Steps 6 and 7 – Part 6 – Mark – 2001

If you really want to get taken to a place of letting go, touch the fact that fear is at the very fabric of your being. Touch that at some point in time. And my experience is in waking up to that, seeing that I had been afraid my entire life regardless of what I was projecting. Right? Seeing that and experiencing that is finally where I said, I cannot and I will not live this way anymore. And somewhere in the middle of that, I guess, is when I realized I had been in self-reliance my whole life. And even those years in AA. And somewhere in the middle of the realization that fear was at the fabric of my being, I just said, I quit. It no longer makes any difference. If I got a job, fine. If I don't, fine. If I got good health, that's fine. If I don't, fine. If I don't, fine. I just don't care anymore. But I couldn't have that experience until I woke up to the fact that fear was at the fabric of my being. It drove me in every area of my life all the time. I was paralyzed with fear, which accounted for a lot of years of drinking and then accounted for a lot of years of depression in Alcoholics Anonymous. So, again, let's go on with this issue. It says, I'm in the world to play the role that he assigns. Now, we just did. We did some stuff in Theater of the Life. Here's what's different for me today. I'm in touch with my beingness, my spirituality, if you will. And I take that into the role that God has assigned, but I'm not attached to the role. You see the difference? You're either going to fulfill the role in which you are currently assigned based on self-will and self-reliance, or you're going to have done the work necessary to fulfill the role God has assigned and take your beingness into the role, but you're not attached to the role. You understand what I'm saying? The difference? And I'm going to go on a little bit more, and I'll point out what I mean. To the extent that I do as I think God would have me and humbly rely on God, does God enable me to match calamity with serenity? Any role in which God has assigned, that you are performing, if self-will is involved, you cannot practice that last sentence. And it goes on to say that spirituality is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is faith means courage. All men and women of faith have courage. Here's the definition of courage. They trust their God. They trust their God. And what they do is they let God demonstrate through them what God can do. See, unbeknownst to me, is taking this course of action allows me to be a channel so God can demonstrate through me what God can do in all of the roles that God has assigned. I'm not the doer. It is sneezing me. You understand what I'm saying here? See? It is sneezing me. I mean, it's no different than... Here's the preparation Dave and I did to come here today. I'm not the doer. I'm not the doer. I'm not the doer. I'm not the doer. I'm not the doer. I'm not the doer. I'm not the doer. I'm not the doer. I'm not the doer. I'm not the doer. I'm not the doer. We went through the first three steps. We wrote some pitiful inventory because we're such spiritual giants and we spent nine hours alternating between laughing hysterically and crying. And we left there and knew each other better and knew God better and then we did some work with 6 and 7 and we made our list and we've made some amends. And then he and I, in addition to that, In addition to what we do on a daily basis, we go downstairs before we start the day, and we meditate two, three minutes, and we say a prayer and give each other a hug and come up here. It requires no preparation. It requires nothing. Why? God has assigned Dave and I a role here this weekend, right? All this is is a space suit in which he gets to come through and perform the role that he has assigned. You understand what I'm saying? Every role that God has assigned that you have. It could be a mother or a father. It could be a husband or a wife or a member of AA. You do this work, and God will demonstrate to you what God can do. See what I'm saying? See, I would have absolutely no power to get in front of 100 or 120 of the most judgmental humans on the planet and talk about these steps and talk about, you understand? I don't have any power to do that kind of stuff. I don't have the power to keep myself sober one day. So you do this work, and then God gets. Begins to demonstrate through you what God can do. And that's what you begin to take into every area of your life. You take it into your work. You take it into AA. You take it into your relationships with people. See, and then the tools of 10 or 11 is just to watch when you're demonstrating your will versus God's will. And fear is always the quickest litmus test for whether or not you've got self-will going on in the respective role in which you are playing for somebody. You see? And then. It gives you a tool. When you're awake to the fact that you're afraid, which I wasn't for a long time, I'm going to ask him to remove my fear and direct my attention what he would have me be. There's the word be. And go back to your third step decision. I'm going to be his child. I'm going to be his agent. I'm going to be his employee. Right? And I'm going to be his actor. So any situation I'm in, I begin to experience fear. And the prayer is, God, remove the fear and what would you have me be? And you touch that, your beingness again. See, and you take what God would have you be into what you're doing. That's completely different than thinking you're what you're doing. You see what I'm saying? Fear is the great corroding thread to ever beginning to experience God, which is love. You know, there's another book that I think that makes it fairly easy to look at. It's called Where You're At. It just deals with two emotions. It says basically you're either into fear or love. Which is it going to be? And that's easy for me to work with because if I'm experiencing fear, I once again am into self-will. If I'm experiencing love, I'm letting God demonstrate through me what God can do. I've written fear inventory a lot of different ways. I've done a very simple two-column fear inventory. I have written four-column fear inventories in which I put the fear in column one. What I was afraid of in column two. How self-reliance. How was I relying on self in column three? And in the fourth column, what would God have me be around this fear? I've done it a lot of different ways. I normally boil it down. My experience as I sit here today, it may be different a year from now, is there's only one fear. It's the fear of death of something. It's the fear of death of something. Fear of death of something, could be a relationship, physical body, image, it doesn't make any difference. There's one fear, is what all my inventories constantly take me down to, is I'm afraid of the death of something. My ego seems preoccupied hourly with death, the death of something. That mind made false sense of self, right? Mind made false sense of self. Every time I write fear of inventory, whatever they are, I've got a fear of drinking again. What's that the fear of? Well, it's a fear of the death of being a sober member of AA, right? Or say you have a fear of financial problems. What's that about? Well, that's a fear that I won't get what I want. The death of me not getting, you follow what I'm saying? There's a gentleman, some of his works have influenced me, named Stuart White. And one of the things I like about him is he said, if your spiritual philosophy cannot be described in 10 words or less, you might consider getting another one. And I like that. I was raised on a farm in Iowa, I'm actually a fairly simple guy. So the idea that I can boil it down, and any time I'm afraid, I ask myself one question. What is the fear of death right now that you're up against? You follow me? Oh, my image. How I look. See what I'm saying? That makes it easy. Then I can just see the one. But that's some of my experiences with fear inventory. I've written a lot of fear inventory. And it was at the fabric of my being. It is a horrible way to experience this incredible thing called life. It is a horrible way. And you and I know about it at levels most people can't even imagine. I drank. I drank. I drank every day and large amounts of alcohol to not experience the fears in my life. What I was asleep to was, the reason I am so afraid is I've always gone through life continually relying on Mark. My agnosticism, my current agnosticism. Once again, I'm telling you I believe in God, but rely on Mark. And the reason I know that is because I'm still experiencing fear in some areas. You see. That's why I said to you, if you want to touch where God is not in your life, ask yourself, where in the last week what are the fears that keep coming up for you and based on my experience if if you have several areas in which fear keeps coming up those are the areas in which you are completely relying on self and god is not a part of the picture so consider looking at that thanks mark what he just described there that's basically the second step proposition exercise the areas that you're experiencing fear those are the areas that you haven't given over to god all right a friend of mine who's here tonight