Improving Conscious Contact – Herb K – Workshop – Part 12 of 25 – Herb

My name is Herb. I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our big book, 12-step workshop on Zoom. Please join me in the set-aside prayer, a prayer for intervention to open our minds and hearts. God, please set aside everything that I think I know about myself, my brokenness, my spiritual path and you, for an open mind and a new experience of myself, my brokenness, my spiritual paths, and especially you. Please join me in the Serenity Prayer God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change Courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference we've started this work in earnest now taking a look at the reason for the work the actual bullseye target reason so we look at step 12 the very first phrase having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps that may have not been your primary mary reason in your consciousness but now i hope it is spiritual awakening that's the mission here it won't happen by next week or even next month necessarily but it will happen by the time you finish the ninth step that's the guarantee in the big book. I don't use my terms loosely, guarantee. Read pages 84 and 85 again as you will be reading for next week. It's the place where Bill tells us we enter the world of the spirit and we've been placed in a position of neutrality aka we've had a spiritual awakening which has relieved us and given us freedom from our addiction it's a guarantee right there but the continuation of the awakening isn't guaranteed it says we're not cured we have a daily reprieve a daily me preva losing step 10 again that's the assignment for next week I'll be more formal about it in a minute and step 11 which we will talk about today so we literally have gone backwards for just a little bit in the step process only so that we can grasp the mission of value proposition spiritual awakening and understand what that means and really have it as the carrot that draws us forward there will be times when this is a real struggle when it's really difficult to do when it painful even and if you can have the vision of that carrot that motive that value that mission oh yeah I'm willing to go through some short-term pain for the long-term gain. It's very counter cultural for addicts. We want short term gain and we will submit to long term pain if thinking in our delusion that we can delay that, and we're here because we didn't and couldn't. And then we take a look at step 11 as the primary tool of improved consciousness isn't that what's right in the step itself that's the mission of step 11 to improve our conscious contact with power and then next week step 10 we'll take a look at the big book instructions on that tool quite frankly for emotional sobriety it assumes that you've done the first nine steps we're kind of short-circuiting that being kind of innovative and creative by taking on the tools of meditation and inventory daily spot check inventory so that we can stay as clean and as filled with the spirit while we're looking at our journey in step one. That's the whole point of this approach to the step process. I was four years sober when I did this work. I had completed my first eight steps. I was beginning to work on my ninth step, making the amends. And the man followed the directions in the big book, which says, commence this way of living as we clean up the past. We commence this Way of Living 10, 11 and 12 as we do Step 9. So as I began to do Step nine, he gave me instructions on 10, then the instructions on 11 and then the institutions on 12. because he knew that doing step nine required as much power as possible and therefore we engage in those tools of power when we came to step eleven he asked me to do what I asked you to do and that is look up the term meditation in a dictionary many of you have a meditation practice you may not call it that you might call it quiet time you might call that prayer time you might called it contemplation time you might call mindfulness time you Mike but spiritual time it doesn't matter what you call many people even in long-term in a 12-step fellowship are very confused and or very ignorant about and I don't mean that to be negative or dismissive I just mean they don't know and they don't that they don' t know that's what I mean by ignorance what the true meaning is of meditation as it's in the Webster's dictionary as and as it's intended in the big book Bill Wilson was a member of the Oxford group he didn't have any religious training at all no actual spiritual training his grandfather his mother's father who raised him from about 12 or 13 years old had some general spiritual leanings but really didn't have much time for organized religion or any tradition like that and Bill basically assimilated that attitude but when he was dealing with his alcoholism he went to the Oxford group because his friend Evie got sober there and if he was as bad a drunk as Bill and if Evie can get sober bill will get sober oh it's a Christian organization oh well I can I can deal with that he says and it was it was a organization that was trying to recreate first century Christianity what they did was they prayed Christian prayers they read the Bible the Christian Bible they sat and they thought about what they read they actually kept a notebook next to them and a pen and they wrote down any ideas that they thought were guidance or inspirations meaning movements of the spirit conversations with God and then if they were in a group they shared them with one another or when they went to their groups their group meetings the awkward group meetings they shared what guidance they got so that they could use the other members of the community as the sounding board for their guidance to see maybe if it was objective and from God or it was not it was totally subjective and from their ego or from their distortion of reality that background is really important because step 11 in the big book was written based on that experience when Bill met Bob Bob was already in Bob Smith the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous he was already the Oxford group two and a half years he had been going to weekly meetings and getting drunk after every meeting as he thought it was a moral issue a willpower issue a knowledge issue and then when Bill talked to him about alcohol and his experience with powerlessness of the body the allergy which he learned from silver powerless of the mind as an obsession which he'd learned from silker and explained his own experience not being able to stop when he started and not being able to stay stopped when he did stop and he was a man of bill was an amount of extraordinary willpower in many areas but not with alcohol Bob was finally able to relate to the vocabulary and the experience and then began to take his Oxford group teachings seriously and of course as you know got sober and stayed sober until he died in 1950. Bill stayed in Bob's house beginning in June, all of July, all of August of 1935. And when they were there, Bob's wife would hold court in the morning she was a major oxford group member and she would teach what she called the boys meditation that's where bill got his ideas and his experience of meditation which he now translates into the big book so this man had me look up the term meditation in a dictionary i hope you did that we'll talk about it my dictionary said directed thinking i had also been given the instructions of reading and highlighting pages 85 to 88 and re-reading it and highlighting it a second time and then rereading it and outlining it it outlines very nicely it starts with when we retire at night kind of odd that he starts with the end but my rationalization of that is that he did inventory at night as a preparation for the next day's meditation and and then it goes after retiring at night with inventory It's a meditation. It's not done in writing. It is done at night, out of Step 11 on page 86, when we retire at night. We constructively review our day. See it's not about judgment. It' s not about shame and guilt. It's not about destruction, it's constructive. What can we learn from today and what can we correct for tomorrow? You have already looked at those questions I'm not gonna go over them. The part that really fascinates me and that broke it open for me is upon awakening. He says on awakening let us think about the 24 hours ahead. Already, I'm on red alert. My understanding of meditation came out of my monastic experience. I was in a monastery for seven years. They called what they did meditation. I now know that it's contemplation not meditation, in the strictest of dictionary definitions. I had also studied Buddhism and the teachers from the East during the time I was