Why the Spiritual Life Is Not a Doormat Approach – Tom I.

We just had a group conscience consistent of two incredible alcoholic minds. We're going to have a three-hour meditation. Yeah, no day of water will come out of that. We want to take just a minute before we get rolling and pose a little question to you. Everybody is here for a reason. Everybody came here either to get in or out of the sun or whatever. But folks have got a reason for being here and something they're looking for. We've gone through some stuff this morning that I really enjoyed visiting, but part of our purpose is to try to help everybody here get what they're looking for the best we can. And so we're at a point, you've sort of seen it, we make it up as we go. And so absolutely no way to get this train off track. It just stays there, you know, and it winds up getting on track in the process. Real quick, give us some feedback, if you would, in terms of what you'd like to see visited before we get out of here at quitting time today. And we'll see how well we can respond to that. Anybody? He started to talk about how effective it is and how you know whether you're going to be effective on your own. I wanted to hear more about that. Yes, a little more depth on effectiveness. I can tell you in one brief sentence, when we broke here and you were all standing out in the parking lot talking to each other, we have been incredibly effective today. That's the marker. Or else made you hungry. At meetings. Good meetings. A good meeting, people hang out. They came early, they stay late, and they go do other things. That's what it's really about. If everybody breaks and goes home, there's something missing out of that. There's no spirit. Mr. Allen mentioned a couple of things that I'll just throw out, if it may, in the general area of sponsorship. And I kind of alluded to that before we broke. A couple of real issues that are weighty for us and have to do with effective relationships is when do you discontinue a relationship in sponsorship if you just believe it's run its course? And how do you deal with that? Some people use a crude word like firing, but it's not necessarily that. It's just recognizing. The other thing is how you deal with people who are under medication, and it poses some real challenges in terms of discerning when you can do effective work and how to responsibly deal with it. Does that cover it adequately, Al? Okay. Those are good points, too. I just would like to hear your experience with the steps. With steps. Maybe a fourth step or eighth step. When all else fails, go to the steps. Yeah, okay, good job. Anybody else? Pardon? I'm dealing with really resistant people, but they keep showing up. I need guidance. Hard cases, but persistent cases. Okay, yeah, how you deal with resistant people. people. Yeah, my mind just takes off with that. Anybody else? Yeah, yeah, Will. Remorse. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah gotcha. All dressed up with nowhere to go. Okay, yeah. Good deal. It could have been a contender. Anybody else? Of course you know either one of those could go for a week. Yeah. emotional and spiritual emotional growth spiritual growth and living this in and out of the rooms in all areas of your life stuff like all this knowledge that you have actually yeah yeah that's an excellent thing how you get it from the concept stage in the rooms into real where we live yeah good stuff yeah one more like we didn't have enough to do that you remember all that I'm sorry Being self-supporting through your own contributions. I'm talking about mostly grounding myself in ideals and self-care so I can really get away with it. And did you call on that? Yeah, and I'm going home. Help me just one thing. You said being self- supportive through your contribution. And then I couldn't quite follow that second part. I couldn' t hear it, could' n't I? Grounding your ideals in a power greater than yourself. Uh-huh. Yeah. In the darkness. Yeah. And the more you're reclaiming. Yeah. Okay. Did I speak up? No, I heard it then. I'm just not going to be incredibly brilliant. I have trouble following sometimes. But I'm having trouble connecting the self-supporting and that spiritual connection. You've got a connection in there, but I don't know. Okay. You all obviously know that if we try to address those, we're going to be here until sometime in the middle of next week. however if you allow us to tell some stories we can illustrate each one of them sometimes a couple of them from our own experience if that's suitable i left my lecture notes at home and i left by addressing this notes at homes yeah i i hear what you're saying we've got personal experiences you're talking about the application of spiritual principles in the real world the essence of what I heard how do you do that well let me address remorse first we'll get that because I know about that guilt is one I have been caught violating one of your rules or laws or principles and I feel guilty, very easy to deal with. I wait for you to tell me what kind of time I have