Resentment Inventory and Soul Surgery – Herb K – Workshop – Part 19 of 25 – Herb

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. My name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our new year and our continued journey on this path of spiritual awakening. Please join me in a commitment to having or at least receiving the gift of an open mind and an open heart. but 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 path and especially you. Please join me in the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serentity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Welcome this morning. So this is the process that we're in. We started with step 12, focused on a spiritual awakening we went to step 11 focused on the tool to promote as well as expand that spiritual awakening and then we went to step 10 another tool to make sure that our consciousness practice is as clean as possible inventory in the morning inventory during the day inventory at night keeping us our channel clear so that we can have this alignment and this effective relationship with the mystery with power and live our life in the flow. That's the word that's become dominant in my spirituality, flow. Life is a flow. To the extent I'm in alignment and in the flow my life really works smoothly and well to the extent that i find disturbance my life doesn't work so well spiritual awakening is not an event spiritual awakening is not a task it's not an event it's experience it's not a task it's a process and your process is unique to you don't try to use me as a model in terms of the stepping stones or the landmarks there are aspects of the work that I do you might want a model having accountability for instance having a daily practice to the best of your ability of prayer meditation we've entered into step four inventory we've looked at basic instincts gone awry anger as held in resentment you've looked at why you're angry what has caused it who are you angry at and then you looked deeply at your beliefs the lenses through which you look in column three trying to identify whether your lenses are warped and determining that in fact in some way they were you were not seeing reality as it is you were seeing reality as you are or is that you expect it to be or is that you want it to me and of course that's the source of suffering then Bill follows that up very easily and quickly by saying on page 60 C and 66 and we're as powerless to change that as we are powerless in our relationship to addiction. A definite correlation there. We're as powerless over our beliefs and refracting our lenses as we are over alcohol having no power at all. We can name it, we can analyze it, we can talk about it, we can write about it and all of that might help a little bit it might even help a lot but there are some very deep resentments they can only be dealt with in a relationship with power and we pray for their removal from us soul surgery I'm not praying for them I'm praying for me I'm inviting the divine surgeon to enter into my being and surgically remove the deep cancer and resentment out of my heart, out of soul, out of very being. And I do that until it's removed. It may go away sooner than later and then again it may go way later than sooner. Took about three months for the first one for me to disappear and then several weeks of a continuation of that practice all eight of them diminished and disappeared and never returned no there's the good news never return now I have a vital spiritual life and practice 10 11 and 12 on a daily basis so that is sort of an insurance policy that in fact I will stay in alignment and stay spiritually fit and we looked at the final phase of column 4 which is the motives underneath the underneath the underneath for our behavior motive coming from the Latin movere to move what moves us and Bill gives us five questions the heart of which is selfishness but he already told us that theoretically on page 62 selfishness dash self-centeredness exclamation point that's the root of our trouble well he meant that that wasn't poetry that was a spiritual science it's not a bad thing. Selfishness, self-centeredness is in fact how we're wired. We're built this way. It is our human structure built this way for survival. Instincts gone awry, he said. These are survival instincts of fight flight and freeze but of course they get corrupted in us because we're asleep dreaming that we're awake we don't know that we don' t know when we can't see that we don't see and we suffer and we don''t know the source of the suffering and we don't now how to stop the suffering because we don´t have or know about the resources until we come into a 12-step program and it says name them and talk about them in pray about them and the clouds in us begin to dissipate and the sunlight in us begins to shine brighter that dimmer switch analogy and we go on then to the fear inventory that's where we're at looking at our fears page 67 starts that process it's a very simple process in the big book the man who helped me the second time with the step work gave me uh the third column extension broaden my experience because he gave me definitions of words and instructions on the applications of those words in the third column of the resentment inventory those instructions that i gave you those instructions that you've experienced that worksheet that's not in the big it's what i call the expanded third column and because it works I keep it even though I'm a big book literalist and fundamentalist I think Bill would want us to unpack it in ways that he didn't have a experience with and therefore he didn't write about it but with our evolution in terms of science and knowledge and psychology and human behavior we're able to in fact broaden and deepen the experience it's the same with the fear inventory bill said name your fears make a list and ask why you have it well this man says cuz he's just a very analytical guy I guess he said well then look at the answer that you get and ask it again and again and again until in fact you're honoring the invitation at the beginning of the step process on page 64 that bill says we get to the exact nature of the trouble the source of the difficulty not just naming and describing the emotions and the suffering and the relationship problems that we have as the result of our instincts going awry but literally getting underneath the underneath the underneath and that's why i can very confidently say that we penetrate the unconscious it's my experience in therapy perhaps that's been your experience in some way it was mine a little bit but not much not in the revolutionary sense of change of behavior that changed radical change of personality that i experienced during the step work because we got underneath it the source of the corruption in us and i don't mean that in a blaming way i just mean it in a naming way he refers to fear as bracketed in the third column so we've already begun to name our fears in the 3rd column in the 4th column there are on the worksheet there are two questions number four and number eight that address fears not to analyze it but just to name it and park it in preparation for the fear inventory process he calls it an evil and corroding thread the fabric of our existence is shot through with it well think about the clothes that you have right now and the multi colors of the threads that are woven interwoven very part of the essence of the clothing that you're wearing on the carpet that you may be standing on that's fear in our lives it's it's like anger it's a basic instinct anger is to fight fear is to run we think fear ought to be classed with stealing it causes a lot of trouble then he gives us that simple instruction on page 68 which I've just referred to but it gives us also the answer immediately it's very accurate it's It's very philosophically and psychologically profound, but it doesn't help me to know that self-reliance is the source of my problem and that God reliance is the source