he's talking to me about his second step proposition exercise i gave to him a while ago and uh all of a sudden he his eyes light up and as he's describing this he says you know i got it right here in my wallet he says do you remember when you gave that to me and i said yeah he says you know i haven't had a panic attack since i wrote that exercise and he was absolutely asleep that he has not had a panic attack since he started using the second step proposition exercise pretty amazing stuff um in the in the guide on page 12 is fears all right one of the techniques i do since my goal is to find fear and since fear is what my the tool my ego is going to use to drag me to the bar i want to find any kind of fear i can so i've written column four question four right we did the four column inventory my fear column which is where was i frightened so i've got every fear that's related to resentment so the only other fears i need to find are fears that aren't related to resentment fear of heights fear of spiders fear of aids fear of whatever all right so i take column four question four and i transfer it over into the fear column which is column one there a tool that i use is a lot of times i'm afraid of something i'm also afraid of its opposite so when i look at my fear column i look at my fears and i look at my opposite fears to see if maybe by i'm afraid of the opposite and i'm not not awake to it it's just an idea for how to come up with extra fears to make sure you don't miss any because the fear you miss is the fear your ego is going to zero in on to kill you all right then the next instruction is why am i afraid and that's the boil down process and i write down why am i afraid of rejection and i just fill it out then i put the three slashes and the three everything after the three slashes lets me know that that relates to the second the opposite fear all right then i'm looking for recurring themes when i get done i'm looking for a middle piece there of column two of what am i afraid of what are the fears that kept repeating over and over and over again and that's where i come up with the boil down process and that's what that extra column is and when i'm finally done with this whole process i end up with 10 to 15 fears of the average alcoholic in my experience ends up with about 10 or 15 fears and i call that the hit parade column one may start out with 300 fears by the time i've done the spiritual work and i boiled it down i boil it down to 15 fears and that's how i get rid of all 300 fears are just different little variants of the 15 fears so if i can get rid of those 15 fears guess what i'm getting rid of all 300 fears and if i get rid of all 300 fears there's nothing for resentment to sit on i've taken the foundation out from from resentment i can't be blocked from god so the hit parade for me is absolutely critical and that card that i showed you earlier that i carry in my money clip with me that's my hit parade on the left side is my hit parade and my right side of that is my hit parade and my right side is my hit parade and my right side of that card is what does god want me to be because there's times in my life where i'm pretty current where i basically have given almost every area of my life over to god and i may not see the area of my life that i'm blocked from when i'm recognized and i'm restless irritable and discontented so i slam on the brakes because i'm awake today and i realize wait a minute i'm not looking at a character but i can feel it in my gut something is wrong i go to my money clip i whip out my hit parade and i say which one of these fears has woken up fear and i go right to what does god want me to be and i do the tool on page 68 god please remove this fear the big book is real big on vision instead of just telling me what not to do i better be looking at what i'm supposed to be going to i need to have an image in my mind you know if i tell everybody in this room don't think about a pink elephant guess what you all have a managed mental image of a pink elephant and now it's in your head you can't get rid of it unless i replace that image with something else it's the same deal with fear and fear if i tell you don't be afraid of being unloved i need to give you something to focus on that's going to take its place so i'm looking for what does god want me to be we're going to replace that and then i'm going to send you out on an exercise to go do that whatever that happens to be how can i do whatever that is right now what does god want me to be right here right now oh wait a minute if i'm doing that right here right now guess what i'm present i'm conscious i'm awake i'm aware my spirit's awake i'm plugged into god fear doesn't own me my ego can't own me back in the present being of service for god doing what god wants me to be it's really a simple deal we took how many hours to teach it to you to talk about it but when you boil it all down it's really a real simple deal how can i get back to doing what god wants me to do that's the whole shooting match all right um there's some instructions we blew right past uh how many people in the room with a raise of hands believe that between column three and column four oops the big book tells you to pray for the bastards let's see does the big is your instructions in the big book that says all these people that we're upset with that we're supposed to pray for them let me see if i can have a shift i'm going to need a truly open mind on this one let's go to the instruction in the book between columns three and column four let's start on page 60 six colon three all right remember there's another instruction that we covered already it says nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty do you think bill wilson meant that when you're dealing with inventory nothing counts but thoroughness and honesty so if you look at me and you say well it's going to take too many hours to write out this fear inventory three hours big deal if it takes you three hours i mean we'd sit in a cesspool you know if we spend three hours there if we get a bottle of beer when we're drinking you know we'd walk across broken broken glass to get it but bottle of beer what's writing a little bit inventories nothing all right 66 colon 3 we turn back to the list for it held the key to the future remember linguistics what's the it they're talking about the list right i think that's important this fourth step is the key to my future we were prepared to look at it from entirely different angle we began to see that the world and its people really dominated us in that state the wrongdoing of others fancied or real i don't care if it's a real threat or if it's just an imaginary fear it has the power to actually kill you all right how can you escape we saw that these resentments must be mattered but how we could not wish them away any more than alcohol this is our course we realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick though we did not not like their symptoms column one excuse me column two and the way they disturbed us column three they like ourselves were six two all right here comes the deal we ask god here's a prayer to help us show them the same tolerance pity and patience that we choose they grant a sick friend linguistics exercise people who are we praying for we're praying for ourselves we're not praying for the sick bastards we're praying for us for god to come into us and soften our heart to rip the cover off our golf ball to help us unwind that strapping that's hiding the kernel of love that's underneath our problem is our ego has taken us into column three into the theater and it's holding us hostage there so that we can't soften our heart for others and we're going to whip ourselves with this and beat up on ourselves we god has to come in and soften our hearts we're praying for ourselves it does not go against what's written in the 11th step it says we should not pray for ourselves only it's okay to pray for ourselves if others will be helped really important deal all right we and we we blasted right past this you know and then it gives on some more instructions we avoid retaliation and argument we wouldn't treat sick people that way if we do we destroy a chance of being helpful we cannot be helpful to all people but at least god will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one god is going to come into your heart and show you how to take the kind and tolerant view once again you're not praying for them you're praying for yourself both of those statements confirm that it's you that needs the help. If you're still looking at the sick bastards, you can't get from three to four. That'll hang you up every time. You'll get stuck in column three and you'll go, but look what they did to me. If you pray to God, God will soften your heart and you'll be able to see the truth that you are at fault. Your problems are of your own making. It's your selfishness. It's your dishonesty that's causing this problem. Once you can see that, then you can get free. Then you can move on with the rest of the exercise. All right. At the bottom, Mark described his way of doing inventory. This did not used to be in the guide. This is something I just added. People have told me to write