Humility Is Not Self-Deprecation, but the Precise Awareness of Where the Ego Ends and Higher Power Begins. — Michael M.

well I'll start off by introducing myself hi recording in progress now we're ready I'm gonna start by introducing my self I'm Michael Miller I am an alcoholic my sobriety date is 10 1 99 my home group is actually living by the print it says book but looking by the print. And I only mention that because if you come to Nashville, Tennessee and you're here at 10 in the morning on a Saturday, please come to my home group. I would love to have you. We all would love that view. As she said this, I'm going to do my best. I was asked about three hours ago. So sometimes it's better not to have time to prepare. So I'm going to look at it this way. Things happen as they're supposed to. And that seems to work for me so as I said I am an alcoholic and the topic is relieve me from the bondage of self which is part of the third step prayer and I this is critical to me because the more I'm sober the more more I have an importance of remembering where I fit into things, and what I mean by that is so much of what AA is, is learning humility, which one definition is knowing where I end and God starts, or where God ends and I start. So the deflation of the ego is the work of this program for me and I'm gonna share a screen here in the United States and it's still freaking me out that you said that it's a night meeting over there so I this is a there's a speaker who's passed and his name is a check Chamberlain and he wrote a very good book it's not conference approved but it's called a new pair of of glasses and it's a recording. It's one of my favorite books of my 25 years sober and it has so much knowledge in it and an interesting trivial fact, I'm not giving up anonymity but Richard Chamberlain the actor who's in The Thorn Birds, it's actually his father and they lived in Los Angeles and he had a diagram that I've always, always appreciated. And I'm going to share my screen here real quick and then let me see if I can pull it up. I have to move things around a little bit here. I'm sorry, give me just a second to get stuff out of the way there. Okay. And so I'm gonna read it then show it and it says, and this is from Chuck Chamberlain, the only roadblock between me and you and me and my God is the human ego. The best definition of the human ego is the feeling of conscious separation from. Conscious separation from God, from each other, and eventually from ourselves. Life, good, God to me are synonymous worlds. And here I am against the whole world. So I'm going to pull down this diagram here. And Chuck's drawing shows there's a the separating line there is the ego and it's that feeling of conscious separation from um and that's from everything uh the human race god the universe and there's me there's chuck there's you there's the individual self and so that ego is what keeps me there and it is by his definition, and I like the one, the feeling of conscious separation from. So I'm going to unshare this here. I'm gonna stop sharing, but that's something it's easy to draw. It's an easy diagram for me, and realizing that that's there is so critical. Excuse me one second. I need to do one other thing I'm going to make this a little I need to get out of here real quick okay thank you all for being patient okay so that is the definition of the ego And I think it's important to try to understand, for me, it's important to understand the ego because so much of everything that goes on in my sobriety deals with the difference between God and ego. And, you know, the theory is that the human ego develops between the ages of two and four. And it's basically, we're initially just a nebulous blob in terms of our consciousness that we think we and our parent, our mother, the source of life, are one. And it is not until with time and our brain's development that we separate. In a sense, we realize our own definitions where I begin and end and where I end in the world begins and that's the start of that feeling of conscious separation from and Freud, other behavioral scientists psychologists we start forming in a sense ourselves as the ego and it's a defense situation because we no longer feel we're part of the world so we have to figure out how are we going to maneuver through this thing that is not us and protect what we believe is us. And so that's how the eagles form, and that's how it develops. But what happens, unfortunately, is within it. And so I think of it as the ego is sometimes Sometimes it gets idealized as being an actual consciousness, in a sense, or a demon, or the devil, or this interrupting pattern. But really I see it more correctly as a computer program that we ask to be developed because We didn't know what to do or how to function, and so we gave this assignment to our mind to create this pattern that we call us. And we rebuild that all the time by the formations of the past and keeping memories and that conscious and continuous you're you and I'm me. And it's that separation from God that both defines us, but eventually becomes a cause of our drinking. Young said that alcoholics have an exaggerated longing for God. And so, you know, we know something's missing. And I think we sense that separation. And it's that soul separation that we try to fill. And I do better if I define it as myself. So, I try to feel that whole with everything. And first, it's alcohol. And alcohol works. Alcohol is a false sense of spirituality. It removes the pain that is what I think I am. the ego it removes the separation and that's why when i drank for the first time i had a completely different experience um than i think everyone else it's my own belief that alcohol changes our perception if you're an alcoholic and we see things different you know in a movie the wine and rope a day of wine and roses which is a really good old movie about alcoholism um he says at one point you know when i looked out the window it was ugly and dirty and when i drink it makes it beautiful and so when i drank i had these effects that were magical where everything changed and that sense of separation left me and i felt a part of um finally. I mean, the feeling of separation that drove me to my alcoholism was present from when I was five. When I was going to school, I always