of My solution. Oh theoretically it does, I can kind of like go, oh yeah. But until I touch it at the experiential level through unpacking the fears and I see the various dimensions of self-reliance I realized my actual agnosticism how much I absolutely rely on myself and how I have in my life lived as if God was irrelevant oh I had no problem discussing God and believing in God he said but it never touched my feet I didn't behave as if it were true that was that discovery at 10 years of sobriety very impactful as i did steps two and three using the set aside prayer and a new step guide who had a different experience in different instructions the ones that i've integrated so that you have those earlier than i got them and can challenge yourself on what is your decision about power and what is your decision about a relationship with power steps two and three respectively and so i see that fear and trust are not mutually exclusive you hear it in the room sometimes if you're in fear you don't have trust and if you trust you won't have fear well nice try but it's not even theoretically correct let alone factually correct Fear and trust are, in my experience, a reciprocal relationship. Think teeter-totter. To the extent that I have fear, I don't have trust. But I have a little bit of trust, just not enough to deal with the fear. To the extend that I trust, I do not have fear. But I have fear all the time. I just manage it more effectively when I have more trust, a reciprocal relationship. To the extent that I have one, I don't have the other. To the extend that I had the other, I didn't have one. But I had them both, which dominates. You've heard the story about the two wolves, the dark wolf and the white wolf. Which one wins in the fight? The medicine man says, the one you feed the most. That's just good psychology. The law of attraction at its best. I'm not supporting or promoting the book Law of Attraction, nor the philosophy. I believe it's too materialistic. But from a psychological standpoint, it's positive psychology. To the extent that we think positively, we will attract positivity into our lives, people and events. And we will live a healthier, longer, and more content life. The evidence is in. There's been 20 to 30 years of scientific study, statistically valid research. I believe I've given you a bibliography on happiness. I did an extensive study on it about three years ago. Perhaps there is a better way. We think so. I'm on page 68. For we are now on a different basis, the basis of trusting and relying upon God. Oh, yeah. When did that happen? Step three, right? I made a decision to turn to be in alignment and have a relationship. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. Here's the contrast. Finite me, not trustworthy because I'm limited by my finiteness. infinite God, whatever that mystery is meaning without limits powerful totally present unconditional love by my definition anyway a very big contrast I can rely on that the next sentence I was challenged and I'm challenging you we are in the world to play the role God assigns this man said that's a wonderful statement make it a question what is the role your role your specific destiny that God has assigned it's just a question I'm not trying to teach theology here it may not even be good theology but it's a great question what's my purpose what's my value what's my mission and ministry do i have one put a big question mark in the margin there because you turn that into a question what is the role that is my unique destiny the answer to the question is so important in this next sentence just us to the extent that we do as we think God would have us and humbly rely on God does God enable us to match calamity with serenity complicated sentence translation if you want peace and contentment find out who you are what you are and live accordingly if you won't serenity find out what your destiny is and do it to the best of your ability and you will have a life in the flow and the life of peace and a life that minimizes suffering I had a startling experience the other day most of the time I speak spontaneously as you know and um of course I have a frame of reference and I have an outline of my experience through the step process but I was speaking to a group of men and I said spontaneously as part of my talk I haven't suffered in 31 years Wow I had to stop. It startled me. Was I telling the truth? Or am I intimidated by a group of men testosterone-based and I want to really look good? And as I paused and thought in prayer about that statement, no, it's absolutely true. I have had pain. You all know my wife died a year and a half ago i've just now begun to i think stabilize it and deal with have dealt with the grief effectively the change in my life after 52 years of living with that woman the last 35 which were just fabulous because we were both not drinking and we were both pursuing our spiritual life i've had pain lots of speed bumps in life but i don't suffer because i'm not attached to it i live in reality more so every day and the more i live in reality i'm in the flow i don'suffer i just kind of go with it i get rocked about bounced about a little bit but this is just life and i navigate it and i take corrective action we never apologize to anyone for depending upon our creator we can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness paradoxically is the way of strength we're talking about faith here the verdict of all the ages is that faith means courage you had terrific courage in step two to choose as you're invited to on page 53 god is or god isn't what is your choice because there was no evidence there is no certitude there is no knowledge but you chose it and you've been operating more or less faithfully on that decision since then. The same with step three, choosing a relationship. You might get a glimpse of some certitude with an experience. You might have get an experience with some emotion that reinforces and confirms the validity of these choices. But it's not normally where we live. Faith is a decision. It's very empty most of the time, but it's the decision that is the basis of our direction of our life. All people of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize for God. Instead, we let God demonstrate through us what God can do. We ask God to remove our fear. Oh, there it is again. Name it. Analyze it. Talk about it. Revel in it. absolutely but in the final analysis you can't get rid of your fear and so pray just like in resentment to remove the fear anytime the big book is suggesting that we talk to god that's a prayer a suggestion for prayer and direct our attention to what god would have us be notice he's contrasting in this paragraph from the prior paragraph in this paragraph he's saying be who you are to be in the prior paragraph he said do what you're destined to do they're correlated of course but it's an interesting contrast quite deep bill was a mystic he saw very deeply into human nature and the path of transformation and awakening because he'd had that experience himself at once we commence to outgrow fear begin it's not an event dimmer switch to the extent that we stay gently pressed up against it the dimmer which goes up a notch at a time a notch at a time, a notch at a time, and day at a time. Some action, some actions, some action. We keep our shoulder gently, gently leaning into the dimmer switch so that it doesn't go backwards and that it does go forward because it's hardwired to go backwards. That's how we are as human beings. We're programmed in a way to go to sleep and that's why this process is about awakening you remember Gurdjieff the Russian philosopher I quoted some time ago all human beings are asleep dreaming that they are awake and this process about awakening and staying awake that's my inventory such a major part of the process let's close with the serenity prayer God grant me the serentity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference thanks everybody