four column inventory on fears before and I could never figure out how to do it. There's that little block at the bottom of page 12. That's basically what he described. He wrote it out in paragraph form. What was his fear? What was his belief system with regard to the fear? Where was the fear taking him, basically? How has self-reliance failed him with regard to this fear? Why didn't the fear work for him? What roles or characters did he play? What roles or characters did he play? What roles or characters did he play? Did his ego assign with the fear? Then what does God want him to be? All right. Something that I didn't talk about is 17 area inventory. Mark and I went through this time. I mentioned it when we first started this deal. There's an article from the Grapevine that was written by Paul M. from Chicago. He's got 50 plus years of sobriety. He wrote an article in the Grapevine and he said from his experience, one of the things he found is that an inventory he likes to cover various areas in a sponsee's life to look at how these resentments and stuff have affected him. He listed in the Grapevine article the 17 areas that he talked about. He starts with the basic inventories, the resentment, the fear, and the harms done to others that the big book gives us. Then he looks at the seven deadly sins come out of the 12 and 12. He looks at a couple other areas. I wrote up this little inventory with the 17 topics of the headings that Paul gave us. There's a couple other areas. I wrote up this little inventory with the 17 topics of the headings that Paul gave us. There's copies of the float around over there on the table. Do not do this inventory if it's your first inventory. I probably wouldn't do if it's my second or third inventory. But if you're a long term sober and you're really looking at cracking the nut, getting down to the real root cause. Mark and I looked at 17 areas of our life besides just resentment, fear, and sex harms, and we looked at very specific. Your ego doesn't want to take a look at it. You might want to admit that I'm being dishonest. Yeah, I'm dishonest. But that's all you want to look at. Then we go into eight areas of your life. Well, how have you been dishonest in your home life? In specifics, you write out, I've been dishonest to my wife by not telling her what I'm going to be doing. If she doesn't ask a direct question, she doesn't get a direct answer. I've been dishonest at work because I've been cutting out 15 minutes early for years. And you write out the specifics, exactly how your ego has been taking hold of you in those areas. Man, it'll split you open like a ripe watermelon. A 17-area inventory. Powerful stuff. I throw that out there for you so that you can see that there's more to this deal. One other thing that I wanted to talk about with relationships. I talked a little bit about the inside of the wall, outside of the wall. One of the things that we're trying to get to is the kernel that's inside of us. Love. Pure, unconditional love. That's how I can conceptualize it in my own heart. There's a book by Gary Chapman. It's called The Five Love Languages. It's changed my life. I like to be loved in a certain way. For me, my primary love language is physical touch. I love to hug. That's why I express love. If I really care about you, I'll reach up and I'll pat you on the back. I'll give you a little attaboy. That type of deal. Other people have a different love language. They may like you to do things for them. Other people like gifts. When you give them gifts, they go, oh, that's how they know that you love them. My problem was I was asleep. I was going through my life expecting people that loved me would show me the love and the language I was listening for. That's what I was doing with them. I realized that I'm trying to love you in my language. I'll come up and throw my arms around you, but if you're one of these big burly guys and you don't like people hugging you, what's my message to you? It's not love. You're like, get the hell away from me. I'm being as loving as possibly could. If you're interested in taking any relationship to the next level, I suggest that he wrote it for children. He's got one. I've been using it for a long time. I've been using it with my kids. He's got one for teenagers. Five Languages of Love in Dealing with Teenagers. Powerful stuff. It's changed my life. Gary Chapman, Five Languages of Love. It was on the bestseller list for a long time. Here's the deal for you. If you choose to get that book, do the tornado exercise with that book to everybody in your life and figure out all the important people in your life, what's their love language so you know how to love people the right way. That'll change your life. How many people in here think they have an open mind? You guys want a real challenge? This next break, here's your exercise. And this is a real strong gauntlet. I want you to go up to somebody that you don't know. Introduce yourself to them. Find out something about them. We're all children of God, right? Then I want you to look in their eyes. Look into the window of their soul. And express how you feel about them. I love you because you're a child of God. Has anybody told you that I love you today? I love you. Nobody else loves you? I love you today. Try that and see what that does inside your heart. It'll scare the hell out of you. We're talking about fear inventory. But it feels good. That's what we're looking for. We're looking to fill this hole in our soul. We've been looking for it for a whole sobriety. Fear has blocked us off all over the place. If you can develop that technique, there's a convention over here at the hotel we're staying at. It's this huge family. They're having a family get-together. I've met some of the neatest people in the elevator, going up and down in that elevator. I'm looking at them. Hey, how you doing? Where are you from today? And they're looking at me. These are African-Americans. And here's this big white guy. He's towering over them saying, Hey, how you doing today? I'm looking them in the eye. I'm connecting with the window of their soul. And next thing you know, their spirits are open. And this one woman, she's looking at me. She's going, well, I left Georgia this morning. And I was really having... The plane was late, and I was having a bad day. When she walked off that elevator, she had a smile on her face, and I had a smile in my heart. What did it cost me? Nothing. So if we can't learn to love each other in the rooms, how are we going to do it outside of the rooms? How are we going to bring these principles home? So let's try it with each other. We love each other. We're a spiritual body. We all share the same... If nothing else, we've got one thing in common. So let's play off of that. Let's start to defeat fear. Because not just knowing that fear is the problem, we need to substitute it with something else. Nothing works better than love. That's the kernel. That's the goal. And in the process, we become instruments of God. All right? That's it. And fear is for me. Let's take a 15-minute break. Okay, if you guys will get in your seats, we'll go ahead and kick this thing back off. Sit anywhere. Sit right there, Bill. I don't care. No. You can take it any place you want. All right? Was it easy to do? For some people, the people that are saying it wasn't easy to do, there's God. He's got your attention. Why wasn't it easy to do? Because it's new. It's the we. You're digging your heels in. It's change. You don't like change. If you can do it, the more you can do it, the easier it becomes. The things we practice, we become, right? So practice that, you know, particularly if there's some issue. If you have a prejudice of any kind, this is the deal. If you've got trouble with African Americans, then seek them out. Be friends and find out they're children of God. If you've got problems with religion, you know, let's – there's a candidate, huh? If you've got problems with, let's say, with Muslims, you know, a lot of people have problems with Muslims, you know. I worked with a guy. He was at rabbinical college, right, studying to be a rabbi. And he came up to me, and on his inventory was some stuff about what's happened to his – the people of his belief. And he had a real hard time with that. And I've been trying to encourage him. I've been trying to encourage him to see that it was some people did some things in the past. And his ego wanted to continue to use that, you know. Go meet people that are here today. Don't blame everybody because of something that happened in the past. Go have your own experience and find out that we're all children of God, you know. As Mark was saying, it's not the color of our skin. It's not the religion. It's we are children of God, and we have one common denominator no matter what you are. I don't care if you're green, purple. It doesn't matter to me. Pink polka dotted. You got the current. You got the internal inside. And I can connect with you at that level, and we can build from that foundation. If what? If I have a foundation of complete willingness. I'm willing to take the risk. And you know what? Nobody has the power to hurt me because God is my protector, right? You may be able to