Step One and Unmanageability – 4 Seasons Workshop – Part 7 of 8 – Don

When we come back from our break, we're going to then talk about the medicine wheels concepts and laws And how do they fit two steps because then they make you want to look forward to doing a step So let's take about a 14 minute break This really helps me a lot, but he does it in such ways That I never forget it like he draws things on the ground and things but when I was talking to him about a problem one time and his one showed me he said there's a two move there's two things that you need to know where you are and where you're going as soon as you have that then everything can move so you can't move if you just have this you can move if you just had that you'd need to have them both but he said to me he what you do too much he said is, you asked a question of why. He said, now that's a different place. Why? He says, it's like there. So what I really want to know is where am I now in relationship to where I'm going? But he said, Don, he says, what you do, he said you. Why did I do that? Why did that happen? Why? You see, he'll do a why dance. He'll give me his drum like that. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? And sometimes we why for months. Sometimes for years. See, but that is an ego trick question. It is. See, the ego don't want you to grow. It wants you to stay. It knows that if you get these two answers, you will grow and start to move. See, why is an insane question. I'm talking about in terms of moving. What happens if I know why? Then they'll say, well, why that? Why? Then see, now you have to dance again. So when we come into these steps, it's about coming on that red road. So in step one, you locate. In step two, you create the vision. and then it allows you to go on, you see, to the next steps. So does that make sense? But why? What a why question. We dance sometimes for a long time. We don't need to do that. But sometimes people even guide us to that why dance too much. It's too much See, we have in recovery, we have to get ourselves well so we can help our people. And we don't need to, you know, while it, while our way there. Okay, any questions on that? So do you think that you could, in this manner, personally do the first half of step one? The mind map works pretty good because it triggers levels even. You know, if you take them out two or three levels, it's pretty easy to do in doing that work. All right. Then we want to go on to the next exercise. And if you look in this book on page 13, these questions there's nine questions these questions come out of the big book on page 52 and these are what's called from the paragraph called the unmanageability paragraph so I'll just read it really quick in this paragraph some of you recognize it, it says we have to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems the same readiness to change our point of view. That's like the mouse and the eagle, our readiness to change, look at it differently. Then it makes nine statements. It says we were having trouble with personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were a prey to misery and depression. We couldn'T make a living. We had a feeling of uselessness. We're full of fear. We are unhappy. We couldN'T seem to be a real help to other people. That's called the unmanageability paragraph. So all we've done is taken those statements, we were having trouble with personal relationships, and flip them into a question. You might have problems with personal relationship. See I need to locate in that area of unmanagability what are the results currently going on in my life in terms of relationships? How am I doing? See, in that area. So what we want to do is to break into work groups again and do another mind map. So we want altogether there's nine questions here. So we want the men into two groups this time and the women into two groups. We would like the men's group, we would like you to take a look at unmanageability in personal relationships. We want the group one of the women to also look at unmanageability in personal relationships so one way uh to do that is you take a look at relationships like one way sometimes i look at the second part of step one is i say to myself there's nine islands if i could look at my life that way there's nine islands one is personal personal relationships the second question says my emotional nature full of fear misery depression let's say that I could get in a helicopter and I would look at my island personal relationships and I could from the point of view of the eagle so if I just get like in a helicopter and I say today I'm going to go look at I'm going to observe me in relationships. So I get in that helicopter, go up in the air, I fly over to a little island that's got all the people that I've been in relationships with and then I could just stop that helicopter and I'd just look down and I could watch myself and another person. So say it would be, I would just, could hover over that so I would look at me and my children. Then I could move over just a little bit and I look at me and my mate. And I look at me and somebody at work. And what I want to look down and see is how am I managing that? So you think back to your experiences. So say it's you and your spouse. And you think back to like how do you handle that? So you see them do something then you watch you, how do you do it? Am I trying to maneuver them? Am I trying to hit one of their buttons? Am I trying to make them get pissed do I put fear in them am I withholding information do I give them the silent treatment see I want to take a look at what is going on there how do I do my children or whatever that relationship is but when I observe it I don't want to see what are they doing only what I'm really looking for and when they did that how am I reacting to what they're doing do I lie, do I manipulate am I cheating am I attacking them am I withholding do I get angry do I run, do i attack how do I handle that conflict in relationships get the idea for that but I want to look at me my part of it so you look at the whole thing so when you look at unmanageability in relationships then I