to do just to pay back. Then I do that, and as soon as that's done or shortly before it's done, I can just go my merry way. That's easy. Remorse and shame is when I have caught myself violating one of my principles, one of mine true beliefs, violating who I am, and there is no payoff. I'm going to tell you a little story. This one hurts, but I like to keep it fresh because you've all got one of these. We all have an ace in the hole, father, mother, uncle. We've got a place where when all else fails, I can go back and rest for a few days. And my dad was that. During the last part of my sickness, I was part of a subculture. I'm one of the freaks that came out of Berkeley screaming out where there's dope, there's hope burned down in City Hall. We live underground. There's a real culture out there. Anyway, we were resting and Albert called me up to Albuquerque. Albert was one of those snakes I ran with. And Albert said, we got 30 kilos of good marijuana as far as Juarez and our driver got busted. And we need somebody to go get it. Now, get the whole picture. At the time, I'm a single parent to two little boys. One six and one four. I'm trying to be a parent, but we're on the road. Don't want to get too dramatic with it. Albert says, We need somebody get it, would you do it? And I said, Of course, Albert. Now that should give you some dimension of where I'm at. I'm trying to keep these kids safe, and I just accept the job of smuggling 30 kilos of marijuana out of where is Mexico. And I didn't do it for the money. I did it for prestige. I was the only one in the United States they could think of to call. To go into old Mexico. Get the job done. The truth was, Albert had been told to call me. They said, call Fritz because he's crazy. So anyway, we took the job. I stopped drinking and put on a little bit of weight. Did the math, got my head clear. The math was necessary. How much volume is there in 30 kilos of marijuana? The way it was packed then. I needed to know what kind of box can I put this in. I'm sane now. Well. I'm functioning. Clean the boys up, clean me up, sport coat, young American, Teresa the father, that's the role we're going to play. Had them run a VW van in somebody else's name and had them get us a place to stay. At this point, I have nothing to do with the deal. If it falls apart before I get there, I'm not in it. I'm just insane. We got into Juarez. I got the van and got us into Juárez. I didn't pick the stuff up, it was laying in a motel. They picked it up and then transferred to me. The hotel they'd picked for us of course is just a whorehouse motel in Juarez We immediately moved into the Holiday Inn style place uptown. that volume fits perfectly in a single air mattress so I'll open the end up and stuff the mattress then reseal it put air in it that cuts the smell down then on top of that I put dirty diapers and on top of that I put my two little boys so when we hit the border crossing crossing, I turned to the children and right out of nowhere screamed at them. Scared them so they'd be crying because they don't mess with you when you've got crying kids in dirty That's remorse. Forever. Broke the bond between me and my kids. That's regret, that's remorses. There is no payback for that except the one I found here. In the fourth step, there is a promise that is so profound, face and be rid of. I didn't come here to just get fixed. I came here to be changed into the kind of person who's not capable of committing that act ever again. That's the only thing I know to do with it, Will. A change so profound that I'm no longer that person. now I still have to deal with the fact that I've got to clean that up for the kids they're scarred and will always be scarred but there's a great arena where they can get better from it so the answer has changed so profoundly you could never do that again total surrender as long as I'm capable of committing that kind of an act I cannot live with myself I can't You can't deal with it. How can you deal with that kind of thing? You just have to be different, okay? And that's what I did find here. That's precisely what occurred. Then the next job is to tell you that so you can get off your own back because like it or not, that's the best I could do. That's pretty shabby. I'd rather die than be that ever again. but you don't have to die you get to be something even better let me mention two different levels of remorse that I think about one is that remorse comes when I fail to follow my hunches what I'm talking about a different level of it the day to day things the building up remorse because what I found is that when I listen to my hunches and I do what I feel the urge to do, if I don't do it, I always regret it because it's a real message. You know, if I've got a friend sick in the hospital and I have a hunch that I ought to go see him, if i don't, deep, deep remorse and I think that's the signals about being in tune with call it voices if you will but the things that I feel spiritually driven to do those hunches and if I take over and impose my judgment I'll