The Relationship with Higher Power That I Don’t Understand – Earl H.

Yeah. Hi everybody, my name is Earl, I'm an alcoholic. I was expecting like four people. Considering the topic and the person doing the talking, I figured it was a surefire four-person deal. People who are afraid of sunlight would come. I want to thank Steve for having the guts to have me come talk on this. I guess a good place to start relationships. I highly recommend them. You should have them. Thank you. Back to the pool. Look at them in the back going, all right, we're out of here. I guess my approach to relationships, newly in sobriety, I go to a friend's house. I walk in. He says, hi, I've got a friend here from Brazil Luisa I'd like you to meet Luisa and as I look at Luisa and I smile she smiles back and I saw it, there was a little spark there, there wasn't a little connection between Luisa and myself and as i'm crossing the room to shake Luisa's hand i'm thinking to myself I don't know if I want to live in Brazil right? That's me. That's me till I got into some recovery that, um, so for me, rule number one always has always been, it takes a long time to get to know somebody. Rule number two is no getting around rule number one. It just does. It takes a long time to know somebody which is bad news for guys like me. That's very bad news. My idea of a first date is dinner and a blood test. Let's, you know, I got a little questionnaire here. Let's fill this out, you Know. Family information is irrelevant. How many siblings? Do you get along with your father? These are not things I'm going to ask, you Now. So relate, you now, and everybody thinks, oh, we're going to talk about relationships. This is going to be about the significant other. the one person, the sexual relationship that we're going to get into all that and no I don't think so I think that for me with relationships that's where I want to focus I'm broken, let's fix me she'll do it's like a friend of mine says he's the guy that invariably goes to the AA meeting looks across the room and his eyes meet hers and the connection is made, and he knows she could fix me. She could do it. I'm convinced. I haven't been within 30 feet of her ever, but I know from the look that we're in. This is good. And always what happens is that they ask for the meeting starts and they ask für those in their first 30 days, and her hand goes up and the sleeve falls back to reveal the hospital band. Right? You have no idea how many people just went, uh-huh. Yeah, had that experience. So I figure maybe that's the wrong way to go about this whole relationship idea is to find him, to find her, whatever your persuasion may be, the one who's going to fix it, the one whose going to make me whole, the one that's going make everything all right with the world because until I find him or her, I can't be happy, I cant be whole, I can't be fulfilled, right? Bad approach for me. What I had to discover was there's this little thing called the steps. I know, I know. People are going, well, I'm out of here. I was... I didn't mention the steps, I was here to find out, you know, if it was going to be possible to get laid this week. I mean... But the way I got it figured out The way I got it figured out is There's three kinds of relationships There's a relationship with God There's an relationship with self And there's a friendship with others And that others is in varying degrees If I'm going to As an alcoholic male As a self-centered human being I've got to find my way Into some kind of balance That I'm gonna bring to the game I mean Being chronologically I have no short term memory Who spoke last night? Sandy B. Excellent talk. Sandy talked about how you flip things emotionally. It's not about what I get, it's what I give. That's what brings the balance. And that's what i found. It makes no sense, but it works. It's absolutely what works. So I have to engage in a relationship with a power greater than myself, a relationship of self, and only when I've got that stuff scored away am I going to get into any relationships of any balance or merit with other human beings. Diet Coke So, relationship with a power greater than myself First I've got to know that ain't me I'm a self-centered frightened human being Self-centered fear is the chief activator of all my defects of character I'm either afraid of what I'm not going to get What is it? Yes Two guys are listening over here Yeah, I'm going to lose what I already have I've got to get out of that loop. I've Got to Get Out of That, because I'm always trying to fix it. Peggy talks about this stuff. She's nodding. Oh, I just woke up. I got to sleep at 5 o'clock this morning. Yeah. See the divot in my head? That was me attacking a flea at about 4.30 this morning and I went to slap the flea off my head and hit a divot. See, as Donald Madden used to say, the late great Donald Madden. I should never be allowed to walk about unattended, which is why I'm happily married now. And I'm the guy, I mean, I actually am. I'm actually a happily married man. And that didn't happen though for me. I've been married before, but Now I'm a happily married man. I got married twice drinking, once for a day. This is sort of the