want you to do a mind map on how are you reacting to what is going on there. See, I need to know what to own. Now, you say, yeah, but they're doing this. That's true. And what they'redoing is unfair. That's truth. But how areyou reacting towhat they are doing? It doesn't matter what it is. And the thing is, is to don't judge it, you know. this isn't about judging what's going on it's just about observing it for all be darned look at it, look at it, see I need to get an idea of how am I behaving and reacting not the reasons but I just need to see what my behavior is does that make sense the second question it says we couldn't control our emotional nature. So that, you will see, isn't a question. It's how do I do my emotional nature? So what I want to look at emotionally is when I'm in it, when I am in the emotion then how do react? What do I? So I would take that little helicopter ride and I would go to the next island. Emotional nature. So all I would do is look at, when I get over there, say one of my emotions is anger. So I'm with another person, so I just watch. What do I do? See, I see it taking place. I get that tension feeling inside. Slam the door, out the door I go. See,I won't talk. I come back and I look. If you don't talk for months, you won't say anything. See, you freeze up. where you go and you will retaliate. You know how sometimes you'll leave a place or whatever and you sit in your car and I'm going to go back and I am going to kick their ass and then I'm gonna do this and I will go there and I'll trick them and let the air out of their tires and then you just go fantasizing and all the stuff you're going to do to them. You know that could be a way that I react. How do I behave when an emotion is there? What happens when I'm happy? See? Do I start to look around? Oh no, when's the other shoe going to drop? See, it can't stay like this. So you get the idea of that? Just to look at some emotions and see how are we controlling it or is it controlling us? When I get angry, when I look at it, do I just have to do what it says? Do I make, like after it's done, do I feel really shameful? Like after I run my lips or whatever, then afterwards I make a little vow. I'm not going to do this again. I'm now going to do this skin. I promise. Then the next time I do it again. See, and I feel more guilt and more shame. Or does it lead me to the drink or does it leave me to a drug? Does it? How does that work? So we would like if we can just get the men over here and the women over there. That would be the easiest. We divide them into two groups then, and give one of them personal relationships and the other one emotional nature. Here, oops. I'll get it probably done for now, huh? The one they did on the personal relations? Uh-huh. Uh-uh. We started out with our children and I guess the first thing we had was a lot of fear. We were insecure about how we were raising them or, you know, things that we were doing because often it wasn't right. Financial insecurity which caused us to sometimes make them feel guilty and shameful oh, you can't have this, you cannot have that because we don't have those. I think yet most of us can say we spent that money on other things. It caused them hardship. Someone mentioned that their stepchildren caused them to have safety fears, gave them a lot of double messages. Conditional love, couldn't love them. They did something good or bad. We gave them our love depending upon what they were doing. It was very frustrating as a parent. Most of us, if we go back to our parents, didn't learn how to be those kind of parents. So there's a lot of frustration in that because anger, shame, guilt, remorse and sadness, jealousy, abandonment, neglectful, selfish, trying to be perfect, abandon them emotionally, intellectually, and physically, spiritually. So we started that with our children like that. Some of the people didn't have kids, but they said some of the same things. With our parents, where did we go? We went to men. We had two different things. Some of us, with relations with men, we chose men who were alcoholic. Other people chose men who were codependent, who were saviors, rescuers. In all of it, we're manipulative, trying to change them, calm them, control them. Some people were super responsible because their alcoholic men weren't. There was a lot of emotional shutdown, a lot of pain which caused to act out, very abusive, sex addicts, lies, stealing, having affairs, threatening, a lot of fear of rejection. Someone plotted murder for every one of them. Tried to make them miserable and continually keeping confusion in the relationship. Lots of confusion. Also very self-righteous. Playing the victim to them there, playing mom. Lots of fear. Trying to change them. Let's see, where did we go from there? I think we went to ourselves. How we felt about ourselves, how we reacted to ourselves, we were very fearful, disappointed in our behaviors and actions, led to a lot of shame and guilt, felt inferior to others, low self-esteem, gross, a lot of self-pity. Why is this happening to me? Bewildered. What is happening to me? Confused. Suicidal. A lot of anger and self-hate towards ourselves. Towards our creator, a lot of us said that it was non-existent. There was no feeling of creator. A Lot of fear. A Lot of aloneness. Real vague about any kind of relationship that there maybe testing how powerful that person might be, mistrustful, ambivalent, uncaring, punishing, anger, sense of loss, powerless, undeserving and unworthy. Part of that was the things that we had done, the things we had experienced, how we were, caused us to be real mistrustfull and believed that no matter what, we were going to help. No matter what there was gonna be no higher power that was gonna help us because of the things that we had done, the way that we were. Towards the parents, the relationship with the parent's reactions, a lot of guilt, a lot shame, abusive, neglectful, abusive emotionally, spiritually, physically, sexually. lot of double messages a lot of conditional love we found that it was real generational with the children um generational dysfunction and abandonment a lot of the same