hurt the exterior, but does that change what's inside me? No. Can't hurt that. It's always going to be there no matter what, all right? The true essence of what I am is not going to change. One of the other things that I did not talk about. Talking about inventory, when we start talking about column three, I tried to tone it down, but I get harsh and abusive with my language, all right? We don't write inventory by saying, oh, she harmed me. You say that bleepity bleepity bleepity bleep. In my mind, because I'm talking about a woman, I'm going to use terms that are very degrading and condescending and all the rest, because that's what goes on here. The voices are talking in here. That's what it's saying. Now, Hollywood's not going to let that out. Not normally, but that's the voice that's in here. By the time I get to column four, that is not who and what I am. You are children of God, and if I have offended you because of using that word, those type of words, it's not intentional, because that's what the voice in here is doing. When I get into column three and start thinking in the terms of column three, you think very arrogant and pompous and talking down, and all the slangs and the slurs, the real nasty things, all the nastiness you can think of, that's the kind of stuff that goes on in our minds, you know? So, when you hear up here, it's not gender specific, but when I'm talking about a woman, the committee in here is talking in terms that are not pleasant. And so, I hope I didn't offend anybody with that, but a number of people, I can tell are agitated by that. So, that's been brought to my attention. Anything that happens up here is, I'm trying to share my experience, and that's what's going on. There's some people here. I'm sure you've heard of them. I'm sure somebody came up to me and shared with me the fact that I talked about God, you know, and that we're sharing so much about, and generally, basically, Christianity. We're using Christian-type terms, and they were reacting to that, because that's not their belief. And then they wrote some inventory on it today, thank goodness, and they saw that they invited us here to share our experience, so you're going to hear our experience with our donkeys. Doesn't mean our donkeys are better than your donkeys, you know? Get off your donkey. I'll get off my donkey, and I'll look you in the eye, and we'll share at the level of love. That's the important deal. We are all the same, you know? What are the fingers pointing to? Where is the donkey taking us? The view's the same, all right? And lastly, I wanted to talk about forgiveness. I hate to transition out of resentment and fear without talking about forgiveness, and one of the greatest descriptions of forgiveness comes from Emmett Fox. If you guys haven't got it, I highly recommend this book, Around the Year with Emmett Fox. It's a compilation, it's a little daily reading for each one of his, for every day, and extremely powerful, and the reason I mention it from the podium is Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob used it extensively. When you read this in here, you'll say, hey, that's in the big book. Bill stole from Emmett. There it is, you know? You know? Bill and Bill Wilson knew Emmett's secretary. Bill and Bill Wilson knew Emmett's secretary. Bill and Bill Wilson knew Emmett's secretary. A little history. He knew Emmett's secretary, and so they'd get in's at, when he'd be preaching in New York City, he'd have, you know, one of his revival meetings, and he'd be talking in there, and so they'd go to their A meeting after their meeting, and they'd say, hey, you know, the secretary got him some tickets, they'd all run down there, and they'd go sit in at his meetings. So it was, that was required reading in early AA, was Emmett Fox, all right? He says, the forgiveness of others is the vestibule of heaven. You have to get rid of all resentment and condemnation of others, and not least, self-condemnation and remorse. You have to forgive yourself, but cannot forgive yourself sincerely until you have forgiven others first. Of course, nothing in all the world is easier than to forgive people who have not hurt us very much. But what the law of being requires of us is that we forgive the very things that are so hard to forgive that at first seems impossible to do at all. Setting others free means setting yourself free, because resentment is really a form of attachment. It is a cosmic truth that it takes two to make a prisoner, a prisoner and a jailer. There is no such thing as being a prisoner in one's own account. Moreover, the jailer is as much a prisoner as his charge. When you hold resentment against anyone, you are bound to that person by mental chain. You are tied by a cosmic tie to the thing that you hate. The one person perhaps in the whole world whom you disliked is the very one to whom you are attached to yourself by hooks that are stronger than steel. The object of your resentment will be drawn again into your life perhaps to work further havoc. By forgiveness, you set yourself free. You save your own soul. That's what we've been talking about in this deal. The closer we get to the inside of your wall, the harder it is to forgive. We're about to start the sex inventory, right? It's going to require a change in your perception. Everybody who's sitting here, do you believe that you're moving? You're sitting here. You're stationary, right? But are we? All right. Let's see if there's a possibility here when Mark starts talking about sex inventory and the harms others have done to us. Let's see if there's a possibility that maybe there's something we know. There's a side to it we're not seeing that maybe there's a shift. This is a little page that I ripped out from, I believe it was the Upper Room. It's either the Upper Room or the Daily Bread. I think it's the Upper Room. It says, Scientific measurements indicate that we are moving even when we are standing still. The surface of the Earth at the equator rotates at about 1,000 miles per hour. The Earth is orbiting the Sun at about 67,000 miles an hour. Our solar system rolls around the center of our galaxy at 490,000 miles per hour. And it zooms along at 43,000 miles an hour in the direction of the star Vega in the constellation Lyra. But that's not all. Our Milky Way galaxy is hurtling through space at 1.3 million miles per hour. The man lying on his back in a quiet park on a cloudless summer day may feel as though all time and movement has stopped under the hot rays of the noonday sun. But the scientist and the godly person know otherwise. Just as we are hurtling through the heavens at unimaginable speeds, so too we are moving from here to eternity. Our days and opportunities to live for the Lord pass so rapidly that we cannot afford to waste any of them. The fact that we're sitting here in this atrium, we're moving at 1.3 million miles an hour as our universe is expanding, according to scientists. It's a different shift in your perception. But I'm not moving. I'm sitting in a chair. Why don't I see it? Why don't I see it? Why don't I feel it? There's a shift that happens in these rooms. God's grace lasts only as long as ignorance. We're going to steal some more ignorance from you and show you God's grace. There's a shift. She didn't leave you. You drove her away. You know? They didn't do it to you. You did it to yourself. You're in prison because you're the jailer, not because of anything they did. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Mark. I'm Mark, alcoholic. Hey, Mark. I want to open with a little prayer. Oh, that you would bless us indeed in a larger territory, that your hand would be with us, that you would keep us from evil, that we may not cause pain. I want to comment on two, three, four things before I talk about sex. This had to do with the prayer. Well, first of all, I want to talk about words. And to show you again the ego at work and separation, you know, it's like that's a chair there. And the word chair does not conjure up necessarily probably a lot of prejudice or whatever. And then you start words like, well, God or Father or Buddha or... And I find it so fascinating that my ego will take something which is a word and based on a lot of old prejudice, or a lot of old ideas, I hear that word and then I instantly close myself off, like there's anything to the word itself. So again, when it gets back to... A person made the mistake of asking me the other day if I was a Christian. And I said, yes, and I'm a Buddhist and a Muslim and Native American and atheist. And they said, I'm leaving now. You know, see, anything that speaks to me of separation is not of God because there's nothing but oneness. So I was telling a gentleman earlier, most of the time people do not know where I live. You understand what I just said? They're a little story. A man in India, a holy man, he's living with this woman and he's living with this woman. And she was very difficult to get along with all the time. And his friends would come over and he would watch him interact with this woman or vice versa. And she'd leave and they'd turn to her and they'd say, how in God's name do you live with that woman? And he looked at him and smiled and said, she doesn't know