutes on a watch and you can't think of another one, there's a direction on the facing page at the bottom that says we went back through our lives. So that would indicate that we begin with the present. I'm living in Nashville. I'm married to Miss Linda. The back room is my home group. I work for the Meadow Group. And I've got this group of friends and this social club thing. But 10 years ago, I was married to wife number one, and I was doing this and doing the other. And then before that, I Was living in this other place. And before that I was in the Air Force. And before That, and I Was stationed at three different places in the air force. So I go back through each of those. Before that I Was in college. And then Before that i Was in high school. So we go back Through our lives chronologically. Spending some time at each one thinking of people, institutions, or principles with whom we were angry. And when we get back to your very earliest memory, we are finished. And I like to tell them, we are not saving a special alcove in Akron at the AA Hall of Fame for your four-step. All right? You are not going to do the greatest four-stepped ever. It is not going be complete. And that's not the assignment. The assignment is to get what we can get. This is peeling of the onion. On my eighth four-steps over 10 years, I discovered resentments that were over 25 years old. I had been thorough before that I just couldn't see them until then and I like to tell them too that we are not going to give you a trophy our home group does not give a trophy every year for the best four step and this is the trophy that we don't give okay if you can't see it it says four step trophy never awarded alright this is the trophy you are not going to get alright y'all can have your picture made with us later if you'd like to. Because the point I'm trying to make is if you task yourself with perfection, you can never go past the first step. You can never pass the first direction on step four. And then the next thing I do is after they've started, I want to get my hands on their four-step as soon as I can. I give them a grade. And on that title page, they get a great big F minus in red because that's part of it, that you're going to have to do this again. So we're not going to do this perfectly. Let's take that off the table. That's not the problem. When they get to that part, I give them a second direction. It's the next sentence. It says, We asked ourselves why we were angry. In the example on page 65 under the cause, it says, His attention to my wife told my wife of my mistress, Brown may get my job at the office. And what I ask them to do is to start with the word office and work backwards. If they work forward, they always get the wrong number. Start with office work backwards and count those words. That's 19 words, by the way. If they count forward, they miss of a couple times. They don't come up with 19. If you start with officework backwards, you count those works as 19 words. This guy is messing with his old lady, has told her about his girlfriend, and it's after his job. he got 19 words okay 19 words is the limit all right 19 is not optimum it is maximum you have written a name and skipped one line and written a name so you have the room beside the name that you wrote over to the spiral and the line below it from the margin over tothe spiral in which space you can write 19 words or less all right it's a summary it says things like left me for another guy uh screwed me in a business deal left me für another guy next to high school football coach didn't play me as much as i deserved uh left me fuer another guy just i might need to talk to my sponsor about that what do you think uh anyway it's the summary all right we're not gonna say you know it was a rainy wednesday night. No, we're not doing that. We are not doing that. It's a summary. Now, I am not as hardcore as I appear. This is not set in stone. If I tell the guys I sponsor, I say, if you think you've got somebody who's done more than that to you, call me and we'll negotiate whether or not you can write the 20th word. I'd be glad to talk about it. I've never given it up, but I'm willing to talk abut it. I've ever been asked. You wouldn't ask me, would you? I didn't think so. No. Okay. And so the second column is 19 words or less. And I really like to use that format because there are two reasons. Number one, and most importantly, the book called for a list, and lists run down the page. The second one is if we work across the page, if I give somebody these first three directions, they will work left to right instead of top to bottom because we're Americans and that's what we do. And you can't tell them enough times to stop that. So when I do this with somebody, I spoon-feed this first direction. The other reason is if you work across the page, it has a tendency to make that stuff flare up, and that's not what we're trying to do. We are merely getting this on paper so we can figure out how to get rid of it because that's what this work is about. My sponsor told me that these 12 steps, he said, and I do the same thing and I say this in my talk too. I think it's maybe the most important thing that I have to say. He said, you think of yourself as a garbage can, And what we do with these 12 steps is we dump