things in our relationship with the children are there's our relationship towards the employer out to get me never satisfied became workaholics rr perfectionist Lied, skipped work, stole money Jealous of co-workers Irresponsible Self-justified Just not putting in whatever it was That we were supposed to do Most of them probably got fired Somewhere down along the line We went ahead at the end Since there was some time And tried to think about how we were today And with ourselves Forgiving Nurturing self-respect learning or teachable willing to learn and accepting um someone's still suffering criminating for days still and with our creator understanding opening accepting loving kind forgiving strong not alone prayerful try to learn the lessons as they come people say it was their best friend they felt very loved and it was awesome also they're still that willful, that self-will which causes unmanageability in certain areas of our lives. Same mistake gets done over and over and feel a lot of shame and guilt over that. What do you think? Huh? I think we should just take more today. Well, let's see. The relationship between step one into is what? Where are we now in relationship to where are we going? So you're listing your perfection is causing unmanageability? Is that what this is? We're looking at the second half of the first step. We're look at unmanageability. Right, there were only two. Almost a self-determining thinking and a willful thinking. So are these issues causing unmanagability in your life? Yes. Can perfectionism cause unmanigability? Yes. So, what was your question? So, you're really looking at in that step is when I look at the results in my life today these are the results. This is what's in the water coming from the lake. These are the result that I see does that make sense these are the results that I am experiencing and that's the best I've seen in terms of looking at the results at what can happen just in personal relationships because it just drives you nuts trying to, you know in a very, very time consuming energy consuming loss of sleep just feeling insane and powerless and trying to whatever. Could we have the men do theirs on relationships? George The group of men that I sat with, we centered ourselves with ourselves. We guarded ourselves. Looking down from the view of a helicopter, we tried to ascend how we felt and how we viewed things during the past few days. Because of guilt, self-hatred, investment, lack of confidence, self-will, self self-confidence control of our emotions are always mostly out of control okay with that in mind we move to our family life which other be wife or girlfriend and there we discussed the possibilities of financial situation there's never enough money for me my beer what the hell you don't need no I didn't wear diapers, she was a hanker jib. Very gay, very selfish. Not enough money. Withdrawn. Didn't want to share anything with anybody. The reason for getting drunk because the wife was always nagging at me. The ex-wife is always naggin'. Sexual relationship, it was either too much or not enough. Not trusting, a lot of jealousy. When you're drunk and you're carrying on some other man who looks at her, you're going to get not jealous of him, not her, but him. Anger. It's all anger. Then I moved on to our relationship with our children and there was a lot of, not any support, physical support as they were working on the school projects. I couldn't be bothered with that. I'm speaking for the group but when I say I, I mean as a group. Couldn't be bother with that, just sitting in the pickup getting drunk and go in there and spend time with you. with you quality times it's known now there's food projects uh what else have we up here pardon me just ignoring them they were just a piece of furniture that was in the way but they held out of the way i don't have time to bother with you and you can get drunk Then we dropped on down to our parents and how we sort of looked at them. There was a lot of anger, we were jealous, rebellious. We defined them that no matter what they said they were wrong. Another reason to go get drunk or skip school or whatever age group you had to be at the time. We touched on love. A big exclamation point, it should be a big question mark there on the ballot. Love was there but we couldn't show it. And this goes for the children and the wife or girlfriend environment. It was there, but we had a bass-ass backward ways of showing it. Just didn't work. Just didn' t work. We moved over to co-workers and employers. There was a lot of jealousy involved, backstabbing, creating turmoils to try to get ahead of the political game at any corporate or industry level. The big head, I always knew more than that other one so I had to get paid more type of thing. Which ended up into disputes with the administration. Getting fired. Getting ass-fired. Neighbors and the community life. We've always had disputes, uh, trespassing. Turn your horses loose, let them feed on the neighbor's apple trees. He won't care. So he comes after you with a shotgun, then he cares. Anger, disagreement, fear, self-will against in the community. i personally was in a small community of edgewood out north here about 20 22 years out there and i couldn't be bothered with them i couldn' t go vote on the neighborhood to change the name of the post office or any of that stuff that was my personal experience with the community my neighbors i ignored them until i needed something friends friends i think we could sort of classify as neighbors in the community although i had no friends in my neighborhood again i'm speaking for myself all my friends were somewhere else because they knew better they had to move away one thing that i feel that we should have touched on and we didn't apologize we neglected what the ladies did i thought up here the creator that was a good one just we just blew past it just blew past us any questions on it is there any questions on that on that one I think it's really good we were looking at just gender wise this feels very comfortable yes I felt like looking at the unmanageability of my life back in my drinking days was not nearly so