where I live. So through the experiences that I've had, I've gotten free of words. And around the idea of God or creator or whatever that is or many other things, gender and race and everything that somehow my mind along the way used to separate me from you, which it was always at work. You keep doing this long enough and they'll all drop. They'll just drop and they'll drop and they'll drop until you experience the essence of what we are, which is love. So I want to go back to something. It ties into forgiveness and this idea of that prayer before you'd write a fourth column. But, you know, you write this inventory, column one, column two, third column. And then the book says, Mark, I want to talk to you now about the key to your entire future. And, I mean, I want you to think about those words, the key to your entire future. And here's what it is, Mark, is that perhaps those people who wronged you are spiritually saved. Now, I like to stop there. See, here's absolutely what I know in my heart of hearts today. There is nothing but oneness. There's just the illusion of separation. So here's what I know. Any human being, quote, that has ever done anything that I either resent or quote that I think has harmed me did that because they are spiritually sick, sound asleep, dreaming they're awake, going through life being driven. Now, who's sicker? Me without awareness for judging them or them. Any person that I have ever written inventory, any person who I ever at one time had some perception that wronged me, I promise you, never once did they wake up and say, you know, I've got nothing else to do today. I think I'm going to take a course of action to hurt Mark. That never happened. And I never once in my life have ever awakened and said, you know, I think what I'll do today, is take a course of action to hurt somebody. The extent to which you are asleep, i.e. spiritual sick, is the extent to which you will make mistakes. That is true of everything that shows up in your inventory. So the book is trying to make you understand something. And the book is free of judgment. You know, there's a lot of things that happened to us in the second column we didn't have any part in. Things that happened as a child, etc., etc., etc. Horrible things. Horrible things are done by people who are sound asleep, who are spiritually sick. And the book's trying to make you understand that, Mark, for you to sit in judgment on them, you are sick like them, too. So it uses that prayer. God, please help me show this sick person the same tolerance, pity, and patience I would cheerfully grant a sick friend. And you begin to look at everybody that you've ever written inventory on and you begin to look at everybody from that viewpoint. I don't care what visual you use. Take a friend who is dying of some disease. I don't care what it is. And let's say that they go off on you, call you names, slam you. I don't care. Whatever it is that, quote, you think has hurt you. And they're in this bed and they're dying from this horrible disease. Do you think you would get upset with them? I don't think so. You would have compassion and love and understanding and you would say to yourself, that's happening because they're so physically ill. Well, guess what our big book is trying to do? It's trying to say the very, very same thing. It's trying to say, Mark, this person did that because they're spiritually sick, Mark. They're asleep. And so it gives us that beautiful prayer to work with that, right? And it talks about, Mark, avoid retaliation and anger. And then the book goes on to say something else. It says that I can be kind and loving toward anyone. I can be helpful to anyone. And then it shifts you into, why don't you just take a look at your fourth column? Where are you selfish, self-seeking, dishonest, and or afraid? You know, you pick up the paper, you have your own life to look at, and there's great sadness and compassion in my heart at times for people who are sick. Just like I have to have compassion for myself for the times I have been absolutely sound asleep, took a course of action that produced harm in another human being. You see, for a long time, I've been thinking, you know, I'm going to be happy, I'm going to be happy, I'm going to be happy. Which is why it's so easy for me to operate with forgiveness. The extent to which you are having a difficult time forgiving is the extent to which you are still asleep. There's another book, God Calling. I like what it says better about forgiveness. It says that what really has to happen is that part of self that felt wrong to begin with must die. Then there's nothing to forgive. You understand? That part of you that feels it was wrong actually needs to die, and that can happen in the processes of inventory, and therefore there's nothing to forgive. So you might consider some of that relative to people that you still have some hardness in your heart. You might extend to them the fact that they're spiritually sick. You know, if you had a, for years I had this inventory, around my mother and father, and I can sit here today and tell you that their pictures are on the altar, I have an altar at home, and that I thank God every day for my mother and father, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, they gave me their best shot based on how awake they were. And I am so grateful that they were the ones that I had, that I had no others. Now that is not where it started when I began writing inventory. There's so much love in my heart. For those people, see? Just as there's love for myself, for all the mistakes that I made when I'm sound asleep, dreaming I'm awake, going through life driven. See, God has to be the creator, the goddess. I'm going to try and appease, you know. Would have to be, based on my experience, nothing but love or mercy. What kind of a God would punish, people who are sound asleep, dreaming they're awake, making mistakes? So those of you that are continually beating yourself up over and over again for things that you have done when you were asleep, need to get over it. Remorse is spiritual pride. Let it go. Get present with your life right now. Let it go. If you knew better, you'd have done better. Let it go. Let them go. Get present, now, in the reality of your life. There's one thing I want to talk about. Here's another. A couple people, several people have asked me about meditation. And I'm going to talk more about that. I am going to tell you around meditation that discipline is the horse I ride. And I just want to say this so I don't forget it. This ties back to you and I drank for the effect produced by alcohol. None the less, last year I had a realization. I come at everything in my life and I expect the effect produced by alcohol, which is instantaneous, to manifest in every area of my life. And when it doesn't, I am angry and I give it up, which is why we're sprinters. I'm going to meditate three days and I'm not enlightened, so I quit. You know, I'm going to work the steps one time, but I'm not free of resentment, so AA must not work. See? I'm going to get in this relationship. And after two weeks, I have a fight. Well, I'm going to leave. It's just there's something. I did not realize that I took the effect. I go to work for a company. I'm not CEO in a week. The effect produced by alcohol, which is instantaneous. The more self-centered you are, the more you take that effect into every single area of your life. See, here's the deal. If you want what I have, go as long as I have without drinking and do what I did. Oh, isn't there an easier way? I don't want to do it. He does. Are you kidding me? See? We're sprinters. 100-yard dash for 10 yards, baby. I'll give you all I got. See? Nick can't finish anything. You know? And wanting this instantaneous, you know, we join the gym. We go two weeks and not carved out. Don't look like Arnold, so quit. You know? And that's how we are. I don't know how we got that way, but we're that way. So the key is to do it. There are some of the doctrines of Taoism which I really, really love because one of them that they say that I relate to is it says we don't care what your spiritual practice is, do it. If you did it today, you won. If you didn't, you lost. I can work with that. I'm a simple guy, right? So if I did the disciplines of 10, 11, 12 today, I won. If I didn't, I lost. It's that simple, right? They also have very profound stuff. There's a book that says stuff like this. It says the essence of spirituality is not in profound awakenings. Here's the essence of spirituality. You get up. You use the bathroom. You urinate. Do anything else. You eat. You go to work. You do whatever you do in the course of the day. You go to bed at night. That's spirituality. Wow. I can look on to that. See? We're big bang theory people. You know? It's like I got to go to this retreat in this place. No, no, no. No, no, no. God is to be experienced in the moment. See? Where do you not experience God? And it shifts you out of this got to go to some special place and some special teacher and, you know, that kind of stuff. But I'm going to talk more about discipline because discipline is the horse that I ride. I've done it today, so I've won. If I didn't, I lost. It's that