you out. We scrub the can, stand it back upright, and we fish through your life. Most of it is trash, and мы will throw it away. And that's the portion that we're at here. That's where we're taking out the trash. The book has said these resentments will kill you. It's going to say that five more times on the next page. All right, so that's what we're about here. And if we work across the page, it tends to make them flare. If we work down the page it's much more analytical. So that's the other reason. But the most important reason is that's what the book said. The book said list, so we make the list. Now we've done the second column. Third column it says on our grudge list, I'm at the top of 65, on our Grudge List opposite each name, I am sorry, on our Gruge List we set opposite each named our injuries. Five-part multiple choice test. Was it our self-esteem, our security, our ambitions, our personal or sex relations which had been interfered with? Some of these things will only get one of those. Some will get two or three. Some may get all five. Some you may not be able to figure out. Do not give yourself a brain hernia trying to work this out on your own. Call me, and I'll explain to you why it's self-esteem. I don't tell them that part, but you know that's the truth. My first ten four steps, self-esteem got the most ink. Astoundingly enough, on my last one, it was security. I was really surprised, and I think security is going to be in on the next. I'm due. I'm new to start four-step pretty quick, and I think that's what I'm going to find on this next one. It's a pretty interesting process. At any rate, it's a multiple-choice test. It doesn't take long, working down the page. And then I think I've seen more lives change with the directions between the third and fourth columns than everywhere else combined. And so many of us have missed these. This I have a passion for. This is where I see the lights come on in the eyes almost every time. At the bottom of the page, 65, we went back through our lives, nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished, we considered it carefully. That's a general description. They're going to tell us specifically how to consider it, what to observe. These are observations. It says the first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong. Okay, you can stop and observe that. I want you taking much time on that. Let's move right along. We already know you got that piece, okay? Now it says, we said that to say this, to conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. Is that your case? Can you observe that in yourself? The people who wrote this book observed that about themselves. Can you see that in you? The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Is that what's happening to you? Is that our case? Let's observe that. Sometimes it was remorse and we were sore at ourselves. You've been beating yourself up for not being perfect? They have too. Welcome to the club. The more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. If things are going so good in your life, how did you wind up at AA? Uh-huh. Okay. As in war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were short-lived. Boy, that was my case. It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. That's an observation. They observed that. Can you observe that? Are you aware of any lives that include deep resentment that are not also futile and unhappy? Is that your story? Let's observe that. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile? Did you squander hours? Did you lay awake at night and hate them? Did you sit in class planning their demise when you should have been listening? Did you Squander hours that might have had to be spent that might've been worthwhile feeding these resentments? It's an observation. I think it's an important one. But with the alcoholic whose hope, all right, do you want to know what your hope is? Here it comes. Your hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience. Maintenance means two things. The first one is that I must keep what I already have. I can't fall back. And growth means what I уже have is insufficient. I don't need to plan to stay sober on my 2002 program this year. I must grow. Maintenance also means that I maintenance my program, I maintenance my vehicle. I keep air in the tires. I change the oil. I wash it occasionally. Wash it rarely. Vacuum it out. Have the engine lubed. Okay? I maintenance my spiritual program through prayer and meditation, through attending meetings, attending conferences. I take meetings into jails and prisons and treatment centers. I'm active in my home group. I try to be a good guy. I am polite. So I maintenance my spiritual condition. I read spiritual literature, some conference approved, some not. I maintenance my spiritual conditioning like I maintenance my vehicle which means I maintain it by doing the things that are necessary to keep it running smoothly. But with the maintenance I'm sorry, but with the alcoholic whose maintenance, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. Infinitely grave! Holy mackerel. That's not a misdemeanor. Infinitely grave. That's a death threat. As a matter of fact, it says here we found it is fatal. Is that a death threat? Sure it is. I want to tell a story. I went to