attempting to find my way before AA and even after I came in the rooms. And they talked about meditation, which related to my contemplative experience in the monastery because the practice of method is the same, contemplation not meditation, but I didn't know that. when this dictionary said meditation is directed thinking and then I said I see that Bill says on awakening let us think about the 24 hours ahead I see that the dictionary and bill are on the same page meditation is about the use of our mind to think it is not about getting our mind quiet it is not about silence it is not about emptiness it is not about distance from thought it is not about emptiness we fill our minds with thought let us think about the 24 hours ahead this is on awakening we consider our plans for the day a second instruction but no definition as to what the difference is between thinking about the 24 hours ahead and considering my plans for the day i'm a big book literalist i want to know what the words mean i want to know that bill meant i don't know but i've made up an approach that i'll explain in a minute but here's the most important part of it before we begin we ask God to direct our thinking anytime the book says to talk to God that's prayer we asked God who direct our thinking and this man said it's a simple prayer herb God please direct my thinking see that's so simple that I almost missed it he had to explain it a couple times to me especially asking again prayer that it be divorced from self-pity dishonest or self seeking motives under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance for after all God gave us brains to use he's saying our brain has two functions one of them is to think to use our mind to reflect our thought life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives in thinking about our day we may face indecision during the day he says we may not be able to determine which course to take we're actually thinking about alternatives do i turn right or go left do i go home and help my family or i go to the baseball park to watch a game all decisions the second part of the function of the brain my willpower all of us have had the experience of knowing better at the same time not doing better you see we have the ability to know and to know that we know that's what makes us human we're the only sentient being that has that self-reflective capability it's in our cortex in the third development of our brain one function is to know the other function is to decide bill recognizes that in this step sought so this is a very active process of seeking through prayer meditation that's the technology that's the methodology so I'm reading the step I'm paraphrasing I'm excuse me I'm commenting on the step itself saw it through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God there's the mission of step 11 that's the purpose of step eleven if you're doing a quiet time silent time for any other reason it's wonderful is probably helpful it's just not step eleven there's only one way to do step eleven and that's to intentionally want to improve your conscious contact with god as you understand it or god as you don't understand it but listen to how the step ends it's perfect because it captures us as human beings praying meaning asking again praying for the knowledge of god's will and the power to do it oh my god there it is that's who we are as human beings to know that we know and we need knowledge but to do what we do and we need power praying for knowledge of God's will and the power to do it in thinking about our day we may face indecision we may not be able to determine which course to take here we ask God again this is a code in the big book get used to it i'll point it out when we see it it's throughout the book bills and the books suggestion that we talk to god he might not say pray but anytime he asks us to ask god that's prayer it's a code as i see it here we ask god for inspiration see the word itself comes from the latin excuse me from the greek actually spiros s-p-i-r-o-s which means breath or wind or spirit spiros that's the root word of spirit the breath the wind the immaterial the invisible we ask for an inspiration an intuitive thought that's a function of the mind to be in to to be intuitive or a decision we relax and take it easy we don't struggle we are often quite surprised how the right answer comes after we have tried this for a while in most traditions that foster meditation they call the practice of meditation or prayer or contemplation practice we practice like we practice a piano like we practiced in the gym let me practice riding a bicycle let me practice roller skating like we practice art and if we have any talent and we have a good teacher and we're consistent in our practice we develop some competency What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. This is a practice. We build grooves of habit, skills of reflection and thinking and guiding our mind in a direction The bane of all meditators is distraction. The Buddhists call it the monkey mind, the monkey that swings from tree to tree to get the fruit or the bananas. That's our mind. Our mind's function is to think. Meditation is the discipline to give it handrails so that we have a container and guide our thinking in a direction. In this direction, the intention is to hear God's guidance. Step 11 is about guidance, at least as Bill Wilson understood and wrote about it from the Oxford group experiment. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We may pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will as time passes be more and more on the plane of inspiration, on intuition, that practice that makes for progress. We come to rely on it. And then he tells us how to conclude your period of meditation. He never tells us much time to spend. We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we'd be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask again prayer, especially for freedom from self-will. These are great words, great prayers and you'll see them in a minute in the script that I wrote in the Way of Life document that some people have found quite helpful. Careful to make no requests for ourselves. We may ask for ourselves if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that, and it doesn't work. You can easily see why. Sometimes we ask our wives or friends or partners to pray with us in the morning meditation. He then talks about a religious connection. He talks about memorizing some prayers that emphasize the principles that we're talking about. And he says, and read the helpful books please. Hundreds of thousands, millions of people in search of improved consciousness or the meaning to life have written millions of books over five to 10,000 years from different traditions and different perspectives. And he talks about the priest, the minister, rabbi all inclusive be sure to where religious people are right make use of what they offer as we go through the day we pause when agitated or doubtful he does connect it to step 10 here when we're agitated disturbed we'll talk about it next week we ask for the right thought and the right action notice the combination of my dealing with my function of my mind to know and my will to make decisions to take voluntary actions we remind ourselves we are no longer running the show now he uses the theater analogy a lot especially in step four it'll have much more meaning to you once we've completed step four but for right now i'm just pointing out the theater analogy that his implication is that we play the director in our lives and we run the show and of course that doesn't work so well for us nor anybody else humbly saying to ourselves many times each day thy will be done from my standpoint that's the most perfect prayer because i'm using my free will to align my will and my behavior with my understanding of god's will thy will-be-done i'm looking to be in alignment with in harmony with my understanding of reality and spiritual principles we are then much less danger of excitement fear anger worry self-pity or foolish decisions we become more efficient we do not tire so easily for we have not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves it works it really does we alcoholics are undisciplined so we let god discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined that was the line that brought my step guide to suggest that i outlined it because bill says here we have just outlined bill just outlined it in the big book what do we do at night what we do in the morning what do we do all day long that's the outline but let's go back to page 85 86 actually on awakening i have unpacked or reviewed with you the material in the big book but here's the key that unlocked the door to meditation in 1988 