simple. But day in, day out, over and over and over, then you begin to have that experience. If you will. So now let's talk about sex. You'll notice the two out of the three theater lies happen to do with this matter. I shared with you some pals of mine who I love dearly back drinking this year. These were some of my friends. These were some men who have done this work behind relationships, right? And this is what we're going to talk about on page 68 of the big book. I'd like to review a few things. It says it now about sex. It says many of us needed an overhauling there. I want to be clear to make sure everyone understands the difference between a tune-up and an overhauling. In an overhauling, we're going to take everything apart. We're going to lay it all out, and we're going to replace some stuff, clean up some stuff, and then put it back together again. That is a whole different process than going into quickie lube for an oil change. But it says that many of us needed an overhauling there. I've never met an alcoholic that did not need an overhauling. In this particular area. And they talk about the idea of trying to be sensible to getting off the track. The idea of human opinions are going to take us to the extremes. Two sets of voices, both of which are in our mind. Sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base necessity of procreation. Voices who cry for sex and more sex. Bewail the institution of marriage. Think the troubles of the race are traceable. Be sensible to sex causes. Well, one school says I don't have enough of it or isn't the right kind. I see its significance everywhere. One school allows man no flavor for his fare, and the other has its own straight pepper diet. It says we want to stay out of this controversy. We are not to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. Arbiter is judge of, so to speak. And I am not the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. Now, for those of you who are enlightened, this next sentence may not apply. It says we all have sex problems. That means all of us in this room. We all have sex problems. See, if you can't experience and demonstrate that love that Dave has been talking about, you're going to have sex problems. Because your motives are going to be selfish. So it says in here that we all have sex problems. We'd be hardly human if we didn't. So what can we do about these problems? I begin to get instructions for this inventory I'm going to write. And I like to make a list. It says, again, I reviewed my own conduct over the years past. And then there's some questions that I'm going to ask in relationship to this conduct. Where are my selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate? Who did I hurt? And justifiably aroused jealousy, suspicion, or bitterness. Where am I at fault? What should I have done instead? I'm going to get this all down on paper. I'm going to look at it. And then out of that I'm going to try and shape a sane. There's that word sane again. Sane means soundness of mind. And a sound ideal for my future sex life. Or you could say future relationship. And I'm going to subject each relation to this test. Is this selfish or is it not selfish? Then you get some prayers about this sane and sound ideal. You're going to ask God to mold your ideals and help you live up to them. You're going to remember always sex power is God given and good. Neither to be used lightly or selfishly. Nor to be despised and loathed. I'm just going to share some of my experiences in this area. I want to talk a little bit about my most current experience with this. I've written a lot of inventories in this area. Because I needed an overhauling there. You know, I can only speak for myself. But male growing up in our society. And culture. You're not given a whole lot of instructions or whatever. And you begin to get a lot of real insane belief systems. Either by watching parents or television. Or every other mode of communication out there. And out of that you begin to develop some sex ideals. And some sexual belief systems. And you begin to develop deep seated belief systems. Around women and then around men. And then the end result of. There is so much power associated with your sexual energy. That it at times will drive you. And have you compromise your moral and philosophical convictions. Beyond anything that you ever could have imagined. That's my experience. And the experience of every alcoholic I personally have ever worked with. So that's the reason why you want to sit down. And you want to take a hard, hard look at this. And I like to think more of it of my sexual energy. Would be a way to say that. And how is that manifested in my life. And how do I want that to look today. And so this inventory is once again another manifestation of selfishness. And once again they ask us to write a list. And then they ask us to answer some questions. And to write out some stuff. And then out of that to develop a sane and a sound ideal. And I'm going to share with you a little bit of my current experience with this. I've been single for quite a few years. And so Dave and I sat down. And we got into this area. And for whatever reason I really went back. And I really took a look at history. And my history in this area. And I just felt very compelled. And then we began to go through this thing. This fifth step experience that I had with him in this area. And this is about. See when I go through the steps. And I write inventory. Again I'm going to say this. I go into the fourth step with these belief systems intact. And that I am not quite sure about. So here's these belief systems that I have intact as I go into this inventory. Well I've been single a long time. Probably going to go to my grave that way. And that's the way it is. And you know it's okay. And you know. And that's kind of how it was. So we get done with this thing. And so he looks at me. And he gives me some considerations. And one of the things he gave me as a consideration is. He said I want you to consider that I have a sense that there is a very deep intimate relationship that will be available to you. That I think God has in store for you. And that that's going to be an essential part of your sense of wholeness and healing and completeness. And so when someone gives me considerations. And I sit with that. I don't respond to that. Right? So let me fast forward a little bit to as I sit here today and tell you what's happened in that area. I had written A Sane and Sound Ideal. And what I want to tell you is I met a woman who so far transcends my sane and sound ideal. And the experience that I'm having right now is not of me. And those belief systems that I had a little over a month ago have been totally stripped away. And now I'm getting to look at a whole new set of things that I'm either going to trust God and move forward on. Or I'm going to turn back and rely on self. And it's just amazing to me. I was talking with Dave because it's so fabulous when you do a fifth step with someone. Because he sat with me when I'm in this place. In this state of consciousness. And then I sat down with him last night and I said, let me tell you what's happened in the last month or so. Right? And it's absolutely incredible. This stuff is so transforming for you. And my experience is the Creator has a plan. Has a plan for us in this area. I do know I think one of the greatest things that's come out of my work in this area that has to do with men and women. Both. Because to me this inventory is about a lot more than relationships with the opposite sex. Is my capacity to love you just as you are. And not needing anything to change. See if there's anyone in your life in which you need something within them to change. That's about you and not them. So make a simple decision. Either stay with it. Be comfortable with it. Or don't. You follow me? Most people that I know, who they are is who they are. And what you see is what you get. But I've learned today to love people as exactly as they are. And I don't need them to change. And here's why. I don't need anything from them. The greater your desire to have someone change. The greater your need. You follow me? When you can get taken to a place. I'll say it again. The greater your desire. Your desire to have someone in your life. A significant other change. The greater that desire is. The deeper your selfishness is embedded if you will. Do you understand? Because here's what I mean. What is the reason you want them to change? To satisfy self. Right? I was talking with my pal Chris earlier. And for me. This has happened a couple times. Of sitting here and looking at a woman in my life. And getting very clear on who this woman is. And asking myself this question. Do you want to grow old with that person? Not a judgmental question. A simple question. The answer is no. Then move on. No judgment. No nothing. You understand what I'm saying? Don't need them to change a single bit. Because they may not. Get to make a decision then around that area. But nothing had to change there. Perceptions. Those kinds of things. So profound stuff can happen. If you go through and work with this. I'm always amazed. We so seldom talk about this in our rooms. Yet any of you sponsored