nearly always have remorse about that what I've learned is that my first hunch whether it's a spiritual signal or not but my first impression about something is usually the most correct one I'll ever have. And if I follow that up with a whole bunch of thinking, all I do is screw it up. And after a certain amount of a whole batch of turmoil and confusion, I wind up right back where I started, but often too late. So that's one level. The other that I think I'd like to kind of talk about, our program is designed to provide the surgery for the soul that you're from deep remorse like that and and I have some I think we sort of visit steps a little bit this thing yeah I believe that what starts to emerge in the fourth step and then gets crystallized into in the eighth and ninth are the surgery of the soul you know where I start getting rooting out those causes and conditions and and the enormous damage that has come from my defects of character and my belief is whether it's true or not it's certainly my belief is that every time whether it is gravity like like he's talking about or gravity like in my case where I took human life you know all of the all of these things have an enormous weight and so do so do those far lesser things that that make up an amends list. And my belief is that I will never have the freedom that this program promises until I take that surgical procedure and give it my best to make right those wrongs. And so, it's one thing to recognize it and deal with it, but if I don't have to figure it out and deal with it what I have to do is take the steps and let it happen. And if we don't, I think we pay an awful price because those things become the anchors that we drag through life and I won't be free till I'm able to turn them loose and just kidding myself that it wasn't all that bad is not enough just having somebody try to placate me and say oh you weren't that bad it's not enough now what I have to do is root out those things that eat me up and so yeah I think the steps to directly put us through at whatever level so that we'd find peace. This kind of thing is about being shabby. I described the high-intensity, high-drama peace. The children were in no real danger. Don't mistake that. Had we been caught, they'd have been better off because they'd had gone to at least a decent foster home. What I did to my children is that for no reason whatsoever I broke the spiritual bond between us. I harmed them to accomplish my own ends. Totally self-serving. And that's what inventory brings me to every case. It's shabby. It is about me wanting a little prestige. it's about me wanting this or that little money or whatever and that's the one that's hard to face on my own I am nothing it's very clear left to my own devices at my very best if there's ten people in a room at my every very best I can help nine of them somebody's going to get screwed in God's hands I have found that even the onlookers benefit Nobody gets messed with it. Even people just crossing the street. Two little pieces for the prayer that goes along with this. This whole thing is about me getting conscious of the relationship with God. We ask for guidance and direction. There was an old Assembly of God preacher who used to come into the penitentiary, and I discovered that I like spiritual people. I don't care what they call themselves. And I love singing hymns. We shall gather at the river still brings tears to my eyes. You sing in the garden, I'm dead meat. And this guy, I had this illusion that spiritual people were perfect and he was one. and yet he said he has difficulties sometimes and temptations sometimes. We asked him, what do you do? He said, well, when I'm tempted with something and I'm not sure... See, I know the difference between right and wrong. It's the gray area that I get in trouble. If I'm not sure, he said, I take the Master by the hand and say, if I go do this, will you go with me? And I got my guide. Today's guide is a little different. It's a little more personal. If what I'm about to do, would it be alright if my mother, my wife, my daughter, my granddaughter saw me do it? If the answer isn't absolutely yes, I'm not doing it. It just gets real simple and basic that way. And the temptations are even harder as you get rid of your defenses against your temptations. Okay? It gets really tough. Well, I won't read here to you, buddy. In relating to that, clearing away self puts me in... See, the spiritual life is a very practical life to me. Anything that separates me from the children of God separates me for God. And since the whole idea of God's bigger than I can even begin to comprehend, the mercy of AA is that it deals with it on this level. one of the old masters says treat people like they want to be treated because what goes around does come around and those are some of the guys I must engage in this thing I've got a lovely guy sober several years now never talks a meeting, never does nothing he's just miserable he's in deep depression of course he is If you'd get up and sing for him, then he'd be over. But