Surrender of Self-will – FOTS Step 11 Workshop – Part 23 of 25 – Robin W.

to participate in my own recovery today and to share my experience strength and hope and I'm gonna just read a short passage from the big book page bottom of page 87 last paragraph and I'll be sharing on that as we go through the day we pause when agitated or doubtful and we ask for the right thought or action we constantly remind ourselves that we no longer are running the show humbly saying to ourselves many times each day thy will be done we are then in much less danger of excitement fear anger worry self-pity or foolish decisions we become much more efficient we do not tire so easily but we're not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves it works it really works we alcoholics are undisciplined so we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined that I will be done so it was amazing when Teresa asked me to speak and then she got back to me a a couple of days later and said this is the topic in which you'll be speaking do you have any objections to it my response to her is Teresa this is where I live I don't know how to live another way today so it really wasn't always that way for me I didn't come to this fellowship looking for God's will to be done in my life I actually made it here on the vehicle of Robin's will be done I always done what I ever always wanted to do no matter what the benefits or consequences were when the book talks about us being extremely undisciplined I found out how much so I was when I made it to these rooms and there were incredible men and women that were very very skillful in helping me see the self that I never wanted to see one of the most difficult things I've yet to do in in all my days was to see myself for who I really was, opposed to who I convinced myself I was, who I projected myself to be, but who I was really, really was. And those underlying currents of thought that we have, our thought process, our intentions and our motives. And so I'm really grateful to this fellowship because I get to live in a God-centered world now than I never thought possible for me. I'll share a little bit with you about what my life is like. You know, what it's like is that I'm right now in my bedroom having this conversation with you while I have a house full of... I operate a transitional home and I have women that are now, right now, being mindful of a particular woman that I just took in who has severe mental challenges and I don't think that may be able to survive in this house because my women are very very they're very high alert they're very outgoing they just needed a hand up and not necessarily a handout but I got a call last night from someone in our fellowship and said I got a call from someone's family member and they're so concerned about their sister and i've got to find her and he said to me robin if i find her can i bring her to your house you know and i said well you look and while you look i'm gonna have a conversation with god because um i now live and operate in a world where i don't want to have a conversation i don't need a life experience that hasn't been ordained for me and when i speak in these terms it's not from a religious state of being it's from a relationship that i found here in these rooms a relationship was cultivated with me and a god of my understanding that's become a love relationship and the darn thing is so beautiful that i live in it through it buy it and so I felt this particular piece within myself and I'm like I don't want to see someone you know homeless or in a destitute situation not at this time and so i accepted the woman into our home my family members aren't that thrilled about it and I understand why they're not exceptionally thrilled about what I'm doing in this climate right they know that I can fully handle myself in a normal in a norm arena but none of us are experiencing normality these days and so of course they're all really concerned you know are you still taking people in why would you be doing that you know at this time right and I live what I just read to you out of the passage in the book I had a conversation a few days ago with a couple of my siblings and I said to them there are some paperwork and documentation then I'm gonna need you all to take possession of and become very familiar with and be aware of because I live a thy will be done kind of life it's not sometime it's not most of the time it's just where I'm at today in my life it took decades for me to get here in sobriety I didn't just get here and all of a sudden I just ended up on this page you know telling God I'll follow your lead every day I have a full-blown agenda on my desk right now there are three phones a tablet and a computer everything's on silent but this conversation with you they're just sharing my heart with you and what my life experiences are as it relates to our 12-step process into this particular step as well and so I made my siblings become alert and aware and one that hasn't and he's online right now and I'll catch up with him later of some things that I've mapped out some things that I want in place maybe I won't survive this I don't have any fear about that I have lived almost three decades of the most incredible life within his fellowship that I never thought possible for myself and if I don' t survive a have a pandemic that's hit this globe good life right here in this world with so many people that are online right now like I'm full you know excuse me she gave me a topic that totally it pierces to the core of who I am today I didn't come in here like this I made it to these rooms still thinking that money property and prestige were the tools in which I'd use to navigate myself through my life you hear anything about God in that statement and I've been so fortunate over the years that there have been such kind compassionate and people that had such an incredible working knowledge of these steps that they took me under their wing they loved me in a way that I did not know how to love myself I thought that self-maintenance was love you know get the right shade of lipstick drive the right automobile wear the right designer clothes and that was self-love you know so you already know I was in a complete state of delusion and I sure couldn't have sat here and had this conversation with you this evening from that premise in my life yeah I don't have a planned script when I'm asked to speak I just share my heart from where I'm asked to speak from I just tell the truth as best I know it to be today and I'm not always 100% certain that it's full truth I am still an alcoholic I have recovered from a mind and body well a body physical state of being that would render me hopeless and helpless but I still have to keep in mind that I suffer from a disease that's mind-centered and the same way it was out to destroy me prior to getting here doesn't go away as we grow in here and as we deepen ourselves and our belief systems, and as we continue to seek God on a daily basis to enlarge upon our spiritual maintenance so that we become far more valuable to God, to ourselves, and to our fellows. This disease does not go away. At the drop of a hat, when it's least expected, on a clear beautiful day when the world is relatively in balance it will it will leap out at you from nowhere you know from nowhere and so there are number of people in my life a number of them that are online