progression of my relationships. First time I was married, I was marriage for a year. For a day, we went to the reception and I looked around. What I saw was we had peaked at the reception. And it was clear. and I just left. All right. That's right, that's the hope to die section back there. And the second time I was married, I was marriage drinking for about a year. It's not clear to me to this day. I'm not really sure how long I was marrying, but it was roughly a year, roughly a little year. And it just, I had one of those, what I like to refer to as the blackout moments of clarity, where I just walked in the house one day and looked at her and said, I really don't think it's good that we're married anymore. She seemed relieved. And I left. And then I've been sober now 24 years, and I've been married twice in sobriety. Once my first wife decided that she was, again, quite capable of some controlled drinking. And I got out of the way. All right? I heard that, and two days later, I was gone. That ended, and then I've been with the same woman for seven years now, and happily so. But it's taken a lot of work, and it hasn't been my picker that I've Been Working On. The part of me that decides who would be the right person for me to be with, that's not what I've Been Working On, what I'm Been Working on is me. That's what I'Ve Been Working ON, this relationship with a power greater than myself. The great news for me about developing a relationship with a power greater than myself is that I don't have to get this right. It doesn't say God could and would if he were found. It says God could und what if he was sought. That the action is on my part, that I have to seek God. I seek God in the 11th step through prayer and meditation. What do I pray for? Knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out. This is a relationship that a guy like me has got to have in his life. I have got to begin each day deferring to a power greater than myself. Donald, I mean, the serenity prayer. God grant me the first three words of the serentity prayer, right? That's important, that relation. God grantme the serency to accept the things I cannot change. All the stuff out here, right. Courage to change the things i can inside. It's my perception that's strange, that's marred, that's been affected by years of self-centered alcoholism and drug addiction. What about me? Worrying about me. Where's mine? How am I going to get mine? What's she think of me? How am i going to lie and control and manipulate this situation so that she'll love me? Always a good plan for a relationship. That always works very, very well. My first relationship in AA. Saw the girl in the meeting and went, her. Immediately found out who her best friend was Became very good friends with her It seemed that they would all go to the beach on the weekend Suddenly I was a part of that group Going to the Beach I was controlling and manipulating the situation And completely misrepresenting who I was Which was all that I was absolutely capable of Because I had no idea who I Was I had No Relationship With Self I said Whatever I Thought Would Be The Right Thing To Say To Get Her In My Life I got her in my life, and we had probably one of the most frightening relationships in the history of AA for about two years. Really healthy relationships. After we broke up, she moved to New York, and I hadn't seen her in seven years. And one day I get a phone call, andI say, Hello? And this woman's voice says, Why do you hate me? And it was her. And I understood what she was talking about. I mean, I got that kind of twisted mentality. I mean that was where I started. Completely incapable of having a relationship because I introduced you to this guy over here. He has nothing to do with me. You like him? It doesn't have anything to do mit me. You don't like him. It doesn' t have anything do with mi. I was out of the relationship. I'm with this woman. She has no idea who I am and there's no way to connect because I've completely set it up to fail. Right? I got to get a relationship with God. I got let go of these reins. I've got to get a relationship going with God. And I seek God through prayer and meditation. For me, it's got to stay simple. I've Got to do that daily surrendering to a relationship beyond myself in very, very, very simple terms. When I first went to Donald Madden and said, I'd been going to Ohio Street for about two and a half years, and right behind the podium, there's like a three-foot by four-foot painting of the serenity prayer. I'd been going there like three days a week for two and a half years and I suddenly spotted it. And I was very excited. And I called Donald and I said, I've got my prayer. And he said, wonderful, what is it? And I said it's this serenety prayer and he said no. I said what do you mean no? It's like the shortest prayer I found. And he says no, no there's too much going on in there you're going to screw that all up. You want prayers they'll give you prayers. I said, terrific. What are they? He said, when you wake up in the morning before your feet hit the floor, I want you to look up palms up and I want You to say whatever and get up and go about your business. When your