felt different. My dad was a minister, so we moved around a lot and I constantly felt like I didn't fit in. But then I've learned from friends in recovery that those who stayed in one place felt the same way. And I think it's that separation from God, that line that we see there, the ego and our definition, um, and knowing there's something we're supposed to be part of and we're not, that leads me to want to be relieved of that feeling of longing. And, and I get that first through alcohol. But now that I'm sober, I can fill that hole with money, with cars, with women, with sex, with anything. My TV tells me all the time exactly what I need to do to fill that hole. And it guarantees me if I just buy that toothpaste or if I just use that deodorant, then that hole will be filled because that's not how they say it directly, but that's what we think and that's how media works. That's why capitalism has been drugging for as long as it has is because of that belief. And I want to be part of, I don't know how to be part of and I want this feeling to go away but when I drink everything seems different and that's what for me makes me I feel like that if my friends who are not alcoholic felt the way that I do when I drank there's no way they would not want to drink um the reason they don't have more than a half glass when they start feeling it is because they don' t get what I get when I drink as I said there's no doubt in my mind if they did, if they had the wonderment and you know initially the pleasure and that removal of the sense of separateness that comes then they would be drinking just like I did and you now And what I wish is, you know, I used to think I wished I didn't have to drink. But what I really wish is I wish I could drink like they do and get the feeling that I want and not have the consequences. And it's like, you Know, someone said, I wish if you drink like a normal person, I'd be drunk all the time. And that's how my brain works. If you're giggling or you understand that, you're in the right place. alcohol was the solution but it's dealing with this bigger problem and this voice in my head and I created it and I put it I created this computer program that initially started off trying to make sure I was safe that eventually became in a sense what controlled me because if I'm not listening to the voice in my head, then I am the voice in my hand. And that never turns out well. I didn't get here by some faulty plans. I got here but my best decisions got me to AA. And so there's a problem and the problem is I listen to that voice all the time and I don't have to. I mean, I've heard it said, and I think it's so true. If I had a best friend that told me the things that my ego tells me, I wouldn't be best friends, you know? Yeah, it would take half of the crap from a friend that I listened to the ego. And then I realized that, you know, and this comes from, I believe, listening to the ego of putting yourself in a place where you pay attention that you be in the present moment and be aware of what's going on up there uh because um it will play me like a violin it will tell me you know you probably could go ahead and eat that eclair that's in there you need that eclaire that's the eclairs calling my name it was meant for you you should have it you deserve that eclair and the minute that eclaire is swallowed what the hell are you thinking fat boy how another eclair what would you think you know i mean how crazy is that but that's our ego and that's what it's turned into and in order to get it shut up i found a solution and that was alcohol and it shut it up um and it bought me some time i mean And Jung goes into the idea of spiritus, you know, and in his mind, you know, alcohol is a false spiritual, it's a spirit. It's a spiritual experience. And when we drink, we have a spiritual experience. And there's another person, David Hawkins, who talks about power and force, and I really like it. And basically one of his theories is that when we drink alcohol as alcoholics, it elevates us to higher levels of spiritual consciousness that we're not really prepared to stay at. So we get a taste of what it would be like to be kind and joyous and peaceful, but we bought it with the false ticket. And then when that wears off, not only do we go back to where we are, we have all the complications from drinking and so that stays with us. And so I think it's important for me to realize what the ego is and then what the answer is because really to me and it's critical for me to realize there's really only two choices and you know I'm coming from the book this is it says we had a face we had to fearlessly faced the proposition that God is everything or else he was nothing God either is or isn't what was our choice to be and sandy beach sandy B who I really like his talks says that's the most important question because it defines everything because either I'm doing it my way I am doing it God's way and the magic and and and where happiness for me is found is the correct use of the will which it talks about which is aligning my will with God's will is where true happiness lies and I think for me the longest time i had this you know mistaken idea that god's will for me i knew i was going to wind up in africa you know with lots of flies i just remember there's lots of flies involved in god's well for me as a missionary because that's that's what i thought god's will for him he was um and and that's not true god's will, as I understand it, is for me to be happy, joyous and free. And it's in my attempt to separate and say, I'm going to do my will is when I run into trouble and I have free will. That's the beauty of it. God's never going to make me do anything. And, you know, for me, that was critical being raised in a fundamental church. When it said just a few words where it says, I turn my will over. And those two words made all the difference care of God because in my mind when I first got sober what I heard is, I have to turn my will and my life over to God. Well, I've been hearing that since I was born. Turn your life over to God, turn your life over to Jesus, turn it over and I'm thinking what a friggin what a friggin Indian giver which now that I say that I realize that's probably not correct anymore politically correct excuse me but the meaning of giving