he doesn't know how to sing. Or doesn't want to sing or whatever. Does that help a little bit? There are no bad answers for this. I must behave as if God were at hand because where I am, God is. And if He wants me to run my head into the wall, or if I want to run My head into The Wall, He stands by and lets Me. Keeps the bandages handy. If I don't want to run my head in the wall, all I'm going to do is ask for the strength to do the right thing. And when I ask, will you go with me? If I get a strong yes, I'll go. And that's the toughest one of all. That's the hardest. Because I know it's going to... I'm not going to be doing something that's extraordinary if I say yes to that and go. If I give a no, I don' t go. If I d'on't get either one, I don' t g o. So, that's the grave. That's where the doubts are. If you're not sure you ought to do it, don't. Don't. I don't know why you're dumb. I might have missed it, but your temptations get harder as you lose your defense against your temptions. I am more vulnerable to drinking today than I ever was before because I don't see alcohol. It's not part of my mind. The mental obsession with alcohol is gone. I don' t even see it. Fifteen or so years ago, I was flying home. I think those of us who are sober a while are in far more danger of drinking because of the truth than we are lies. You've got to all work real hard to come up with enough lies to convince me it's okay for me to drink. I know better. But I'm flying home, and this was a perfect evening. I'd given a talk that didn't hurt anybody. They even drove me back to the airport to make me walk. I fly United a lot, and on this particular evening, because of that, they moved me into first class. I used to think that's because I had some special thing going on. it's because they can't sell that seat but they can sell mine back here if they just move me up that's an ego deflator but it's nice up in first class real food real plates it's an evening flight I'm in fit spiritual condition I'm going home to the family I adore I've got a book I've been waiting to read for several weeks the lights in the first class cabin and just wonderful. I'm okay. And I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a flight attendant pouring this burgundy red stuff into my seatmate's glass. That's all it was. And I looked over at it because the light was hitting it. My mind said, that really looks good. Well, that's the truth. It really did. It's not wine. It was that. Then my mind said I bet that's gonna taste good of course it would that's why she's giving it to him I'm still not thinking alcohol then my mind said I'd bet that scum makes his whole dinner tastes better that's the main function of wine cuts the grease from the last course tasted then her prayer began in me I don't know how to describe this to you I just know that I absolutely trust this inner the center resource, the spiritual resource to protect me when I don't even know I need protection. When I'm in the gray zone. There's a sense that comes over me and I immediately turned and went in and just got quiet and realized my very next thought would have been I probably ought to have one of those without ever thinking alcohol. That's how vulnerable I am today. The temptations are much more I've got to really stay fit. We're out on the road a lot. There's a lot of danger out here. I don't know if you know that or not. There's grave ego danger. There's great physical danger. There's real emotional danger. And it's real easy to cave into that after 50 people tell you you're just wonderful. You begin to think, maybe they're right that means that I have special privilege and that's where my evil goes no I don't does that help a little bit pardon me I'm a storyteller you got to get it all because I don' know anything I tell you the part of temptation and I want to kind of lead this around talk about that emotional recovery thing a little bit too the uh with me the more the more critical kinds of temptation stuff are matters of principle things you know like like now i'm not cured but it's been many years since i've had a real crisis in terms of drinking That doesn't mean I'm cured, because I know what causes that to be so. But where I run into difficulties now is that as my life has changed and I've become a participant in life and a responsible person, I have to make a lot of ethical principle-based decisions decisions that are sometimes tough to make. And with most older members, that's where I see the real crisis coming. It's about values and what you stand for. And so I find a lot more threatening stuff that I have to be diligent about in terms of cutting corners, of not being scrupulous about the way i do business so you know the ones where it becomes the glaring thing of the burgundy yeah i can deal with that one the more subtle ones that kind of take away my integrity are the ones that i really have to watch out for trouble with booze to me is always at least six months ahead of the crisis at least and it has to do with starting to lose that sort of sharp