day is done, you get in the bed, you pull the covers up to your insane little head. You put your hands up and you say enough. Those are your prayers. I went excellent. I got them right. So like three days, I think, I'm like armed now, man. I got prayer, right? Me and God like that. And I'm, I've worked three days in. He gets a call about 930 in the morning. Can you always answer the phone the same way? Donald Madden. I said, Donald Zerlo. He goes, what do you want? I said. I'm doomed. And he said, yes, I know. What do you wants? And I said I'm done, man I can't get another step. I'm dumb. done. I'm toast. I am never going to make it to tonight. I am never gonna make it too enough. I am screwed. Thanks for your help, but this is not gonna work." He said, Relax, I can help. I said, Good, because this is the only call I'm making. And he said, Alright, I want you to take a deep breath. It was a very deep breath for me in the beginning. I want you to think a deep breathe and I want you to say, Enough. I said Enough. Now take another deep now I want you to say whatever and it was like this long pause and I said you could do that you could just arbitrarily just end your day and start it over again what about the clock what about time and he said no Earl don't because he could see I was about to get into the time space continuum and at two and a half years I was still very capable of just falling into a wormhole and disappearing I mean, he said, we're not getting into time. You can start your day over any time you want. You let it go. You relinquish it. You release it. And then you move forward again. And I thought that was like, it's so simple, but that's what a guy like me needs. If you're going to tell me here's the, you know, you should do this and here's the manuals that go with that, I'm out. Not a manual guy, you Know, which is why the wife hooks up the stereo. You know, I'll hook it up and there will be just one big huge bright light And then it's all over Which I find very satisfying Nobody else seems to think that's the way to go So I've got to get this God I've Got to Get a God in My Life I have a God In My Life That I Don't Understand At All But Again, Great News Understanding God is not necessary to the relationship. I have a God I don't understand. I see evidence of that God on a daily basis, right? I mean, look at the color of the water here. I mean it's amazing, right. I mean anytime those of you that were on a plane that saw me flying in an airplane, come on, right and behaving myself, not frightening the normal people who are sitting around me and the plane bumps and I start talking a lot. I can fly. I can do it. I'm not comfortable. It scares me to death, but I can deal with it. I'm sitting up here and I'm looking and I've seen entirely too many people all of whom profess to be sober. These are alcoholics and drug addicts and they're clean and sober and they actually made a decision, had a choice, the option of going to great lengths and to come together as a group and experience sobriety recovery on yet another level, to take it to another level. To come together like this, right? And not be working and not just hit a meeting and go, but I mean we are all sticking together and we're being together and experiencing this. That's a remarkable thing, I think. I personally avoid other people at all costs. You know, and for us to, of our own free will to come Together and do this is an amazing thing. I see evidence of God on a daily basis. I watch people socializing here at lunch and I'm watching this and I know a lot of you. And I know you're not people that would normally mix. You know? And we're having a good time. And last night I'm on my way back to my room and I am emotionally overwhelmed with the hugs and the greetings and the smiles and the people that I haven't seen in a year or two that we see each other and we're so happy to see each another and we have such a strong bond and there's so much love going on. I mean, you've got to know, before I got sober, I didn't show up places and have people thrilled to see me. This is a great thing for somebody like me, the unemotional shutdown, not going to get to know you, not goingto tell you the truth, not goingo participate, not goingt be friends, I'm going to be up all night and sleep all day in the darkness. God, this is an amazing thing for me. And it's a result of the three relationships. When I was five years sober, this Is how it breaks down for me When I Was Five Years Sober All I Had Ever Done Was Go To Meetings I Was In A Minimum Of A Meeting A Day For The First Five Years Because That's What My Sponsor Said What Meeting Are You Going To Today? There Was Never A Day When He Said What Meeting ARE YOU GOING TO TOMORROW? It Was Today Going to meetings. So I'm going to meetings, going to meetings, work, go to meetings have coffee with other people and I heard about this convention they had a convention an A&A convention I thought wow that's like even bigger than meetings and I asked him can I go to that it was in South Bay just south of Los Angeles and he said yeah you can go and I said you all see that right? He's taunting me, isn't he? So anyway, what the hell was I talking