useful as it would have been had we focused on today, how is my life unmanagable? Or, now that I don't drink, does my life suddenly become manageable? Or can I now manage my life in sobriety? That exercise seems to me would have been more helpful today to help me acknowledge yeah, my life is unmanageable today, sober. Because what am I going to do about the person I was eight years ago? Well, the purpose of that is to give a format that you can go do it personally. Somebody who's in maybe six months or a year they will have that if you're sober longer you probably will have you tend to have almost as much but you'd have different content in it but still be an issue yeah or a degree of that you had something Debbie I know that I can relate to most things that are on the male side as well It's just, I think a part of it is just what we look at first. Oh, yeah. Because I can relate to it and see the effect of it. And I don't know about the things that they can do inside of us. It's a matter of what we pull out first as we're going through, what we feel first, that immediate reaction, you know, and then it gets down to all those causes and issues are all there as oncologists. I guess that's what makes us all oncology. We need to relate to each other as a whole anyway. You know, we don't have all this AA together as long as that relationship is the same. But it needs to be. okay can we have the women who did the one on emotional nature we couldn't control our emotional nature we started with an image of a volcano thinking of it in several different levels and this bottom level we thought were our childhood or real uh primitive or early uh emotions that all got together in here and they're good ones and bad ones unworthiness powerlessness ecstasy joy love guilt our spirituality the neglect abandonment terror violation and trauma that we suffered fear shame inadequacy um trust hope and rage and the image being that this is all under there boiling away and then the mountain itself of the volcano is all those things which we put around ourselves to protect us from all those feelings underneath and all those motives And what we get is sex, what we came up with in here was development of sexism, need for control, whatever that is, prejudice, justification of all these things, no self-esteem or low self-esteem. substance abuse promiscuity codependency accomplishments greed envy and always and this is our river of denial here and all these things will also cause cracks these are things are made up our mountain is made up of these things but they all also break out of our river denial and cause cracks and violation but while we're still under pressure here different things come out and our masks come out our masks covering ourselves codependency wall emotional wall anger, depression, dormantism. Physical ailments. On the top of the list is PMS. Migraines, stomach ulcers, vision problems, cancer, lines on our face, gray hair, diabetes, overweight, arthritis, anorexia, bulimia, nervous tics. We become lonely. We are isolated. We have self-pity. We use creativity as an outlet of these emotions, but good things can come from that. Escapism, manipulation, religious fanaticism as opposed to spirituality, shopping, soap operas, sex, gambling, the need to have things, possessions, pulling us in. we become overachievers or underachievers we run we are spiritually bankrupt at that time we use charm we enable and we take care of people and this is what's happening and the result of which is when our temperature here on the side goes up and it blows we can experience evil in our lives through others and through ourselves And at that point, we become spiritual or we die. We have suicide in our lives, strange mental blank spots, relapsing, uncontrolled rage, binge eating, or all kinds of obsessions, psychotic breaks, total recklessness, irresponsibility, screaming, Unhealthy relationships, basically entire breakdowns of all... Good thing. Good huh? Good job. That's really good. Unhealthy relationship, basically, entire breakdown of all.... Good thing, good huh? Good job. That's really good. Do you feel like the men do that emotional nature? I feel like this was done by the second grade compared to that one. I think what we did was we started this how good are we at controlling our emotional natures and we started off it seemed like with today and kind of digressed or kind of moved into years ago and drinking and drugs so it covers all territory and we start with anger and we couldn't control that very well out of anger all sorts of things came with anger resentment jealousy shame guilt envy suicide child abuse moodiness spitefulness violence abuse all sorts of health issues, stress, depression. And one of the first things that was stated was that anger is a cover for fear and so you're in a fearful area that you can't control when you're In that anger area. We had rage, loss of control, and then that went into all of the things that might be said which started out with fuck you, I don't give a damn, I hate you, I never want to see you again, I'm leaving or get the hell out and then you've been replaced that was all in anger we had greed gambling, fraud workaholism dishonesty, stealing conning, lying we had love We had sex, places. I'm not sure what that meant, but love of places, I think. The bars. Yeah, the bars, etc. Life, addiction, abuse, insecurity, security, drinking, drugs and booze. Then we had excitement. These are all the ones that were listed. from excitement was danger, wild and crazy behavior, risk-taking, violence, theft, and adrenaline, and open-mindedness and closed-minded. Then jealousy, envy, insecurity, self-pity, violence, loss of conscience, and jail. And then fear and sadness were true. All right. So does that make sense when you take a look at unmanageability of those certain areas? You guys, this is really good. I mean, and I know accumulatively it doesn't mean everyone has to have every one of these. But it's to give an idea of which one is mine that's causing issues. So any questions on that as a process upon how to look at the first half of Step 1 of the unmanageability? All right. Now, I'd