focus and clear kind of plug into the program you know it's a strange thing but you can you can watch somebody headed for trouble probably probably everybody here has seen somebody or may know somebody right now that's headed for troubling you know everybody recognizes but everybody is equally baffled about how to deal with it now how do you do it you know and how you charge in sometimes you can charge in and do far more harm than good but you see it you start seeing it in behavior you start seeing it and that squishy thing called attitude start seeing in performance at meetings and stuff like that but how to step in and intervene is a real deal my group spent four hours recently in a workshop where we worked with people, and that was one of the things we talked about. What we wound up saying, the consensus of that group, was something I was talking about this morning. It depends on the level of trust. The person who is most apt to be able to step in is the one with the greatest level of trust. If you have that trust, there's absolutely no limit to what you can do with an alcoholic. There's no limit of what you say. safe if you don't have it it's a pretty narrow limit to what you can do and and so it's uh to me those are where we tend and it is about emotional recovery it's about being sound and solid and somebody asked me a while back good while back to do a workshop on emotional recovery now i'm a kind of a down-to-earth type type of fella. And my first reaction, even though I know that it's a legitimate term, my first reactions was, hell felt, I don't want to do a workshop on some touchy feely stuff like that. And then I thought, well there's no real set agenda, I can do what I want to, that's what they said. Kind of like we're doing here today. I didn't know until lunch what the program was, but I'm looking at this thing of emotional recovery and how we're going to tackle it. And so I sat down and in 20 minutes I did what anybody in this room could do. I thought about what is it that destroys emotional, what is that that tears up emotional recovery. I mean, it's one thing to talk about the wonderful nirvana of sound emotional recovery, but what is it that eats it up? And you could do the same thing I did. I sat down and in 20 minutes I listed 28 things just in a brainstorming style of your stuff that happened. First one I put on the list was expectations. And my God, no wonder I put it first because I don't know of anything in the world that will pull me off good, sound, emotional recovery than putting on expectations on other people. All I've got to do to destroy my peace of mind is put expectations because what I do is let them have free space in my head. And I am absolutely done for because I've turned it over to somebody else. And just little things you can think about. Getting overcommitted. it. Feeling like you're carrying the world on your shoulders. Worry. The thing he mentioned this morning that sounds really innocuous, a little thing called change your mind. Change your mind? If you think about what we have, we have a real, we We have a spiritual hold on a new way of life. And all I have to do to lose it is change my mind. And that sucker can be gone in a heartbeat. And so, that thing of keeping spiritually sound and keeping emotionally sound is tremendously important. And we had a good time doing that thing on emotional recovery. and so to me that's the imminent danger is when I start eroding that sound spiritual ground that I stand on and no matter what I sell it out to and you can make your own list of things that take that down and so what deals with it I'll let you in on a little secret go a little bit to steps that I'm not somebody who works on problems. I literally don't. And the reason I don't is because when I work on them, they honest to God get worse. They really do. If I'm trying to fix remorse like we were talking about, if I'm tying to fix guilt or trying to work on relationships or whatever, you know, I guarantee you I'll make it worse. And what I've found is that the way that I work on the problems of my life is by trying to do what the program lays out. That little thing in the 12 and 12 that I have come to really appreciate where it describes what the steps are, it says almost exactly this. I know I screwed up a little bit, but you'll recognize it. It says our steps are a set of principles spiritual in their nature. Tell me what my tools are. Which if practiced as a way of life. That thing about working the steps, doing the steps writing the steps seminaring the steps to me they're off the subject. Those are nice activities but what the real key to the steps is, is then practice them as a way of life. And what I've found, and it's absolutely been my experience, that in 45 years I have never consciously solved one single problem in alcoholic synopsis. Not a single one. I have NEVER sat in a meeting or sat with a sponsor and said, Eureka! I finally got him! It has never happened. You know, what I find is that as I practice this set of principles as a way of life, amazing