or anyone knows. That it's at the heart of most dialogues. That you ever have with anyone that you work with. And the women friends I have in A. Tell me the same thing with the ladies that they sponsor. Yet we don't talk about it. We don't talk about this much in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. A lot of people drink behind relationships. There's a lot of pain behind relationships. One of the things I didn't know was. If you can't live without them. You can't live with them. And when you can live without them. It's okay to live with them. For people like us. You can't ever put the cart in front of the horse. See. When you can get taken to a place. That you can live without a woman. And be at peace. Probably that point in time. You can live with a woman and be at peace. See. I think that's why he uses the word driven. Driven. Driven. That kind of stuff. So that's some of my experiences with this area. This inventory can have a profound impact on your life. You can come out of it with a sane and sound ideal. An idea of what you're going to take into the relationship. This is an area that the book warns you. That if your selfish actions continue. You're quite sure to drink. It's very, very clear. That this is an area that you can drink alcohol behind. So it's an area worth taking a hard, hard look at. So that's all I got for now Dave. What Mark just shared with you. Was extremely toned down. Compared to what happened in that fifth step. Because we're talking. And he's looking at me. And he says. Hell. I've been married four times. Married and divorced four times. I'll never be. And I heard the word never. Man. When I hear the word never. Here we come. The bullseye. The beauty of this fifth step. That we shared. Was. The areas that I spent. At least 15 years. Of hard intensive labor working on. Are the areas that Mark has been having. Just these awakenings in. He's having a hard time with. And vice versa. The areas that I'm having a hard time with. He's got a lot of experience in. You know. Don't write one of these inventories. And then go fifth step it. With somebody that has absolutely no idea. What the hell it is that you're talking about. Because their ego will talk you out. Oh. You don't need to make amends. That was justified. Don't worry about that. Oh yeah. I had that. You know. They were wrong. That kind of deal. Go where you need to go. If you see somebody that's got something you want. And it's on your inventory. And you're having a hard time with it. Go to them. I've been there. I've been there. I've been there. I've been there. I've been there. I've been there. I've been there. I've been there. I've been there. I've never been to Vietnam I can't say I have that experience. If someone comes to me and is all wrapped in the Oxal about a Vietnam story I can share with them of my experience about going to war. But I'm going to hand them off with him. Because I know he was in Vietnam. And he wasn't in the Gulf war. So, he doesn't have any experience on that. Go to where the experience is. You know. I've worked with literally dozens and dozens and dozens ofazarains. of men who have molestation in their past I was never molested I will hear that we will talk about it I'll help them as far as I can go but it gets to a certain point I've got no more experience with that but I got dozens of resources to hand them off to go talk to him he can help you with that I had a woman come to me recently and she had this information as you heard me share I couldn't hear her fist step and she's got these huge sexual issues coming out of behavior in the rooms and it's it's repeated in the past in her in in the rooms of a a and she's at a crisis point in her life and she's like what do I do and I said you know I can't help you there I can steer you to a woman who I know has got similar issues you know and then I called up mark and I said hey I got this woman do you know anybody any woman that's got these specific issues and he said yeah here's a phone number I cleared it first I said are you sure I got spiritual issues I said I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure a lot of times rubish aunt said I can call you no problem she's good so I called her up and I checked it out with her and said hey I got the who's this is who I am this is what I got would you be willing to accept the phone call and then I put the two together you know so they can talk and clear this stuff up I have resources today only because I've been around a while you need those resources in your quiver you know if you're gonna be able to deal with this stuff me personally the sex ideal and sex inventory work profound changes in my life. I was scared to death of Catholicism. Yet the first fifth step I did happened to be with a Catholic. I didn't know he was a Catholic priest. He was an old guy at an AA meeting and he had a wonderful spirituality. And I said, hey, can I read a fifth step? And he said, yeah, I live right next to the church in town. I showed up and he's wearing a collar and I start laughing. Where are you going, Leo? Are you going to a costume party? That's how thick I was, right? But when the time came and I needed help and I was in a relationship and my parents had abandoned me and they said, you know, if you marry her, you're cut out of the will, you know, and they did all this stuff, which is all drama. But at the time I needed help and I needed to decide, am I going to be in this relationship and I don't know where to go? And I went to Leo and my wife's current relationship, right? We survived. We went to this priest and we counseled with the priest and my ego's telling me, what is this man going to tell me about how to have a relationship? He's single. He has no idea. He gave me one instruction, which Mark already talked about. He said, Dave, I can't help you if you're expecting something to change. Can you accept her, the good and the bad as if she never changes from right this point? If you can do that, we can work. If you can't do that, walk away. And I had to sit with that for like three weeks. Could I take her the good and the bad? I wanted the good, but man, I didn't want it. I wanted the bad. You know, an expectation is a reservation for resentment. If you got an expectation, guess what? If your play doesn't come off well, you're going to have some theater of the lie going on. It's going to happen. The sexual arena when you're doing the sex inventory is to look for themes. You don't have to go out and hear this again. You do not have to go out and have another bad relationship in AA. It is not a prerequisite. Everybody in this room right now has had enough experience that you don't have to go have another bad experience to test it out. Learn from the experience you've already got. That's the purpose of the sex inventory. We're going back and looking for themes. One of the things that I always say, and it's not out of the big book, it's above and beyond that, is how did you meet? When I started doing that, I found out that every woman that I was ever involved with, it was love at first sight. I saw them across a crowded room. I knew that she was the one for me. I pursued her to the gates of insanity and death, and all I was interested in was one thing, get in her pants as fast as I can and get the hell away from her. That's what I was about. When I was drinking, I was a whore. No bones about it, that's what I did. One thing, I was trying to put the pain out that was inside me with sex. It wasn't working. With the men I work with, if our egos are big enough that we're not going to drink again, what are we going to do. I call it the Harry Oliver Act. eyeball. We're going to get the hairy eyeball. We're going to get on the internet, all right? Start doing the internet deal. We're going to start mentally undressing everybody we see and start having these mental fantasies, you know? Of course, we're not going to get rid of the relationship we got because every once in a while we do get some over there, but, you know, we're going to take it out to the nth degree, all right? If that doesn't work, guess what else we're going to do? If we can't access sex and use sex as a way to, sex is just like drinking. Delusion, we pursue it, we think about it, we obsess it, we go for it. Once we got it, we get a high out of it and guess what happens when we're done? If it's not honest, we feel guilt, shame, and remorse. What's the difference between that and drinking? Nothing. And the next time it comes around, guess what? Delusion. This time is going to be different. So we pursue it again and the exact same result happens. We put ourselves back on the stove yet again, all right? Going through the inventory process, we're looking at what have we done? What have we done? What have we done? What have we done? What have we done? What have done? What have we done? What have we done? What have we done? What have we done? What have we done? What have done? Have we unnecessarily aroused jealousy and these sort of things? One of the things that hit me very profoundly in relationships is we don't just arouse jealousy as sexual jealousy. In an intimate relationship, we have these little competitions. You're always trying to one-up each other. Guess