that allowed me to establish a meditation practice that i've been consistent with for the last 32 years meaning daily of course i've missed some days i'll bet you it's not more than 10 days in 32 years in meditating and even there i'm not sure that would be right because i have a consciousness that was a gift to me that's never i've never had before that but a formal practice of sitting with the intention of receiving guidance and also transformation i'll talk about that in a minute also and this is the key I went over it carefully it says before we begin we ask God to direct our thinking God please direct my thinking then this man said something that's not in the big book but it came from his experience to help him understand how to do meditation we asked God to direct our thinking god please direct my thinking bill says then we think about the 24 hours ahead and we consider our plans for the day this man said to me we then listen to our thinking as the medium of the message from god i've never heard god speak to me audibly through my ears I have heard the tiny whispering sound speak to me all the time in inspiration and intuition through my heart through my instincts through my gut through some type of an awareness that I can't even put a word on and over time I've learned to really trust it and it's become much more informational and directional I'm gonna say it again we ask God to direct our thinking God please direct my thinking that's the prayer then we begin thinking listening to the thoughts that's why we get quiet not to shut the mind down but to listen to the mind what's it saying is it just ego chatter grocery lists and to do's well that's not what we're here to do so we know that's a distraction and what deeper what am i cool what am I to do that bill gives us two questions think about the 24 hours ahead my definition of that is to take a look a radar sweep at my day planner in my imagination sometimes i actually have my calendar with me if it's a complex day and i take a look at the day to make sure that number one it's in balance and number two there's no activity there that i've scheduled and i'm aware of that's out of line with spiritual principles My answer to that first question, think about the 24 hours ahead is about my behavior, about my activity. Well, if that's the case, what's the question that he asks the second time about? Consider your plans for the day. What does he mean by that? I don't know, but I make up a definition for myself so that I can attempt to interpret bill wilson's guidance and direction consider my plans for the day if think about the 24 hours ahead that first question was about what am i going to do then the second question may be about and that's my conclusion who am i to be today it goes like this yesterday i was unkind all right today i'll be kind yesterday i was insensitive today I'll be sensitive yesterday I was very scattered in my thinking and my behavior today I will be focused and mindful but I'm gonna put words to that I'm dealing with my character defects de jure because I'm a human being I never become perfect none of us will ever become perfect we can become better human beings but only if we pay attention to the deficiencies in us from yesterday learn from them and then try to correct them today consciously correct my behavior putting myself back in alignment with God back in alignment reality back in alignment with spiritual principles as I understand it I mentioned to you that I had been in a monastery a seminary training to be a Catholic priest for seven years from 1957 to 1964 and it was silent for seven years other than the classes so we did a lot of meditation we read a lot of books and I had a lot teachers and I have a lot of guidance and I've had a retreats When I left the monastery, I hung up my black robe, 1964, and I did not meditate again for another 25 years. What's that? I didn't understand what I was doing. I wasdoing it in the same way I put on the black robe. It came with the territory. I'm a monk, so I puton a black robe and I meditate. I didn' know how to do it. I didnn know why to doit. I didn know what Iwas doing. I didn't know the benefit of it I was well-intentioned but I wasn't schooled I wasn t mentored I'm not blaming anybody I wasn' t ready either that's very clear I'm four years in Alcoholics Anonymous 1984 to 1988 I'm going to a meeting every day I'm calling my sponsor every day i attempted to work the steps on my own in that first year of recovery and i did on my own i got nothing out of it because they didn't know what i was doing and my sponsor didn't either and i didn't no that he didn't though there you go blind leading the blind oh yeah yeah yeah no it's pandemic you talk about a pandemic that's pandemic and um then i heard this man share and the rest is history he understood the big book he understood how to apply the precise instructions to his personal life and I had the promise spiritual awakening but now I meditate because it came from the inside not from the outside not from my environment not because it's step 11 not because my sponsor told me so not because the big book tells me so I don't do it be any of that I do it because number one I know what to do I know how to do it I know why to do it I know the value of it and um I'm very clear I don't have enough power to live my life or to deal with my addiction I got very clear with that in steps one through nine I don t have enough power on my own human power to deal effectively with my addiction I was given the gift of recovery that was no fault and no work of my own I'm sure my willingness was part of that gift as well as my willingness to take action was part sustaining that gift but I didn't grow in understanding and effectiveness in those first four years I did it meditate in those four years oh I prayed because we pray in the group and all of that but then I saw the third step prayer in the seventh prayer and other prayers in the big book in the 12 and 12 and they're nice prayers and I go yeah it's great you know but it didn't didn't I didn't resonate with that once I did this work and I really had an experience of my powerlessness and I began to have a bit of an experience with power then I wanted to improve that power bill says in the twelve and twelve as the value proposition in step 11. you won't do it because it's in the book you won' t do it, because your sponsor said so you won´t do it ,because your meetings say so you won''t do i,t because it´s a good idea you won ´t do, it because you know how to do it you'll do it,, because it has a value to you at least on the faith basis until you have some existential experience of the value and bill paints it in just graphic terms for us in the 12 and 12. as air water sunshine and food nourishes and sustains the body prayer meditation nourishes and sustings the soul the spirit then you have to ask yourself do you believe it if you're not doing a morning meditation or meditation sometime during the day I'm not talking about prayer I'm NOT talking about journaling I'm not talking about reading I'm Not talking about quiet time if you are not doing meditation then you actually don't believe that you're powerless or that there is a power or that the meditation will give you power one of those three items because your behavior tells you not me I don't your behavior tells you what you believe your feet tell you the truth your head and your heart are delusional in many many cases especially when it comes to you but your feet your feet you're behavior never lie how you behave is who you are how you behaved is what you believed how you would behave is what your principles are very confrontational almost at the ugly level wow what a great litmus test I want to know the truth about my character and my intentions look at how I behave because that tells me the truth and you will do that when you do the fourth step of course so I began with five minutes in 1988 I worked it up to about 15 minutes I was consistent for a year and by the end of the year after a consistent daily practice I was bored out of my mind with the meditation I went to several different kinds of people to try to get some help and the person who ended up being my spiritual director and is today coincidentally had had been a monk himself his spiritual director was Thomas Merton if that doesn't impress you it impresses me thomas merton was a trappist monk who died in 1968 a prolific writer probably a mystic and prophet and um in kentucky gethsemane kentucky and this man had been there for six years at about the same time i had been in my monastery so we had a lot in common he had a teacher and i didn't and he got it and i did He said he didn't know it much about the 12-step program But after I explained to my