right now that I use as a voice of reason I don't make any life decisions today without seeking God and without running major life decisions by other people major life decisions I take into consideration what their opinions may be I live a completely transparent life today and it wasn't always that way and I didn't realize I had the level and degree of secrets that I did when I got here but I had so many secrets and you know as we say in these rooms that we're as sick as our secrets and so it made me a very very sick person mentally spiritually indefinitely emotionally I was spiritually bankrupt in coming here and like so many other people we can talk about the academics of what the words are that lie on the pages within but don't talk to me about that God stuff you know I am had had my share of God and one of the hugest resentments that I had in being here was with God when I got here and I think the people that helped me to be able to see God in a different perspective and in a different life from a different position so that i could have the relationship that i do today and my my life hangs in the balance on and the balance of what that relationship is day to day and so i live my life out to empty out myself the vessel that i am whatever kindness compassion whatever tolerance and level of understanding that can um that can be explored and that can be shared, that it can also be left in the world. My life's goal is to create a positive rippling effect in the universe, that I may not ever be here to fully see it in effect, but that the dash between when I came and when I left will admit something because God's will have been fulfilled in my life. I'm fully aware of the fact That I don't get to live the kind of life I do without God's omnipresence, you know. And so for that, I'm eternally grateful. I came here living life from the outside in. The square footage of the homes we live in, who our social friends were, what our annual network was, things of that nature. None of that matters to me today, you Know? um my best life lived is from the inside out from this relationship that's been cultivated between my maker and myself and so um when we share if you're new to our rooms and we share from this perspective and you hear us saying god we're not we are not actually i'll say i am not I'm not sharing from a religious perspective I don't claim any religion what I claim is a relationship with my Creator that I've come to know come to love and come to understand in those that only wants the absolute best for me and for his other children okay I didn't see the clock so if that bell if those bells were for me let me know and when it's time I just need you to cut me off give me a cutoff point at least five to seven minutes in okay and so um I get to live the incredible life I live today and I'd seen other people have similar lives and even better but for some reason you know you know I want a life that's full and flavorful you know flavorful when you know how to live the full extension of myself and you know my life experiences the good the bad and the indifferent you know who not today not even that hardly like I'm so content in this moment then I mean right now with you that there's no place else my mind is circulate to be but in this movie and I get to live my life in real time and that's amazing to me I am NOT I'm an avid reader not much of a television watcher there are times that I dust the remote control off and there are televisions in every room and but the real time real life that I live out through this fellowship in this process it just doesn't long way long way for television I think at the end of my day what could top the days that I've had when I've seen people distraught people on the verge of not just losing sobriety but willing to give up their lives because they're so backed up into the corner of their lives they don't see a better way out and I can meditate and pray and talk with those people and not necessarily pull them into my meditation my prayers but i can share with them and talk with them and sometimes even plead with them can you just give god one more try can we like it's 9 59 59 can you give him that last minute can we just see if he'll come for you come through for you in that last minutes that it'll impress something in your heart in your mind or in your spirit that'll give you the hope and the desire to just try one more day and so to be able to be used in a way that i've never dreamt of for myself it's it's amazing um to be to be in the days that i live in this day ended at my day ended last night at about 2 30 a.m five o'clock my feet were back up on the floor um I have no idea what time it'll end today and I can't wait to see what's coming tomorrow I get to be so excited about the life that I live and what the next day will bring and how the day will unfold because I didn't orchestrate it I have my list of things to do but I didn t orchestrated I'm always open and and always willing to be to be challenged and channeled through for god's will to be done in my life and that's how i just simply live my life um i don't have finances that are on reserve for god s will today i don t have a time frame that's on reserve that i won't donate to god's wheel for the betterment of one of his other children didn't come here like that wasn't thinking like that for a long time even in sobriety and sometimes it's even kind of startling to me to hear myself share like this you know to hear that that's now the core essence of where i of where I live it's the core essences before I derived it's the core essence of where I operate from today and so sometimes I'm just a little bit like who you know yeah for those of you that are new we welcome you to these rooms we want to let you know we just share in a general way we all have a story there's a lot of similarities in our stories but you have your own uniqueness and whatever your experience has been um we want to let you know that we're not a glum lot you know even if we're not physically together like we're finding a lot of enjoyment in in universe hopping being global um via our electronic devices so no matter what my time frame is, I don't want to ramble. I think that I've driven the point home that any life run on self-will I have come to find out will hardly be a success but any life that is empowered by God and any life that will yield itself to God whatever that God is of your own understanding there are no bounds there are no boundaries there are no measures of what that life can produce i thank you for allowing me to share myself with you this evening i thankyou for being part of a community that i never thought affordable not me i get to be a part of an universal community of men and women who will embrace you no matter how far down the scale you've gone that's not what we that's not what we teeter on i don't know of another form in the universe that you could share the worst of yourself with a group of people they'll smile the hug even beyond uh minus the corona pandemic they'll give you a warm well-meant hug and ask you to keep coming back i don't know another form in the universe of people that will do that and for all of you that have helped to support me in being the best version of myself i can be through your prayers and um through challenging me to go deeper i thank you thank you so much for letting me share myself with you this evening god bless