like you to go back in those same work groups, and what I'd Like you to do this time is take that information. So remember the relationship between Step 1 and Step 2. So in this area of personal relationships is Step 1, so then to create that vision. relationships so in other words if I take that information from step one now I'm going to take that unmanageability and build a vision so the question is came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore me to sanity so the questions is how would I have me be in that same situation if If they didn't change, am I willing to believe that there's a power? She came to believe that a power greater could. So what would be the picture or the image or the mind map of how I would be in that relationship whether they changed or not? And not asking the question well how would the creator do that or when is he going to do it but does the power exist to make me that way? you take a look at these emotional natures you do the same thing where you have anger and all of those normal reactions so then you take that emotion and you build that vision how would you have you be see we're really looking at the development in step two of the being not the doing we are human we are spiritual beings we are humans we are not human beings not human doings So we really set the vision in step two to put in the vision the being. Now, you know, if I just take a look at myself, say I really have a temper and I'm really angry and I know that. So say that my mind map, I write that out, anger, I'm jealous, I attack, I, you now, whatever. So then I take that to step two and I start to create that vision. Well, what would it look like if you didn't have one? Well, I'd be very patient, I would be understanding, I'd be kind. Then there's little people. Like when you write steps, they come to little people, they're about this tall. So you'll start to write and say I've got a temper and I'm angry or whatever. So I'll start the writing while I could see if it was working I'd very, very patient and I'd tolerant. That's when the little people come they hop up and they tug on your ear and they say who are you trying to shit? Patient, yeah right. See? So you've got to kind of snap the little people off. So all of step two is done outside of the current belief system. This is very, very important. All of step 2 is always done outside of the current belief system It's in the land of impossibilities beyond what you can any way ever possibly see to the world's greatest whatever. So it's all done out here. It's beyond your belief system so all of step two work is done beyond the belief system so came to believe that a power greater than myself could say I was an angry person temper make me gentle, kind, loving see patient so very often when you build it you have to snap off the little people because they whisper in your ear you be patient, kind and tolerant right you've been this way for four years but do not get trapped by the question how is it going to happen so you don't worry about that or when when is that one gonna happen right so i want you to take those back into the same groups yes and just to build that vision so what you'll end up doing is creating that vision in those two areas that we're using for example personal relationships emotional nature and build those mind map visions for step two. Yes? I was going to ask, how does this relate to like the sane and sound ideal of a union force? Well, when you get the relationship, if I'm asking seeing your question right, let's just say... Well, the reason I ask it is because to me this is a lot like setting the sane and sound ideals that I'm going to have to help you that's the instruction in sex inventory well the way that I look at if you take a look at the steps it's very precise and what to do every instruction is there it's how I look at that because if you take a look at the current reality what's going on now and you create that vision what these steps do it's why with their vision set to step 2 becomes your spiritual awakening in step 12 because the rest of the steps sort out the blockages all the character defects that are standing between you and that ideal that you set. And it's a spiritual process that starts to reveal that. So suppose I don't own something up there. Suppose I leave it out. It doesn't show up. It's whatever I own, set the vision for, then that is where the conflict occurs to reveal where the blockages are so I don' see it it's very very powerful you grow very powerfully very quickly and very sound it's a conflict guiding system right this this is the conflict that created made a system of harmony so it's the system of conflict through the steps gives you the harmony It will show you the blockages. You leave it out and don't own it, you're not going to see it. You cannot fix that what you don't admit is broke. It's like you can give away what you do not have in a number of different ways. So if you could go back into your same work groups and create that vision of step two. If you need to take those sheets with you, feel free to take now we also know that the principle for step two is hope so the first the principle for step one is honesty be honest recognize acknowledge recognize acknowledge that whatever is going on, this is me that's going on. So what you would have when you finish step one and two, you'd have these nine areas in step one. Then you take that and you create these nine areas of the vision in step two, just like you did. You just did two of them. Now why is it that it turns out to be the principle of hope? So we want to explain that very quickly. the the creative subconscious has two other functions one of its second functions is to solve and to resolve problems that's one of it's functions anytime I give it a problem it has to go solve it and the third function it has is to turn on my drive or the energy system So I have, every time I give my mind a problem, it turns on an energy system to solve that problem. So I Have a creativity system inside of my mind and an energy system. So the human being is always designed to have order in its life. Order in the life means that whatever