journey of Going from steps 1 through 12 as I just had with you and you already know that I had an experience of addiction and Powerlessness and then went through the 12 steps and had a spiritual awakening He got it because he was really smart and deeply immersed in the spiritual path so he really understood what i was talking about when he when i talked about transformation and he said herb he said you're a very task oriented person you've read the book you highlighted it you outlined it you've written out a script you have a chair you have a place you have candle you have agong you have the music you have all the accoutrements and you sit there by god and you're going to be a good meditator and you by god are going to be spiritual and yeah no he was very dramatic and he said uh you have to hear this hurt and i hope you can because it again was the second key to the value proposition and how to do meditation he said you're as powerless over your spiritual life as you are over alcohol having no power at all think powerless you are as powerless over your meditation as you are over alcohol having no power at your job is the effort and the results are none of your business there's only two mistakes that you can make in meditation one not show up two leave early if you're committing to one minute don't leave before the minutes up if you've committed to five minutes the timer will tell you when you're done not your brain not your emotions not your schedule your timer he said get a timer at that time i worked and i was concerned about getting lost in my meditation and the commute and all the other kinds of things that we think about. So I got a timer, and I set it for five minutes. And once I got a comfortable level with that, I set up for 10. I got a comfortable leveral, I said it for 15. I got a comfortable leverage set up 20. He had suggested a minimum of 20 minutes as a daily practice but build up to it, don't try to do it all at once. It's like going to the gym on January second because you're out of shape and you want to be in shape and you stay there for three hours well the next morning you can't get out of bed because you so sore so you don't go back to the gym for a week well that doesn't work too well but if you do 15 minutes and you have a good trainer that coaches you as student how not to hurt yourself and you go back consistently maybe not daily in that case and you have this teacher and you pay attention and you do the exercises pretty soon you don't need the trainer and you're there by yourself and you are staying for an hour and you feel really good and you begin to really get in shape we practice and that's his mantra all spiritual people have a spiritual practice there's four parts to it all spiritual people have their spiritual practice and they practice their practice and they're faithful to their practice and then their practice will be faithful to them it's essentially echoing what how Bill writes especially at the concluding items how it becomes easier and we live on a plane of intuition and inspiration though doesn't use the term practice but he implies that we get better as we consistently make progress when i was leaving his office he said oh by the way herb if you want to know if your meditation practice is effective after three months of daily practice ask your wife how you're treating her pay attention to how you drive on the freeway pay attention to how you treat service personnel in retail restaurants or or airlines or stores because if in fact your meditation practice is consistent and effective you will change you will become a better human being more sensitive more considerate more kind softer and that's my experience we ask God to direct our thinking then we begin thinking trusting that that's the medium that God speaks to us through our our thinking so we listen to our thinking we hear the phrase we small voice which i used for a long time because it sounded poetic and spiritual and pretty cool we small boys as a quote from scripture and it's written in books and talked about in meetings a lot like that but a month or two ago i challenged it in myself and i went to some original translations and and that's not the translation that's not it's a good but it's not an accurate translation the accurate translation is a tiny whispering sound very different subtle it's a sound not a voice it's a sound, not a word. It's tiny whispering and that's why we get quiet to listen what is going on here how do i determine whether it's my ego talking or the spirit talking and that's where sponsors and step guides and spiritual directors and therapists and good friends can be quite helpful as sounding boards to help in the beginning certainly to distinguish it once you do steps four and five you'll have a much easier way of discerning what's movement of my ego and what's movement of the spirit because the steps especially those steps four through nine deflate the ego and they dismantle the false self the darkness in us is diminished and eliminated so that the light in us can shine in us to us and the light grows as we practice our practice for next time i want you to do assignment number one item four i'm not sure i gave that to you to look up the word anonymous and write it out i don't want to take the time with that today but we might next week and then uh assignment two items three four and five which is essentially on step 10 and we'll take our time with unpacking my understanding of step 10 next week and then we will go back to taking a look at the Roman numerals in the textbook from the beginning and unpacking each of those pages that's one of the longer term assignments described in assignment 2 where you read from the the title page up to the doctor's opinion asking yourself during that time of your reading those four questions and then when you finish the reading answering those four question we have probably two three weeks before we get to finishing that work so there's no rush for you the reading and or the writing thank you so much and you've prompted me to say a couple things number one of course the assumption underneath step 11 are steps two and three so that's a question that I didn't ask you to ask yourself what is it that you actually believe not think not want not read not been told by sponsors or whatever and I might have I might've alluded little bit to that but that that's a key i'm not going to go there right now because we will when we do steps two and three but think about that is your higher power big enough does your higher power care enough is your hire power available to you really challenge that as perhaps part of the obstacle for your not doing meditation so and then the other thing is um and i'm not going to spend any time on it today but i can some other time i mentioned that this is a function of the mind but there is another practice and that is the practice from the east and the practice from my monastic background of contemplation which is a fonction of the will the function of my mind is to think and to listen for guidance the function of my will is to place myself in the presence of god consenting to have god have god's way with me it's a contemplative practice and i it i've incorporated both as uh what i call intentional consciousness two sides of one coin one side is my mind the other side is my will. My mind thinks and my will loves and that's my spiritual life in a relationship with the mystery, a relationship with the Mystery because I actually don't know what I'm in relationship with I've made some decisions about that relationship and I live as if those decisions are based on fact but i have no real idea that any of what i think or or say or believe is true when i stand on the path and i look back over my shoulder i go you know what i don't care my life is working so i'm going to continue believing what i believe in doing what i do so that's that's called faith and we'll address that when we come to step two yeah hi herb um i was you were going over the what meditation is, and I realized that I was probably doing more contemplation over the last 10 years. So of course, I got a little bit nervous. Oh my gosh, am I doing it wrong? Right, because I got to do it perfectly. And the answer is you can't do it wrong. Okay. That's very comforting to you perfectionists. Yes. You said, well, in the big book says it says we ask God to direct our thinking and then I think so then we listen to our thinking. And you know my thinking when my thinking goes that way it's like everywhere all over the place what do I do with that? Trying to put it okay so you may not have had the kind of experience that Australia had and or we have out here with fires. Prairie fires are devastating because they're out of control right but I have