the fellow that took me through the steps the first time and I said Jerry do you remember and I gave a man's name and he said if anybody you sponsor ever commits suicide you will always remember their names I said, Jerry, he and I had the same sobriety date, plus or minus a month or two. We both had you for a sponsor. We had the sameness of a family. Same home group. I saw him five to eight times a week at our group. It looked to me like we had everything the same. And at two years sober, he drove home from a meeting without drinking, pulled into his garage and hit the button and closed the door and left it running and took his own life. And I sit here eight years sober at peace in my own skin, happy, joyous and free. What was the difference, Jerry? I can't see a difference. And Jerry said I could not get him to do a four step. I could Not get him into a four set and resentment killed him. And I thought about it and he was right. He was right every time you'd see this guy. He could not wait to run up to you to tell you what some SOB had just done to him. he was a victim constantly and he would not do the work to step out of that role and victims don't get sober that's an opinion forgive me that's my opinion victims don't gets over and this is where we begin to cease being victims and resentment killed this man i saw it okay so what i'm telling you is these aren't just words on a page as we found it's fatal i saw i've seen it more than once i see other people nodding they've seen a tear okay for when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the spirit interesting it didn't say having such feelings i don't think the language in this book is by mistake to harbor means to nurture to give us a safe place to all right to comfort which means i think that when i have a resentment i'm okay if i'm not harboring it we're coming to the directions for not harbling resentments and it's an i think it's important difference says for when harbors such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit, the insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. With us to drink is to die. A death threat. If we were to live, there's another death threat, you only have to do this if you want to live. Everybody else is dismissed. If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. I think it's one of the most misunderstood sentences in the book. In the 1930s a guy named Walt disney invented a concept he called brainstorming where they would sit around and spit out ideas on a subject and that's how they wrote mickey mouse cartoons and he named it brainstorming and we all know brainstorming as that kind of activity where you sit around and have a real creative process the word brainstorm in 1935 meant rage and the 1930s dictionary that i looked it up in it said transient violent mental outburst that's rage all right so we're not asking you to give up your creativity i'm told i made the master's presence i can tell you one thing for sure about god he's creative okay i know that for sure so we'RE NOT ASKING YOU TO GET UP YOUR CREATIVITY BUT ANGER COMES ACCORDING TO THE BOOK AS I UNDERSTAND IT IN TWO FORMS THE GROUCH OR THE SLOW BURN YOU KNOW WE JUST SORT OF SIT THERE and seethe, and the brainstorm or rage, the detonation. All right? The grouch and the brain storm were not for us. Now you want to hear something thin? Listen to this. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men. Ooh, is that thin? My goodness. But for alcoholics, these things are poison, a death threat. They're going to kill you. All right. we turned back to the list for it held the key to the future i'd like to note that we have made a tremendous number of observations we have written nothing and these are important things what we have been doing here um is establishing value i'm a salesman by trade and a good salesman will never ever mention price until he's established value and the reason that we have gone to this tremendous trouble here with this indictment of resentment and the one two pages before, resentment's the number one offender, it destroys, and so on, is that the price is high. The price is very high. And we hope we have established the high value that it will kill you if you don't. So that's been the purpose in my opinion of this whole thing. Bill was a salesman too, and this looks like great sales material to me. So now we're going to turn back to the list. We have just followed a tremendous number of directions that did not call for writing. We haven't even looked at the list. We just made these observations. It says we were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. Well, it says they prepared. It does not say how they prepared, consequently I'm not sure that it matters how you prepare, but if I sponsor you, I'll tell you I expect you to prepare. You might want to shake out your writer's cramp, get up and walk around your chair two or three times, go in the bathroom, wash your face, Sit back down in your chair and announce that you have been preparing and you are now prepared, all right? I do not care how you prepare. I expect to be told how you prepared when you get to this direction, all Right? Because we're not here to judge these things. We're going to do them. I do that tongue-in-cheek. I also expect them to prepare, all