stuff happens. Emotional sobriety happens. Remorse gets dealt with. You know all of the things that constitute my alcoholism get addressed. And so to me that whole business about, you know, if there is an emotional recovery, there's not any recovery. me you know that whole business is how to be free of those those devils that drove me and and so that's the way i like to go at this kind of stuff i don't like to just set little goals and do stuff and do mechanical actions you know what i like to do is give myself to this program when i've got trouble i never pursue the trouble what I do, we were talking about it a little bit last night that what I do is I get focused like a laser on what I'm doing I get focused like a laser, I go to meetings and I listen at that meeting like it's a sermon on the mount I don't care if God's teaching you how to throw up I'll listen like I've never heard because I want to get locked in, I want To get really geared in and so that's how I go about dealing with problems. I don't try to fix them out yonder somewhere. I try to fix it by getting solidly tuned in to who I am, what I'm about, what my spiritual life is so that I get solidly connected and then when I get like that, I'm as strong as they come. And when I try to fit it out ynder somewhere, I am about as weak as can be. And so that's not just probably philosophical stuff that is truly what I believe happens it's certainly been my experience that if I practice this as a way of life stuff just happens and those problems that eat me alive one day I take a look and ain't there I don't go looking for them but I know how to find them all I had to do is just quit doing what keeps them out there and they'll don't be back yeah that's a practical story about what he just said how do I apply this on the street I was working in community corrections in Denver they have to understand a correction system itself is designed to fail you're going to work in it you need to know that so that you you don't so I've got a probation officer here I was treatment services supervisor so I'm here and I've got my boss here and a couple other department heads here she sends me a piece of paper I do something with it I sent it to them so they can get into here so they could get back to them through me back to her that's designed to fail somewhere it gets bogged down she's under pressure and she's yelling at me and for a couple weeks okay then she starts yelling at my boss and he starts yelling it wasn't okay now I know something one of the basic principles of this thing is if I'm disturbed it's me so I sat down and did inventory the way I've been taught to do it because I I caught myself, I listened to myself. I heard myself tell one of my staff about the bitch. Right now I know I'm completely out of whack. Her name is Stephanie, not the bitch, and so that immediately triggers me to lock my office door. Don't talk to anybody else because I'm starting to mess with my own staff. Stupid thing to do. Anyway, I got pulled in and discovered what was going on. First of all, I want my boss to quit yelling at me. I don't care if she yells at me, but I do care if he yells at because he pays my check. And he and I have an agreement. If he yells too much, he gets this. This guy I work with. And I wasn't ready to do that. So I looked at what was going on. It's all about her yelling at me because this paperwork that she had a timeline on wasn't back to her yet, and that's because these people haven't done theirs yet, blah, blah. The monster in the case was the fax machine. I get the paperwork and I go to fax it to her, and there's an hour wait to get the faxes to work. Either hers is busy, mine's busy. That whole thing is jammed up. You have taught me the basic principle here is one-to-one, eyeball to eyeball. Not telephones, not fax machines. We're going to talk together. Her office was about ten minutes away. So I took the paperwork and drove over there. And she was shocked to see me. Have you ever heard of paperwork? And I asked her, do you have any for me? She was shocked at that and got confused. After a week of that, the problem was solved. And in 25 minutes instead of an hour waiting for the facts, the problem is solved. She's no longer a threat to me. My boss is no longer an threat to be. I'm like you. I don't try to solve that problem. What's wrong with me? what can I bring to the situation that will make it better the recognition that she's under the same pressure I am she got somebody yelling at her no wonder she's uptight it worked by the way last time I saw her she came clear across the room and put a hug on me which was not what I had in mind but it worked I don't mind that this goes to the street prayer is an activity as well as an in-the-head thing. It's an activity. How can I bring about unity in my whole life? Well, that's how. Emotional sobriety means I recognize when I ain't. Okay. Right off the bat. I recognize I'm out of whack here. The bitch just called. Let me tell you one little war story. Sometimes, when I first heard people talking