about? Ah, going to the conference in South Bay. And I go down there in my little car, right? And I get my little registration thing. And I think, wow, this is like a brave new world. this is really exciting. Doing this on my own, I don't have a... I'm unsupervised. You know what I mean? Which is very rare to this day in my life. My sponsor told me in the beginning, you should never be allowed to walk the earth unattended. We just know this about you. And I'm comfortable with that. I'm happy to be attended. I's always good to have a second opinion available to me every moment of every day. So I go in and I walk in the back of this room and there's 2,500 alcoholics in a room listening to one guy. And the energy of that was so amazing to me. It just pinned me up against the back wall. And it was incredibly emotional to see so many of us in one place. I'd never seen anything like it, right? And I was thinking, we're all in here, and who is that guy? There's all of us, and they picked that guy. Who is that guys? And it turns out his name was Franklin W. from Olive Branch, Mississippi. right Franklin W was like one of the first circuit guys that would travel around and speak at different meetings right and Franklin's up there talking to him there was just something about him where it just wasn't what he was saying so much at that point it was just the way he was in the front of these people and it was so genuine and it Was so from the heart and he was just shooting from the hip you know what I mean and it It was so and I just all the shields went down on me and I was just taking in what Franklin W had to say and he said and I'll sum up Alcoholics synonymous for you in six words those six words are trust god clean house and help others those are the words and those are the only three relationships i can have a relationship with god self and others my my relationship with god is to find a way for a guy like me to trust the god i don't understand right that my relationship itself is going to have to be getting the stuff off of me that i put between me and my god and me and you getting that stuff out of the way so that i can walk there at the free man and engage with a god and with other human beings without it being about my stuff right that that's my job is to get rid of that to clean house and my relationship with you has to be about helping others and you know and my immediate reaction as a new guy was well when is it my turn say well i for all the years before i came to you my entire life was about me. To get some kind of balance back, I've got to spend every waking moment making it about you for a change, to kind of bring me back into some kind OF legitimate perspective. So I hear this from Franklin W., trust God, clean house, help others, and it blows the top of my head off, six words. All those things for all those meetings, for those five years that I'd been listening to, all those little pieces of AA, all those Little Pieces of Spiritual Wisdom based on the experience of my kind who had gone before me. Those alcoholics that had gone before me, they just all clicked together and it made sense. It made sense that this is what I had to do. And I recognized that my acceptance of this was not going, it didn't require my approval. It was the truth and I could hear that it was the true and I had to begin that. Sixteen years later, I'm 21 years sober, I get asked to speak at the 53rd annual Texas Day Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous. Like a big deal, right? Bunch of Texas drunks. And I go out there and this stuff freaks me out. I get nervous when I do this to this day. It's never been comfortable. God please may it never get comfortable. And I go there and I got my little suit and tie on and I wander into the room like a deer caught in the headlights. I'm just kind of sparking around. The best advice I ever got about speaking Dick gave me before I came up to do this. He said, I got this thing, me, relationships. Are you kidding me? What was I thinking? And he says, ah, you'll be fine. Just start. He's right. Nothing else to do. Anything I plan, I get up here and look at you and it just goes. It's gone. So anyway, I'm at the 53rd annual Texas State Conference and I walk in and there's this guy Searcy sitting there. The late Searcey passed away like last year. He's like, at the time he's like 91 years old. He'd been sober like 57 years and he's been married to the same woman for 59 years. Right? And he's 91 and he sharp as a tack. Right. I was always telling him that we need to get, we need To get seriously a ring so that we got something to kiss besides his ass. Cause he's just this amazing guy. And he sees me and He goes, Earl, come over here. I'm telling a story. Now, first, I'm shocked the guy even knows my name, right? So I'm like, yes, Mr. Searcy. And I go in and I sit down. And Searcey says, I was just telling these guys, like way back in the beginning of AA, I was sitting and me and Bill Wilson were talking. And I said, excuse me. I mean, Bill Wilson, Bill Williamson, co-founder of AA. Yes, Earl. That's the guy. Now, be quiet. I'm trying to tell a story, you know? Yes, Mr Searcie. And we're talking. We're talking to