a heater here and a stove here that provides warmth on the one hand and cooking on the other hand fire that's contained my mind's job is to build a container for its thought process and direct it god helped me to direct it but i'm and god direct it but i am going to also have a responsibility to direct my thinking why am i here in my meditation when i sit down the first thing i do in my morning practice is i pray the set aside prayer then i pray the third step prayer recommitting to be in alignment with my understanding of god and then i i actually say uh to myself the 11th step because it tells me why i'm there i'm not i'm, not there to become good I'm not there to become Healthy i'm. Not there to have better relationships. I'm, not there to have Grist for the mill for i'm an author so writing my books that's not the reason i'm there All of that will come out of it, but those are byproducts My focus is what the big book says in step 11 to improve my conscious contact with god in the way of life document the script i referred to is pages 45 to 50 and it has some questions and some protocols and prayers that people found is a good launching pad to either fine-tune their practice or to begin their practice and you might you and others might find that helpful so the the image of a fire answers your question directly a fire on the prairie is horrible a fire in the stove is very productive so we build a container for our mind and our thinking and we direct it okay and that's why i like the term guidance because that's what i'm listening for i'm listening for guidance what do i do and how do i do today or even for um i'm spending the next two weeks in a very focused effort i'll be 80 july 1st my god that's officially old but anyway how am i going to spend the next five years assuming i live that long all right so i'm spending the next two weeks in some type of a personal retreat with special meditation on getting some type of an answer to that question. What am I being invited to do and to be in the next five years? I have suffered with obesity my whole life. I think, I think and me and God think i can take diet pills successfully i have yet to find what what i do though is i take that thought to my sponsor and to some people that i trust and i have yet to find any kind of positive endorsement so so it's really important to me that i don't listen directly to god but see once you do effectively steps four through nine your thinking will be straightened out and you won't think that way anymore that's the gift of an awakening yeah i'm looking forward to it because i can get pretty crazy with my with my plans it's wonderful that you're that conscious and careful and then your the courage you have to hold yourself transparently accountable and listen to the people who give you that wonderful feedback yeah no it's that's the secret to success the willingness for transparency i do have a question for you which it's been coming up a lot lately addiction um is it self-will is it we're born with theology like a connection to god or what is it where's it come from you know it's it's a great question it's probably a scientific question as i understand at least in the realm of alcohol addiction it has to do with a malfunction of the liver where the the liver of one out of ten people malfunctions and produces acetone and once acetone is in the cellular structure the cellular structure demands more acetone. Now, I'm not a scientist or a chemist. I've read the article. I can quote the article from many, many studies. And the conclusion is that alcoholism is hereditary in about 80% or 90% of the cases. I'm white and bald because my father and his father, and his Father, and His Father were white and bald. I'm an alcoholic for the same reason. I can go back five generations and see the alcoholism in the males that I come from. So yeah, I don't know the same thing is true for other addictions, but I suspect it is. I believe that the current theory scientifically is that addiction is a malfunction of the brain uh in terms of dopamine and those kinds of terms that i all don't know much about either but it doesn't matter that we understand exactly its origin it does matter that we have the symptoms of it and there's only two there's only two everything else is a story about it or the results of it there's only two things that make us an added once we start we cannot stop once we stop we cannot stay stuff it's that simple and we'll see that when we get to step one this goes back to my ish my blockage around the set-aside prayer God please set aside everything I think I know about myself my brokenness and you I don't want to know I am so resistant to changing how I just don't want to change it because I don' trust God. I have huge issues about trusting God you know I could run down the list most of them are outside of me which is like why you know fill in the blanks right? Why is there war in Yemen? Why? Because of free will and greed. Why is this world such a mess? Why is there so much suffering because of free will and greed you know so i used to read step 11 and i think you know to improve my conscious contact with god it's more like to improve my conscious conduct with the god that i want to be god choose that one upgrade you're in for an upgrade well but that's silliness because i don't listen wait wait no it isn't it's it's just as silly as not believing or believing in what you do believe in all right the magic of chapter four step two and i can hardly wait to get there the magic of chapter 4 step 2 is that bill insists that you choose your concept but my concept has so much conflict with what i see around me get a bigger god or or begin to try to have a bigger perspective that's real and not based on your script of how life should be because you're not god goddess because i have this fantasy of the god that i want but i don't believe think that's the god exists when i yeah notes make some notes make some notes i'm telling you i'm inviting you please make some note about that fantasy it'll serve you well when you come to step two okay yep all right all right thanks not encouraging people to think too much about it because whatever you think right now you're probably going to have a new experience with step two and and that's months away from now so uh just just be gentle with yourself and and listen and open and and that set aside prayer uh begin to trust that and this process You know, she's not unique in the sense that has some sort of negative connection to or resistance to God. And that's what step two will be all about is sort of unpacking what we actually believe and then kind of repacking it so that it's packaged in a way that's useful because that's really the point. And each one of us will package it uniquely what we need at this time in our development I actually read, you know, I read your book a few months before I really found out about you. The book I was reading was Practicing the Here and Now. And actually just today as I was rereading the one chapter, I was reading about your description of your spiritual advisor talking to you about trying too hard to be good at meditation and what he said to you. And boy, I tell you that just it just fit me to a tee, Herb. Herb. You know, I read that and I thought, oh my gosh, that's exactly what I have done in my program. By the grace of God, Herb, I have had a prayer and meditation practice with The 11th Step and The Big Book. I've used that on a daily basis. And what I've done now recently since I've read your book is I have, and I hope this is okay, but I went to Appendix A at the back of that book and I use that outline is I believe the same outline that you have in the way of life document pages 45 to 50 but there might be a difference but essentially that's the outline thanks for the confirmation go ahead I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you no that's fine when you make a great commercial like that I've got to support it yeah well you know I just want to tell you how much I appreciate that her because it really put the meat into the What word is a problem for you? Well, it's just that whole response of, and you're not God. And I get it. It's got nothing to do with humility because I've been so humbled in this beautiful recovery and I'm not in charge of the universe and I am not in control of anything. But there's a way in which my meditation has really given me a gift of saying I'm totally cut from that cloth and I m a part of this. I just get curious if you have any sort of just general response to that, because I feel a deep alignment, not just alignment with God, but a part of, I'm a spark of that. I'm the manifestation of it. So does that make any sense? It makes a lot of sense actually. I have meditated