about the spiritual life and how you had to live it, and like this morning he was talking about, I was thinking about it, but it actually was my image when I would hear people talking about the spirit of life and how it worked. He's talking about how he found that parking place and he's in the right place at the right time and there's the parking place. When I heard people telling stuff like that, I thought, gee, what kind of witchcraft is this? that it sounded like they just prayed and somebody's car blew up or something, you know, and they just made the world turn around for them. Gee, that is just pure junk. And now I talk that way. But it makes sense when I talk. But it's the same message, you know. But if you're not tuned into that, it really sounds goofy. And what I've found is that the spiritual life, just like that, It's not just some sort of squishy, do-good, grinning Dalai Lama stuff. It really is about how to function effectively in life and it works. I'll tell you one of a thousand stories. I was heading a pretty large organization And I had something done that was really malicious and underhanded and injurious to people that worked for me. You remind me of that story. And I think as a supervisor, you're not only responsible for getting workouts, you're also responsible for looking after the welfare of the folk. And so I had 41 people whose careers were going to be destroyed over a decision that was made. And I'm the boss, and they haven't even consulted me. Well, I mean, I was mad. I was made on behalf of the 41 people, and I was about equally mad over the total disregard and insult to walking past me to screw my people. And so I was fit to be tied. And so I said, well, I demanded an audience. I demanded an audience of the head of the system and I guess I had enough rank that they respected the demand and said he gave me an audience now if you picture this and this is absolutely true exactly the way it happens and why the spiritual life not a wimpy thing I'm mad and I've got in my mind that I'm gonna handle this sucker street level yeah I'm going to go in there it's flat stick it in their ear and as i'm going to meet with seven people and most of the seven had directly benefited from the action that had been taken so i've got to go meet with my enemies in my mind that had done me in and profited in the process and i'm gonna go in there so all i can think about is i'm a flat put them down and uh i'm driving to the meeting spoiling for the fight and on the way up there, thank God it was a long drive and on my way I got to thinking about who I am and where I'm going and I thought, my God, is this the way I take care of business that the only thing I can think of is to resort to the old street behavior go up there and try to bang up on somebody or whatever and then I thought about what our program says is to pray for those folk. And so what I did, driving up US 1, was I put the face of each person visually in my mind. I knew them all well. And so I put each one of them right there and then I prayed directly with that face in my heart. My mind, virtual reality was there. And I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I said, well, maybe these folk are wrong, but they're probably doing what they believe is right. And I did that seven times because of picturing those people. When I got through, I was no longer angry. I was still resolute, but I was not angry. And we went into the meeting, and I sat down with those folks. It took a long time because I had to go through 41 decisions and present my case for why that was a bad decision. At the end of the first day, I hadn't lost a round. I mean, I had won everything that came up. But I couldn't lose. I mean when I went in there, there was no way I could lose. If it had all gone the wrong way, I was at peace. But I was determined that I was right, that I Was trying to do the right thing, that I was not trying to be right. I was trying to do what was right. And at the end of that day, I was really on a roll. Man, I'd won everything. And the boss said, Tom, we're going to have to call a break. And I didn't want a break, I'm on a role. Why am I going to quit? And I said, no, no, let's don't do that, man, I've got to drive 75 miles. And he said, you've got us beat numb. I said alright, All right, I did have a choice. Came back the next day and it hadn't even changed. I mean, it picked up again. Out of 41 major issues, I lost one. I think I could have won that one, but I just didn't want to rub their nose in it. But you see what I'm talking about? If I had gone in there using the old Ivester strategies, they'd eat me alive. life, I would have walked out of there with no gains and more losses if I'd have done it my way. And that's why I say, you know, I don't have to do this stuff. If I let the power of the program take care of giving me what I need, I'm a pretty doggone worthy adversary. But if you let me try to do it on out-slicking or out-toughing or outsmarting people, shoot, I'm going to lose a lot more than I win. And so to me, that's what