Franklin W. Excuse me. That'd be Franklin W. from Olive Branch, Mississippi, the guy that I heard 16 years ago, the trust cut, clean house help. He goes, Earl, please be quiet. I'm trying to – I'm sorry. Yeah, that's the guy. We're talking, and Franklin W asked Bill Wilson, Bill, what is the heart and soul of this program that we need to take a hold of to bring to the generations that have yet to come? what is the heart and soul of this that we will bring to those generations of people and Bill Wilson said that's simple trust God, clean house, help others now I'm sitting there 16 years later believing that that's the thing and I find out that the guy I got it from got it form Bill Wilson so I'm having a moment I go I can't listen anymore my head's exploding I gotta go and I run away and then it's time to speak and I go my name's Earl I'm an alcoholic drank used went bad got sober much better Now, let me tell you this story, right? That was like what I was thinking about. Just trust God, clean house, help others thing. Trust God. How do I trust God? How do you break that down? Well, I remember going to a very good friend of mine early in sobriety and saying, how do you trust somebody? And he said, you decide to. Entirely too simple for me. Right, right. I just decide to trust somebody. I'll just decide to trust Attila the Hun. That's because that's what I'll do. I'll, I'll just decide to trust the serial killer in the room, right? That's what I'll do. And he says, no, no, that's irrelevant, man. It's about what you're willing to do. It's about you surrendering control. It's not about what happens over there. Stop worrying about what happens over there. What are you going to do? He said, fine, fine, take it easy. I'll decide. I'm going start. Actually, he's my original friend. I've been friends with him longer than anyone ever in my life. He's 25, I'm 24. We got sober right around the same time together, Christopher. And I decided to trust him and then I decided to trust this person. And what happened was it doesn't make any difference what those people did with my trust, the result of that was I became a trusting man. Which is what I prefer to be. It's like, you know, I had it all wrong when I got here. I thought if I'm honest with you, you'll be honest with me. That's what you get for that. If I am loving towards you,you will be loving towards me. It' not what happens around here. What happens is that if I'mhonest with you I become an honest man. IfI'm loving towards you, I become a loving man. That's what happens and then that's what I bring to the table and the people that are willing to act in kind kind of just seem to come my way. I know a lot of really trustworthy people. I Know a lot very trusting people. I know a lot a very loving people. There's a lot them here. I mean I lost my family when I was 22 years old. I've been with you longer than I was with them. Much longer, because I left home so young. I mean, Steve's like, he's family. He's family! There's no part of the concept or idea of family for me that doesn't apply to him. You know? Steve M. sitting back there. He was here. He left. He got bored with all this. No, there he is. There he is, I see him once a year, once every couple of years. There's no part of family that doesn't apply to him for me. These are guys that I love without reservation. It has absolutely nothing to do with what they're doing. It has to do mit who they are, who I've come to understand them to be as men. And I love them. That's a remarkable thing. That's relationships with others. I jump ahead. Back to the God thing. I got to trust God. So I make a conscious decision to do so. Turn my will and my life over to the care of God and move my feet and get out into the world and see what happens. And I get on a plane, I give it to God. The plane bumps, I take it back. I give It back to God, the plane bumps. I take It back. It's like tennis from L.A. to Miami, you know? Here, give me that. Here, gimme that. Like I've got any control in the plane whatsoever. All I can do is sit and explain to the person next to me how insane it is that we're in this large metal cylinder hurtling across the sky. You know, and that we've all been duped into thinking this is a reasonable thing to do. It's not. It's got to develop a relationship with self. What's a good place to start? Step four. Right? Start clearing away the wreckage. Start clearing it away. Start looking at my side of the street. That fourth column's a doozy. I'm in a big fight with Howard Pohl and Howard P., right? I mean, it's the most loving, gentle friends laughing at each other fight you've ever seen in your life, right? But he's convinced that in the inventory there are four inventories of three columns each, that there's resentment, fear, and sex, and the fourth inventory is selfishness and self-centeredness, and that the fourth column is left out of all those inventories. I'm a believer of the old school way that there are three inventories or four columns each. And we battle. It's hysterical to watch us debating this, right? Because what we got is two hopeless alcoholics debating on how we remain free, having gotten free going through this process, right. And