on and written lots of large reflections about that kind of unity that is at the core of reality. And when we talk about God, a lot of times people will respond to the fish in the water. fish doesn't know it's in water but it's totally dependent on the water for survival and some people like that is i'm surrounded by god and god is the source of my life it's nice it's still very dualistic though along the line that you're i think you're thinking i like the wave in the ocean concept so the wave comes out of the ocean and it might be a tsunami that's a 100 feet high and it lasts for three days the wave is not the ocean but the wave does not not the Ocean and it has a time in space and then it recedes and becomes one with the ocean again and I think if I think you get the the symbolism of that that answers your question because that's my thought about about God in me. This, I am not God, but God has manifested as her. Beautiful. Yeah, thank you. That's really, that's exactly. You know, I got the book, 12 Steps to Spiritual Awakening, your book, which I'm really enjoying, but I didn't know because you didn't, it's not a required book. I think you strongly recommend it or, but it's great. And I just was curious, are there any times along this journey were you actually reference that okay okay so it's just saying in the assignments I did put required and in my comments I I softened it by saying strongly suggested oh yes yeah and the reasons are it's really helpful but no I don't refer to the only book I referred to is the big book and then the twelve and 12 as a supplement. I don't even require the supplement, and we don't study the 12 and 12 here. I'll make comments about it because there are things in there, like next week I will unpack step 10 from the 12 and 12, as a complement supplement to the work in the big book, because it really clarifies the use of the tool of the tenth step. Whereas the big book gives us the formula it doesn't really talk as clearly about the application as does step 10 in the 12 and 12. beautiful thank you sir great great question you know last week you talked so much about powerlessness and today you're like power yes lack of my dilemma but god is my power hence pray and meditate and about 26 years sober something really drastic happened to me and i just stopped and it makes me want to cry it's like thank you for reminding me like thank god i didn't drink or use thank god there's this grace that blankets my life and now i'm back in and it just gives me goosebumps because i believe it was you that said this maybe not that i didn t get sober to rely upon the group the journey was to find God of my understanding and I've never had that type of permission in my whole life. And the Buddhists have a great symbol for that and they talk about the Master that stands on the path that the Master walked to get transformation and the Master has a group of students disciples and the master points the way to the light many of the students begin worshiping the finger instead of going for the light this is not about meetings this is not about a a this is not even about the steps this is about finding this is about finding power this is about having a relationship with the light yeah I heard it this time it's taken three times but I'm like in awe I'm just I don't even know what to say I hear you this time several of the people mentioned centering prayer that's the contemplative practice that's the other half of my step 11 that's not in the big book but that isn't my extension of an expansion of uh my practice my question is this i do hour per day of contemplation and prayer and i do a general daily examine an ignatian daily examen in at night now um how do you suggest i incorporate meditation into that it's a wonderful question i basically compartmentalize and define three major parts of what i call intentional consciousness prayer meditation and contemplation over the years i've incorporated all three parts of that into my daily practice as simply as i can and then we can get more complicated if necessary my understanding of prayer meditation actually came out of aa in the meetings i heard prayer is talking to god meeting is excuse me meditation is listening to god now i heard it i mouthed it but i didn't understand what that meant the meditation until i did the steps with a man who did understand what it meant and it was listening to my thinking based on the big books specific direction upon awakening we asked god to direct our thinking and also collaborated cooperated by the webster's dictionary that said meditation is directed thinking it was a year later that I was exposed to a monk who explained what he called centering prayer but it comes under the broad umbrella of the contemplative practice which I had experimented with earlier on when I was in a monastery as a monk and I had experimented with in my journey in trying to understand and practice a little bit of Buddhism. Neither of which experienced the monastery or Buddhism gave me actually any understanding of what I was doing, but Father Thomas Keating did. And so I'm going to come back now and say prayer is when I'm talking to God, meditation is when i'm listening to God for guidance And I'm listening to my mind and all my awareness, an active process. And then my contemplative component is when I'm just plain sitting in the presence of God with an open heart consenting with my will, with my free will consenting thy will be done, consenting, have your way with me, consentING. please transform me in the way that you determine not the way that i'm even conscious of or aware of um or inviting you to i'm inviting with an open mind and an open heart to be transformed by your presence in your presence do you do prayer first meditate first contemplate what's the order that's the order that i i start out with as a structure yes i start with prayer. Then I go into meditation and then I evolve into contemplation. But during that time, excellent question. Just excellent. During the time, let's assume I'm committed to a 30 minute sit that morning. And during that time, it is kind of a spiral dynamic like I get into my practice and then all of a sudden I find myself thinking. Now that's an interruption to the contemplative practice, but if it's something that's feeding me, I go with it. I'm very open. I wear it like a loose garment. Not undisciplined, I still have the container of what my purpose is. So I'm barely aware of my purpose in all three of the components but I allow the spirit to move me in it and through it um you had mentioned that you were trained in transcendental meditation I'm wondering how that would fit into with what we're talking about here as far as well it's been yeah no no it's great it's has been 45 or 50 years since I was exposed to Transcendental Meditation, but that was the memory that I had. It's a human development exercise and as such it will be biologically healthy. It will produce psychological harmony. It wil produce better relationships in terms of sociology. Everything that you just said The practice that you have is a quieting, settling, allowing yourself to become conscious of your consciousness through the use of a repetitive word they call mantra. So that in fact, you can sort of allow the chatter to slip away as you become aware that there's chatter. And so you're aware of your righteousness. That's all wonderful. And as you said, you could read several books on all of those benefits, biology, psychology and sociology. Absolutely. It's just not theology. Not once did you mention higher power or God as we don't understand it in terms of the reason that you do it and your experience with it. So all it takes now is the vision of and motivation for some type of a relationship with spirit. And then you don't have to change anything because you've reframed it. Did you hear that transition? It's so gentle, it's so subtle, but it is different though because it's talking about what your motivation coming from the latin word movere what moves us and what moves me in step 11 originally was to get guidance then when i met a man who explained the contemplative practice to me in a way that i could understand it and then do it then i understood it as a trend of spiritual transformational process so then i added all of that together that's what i want what you said biological health i want psychological emotional sobriety and harmony and maturity i want better relationships especially in my family but also with everybody else i will and and i'll get that as a byproduct of the function but my only purpose as a priority focus for doing uh meditation as i call meditation i'm going to change the word because i don't want to confuse them for doing my morning practice the only the primary