RIGHT? To look at it from an entirely different angle. And the big surprise is we're nicht going to look at what I did wrong yet. It says we began to see that the world's people really dominated us. Let's spend some time and go back to your list and take a look at how these things dominated you because that's what it says they saw. You said you'd observe what they observed if you could. Let's take a Look at Your List and see how these Things Dominated You. Did you plan your life so that you'd be around these people that you resented so you could sit and hate them? Did you squander the hours laying awake at night and whatever working on them? Did you play into your life so you'd never be around them because you felt less than when you were around them? Did they dominate you because they did nasty things to you in public and made you feel bad and there were all kinds of people you didn't want to be around because they made you feel less than? How did these things dominate you? Let's spend some time and review your list and see how these things dominated you. I think it's important. It says, in that state, the wrongdoings of others, fancied or real, which is to say some of this only happened in my head, had the power to actually kill. Oh, a death threat. Another one. They're serious about this. How could we escape? we saw that these resentments must be mastered. Time out. Do you see that? They observe that. Do you? We could not wish them away any more than alcohol. This was our course. We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. One of my mentors defined spiritually sick as cut off from God. I have something the angels don't have. I have the ability to turn my back on God and go right back to doing it my way anytime I want to. cut off from god and what i asked someone i sponsored to do is i say i want you to sit now and think of the two or three worst things you ever did i'll give you a minute go ahead and get them in your mind i'm not going ask you what they are now but get them into your mind okay were you not spiritually sick to have done those things had you been walking in the sunlight of the spirit in conscious contact with the God of your understanding and that grace and love, could you have done those things? Absolutely not. Would you have even thought of doing them? Probably not. That's right. You were spiritually sick. You were cut off from God or you could not have done these things. And these people who wronged you also were cut out from God. For people who are walking in the sunlight of the Spirit do not do those things to other of God's kids. They just don't. Realize is a wonderful word. I have a good friend in Louisville, Kentucky who does a lot of this who says the word realize is interesting. You can know something, but when you real-ize it, it becomes real for you. I can head knowledge, know something for a long time, but when I heart knowledge it, when I real-ise it, it becomes really for me. I think this is one of the most powerful directions in the book. This is the beginning of the forgiveness process. it is my experience that forgiveness is not something I do when I forgive someone it's not something I do it's something I receive and I'm going to try to talk about that a little bit and so what I ask them to do is to go through their list one at a time and prayerfully ask God to help them realize that these people who wronged them one at any time were spiritually sick and not SOBs one at the time I got 160 names on the list. It's going to take a while. Great. We got plenty of time because at this point, you are no longer harboring the resentment. No longer are you harbored it. This is the beginning of the forgiveness process. And I had a fellow the other day tell me, he says, well, I don't believe God's got that much power. I said, isn't it wonderful that believing that God has that power isn't part of the assignment? I didn't ask you to believe it. I asked you to do it. Thank you very much. and he did it and it worked isn't that great and that when i when i'm coaching someone through the work i give them the first step i'm sorry with the first piece there the list when they've done that i'd give them a second column but then i'd given the third and then i do this much that we just did here is the fourth session and when they have completed that list go to the top of the facing page though we did not like their symptoms in the way these disturbed us they like ourselves were sick too. I'd like to break that sentence down, it's a little bit confusing their symptom the symptom of their spiritual sickness is they did things that left me with resentments and the way they disturbed me is the resentment and then the great truth, they like ourselves were sick to that's so important, I've told it to us twice in two sentences, important stuff, and then it says we ask God now that sounds like a prayer to me that we ask gods are almost always prayers we ask God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity and patience we would cheerfully grant a sick friend we're going to pray for these people I'd like to add something that I found in the more will be disclosed section which is the story section by the way in the back of the book and I do this advisedly but I found it in my big book I've got friends that