I picture in here, I see it outside. so let's just say that I was born with my fingers together and that's the way I was born, then one morning I wake up and the alarm clock goes off and I reach off and shut the alarm clock off and go that's when I noticed it in my mind my fingers are supposed to be together and they're apart so our energy system kicks on and I have to go and restore it back to order, now I have order in my life so it's always working to restore order So let's say I live in this house for 50 years. Let's say that I've lived in it for 15 years, and then all of a sudden somebody gives me an idea how to paint the house. Now all this time nothing has bothered me. So what they do is through my senses I start to paint a picture inside of my house of what would that house look like if it was painted. So over a period of time I will create a new vision inside of my mind of this house and it's going to be blue and it'll be a white trim and there'll be a picket fence. So I get the idea in my mind of the end result. So I create inside of myself a vision. Now what happens as soon as I get that vision inside, say I come driving up to the house one day and I pull in the driveway or whatever and I look at it and I go, Jesus, look at that wreck. Who could live in such a thing? The paint's peeling and even the boards are cracked. So what happens is when I put the vision in, then I become discontent with the old. All of a sudden I notice where it's broke so it's a conflict system kicks in. When this created subconscious, what it does is anytime it sees a difference. So when I have a picture of the house that is blue and it's got white trim and it is painted and I look at it, I have just given myself a problem. A problem is anytime what I see out here is different from here. So it turns on an energy system, a creativity system. So I take vacation, I go to the hardware store, I get the paint, I get to brush as I come home. See, I set everything up and I start painting. Monday, Monday night, Tuesday, Wednesday night, anybody comes along, I give them a brush. All right, I'll paint, get here, scrape here, do this. Paint Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Then Sunday afternoon, I take the last stroke of the brush, I step back and I look at the house. Pictures match. That house out there looks like how the picture is and you just go, it claps right on the lawn. I couldn't have went another day. Am I glad I finished it now? No. If it was another day of painting, your energy system would have stayed intact. So you get the idea? Now what happens in step two? First you look at the unmanageability. You look at the old house. Then you go to step two and you start looking at this vision of myself. I see myself to be spiritual, patient, tolerant, kind, having courage. So I start to put that idea inside of my house. Now what happens? I put that possibility of that vision in step two. It turns on a problem-solving system and it gives me the drive and the energy to go to step three. I can't wait to do four. I've got to do five. I want to do six. I'm going to do the amends. Because you're working off an energy system And that's why step two is a principle of hope. Hope means I create, do you really think I could be that way? See? But you look at yourself and you're not. And that' s what you want. You want to create the discontent. Get the idea of that? That's why you do step two with that vision. And then once you get that vision, you see, remember in step 11 where it says be careful of resting on your laurels? What that means is the pictures match. When the pictures match your energy system shuts down and you're resting on laurels. You might be setting yourself up for a drunk See it's when the pictures matter so what we're doing in this process is to put this vision inside To turn on an energy system to look forward to doing the next step I can't wait see so instead of trying to avoid meetings and doing that you just start Gathering information. I want to grow I want do this, but there's an energy inside also is turned on Does that make sense? All right, let's see what some of these visions are. Let's take this one here first. This one is on what? Is this personal relationships? Yeah, could we do this one? See, it's really nice too about this one. It even has a vision, a picture and branches. And so when the mind sees that, the mind gets all excited about that. Alana? Alana. harmony laughter wisdom serenity balance love joy caring purpose and here's integration connectedness selflessness, purpose, fearlessness, growth, intuition, dreams, financial security, and it goes down to the roots of spiritual growth and our mother, the earth. Unconditional love, creativity, peace, songs, sincerity, opportunity, patience, kindness, respect, humility, consciousness, reality, celebration, spontaneity, courage, hope. sharing, and play. I have an affirmation. I celebrate my life. I am a courageous, strong, connected, worthy woman joyfully, abundantly sharing my gifts from the Creator. Amen. And I see you take those hard statements like that's why affirmations also work because when you say that with that emotion I see myself as a strong woman whatever and when you feel that going in you create that new image and it turns on an energy system that's just an excellent excellent a way to look at that step if you say that every day it turns out more energy and more energy more energy see and it just continues to drive always for that picture now remember we talked about the medicine wheel teachings that says there are two worlds that exist seen world unseen world both are run by a set of principle laws and values if i design my being or conduct my thinking in harmony with those principle laws and values there's certain results i will see in my life so if i develop my being serenity wisdom caring humor spontaneity that's it that's it you see so as we go through the rest of the steps it removes those blockages and all of a sudden you come out to see that's where you were all along, then this is the one that drives. So the creative subconscious, as you develop that picture, it maintains sanity, you must