motivation for me is to have a relationship with spirit. Everything else will come and has come. Great question. Now, I hope in an effort to answer your question and you answering mine because you confirmed my suspicion about Transcendental Meditation. It's a wonderful, healthy practice. all right and it ended incorporates probably prepares you for that slight little adjustment so that you can in fact make it an effective step 11 practice thank you in fact I and you'll hear it next week when we look at step 10 I call step 10 emotional sobriety that's the tool step 10 for emotional sobriety and steps 11 and 12 are the two cornerstones of spiritual sobriete the coin so you'll hear that next week but I wanted to put that it also in the context of this conversation I got a couple things it's off the topic of meditation but it's it's really pressing from page 13 I don't know if it's disturbances or frustrations but there's a couple of patterns in my life and the first one is but I'll go into this fear of failure and that I'm going to not be successful it blocks me from the Spirit of God you know you know I've heard somebody saying it might have been you if you don't work on it it's not going to change well i don't know if it's something later on in the step work i just needed to talk about it well i'm glad you did and just from an objective standpoint it sounds like you have a long exposure in your work and career to doing this work and you've done it successfully right yes so so the fear is baseless it's not based on any type of reality of your incompetence or your past experience of being embarrassed by failure exactly is that correct yes it's just something no no i understand what fear is it's not rational it's an emotion that's right and to answer one part of your question the step four inventory has three parts anger fear and dishonesty as I calibrated the actual terminology is used in the big book is resentment and fear and sex those are the three sections as Bill included the words I use anger and fear and dishonesty because they represent the words that reflect what he says what bill says in the twelve and twelve in step four instincts basic instincts gone awry and from my studies in biology and psychology I know that as animals our basic survival instincts are fight flight and freeze now giving that background which may not make any difference at all to you there is a section in the big book then in step 4 that talks about fear page 68 and it says a little bit like what you said there in terms of faith but it talks about fear and self-reliance trust on in God reliance and my understanding of fear is that there are only two natural fears that come from our very nature one is the fear of loud noises and the other is the fear of falling so the fear you're experiencing is an acquired fear the good news is if you acquired it and you have some speculation as to why you might have it and those are valid it's just fine but the good news is if your acquired it you can what the psychologists call extinguish it meaning get rid of it and the big book gives us a couple suggestions number one it says you make a list of your fears and then you ask why do I have it the man who put me through the steps then reinterpreted that by saying and then continue to ask the question of the answer that you put down so if I have a fear of failure because I'll get fired you ask yourself the question well what is my fear that comes up if I get fired well I won't have any income well what is the fear that comes up? If that's true, you hear I'm unpacking my fear by going deeper each time with the question. And pretty soon you come down to some area of an answer for yourself that might be psychological or it might be theological, but you'll just come to some answer. After all that's done, Bill says in the big book there on page 68, if all else fails, my terms, if all else fails pray because in fact you're powerless to get rid of your fears. You can analyze them, you can understand them, and you can talk about them as you have and are doing, but that won't necessarily get rid or even diminish the fear. My experience is then I pray specifically for the removal of this fear and I continue to lean into the reality of my job at the same time I'm experiencing the fear that has been somewhat disabling that's a lot did it help yes yes and I've got a lot of you know got some work to do one more thing real quick have you ever known of somebody that i've been married for 30 years got a loving wife beautiful family i've got an ex-wife been divorced for 35 years that hurt me as much as i've ever been hurt before your ex-life yes and anybody else would just let it go and not have anything to do i've not had anything to do but it's still this person pops in my head it's like an addiction but i the hurt not hurt not hurt just kind of mental obsession well you're taking us in some directions that we will eventually come in and do a deep dive in but let me no no i want to touch on this it's such an important issue i mean there's so many people on this call right now that are resonating with what you're talking about that what i'm saying to you is helping a lot of people um there's a book that i have begun saying is the second most important book i've ever read in my entire life the first book of course you might suspect is the big book because the bigbook is a textbook that gave me what i was looking for what was a practical methodology for transformation and and i had as i say studied to be a priest started to be psychologist studied all the human development kind and and and I did not change so that's why I have such reverence for and it has such a place in my priorities the big book but probably 20 years ago I was introduced to a book on forgiveness and I looked up the term forgiveness in a dictionary, watch my hand. Forgiveness is a decision to release them. Yeah, does that resonate? Exactly. And you know, the prayer of St. Francis says, to the extent that we release them, we're released. And the Lord's Prayer says, To the extent That We Forgive Them Their Debts, Our Debts Are Forgiven. It's one of those spiritual paradoxes. The name of the book is Forgive for Good by Fred Luskin. He's a clinical psychologist at Stanford, a professor there of psychology. And he wrote this book originally as his doctoral thesis 30 years ago on forgiveness and then converted it 25 years ago to a book that we could read as laypeople. And once I had done the steps, especially four through nine i realized that steps four through nine is the process of forgiveness from a spiritual standpoint fred luskin writes the process a total parallel with different vocabulary process a totally parallel process from a psychological standpoint we've done some work together and um and he has acknowledged that that we have a benefit the words are different but the process is the same i said to him he says yeah but you guys in the spiritual world in the 12-step world have a tremendous advantage and i said fred what's that he said you got god you've got a higher power he said i can't use that i'm a scientist i can t use that but it's the it is the powerful x component that brings it over the top for for the people who experiment with it does that help yes sir thank you i guess the sponsor that i had in in a way to take me through the 12 steps she sponsors a lot of people she's married just kids she's busy has a job and she doesn't keep on with people you know she turns it over and starts working with new people and turns set you free to sponsor other people how can someone continue to sponsor new people and have them sort of stack up you know like maybe over several years maybe you've sponsored 30 people and you can't continuously be in touch it depends on what you mean by sponsorship and and in in one sense it does stack up if in fact you start sponsoring people helping them they get some traction and then they don't need as much help and then you go on to other people which is absolutely wonderful uh which was my experience and i went to my step guide i've only had two sponsors but i've helped a lot of people and um i went to my step guide and i said exactly essentially what you said and he said hmm i only handle one person at a time so i never look at the multiples i just deal with one person at a time if god sends them i don't send them away then i talked to another man about that and he said hmm i sit down with my family once a month or once a year depending on the situation and i go over calendars in terms of what are the family events and what are my obligations and responsibilities and we work out our calendar and in all the white spaces aa owns me so i've never had a problem with that um but i deal with one person at a time i'm asked all the time