got sober in the second edition that don't use this because it wasn't in the 2nd edition but it's helped me a lot and there's the story of freedom from bondage the lady's talking about resentment against her mother and she's blamed her mother for her lack of education everything that's wrong in the universe and what's wrong with the kids and everything and beginning at the bottom of page 551 she says let me see here if i can find it one morning i realized i had to get rid of it that's the resentment against your mom for my reprieve which by the way if you don't know, a reprieve is a stay of execution. This is a death threat. My reprieved was running out and if I didn't get rid of it, I was going to get drunk and I didn'T want to get drunken anymore. And my prayers that morning, I asked God to point out to me some way to be free of this resentment. During the day, a friend of mine brought me some magazines to take to a hospital group I was interested in. I looked through them. A banner across one featured an article by a prominent clergyman in which I caught the word resentment. I want to observe something here. She took God the problem and then what did she do she's not trying to help somebody else she didn't stay focused on the problem she tried to figure out i don't know what this hospital group she was doing i don'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF MAGAZINES THESE WERE BUT I KNOW SHE WAS GOING OUT OF HER WAY TO DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEBODY ELSE WHEN SHE GOT HER ANSWER AND I THINK THERE'S A PRINCIPLE THAT UNDERLIES THAT THAT IF I STAY FOCUSED ON THE PROBLEM IT'LL GROW DR. PAUL WAS RIGHT ABOUT THAT And my job is to talk to God about this is what I got. Please take it. And now, who can I serve? What can I do for somebody else? And that's what she was doing. She was trying to do something for somebody else when her answer just showed up. He said, in effect, if you have a resentment you want to be free of, all right, caveat, if you want the freedom to do it, if you will pray for the person or thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free even when you don't really want it for them and your words or your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Powerful. I've added that. And what I asked the men that I sponsored to do is say now we're going to continue with 30 minute periods, but now you can do this in the shower. You can do it when you're driving your car. You do it anytime you think of one of these people. God, please help me show George the same tolerance, pity and patience I would cheerfully grant a sick friend and then I pray for him I say God and I ask that his hair doesn't fall out and that his wife is fantastic in bed that his kids go to school on scholarship that he wins the Florida lottery that he gets promoted at work that his lawn grows lush and green but it grows so slow he only has to mow it once a year that he has a major spiritual experience and walks humbly and joyfully in your presence. Get your creative self out here and let's ask all the things that you'd like for yourself for this guy. So interestingly enough, if we add those two prayers together, the first one is I ask God to help me show him. So I'm praying for me. On the other one, I'm paying for him. I'm preying for both people involved. So resemblance, I am sorry, forgiveness is not something I do in my experience. It is something I receive. I used to say, yeah, I forgive you. but boy if you ever drop the soap you might be smart to let it lay I mean if I can sneak up behind you one of these days I'm going to hurt you right I'm looking for a way to get you but I forgive you but I'm going to get ya that's not it that is not it forgiveness of someone else is a gift from God that I receive I got here locked up and what you do is you taught me to open up to receive these gifts because when I've forgiven him I'm free i have received freedom and that's how i get it i think of resentment as ice around my heart and what we do here in prayer is hold the icy heart up to the sunlight of the spirit and maybe based on the thickness of the ice because of how long i've had this thing and how much i've nurtured it and maybe depending on how close i can hold it to the spotlight and how along eventually it will melt and eventually it'll be true and i tell the guys i sponsor i say if you need to preface your prayers by saying okay god it's me again and i don't mean a word of this but that idiot you've got sponsoring me told me to do it and i'm gonna do it just to prove it won't work if you need to start there i'm good with it we're not asking you to lie to god that is not what this is about what we're asking you To do is to hold the icy heart up to the sunlight of the spirit and when you finish the prayer what you do is ask yourself one simple question do i mean that if the answer is yes you go on to the next name if you really mean all that stuff for them go on to their next name. If you don't mean it i'm sorry that's if you don' t mean it go to the next name, if you do mean it put a check mark by that one and go to their next name and come straight down we're not going to focus on the first one stay there let's done we're gonna come all the way through the list and when you get to the end of the list, we're