somebody something and then immediately taking it back and that was the feeling that I had when it came to my relationship with God you had it in the first place Why did you even give it to me if I've got to give it back? But that's not what it says. It says turn it over to the care of God, which means, A, there's something outside of me that wants the best for me, that will take care of me. And all I have to do is turn itover. And that was the difference between me walking out of the meeting or when I first got sober or realizing, hey, there's something here I really want. So that separation between myself and my higher power, God, however you want to view it, is critical because it's when I decide I'm going to stop playing God. And I think the problem all started when at some point, and this is just my own belief in a in my own spirituality is that is that when I made a decision to separate God to find out what it would be like to be God the idea is insane because God is everything and how could you have more than everything but that's what I wanted and that's what I tried to create and that this world is all about so it says you know when it's describing what we are it says either we have to try to play God and dominate those about us or we had to insist on being overly pinned upon that and it talks about stopping playing God because that's where I got in trouble when I am my ego I I am NOT connected to God they don't coexist there's God there's the ego and what I want to do being a good bargainer is God I'm gonna hand over you know these parts of my life my spirituality what people think about me how good I am and I'll stay in charge of the of the finances and the romances and just leave that to me and it didn't work that way it's an all-or- nothing affair I mean they're all in or all out God is everything. God is nothing. What do I want? And I get a pick, and one of the acronyms for ego is edging God out, E-G-D, EGO, because that's what I do when my ego starts coming in, and am I in my ego right now? Well, who am I thinking about? What am I doing? And that could tell me really quickly. And the hard part is, I want to be me. I'm not going to sing, I got to be me, but I thought about it. But that terminal uniqueness is a word, and I love that. Clancy, who's the speaker here in the United States, he actually has a very good documentary on skid row and i don't know if there's any okay or you know but the skidrow is we hear it in movies and talk it's an actual place it's like we're just alcoholics and and it was like the worst place you could wind up and he ran a um a mission on on skid Row and when in the documentary they asked him, what is the one thing that everybody or that you find on what makes people wind up at your mission compared to those that don't? And he said, I can tell you it's very simple. And that is terminal uniqueness. But you don't understand. My case is different. I'm not like everybody else and all those are basically saying I'm my own God you know I am I am in charge of me and I and no one understands me and and it's that specialness is that uniqueness that can keep me drinking and terminally unfortunately um you know we talk a lot about self and the whole reason and I may have jumped over too quickly from ego from self to ego but the self the ego is the self and I my own personal belief is is there's two there's There's two selves. There's our large self, our holy connection to God, the part of us that is part of God and then there's the small self that we created in this world to deal with life and life on terms and that's the ego so the smallest self is what I created. I believe there's a difference because I'm able to watch, I'm able to listen to the thoughts that my ego is feeding me. I'm able to think the thoughts that are coming to me, who is the me that is thinking those thoughts and I'm not trying to get too philosophic but that for me, lets me know I have an existence as consciousness beyond what the ego tells me I am, shows me I am and tries to maneuver through the world and part of my work on the 11th step is building up that relationship with my true self, my consciousness my holy self by meditation by staying silent and when I do that I'm getting a better and better view of the ego Now, I don't judge the ego or bit myself up. I don' t even try to change it. What I found is just being aware and watching it is enough for change to start taking place. But I realize that it's also not my fault. It's not like they gave me an option of developing an ego when I was born. It's a defense mechanism and it's something we all do. um i i do feel like though i i can i have some choice over it i'm working in a difficult uh environment you know here especially united states you know the ultimate you know image that so often has been for paper or uh i can't even say portrayed um to us is the self-made man like there could be something like that but we say a self-made man he's a self made man oh my god rags to riches took himself from nothing look at that star you know he's a sports hero he started off with nothing and he you know he's playing basketball in the cold or he's kicking the ball around and now see where he is that's given so much glory by the ego because that's what it's all about, is I'm going to try to make this, the separation from God, real by showing how well I'm able to create myself. And there's so many words that they use with self that we realize almost always self is negative. On page 61, life would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements, our actor may sometimes be quite vitreous He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest, and self-sacrificing. There's the one that's good. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish, dishonest, and as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits. What usually happens, the show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think that life didn't treat him right. He decides to exert himself more, ego. He becomes, on that next occasion, still more demanding or gracious as the case may be. Still, the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. It's them, it's them. He becomes angry, indignant, excuse me, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is it not really a self-seeker, even when he's trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of the world if he only manages well, a.k.a. play God? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these things are the things that he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can to get out of the show? Is he not, even at his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony? Our actor is self-centered, egocentric, as people like to call it nowadays. and from another part of the book is self-centered fear is the chief activator of defects the chief activator or defects have been self-centred fear primarily figure that we would lose something we already had or we would possess or we fail to get something we demanded and this goes on to selfishness self-centeredness, that's what we think is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self seeking, self pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us seeming without provocation but invariably we find at some point in the past, we have made decisions based on self, which later places us in a position to be hell. So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves. And the alcohol is an extreme example of self-will run riot. above everything we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness we must or it kills us I mean it's straight from the book so I have to find a better way you know but the self is important it's funny this morning I read things like little sayings and one that I like today it's a quote from George Carlin and he She said, today I went to the bookstore and asked the clerk where the self-help section was. And she said, if I told you, it would defeat the purpose. So anyway, I like that. It is imperative on me to find another way. So how do I get out of this bondage of self? And by the way, bondage is the state of being under the control of a force or influence or abstract power. So that's the bondage of self. And for me, it comes down to two things. One is selflessness, which is another word for service. because the only way I can be sure to get out of myself is to get into you. That's the only escape from the ego is when I am thinking more about you than I am myself, I'm going to be happy. Sakyong, my famous Eastern spiritual leader, said if you want to be miserable, think of yourself. if you want to be happy think of others i mean so simple but so true um and i and the other part besides service is humility and the 12 steps of aa and it talks about it connects it to anonymity But anonymity is humility. So for me, the goal of AA is to find that point where I can have where I find humility and I'm given a purpose and service to me is when I align my will with God's will. i'm in service um i can escape the ego thought system by bringing in other thoughts and those thoughts come to me when i'm thinking of others when i'M THINKING OF OTHERS I'M NOT THINKING ABOUT MYSELF AND I GET JUST A LITTLE REPRIEVE JUST A BREATHER AND WHEN I FIND THE TIMES I'VE BEEN had the most happiness and the most joy tend to be when i'm not thinking about myself and i'm thinking about others um that's where the relief comes and you know the saint francis prayer talks so much about basically make me a channel and that's you know that's to me where i'm striving for is by doing the 12 steps i can be a channel um to bring god uh through me to suffering alcoholics but i can also help homeless people on the street i can help save dogs i can there's an unlimited way and the beauty is um i think each of us have a purpose and spirituality isn't a matter of it's not a matter of building it's all a matter of reduction it's removing those things that cover up my original self because deep down in every man woman and child is a thought of God but I would say is God and we're trying to get back to that God and that is in us that self we have and the ego like the diagram shows is the wall that prevents that and by working the steps I'm able to help to deconstruct that wall and I remove the ego is like an umbrella that I put out and up when I'm out in the sunshine of the spirit the sunlight of the spirit is blocked by me putting the ego up with all of its defects of character which it says self-centered fear created and i'm able to lower the the the blocks to god i'm able to have some inflow of what i wanted all along because i i didn't drink i drank for the effect is what it says i basically and the effect i wanted and what i found for a while was peace. But the amount of peace I got became less and less, and the trouble drinking caused added to the removal of my peace. So, I mean, that's what I want. I want to be undisturbed. I want To Be Peaceful. I Want To Be Satisfied. And when I'm able to find reprieve from the ego, that's when I tend to find that and it's not unusual that I am you know it's I kind of visualize it as you know there's the ocean and we're all waves I just happen to be a wave that decided that I was the ocean but I'm not and in fact all of the ocean waves decided that they were the ocean and I wanted to make myself bigger at your expense and you wanted to make you yourself bigger at my expense but we're all one at the core because God is everything I'm not trying to get too so philosophical but you know if you want to get I mean sobriety offers so much you can you can when one of my sponsors my sponsor said you know it's a buffet table and if you want to stay down with the finger sandwiches uh and the double bags help yourself i don't know what they eat in uk at the banquet but hopefully you know what those are uh but there's steak down at the end you know there's uh all kinds of desserts and wonderful um spiritual benefits waiting for you and the only thing that's stopping you is you and that you that's stopping you is your ego so by using service and getting out of myself and by using humility and knowing that where my position is in comparison to god um i could become a channel and i'm afforded more and more of what i've always wanted which is just to be okay so i'm not quite there yet um i'm on time i don't think um but uh uh let me just see i think i said everything i wanted to say yeah I did that's it the end thank you so much Michael and at this point I'd like to ask everybody to unmute thank our speaker for such a wonderful share thanks thank you thank you so much and