what? That means if there's a winner, there's a loser. You're arousing a jealousy and you're underlying, your ego is starting to undermine your relationship. You're creating a harm. I didn't know that until I was maybe 15 years sober. I was always having these little competitions, you know, sick behavior. I was blind to it. Now I can't do that stuff even by accident without it causing excruciating pain. The longer you're sober, the narrower the road is going to get. I used to be out of whack for weeks, months at a time, and that was okay because I had 12 steps and I knew I'd get to eventually. And then the road got narrower and narrower and narrower. If I'm... out of whack now for a couple of hours, I'm in absolute excruciating misery. Because why? God's grace lasts only as long as ignorance. So you go through the instructions, you write out the answers to the nine questions, all right? If there was some... One of the things I like to ask is also not out of the big book. Tell me some of the good things about your relationship. Oh, we had something in common. It was a good thing. That transfers straight across to a sex ideal. If it was something good about a past relationship, it was a good thing. If it was something good about a relationship, it would be good in a next relationship, right? Logical. If having sex on the first date always ended in disaster, reverse that and it transfers straight across to your sex ideal. Someone with whom I won't have sex on the first date with. And we can build from our own past experience a way of behavior. But that's still selfish. This is what I want out of a relationship. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. Self, self, self, self, self. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. I in the relationship that immediately attracts you to your soulmate that you say that's the one i want and they look back at you and they say that's the one i want what are you looking at each other in each other's mirrors there's a hole in your soul and that's what you see in their soul the piece that's missing we're a jigsaw puzzle and the very centerpiece is falling out it's rattling around inside of us but it's missing and we see the person and we say that's the person for me because their piece is going to fit my hole you think and you go no no pun intended right so you run out and you grab this relationship and you plug their jigsaw piece puzzle right into the center of you but you know what it's not quite a perfect fit almost but not quite and over time it starts to rattle and it starts to get worn and next thing you know it falls out and you want to cast them aside what was beautiful about them that attracted to you was you were looking at something that was missing in you if you can find what was missing in you because it's in you then you both can be whole and then you're 90 you're 100 perfect that one percent 99 you're perfect that one percent that was missing is in you all you have to do is find it that piece is rattling around you find it plug it into your soul heal yourself and then you can have the perfect relationship with the other person do they have to change not in the slightest the only person has to change is you vision i'm real big on vision get some vision what is it that you want what are you willing then get up and be that what does god want me to be when we start talking about 10 and 11 you'll hear me talk more about that consider your plans for the day what are your plans for the day clean up the mess from yesterday but what else i want to be a better father so i ask myself something very specific how can i be a better father today what can i do right now today put it on my list there's one thing i've succeeded at i'm going to do this today to be a better father how can i be a better husband i'm going to do this how can i be a better employee boom right down the line all right that's the purpose of a sex ideal most people have never seen one they don't know how to write one there's one in a guide it's one line from an old inventory it's on page 14 all right that was what i came up with it has changed since then i wrote that sex ideal after years of being in a relationship a monogamous married relationship i'm thinking why should i be a better father i'm going to do this today why should i write a sex ideal once again my ego had taken over i know that answer to that i've already been down this path why should i write it and i wrote this it blew me away and i held on to it i shared it when i fifth stepped and i held on to it and then i couldn't take it anymore why wouldn't i share that with my wife why wouldn't i let the wall down let her see me and i went to her and i said hey by the way i wrote a new ideal and here it is you know she was blown away by what i was on my ideal you know and so why wouldn't i share it with you who care who do i care knows what's on my ideal if i can try to live to it i now have a goal i have a vision of where i want to be and what i want to bring it's something to challenge me it's this and this area will yield benefits better than you could ever imagine if you start out with a spiritual process with an answer guess what you're going to figure out through the answer you started with start out with a question what does god want me to be in a relationship. I just recently started to do this myself and I've been asking the guys I work with. The sex ideal is such a cool thing. It's really helped me dramatically in my sex relationship. Let's write a work ideal. What do I want out of work? Why not? Not only just what I want out of work, what am I willing to bring to work? So I wrote out a work ideal. I wrote out a program ideal. I wrote out a sponsorship ideal. What do I want for my sponsor and what am I willing to bring to my sponsor? Because I'm looking for vision in my life. How can I get more vision of where do I want to end up? Powerful stuff. Really important stuff. The way to get there to any goal, you can't start any journey unless you know where you are, where the starting point is. You've got to write the inventories to know this is where I am. Then you need a goal, a vision for where you're headed to before you can figure out a path on how to get there. So acceptance, action, result. The acceptance is write out the ideal or the inventory. This is who and what I have become. It's not me anymore. I am not that person anymore. Today, this is who I am. Where do I want to go? Write out the sex ideal. Ask God to help you get there and you'll make it. It's a wonderful deal. But it takes constant repetition. What we do repeatedly, we become. What we think repeatedly, we become. We are. That is, it becomes. We manifest that in our lives. AA comes of age. Page number 250. It says, a single act of surrender can produce sobriety by its stopping effect upon the ego. Unfortunately, that ego will return unless the individual learns to accept a disciplined way of life. Notice this. It's a way of life. It has to become you. It has to be a fabric of you. You cannot remove the program from me. It is my life. It is part of what I am in this physical shell. Underneath is the kernel, the true essence of what I really am. But in this physical plane, it's become so connected to who and what, how I live life in this physical plane. There's no separation. It's a way of living. We have to learn to accept the disciplined way of life, which means that a tendency for our ego to come back is permanently checked. If it becomes a way of life, I can keep my ego in permanent check. This is not new to AA members. They have learned that a single surrender was not enough. The 12 steps, repeated inventories, not just one and the 12 stepping itself, a routine reminder that one must work at deserving sobriety. All are essential. We have to earn to be deserving of sobriety. We just can't come in and say, I did it once and then sit on our laurels. When I share, I share about what I'm doing now, what I'm currently doing. Not what I did three years ago. I just get whatever I need, but I don't feel who ready to do anything. My spirit is going to be to train yourself to do what even tears are white. It is not ago or five years ago? What am I doing right now, right here? That's what your sex inventory should be. Clean up the past and then look at your inventory right now. What am I doing now and where am I headed? It's a full Monty. It's a full deal. You can't just look at the inventory and say, yeah, I was bad and let's go make amends for that and stop there. I guarantee you will re-manifest that stuff in your life. You have to replace it. It's back to the pink elephant. If I tell you not to think about a pink elephant, unless I replace it with something else, you have nowhere to go. I can't emphasize enough the importance of a sex ideal and how many hundreds of thousands of alcoholics and alcoholics anonymous have never heard of a sex ideal. A properly written sex ideal, if you try to live and compare your life to it, it will change you for all time. You got anything else? We got one minute? We're going to change? Okay, yeah. If you guys will bear with me for just one second. We'll change and then we'll continue on for, what, another half hour and then go to dinner.