how many people do you sponsor i literally don't know i don't keep track of how many i have their phone numbers all right but i i never go and count them that's not it's not important to me in fact it's important for me not to know because otherwise it becomes then an ego chore you need to determine in your own prayer and meditation what it is that you can handle so that you can maintain balance in your life because helping other people can be a black hole bottomless pit the way i sponsor is i give suggestions if they take my suggestions there will be outcomes and results if they don't take my there will be outcomes and results they have the dignity of choosing whether they want to take my suggestions or not and having the results and consequences that come from either taking it or not taking it i'm not responsible for their sobriety and i'm Not responsible for their death and I'm not attached to either one I just want to help now if you want to read a book anybody on sponsorship the one that I recommend I've read it three times is from hazelton uh it's called 12-step sponsorship by hamilton b and it's just well i consider it the best book on sponsorship i've come across there may be others but it's the only one that uh i recommend okay my question has to do with different types of meditation what what do you think about guided meditation or meditating with like ethereal music in the background i'm really practical does it help if it helps continue it if it doesn't help don't do it my own spiritual director was very clear in many of our conversations that some people can't sit and meditate but they can walk and meditate sponsor guys who run and meditate I sponsor a guy who surfs and meditate my spiritual director suggested that there are people that knit and crochet and that's part of an ability then to allow them to go into a wonderful deep meditation some people garden some people groom their dogs yeah so the point was be real practical what works to support you then then i'll come back to another question which is my favorite question anytime we have a conversation about meditation and that is why are you doing meditation and as long as you're really aware of why you're doing your meditation then anything that will support that focus is a benefit um i don't use music it's a distraction i'll use music to put me in a mood to sit quietly if i am feeling not quiet absolutely yeah Yeah, and one of the things that at least I think I understand about yoga is that yoga was a physical exercise that was originated to prepare somebody for meditation. Okay, well thank you. Well, and that reminded me that my spiritual director talks about walking meditation literally not walking like i do i walk every day for an hour and um i don't that's not my meditation time but it's it is sometimes very relaxing um he talks about a walking meditation where you're literally very slowly moving your feet forward i mean like a caterpillar going forward but and you're doing it maybe in a garden or in some private place where there is the motion but it's not any type of physical exercise it's just the motion where you're allowing yourself to be quite self-conscious if you will or conscious of your consciousness do you have any advice on antidepressants and taking and connecting with my higher power well first of all connect with your psychologist not not your doctor not your medical doctor and if you're in a 12-step program my preference would be not a psychiatrist oh okay a psychiatrist is trained as a medical doctor then advanced training as a psychoanalytic therapist through essentially from the Freud lineage I don't have any problem with that on the surface all right but the psychiatrist at least here i'm familiar with in california write too many prescriptions the easier softer way to deal with problems i much rather if you are looking for a therapeutic evaluation and process for you to use a psychologist and my personal preference is a phd clinical psychologist and there's lots of other qualified people to do therapy that's just my personal preference and a psychologist cannot write a script for prescriptions i'm 100 totally supportive of antidepressant medication where there's clinical depression and a medical doctor psychiatrist is the one to be able to evaluate that a psychologist can also do that um my wife is a good example of that she had what was determined to be clinical depression because of her sobriety she well she got sober first started the journey she heard in the rooms that if you're on any kind of medication like that you're not sober and that you need to be very, very circumspect about using any type of mind-altering drugs, medication. So given the little South Chicago Irish lady that she is, she said, I'm not going to take any medication. Well, she suffered her depression for a long time until the suffering got so bad that she in fact began taking the medication. And within a month or two, it takes that long to kind of get your i guess get for it to work in your system she began to really feel and after a year she really wow i'm on level ground now i think i can go off my medication and she did and she went back into the toilet and after about six months of suffering she went black on the medication because she was clinically depressed it was a biological deficiency and she needed to have that chemical balance lots of people are able to solve their depression by doing the steps but it's not clinical depression it's a some emotional kind of disturbance that creates a depression of frustration but a clinical depression comes from the biology now i am not a psychologist i am NOT a doctor i am Not a physician i am not a pharmacist um so i'm just sharing you some experience that i've had in dealing with this with the professionals i have no opinion on medication other than i can see where it helps but it's not a replacement for the steps and the steps will never uh be a replacement for medication my sense is i might be wrong but my sense is you have a hard time accepting reality because it's not going according to your script you have some belief that you shouldn't suffer you have some belief this disease shouldn't be this disease my sense is that you're not accepting the reality of your reality um yeah i mean i think that's probably true at some level i think part of it too herb is i don't trust myself i mean my sponsor keeps saying kristin you're doing so great you're going so well and i mean and i think it always gets back to there's this part of me that has always said no matter what i do it's wrong and maybe that's why that's when i brought it up from the very beginning is it's like and that's what i've been working in six and seven is like please release these thoughts in my head that it's wrong that i'm wrong and you know to just really work on affirming that i m okay no matter what you know that i am doing okay and i'm doing service and i m sponsoring and i' m you know i'm doing a lot of things but it's just that internal voice sometimes it's like you know where does this come from and why can't that's the compulsive voice not only with the food and the illness but there's this compulsive that says you're doing it wrong and maybe that's someone I guess I just need to keep turning over and then maybe get some additional information on healthy self-esteem and positive thinking Nathaniel Brandon this a clinical psychologist who's written many many books on self-esteem and you could google one of those and take a look at so what would it mean if you didn't have all of this negativity that in fact you've been talking about right because negativity it's a it's a poison in our system well sure yeah and i guess i'm just becoming more and more aware of it that that is the underlying story in my brain even with all this recovery and all this stuff that everyone else sees but there's still that belief that somehow i'm doing it wrong or it's not enough you know what's enough all right good so let's bring our formal session together uh to a conclusion with that serenity prayer as i've mentioned many times in my approach to the serenite prayer it's a prayer about reality it's a prayer our harmony and and our humility what can i influence what can't i influence i need wisdom to discern that reality is immutable and non-negotiable it's just what it is it's not right or wrong it's not healthy or unhealthy it's fair or unfair reality just is and it's the work of this work that we'll do here to become quite conscious of what we can and cannot influence and then what we're responsible to let go and to accept responsibility for. Please join me in serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenety to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference. Thanks everybody.