this thing is. It's It's about not some doormat approach to life. It's being able to take a good, responsible position in trying to do something according to principles so that I don't get lost and weak in the process. And just truly amazing things happen. And that's literally one of hundreds of cases that I can tell you where that genuinely works for me. I'll tell you one more that it's a shorter one, but it's just as effective to me. I got a call one day to go make a presentation on behalf of an agency, and I thought we were just going to go sit around a coffee table somewhere. So I was off duty, and so I just went up casually dressed in an old golf shirt, you know, and I sat down. Well, I didn't know it, but we had a Madison Avenue presentation scheduled, and I walked into a real ritzy conference room, And I've got people sitting there who are my competitors who had productions that were produced in Hollywood, I think. Man, they had videos and computers, and I had a legal pad. I walk there looking like a real doofus with my legal pad and some fraud notes. What am I going to do? Man, I am absolutely outclassed. I mean, I was a hick in Las Vegas. and totally blindsided. Well, what do you do? When all else fails, try praying. And so I stepped out, went down to the bathroom where I do my best praying and asked God to help me do what I was there to do and try to get done what was right. And so, I walked in with my little legal pad, made my presentation, and guess who walked out with it? See what I'm talking about? I think I had the best deal, but I surely had the ugliest presentation. But when I'm trying to do the right thing and I am genuinely trying to carry out God's will and do what's right for folk, it's hard to lose, awfully hard to loose. So it's amazing how this thing works out, this spiritual life and why I don't get into the fix-it business. I just sort of practice things, let it gear me up to engage in life, and man, it works strong. Emotional sobriety does not mean that I'm going to feel good all the time. That's insane. Absolutely insane. I live on a planet with temperature ranges of 4,000 or 5,000 degrees. I can handle 10 of them. I'm either going to put something on or take something off or what? I'm a person who, by nature, needs to be loved and adored by everybody. That's dumb. There are people who don't like me just because I'm here. They don't even know me. In fact, I think real sanity is the day I recognize that there are people who like me no matter what I do, and there are People who don' t like me, no matter w hat I do. But more importantly, there are millions of people who do' n't even k ow I exist. and wouldn't care if they did. So, I'm not going to feel good all the time. My 16-year-old nephew died. We knew he was going to die from the day he was born. We were prepared for him. It still devastated me. I didn't feel good that day or for several days after. I had to do his funeral service. So what do you do? I cried all the way through my talk. That's what I did. That's honest. I just have to feel it. I have chronic physical pain. What do you doing? You say, hi, Flanagan. You know Flanigan? Very dangerous man. Yeah, I don't close last time I saw him. so that doesn't feel good if I get concerned with not feeling good about not feeling good then I'm in trouble so the prayer is God don't let me get depressed about being depressed don't want me to feel bad about feeling bad get up off your ass and go do something well I don't want to well who cares during the time of the worst time and I won't go into the whole thing. I was struck almost to death with Hepatitis C and some complications. In fact, he saved my life by putting me to work and making me useful in the worst of it. But some idiot came by to visit me, said if I'd have been spiritually fit that wouldn't happen. I bought into that for about 10 minutes and then threw him out. that's crap but during that period of time i started looking at my heroes you see i want to be better than i am so i don't look down here i want a look out of here and almost without exception the people that i consider heroic had severe physical problems and they just got above them that's all these men did it anyway and then i bumped into to the little thing that Sister Teresa talked about, as to how she came to her ministry. Do you know how that is? It's wonderful. She's on a train going across Germany during Hitler's time. Was reading about that and the horrors of that and realized that deep within her was the same capacity for evil that was being demonstrated by him. And it touched her so deeply she decided she needed to give her entire life to just the opposite of that so that would never emerge. Okay. By recognizing the evil within me, now I can do some real good. Because if I'm busy over here, this isn't coming up. But I have to always know that deep within me I'm a lazy whiner who's interested in where's my life? We ought to take a little break. Which thing? Are we heading in the direction you want to go? Yeah. Okay. Fifteen minutes? Thank you.