be like that new picture. So anytime you act dishonest, tension will occur in your system. It'll correct for the mistake to get you back to be honest. If you don't care, see, it'll correct so you're just naturally caring. So it's a way, step two always comes out that way to align with those principles that the Great Spirit gave to us. As you live like this, you're going to have good results. Okay? Do we have this group here? My name's Good. I'm an alcoholic. Good. With the thought that we had created all these problems, and most of these subjects have got the problems because of what we did, and that we must change our thoughts, and to grow spiritually we must grow downwards inside ourselves, and cut some of these off. We created a circle with a vision, a will with a vision of self-restore and address the subject of peace, action, love, freedom, realistic self-appraisal, tolerance, patience, respect, honesty, in harmony with creation, getting on good terms with work instead of on bad terms with people, feeling good with ourselves, Being honest with the feeling when we feel bad, not hiding it. Creativity. Being spiritually aware. Defendant and true friendship with dependent. Sharing, having a good God relationship and again being able to change and having the willingness to change. And most important, the lack of self. Addressing our ego, trying to get rid of our ego. Happiness, forgiveness and finally trying to have decent morals. And that's as far as we go. Not easy. Thank you very much. and sometimes step two is not easy because we're not used to thinking that way but that's why it's good you do it in a group level those associations start to help us see because you really want to do a good job in step two so you don't cheat yourself in step 12 as long as you can do the work what the hell go for it all not just a little bit don't cut yourself short because then you have to wait another whole four cycles, you see, for it to happen. Okay, can we get the next group? Okay, hi, I'm John, and I'm an alcoholic and addict. Hi, John. What we have here is a counterpart to this tree. You've got to add a two in there. so what we were trying to illustrate is to take this emotional these emotions right here that were negative uh so to speak of the anger and the love and the fear and the greed is below the line on mother earth and in that planting of these emotions uh it took a long time for us to bring up come with that vision it took a big transition a lot of tears, a lot of sweat and I went into Mother Earth and started nourishing through this tree that blossomed and up through these roots came spiritual growth and this tree started developing and blossoming and acknowledging the higher power and what we have is patience tolerance, control anger, unconditional love, serenity strength, honesty healing, passion compassion understanding contentment acceptance sharing and caring and in this process of this tree being nourishing than the tree of life that we are growing strong and the roots are strong now and coming up in this good positive way the eagle and acknowledging the spiritual growth the eagles won't come to this tree and be the protector and the life of this tree because it's a tree of life and it's the interceptor between, in our way, that the eagle with the eagle feathers is between this tree of light and the creator. So we've seen that a little bit that way and I'm glad that we were to counterpart to that one over there. Very well. Is there one more group yet? we did personal relationships and in our first drawing before we started with the self and we were painfully honest in our relationships with the creator and the relationship with children and men and employers, and we thanked the men's group for showing us one that we forgot, which was friends. And as we were coming up with our different concepts for the dream, the spiritual awakening, what we're going to need in step two or require in step too to get to the spiritual awakening, we did a wish list of what would really be perfect and wholesome. Not just a dream, but really wholesome and fair for everyone and best for everyone. And again, we started with the Creator. So what was very important was conscious contact with the creator who really had a need for that oneness. We wanted the creator to reveal himself or herself to us. We wanted total faith and total trust. We want God to be first, God in all areas of our lives, and even in the worst of situations, to have complete dependence and alliance. And that, of course, is going to flush into all the others, into our men relationships and self and children and friends with men we did last. Then they went to self and we want self-forgiveness, nurturing, we want acceptance of our body and the aging process of our feelings, of our genders. Many women, we all brought this up at the table. It wasn't like the greatest news in the world for my dad when he found out that he had a girl and I think a lot of women had had experience so we got real honest with that and talk about accepting our gender and men, which is different. Our sexuality, we want to take personal responsibility for taking actions, not just dreams, not just having dreams, but taking action about dreams we have, turning them into goals, which is what the whole concept of this exercise is as we took it. Living in that reality, procrastinating procrastinating and follow up on commitments to ourself. Then we did children, and the children was to help them find their own spirituality, accept their individuality. And all these are pretty much diametrically opposed to where we came from and what we had done with our children. Teach through example. Mind our own business. be loving and supportive, have unconditional love, have open communication, act without fear of their anger. That was a very important step for us. That was something that really... ...a very important step for us. That was something that really, you know, everyone struggled with that one. And earn your children's trust and respect. At first we said have it, and then Juanita said no, no, I i want to earn it you know we we it was tough because he said no this is a