going to start again with just the names that aren't checked. Did I make that clear? I got myself confused there in the middle. Okay. And we're going to do that until it's done. And I don't care how long it takes. The book says this will kill you. It says it about seven times. This is maybe the most important thing I've done is to get free of hating God's kids. How can I possibly hope to walk in the sunlight of the spirit, carrying grudges against his kids. Can't do it. It's important stuff. And I've got two men I have the privilege of sponsoring right now. One of them's got five years, one of them got 10. I just picked them up and they're at this piece of the work right now, both of them. And i've told them I don't care if this takes months and I want you to do it in 30-minute sessions. One guy's doing five a week, one's doing three based on what I know about him. And when you're driving the car and when you'RE in the shower and anytime you think about them, you keep doing this because what we're doing here is we're digging poison out. That's what this thing is about. Our program is kind of like going to the dentist. We got to drill before we can fill. We gotta get this poison out of here before we Can fill with the good stuff. If we just fill with The good stuff it gets sicker and sicker in there and eventually it explodes. So we got to get The poison out first. And that's this is the beginning of that. This is the opening of The flower. This Is where we begin to receive the forgiveness process and this is how we get rid the resentments and then it says when a person offended we said to ourselves this is a sick man how can i be helpful to him god save me from being angry thy will be done there's another prayer this is what i'm supposed to do when somebody makes me mad right now as i'm supposed to say to myself this is a sick man how can i be helpful to him god saved me from being angry thy will be done that's my marching orders that's how i go on from here i said that the fourth step was a series of lists and observations and prayers at this point we've listed the people institutions of principles whom we were angry we observed the cause we observed what part of self had affected and we made all these observations about resentments and now we have gotten rid of them for having followed these directions, they will now be gone. They'll be gone and if you have not done this process, your body will be lighter. You will feel lighter. I don't know how to explain it any better. I see some people nodding who know exactly what I'm talking about. You Will Feel Lighter and you will not want to feel heavy with those things again and then it says we avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn't treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one. Page 77 at the top tells us what our real purpose is. It says, Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be a maximum service to God and the people about us. I can't very well do that if I'm retaliating against somebody or if I're still carrying a resentment against them. I thwart my own real purpose. And then it says, referring to our list again. Okay, now we're going back to the list. It says, putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done. That's difficult if I still hate them for it. All right? That's impossible if I'd still hate them. If I followed these directions to this point, I'm clean on that. And putting out of my mind what they've done is very, very easy. We resolutely look for our own mistakes. I hear people say, I look for my part. That is not what it says. If Iím looking for my part, Iím saying he has a part. And if Iíve made these observations and prayers, his part's gone i'm not looking for my part it's not what it says i'm looking for my mistakes i made mistakes now i was abused as a child and that child didn't do anything to deserve that abuse but i made a mistake my mistake was i nurtured that resentment for 30 years okay there is a mistake in all of these for me somehow he says we resolutely look for our own mistakes where had we been selfish dishonest self-seeking and frightened though a situation had not been entirely our fault we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely once again i don't think you can do that if you haven't done the prayer work if you're not clean where were we to blame the inventory was ours not the other man's when we saw our faults we listed them we placed them before us in black and white it's really easy to be fluid with that particular paragraph i like to use this as a fourth column beside each one to write what what your mistake was What did you do wrong? I've got a mentor who likes to do this, like it says here, rather more specifically. He makes a list of his faults on a separate piece of paper. Once again, I think it's content and not format. The content. I like to do the fourth column because it's helpful when we get to step eight, when we start looking for the things that we can see where our mistakes were. Who did we hurt here? anyway it's if i sponsor somebody what i do is i make them use this as a fourth column and that's one where we had the number four and then it says interestingly enough we admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight gee that sounds like step eight doesn't it i think steps four and eight are good but more closely related than four and five my four steps do not contain some of the worst things i ever did the four steps very specific and it doesn't call for them. Fifth step did. The fifth step did, so I didn't get completely off the hook on that, but I tried real hard. So we have found here a series of lists, observations, and prayers about resentment. At this point, we're about 90% through the fourth step. We've only done the first third of it, but the rest of this stuff has a tendency to move pretty quickly. I'll do a little bit more here and then we'll take another break. It says, notice that the word fear is bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, the employer, and the wife. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread. All right, this is the indictment of fear. This is the piece that's telling me fear has got to go at any price. The fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve. But did not we ourselves set the ball rolling? sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing it seems to cause more trouble that's pretty direct i think they're trying to tell me the fear is bad news okay we reviewed our fears thoroughly that's a general description they're going to tell me rather specifically how to go about that it says we put them on paper even though we had no resentment in connection with them so for the purposes of that sentence there are two kinds of fears. They're the ones that have a resentment attached to them and the ones that don't. What I like to do at this point is to have somebody turn three or four pages in the fourth step and actually at the point where they have finished writing that first column, I ask them to carry a pencil and a piece of paper all the time because you're going to be in the grocery store and you're gonna see that candle over and say, oh his head looked just like that. Well, just write it down and we'll add it to the list when you get back to it next time okay catch up so let's turn a couple of pages just to have room in case you're thinking some more before we finish this fourth step no problem and let's have a list of fears and it looks to me like in the fear inventory that this is the only portion that's written so i need a list to your fears and they can write one and skip a line is a pretty good way to go you can use the facing page as there's nothing else written in this one list of peers are you afraid of snakes spiders homosexuality a lot of men are afraid of holding babies they're afraid of babies they were afraid of holing babies are you afraid of failure are you free to success fear flying they're not afraid of flying George's crashing and burning that they're afraid of? The flying is okay. Are you afraid of death? What are you afraid of? Let's list them. Let's have a list of them. And then when you can't think of any more, let's review your resentment inventory and see if you can spot some more. So what we need at this point is a list of your fears. All right? This part is written. Typically on the resentment inventory first trip through i think the shortest list i ever saw i thought was complete was about 40 resentments it was all this guy had the longest list i never saw was about 450 and that list was incomplete this guy hated everybody and wished there was more of them he really did uh typically it runs somewhere between about 60 or 80 and about 150 or 60 is about what i usually see but that's that's just sort of a whatever i don't worry about it too much but i can i ask a lot of questions that'll bring up more i think the list is short fears will be dramatically shorter than that and i try to warn them about that sometimes be eight or ten rarely more than 20 and you may have 110 and that's wonderful but i think it's really important um i had a discussion with a guy one time and he said the reason he looks both ways before he steps off the curb is he has a fear that he'll get run over by a bus all right he may have but i look both ways before i step off the curve because i intuitively know that's what an intelligent person does that is not a fear fear is that thing that grips you in here all right fear fearis is that kind of thing so let's let's be sure we know what we're talking about here all right and then it says we asked ourselves why we had them i will be eternally grateful that they answered the question for i had no idea why i had the fears and it says wasn't it because self-reliance failed us and i asked them to go through that fear list and ask them ask yourself this simple question is it because Self-Reliance failed you if you were totally and completely 100% God reliant would you have that fear no none of them not fear of death no snakes no i wouldn't be afraid of anything you would still have flying george yeah i know okay yeah yeah yeah your case is different i know it is all right says self-reliance was good as far as it went but it didn't go far enough some of us once had great self-confidence but didn't fully solve the fear problem or any other and when it made us cocky it was worse we're going to take a lunch break right now it's about 11 30 uh we will reconvene at 12 30 is that is that good for everybody 12 30 i want to thank you all so much i'm having a ball