dream but in the first world we have to earn and that's one thing that we just talked about while we were listening to everyone the struggles and the conflicts and the corrections um we're just isn't this going to be great when we have all these things wait a minute we're at step two and this This is going to be a hell of a walk. And then we did men. We want to have fearless relationships. We want it to be our own selves, interdependent, unconditional love, trust, loving, caring, spiritual relationship, honesty, very important, compatibility, openness, communication, and security. And then friends, loving understanding, consistent, allowed to be ourselves and by versa, and honesty, trust, giving, and accepting. So all of those are completely connected and it's also just bigger. Take that eagle feather out. So once you get this work done to take step two, one needs to ask themselves this question. Do you believe that there is a power that could make you this way? if not, are you willing to believe that there's a power that could make you this way? Both of those is enough power to do the step. If not, am I remotely kind of willing to once in a while possibly think that maybe there is a power questionably that could take me this way that could help me that way That's more than enough. To answer that question, not worrying about how or when, but in the existence of the possibility of that power, that step is done. Does that make sense? So as you put that in, your energy system also kicks on. It's like once you see that, I mean just to say that this was someone's step, it's like you don't hesitate to take step three. You go read in a big book and do what you need to do. You look forward to the possibility. See, I don't believe that the Creator made a set of steps to have them done by fear. But when we can see that whole picture, we can say for the most part they all line up through those principles. There's no other place to line up to. And we start to become principled people instead of fear-based systems, then we don't react or act. And then we start to see our point of view of the world changes. Because if you take a look at the human being and how it sees reality, if this is a human being, whatever that is, and let's just say this represents reality. See, there's this little concept that says what you see is what you get. So we really don't see, what we really see in reality is not with our senses. I have inside of my mind a projector, a camera. That is the, my truth, my belief system, my habits, attitudes, expectations. And I will project out to the world and that becomes my reality. See, I will see in you what I see in you. So I could see good in you and that's what I would see. Somebody else would look at the same one and say that's an asshole. Now who's right? Both. Right? It's what you see is what you get. These senses here they merely very selectively gather information and it will filter out any information that would make you look crazy for thinking what you're thinking. Because the mind is designed, you see, to always make sure I'm not the nut. I know why you're the way you are, see? So my mind is design to always makes sure I am not crazy for thinking what I'm thinking. But as you go through the steps, you set the vision of the possibility, then you start to change the projection, you start to change your reality and all of a sudden, you see, sort of like people who really are judgmental to others by the law, you can guarantee you are judgmental to yourself. You're really critical with yourself. So if you want to work on the issue of being judgmental to others, you don't have to quit that. Just work on quit being judgmentable to you. Lighten up on yourself. Allow yourself to make mistakes. And as you do that, then all of a sudden you quit judging other people. It's always working inside. I think in the big book there is a line there, I believe it's one of the greatest lines in the Big Book and it says so basically we think our problems are of our own making. That is the greatest blessing there is. Because what if they were of your making and you decided to not change it? I'd really be in trouble, especially if eight of you decided to now change it. So it really gets into that position of choice. I don't even need to change you because I can change me. It's not what's going on, it's how I'm looking at what's happening. What's going wrong. And I start to warm this up to the principle that the Creator, the Great Spirit gave us. And all of a sudden there's a couple of changes in my life or in that. So that's kind of what these steps are about. I believe that they are the most powerful thing I've ever seen on earth in terms of the change of a human being. We won't get into it but they are in a very specific order that allows the mind to change. You almost couldn't do it any other way. So, is there any comments on this? Go right, even though we've got just two steps. This is very, very powerful stuff. So the books, enjoy them. There's instructions that says we're in a big book to look at it. Let's see. So you're taping some of this if anyone wants to get it, they get it from you, right? And so feel free to have that. Debra, do you want to say anything? I just want to stay real quick on that. When we did it all in the country, and it's amazing how much I still learn from all of you and what ways that we've been able to have. Sometimes I think you're out of the weather and how you see us up there. and in a lot of Indian communities that we're in, a lot other people really don't have that belief system that's inside of them. And I guess what we've just proved today is it is inside of you because you guys are more me. I've learned a lot things here today that I haven't learned any place else and that wisdom came from inside of YOU. So I just want you guys to remember that you do have that inside of yourself it's not out there in another human being you know it's inside of you and to kind of just keep believing in yourself and thanks for allowing me to participate in all this thank you so let me see is there a how does this work there's a meeting tonight does anybody know Joseph Thank you.