whenever he gets up to speak, if I'm sitting out there, as he walks up on the stage, he looks at me and he goes. And then I'll get up to speaking, and as I walk by him, I go. Fact is, in any way you look at it, you've got 12 columns. Four inventories of three or three inventories or four. You all end up in the same place. I've got to get in and start to wrestle with that process. I've Got to look at my side of the street. I've GOT TO GET THE STUFF OFF OF ME, OUT OF THE WAY THAT I PUT BETWEEN ME AND YOU AND ME AND GOD. I've got to get it out of the way. The minute I'm done with that, four and five, I hook it up with God, six and seven. Ask God to remove my defects of character. Engage in that relationship. Thy will, not mine, be done. Thy will not mine. Who's thy beats me. All I know about thy is that that's not me. My name is not thy. That's all I've Got to Know About That to take the actions necessary. I don't have to have a deep understanding of God. One of the greatest God moments I ever had was on an SVI trip. I'm walking on the beach in Mexico. By the way, the older I get, the stranger I get. I swear to God. It doesn't really matter to me where I am anymore as long as I'm in the company of you. I don't even bother to find out where I'm going. Everyone in L.A. thinks I went to Mexico. Going away, I'm gone to Mexico i didn't put the miami air mexico thing together i didn'T put that together doesn't matter right what the hell was i talking about walking on the beach god excellent see you guys are keeping see i'm attended i'm it's good i'm walking onthe beach i got this guy with like two years over here kind of doing a little work with him, right? And we got the 20-year sober Jesuit priest over here, right, teacher, amazing guy. Father Tom W., right? I mean, if ever there was a teacher, that's the guy. The two guy with two ears says over me to the esteemed father, Father, how do you improve your conscious contact with god you know one of the great ethereal questions of aa you know and my immediate reaction i just slumped into a depression the minute he asked him i just it's like don't don't you don't do that we're having a nice walk on the beach ask him about the dolphins ask him about the sand you don'T ask a jeju what about conscious contact these people are so overly educated, this is going to go on forever. Right? It's going to go on for ever and there's going to be no practical application to anything the man says. When he's done you're going to be crying on the beach. Because you're gonna be, no I can't do that, I can do it. But you asked for it, I'm just going to step out of the way and let you take the beating you deserve for ruining my afternoon. So we're walking along and Tom does it. He just turns to the guy and he says, oh that's easy. Go for a walk in the woods. Go för a walk on the beach. Dance. Read a great book. Listen to great music. Talk to intelligent people. That's how you improve your confidence. And I'm looking at him like that is the best answer I have ever heard to such a question. It was just short, sweet, impractical. And Tom's looking at me like, fooled you, didn't I? You thought I was going to go for the big thing right now. He was bam. He hits the thing. That's what I got to do. There are actions I can take that improve my conscious contact with God. Where are those actions? There's a lot of them right in the steps. Do your inventory before God that you don't understand or do understand before another human being. Get it out. Get rid of it. Six and seven, hooking it back up with God, Ask God to remove the defects of character, because I'll remove the wrong stuff. Let God do that. Let God remove the defect of character. And don't be worried. My concern was if I ask God to move my defects of characterize, I'll disappear. Because that's all I got is defects. Don't be afraid. You'll still be here when that happens. Eight and nine, hook it back up with you. Start at the beginning. The beginning of my relationships with other people is I'm now a sober man, and based upon my drinking and using, I got a lot of wreckage out there. I got to lot of harming others. I got lot of taking advantage. I got the lot of deceit. I got of lot of stuff out there that I got clean up. Asking myself this question, how free do you want to be? Well, I want the big deal. I want big buzz. When I was drinking and using, I never wanted the little bitty baby buzz. I never was the guy who said no thank you, I've had enough or no more for me, I'm driving. Never said those things. I was in until I hit the floor. I'm the same way in here. I've got to be a pig about this. I want the big buzz. I want to get free. I wantto continue to get more and more andmore of this by doing the simple things that are asked of me in here, not easy but simple. So I make my amends. I get out there, make my list, and I get it right. I get up there and I actually do it. And if I'm thinking, does that guy belong on the list? Yeah. Always the answer is yeah. Does he? Yeah. All right. You think I should, do you think she, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That goes on. Just get it all on there. It's easier to peel one off than it is to backtrack it. Get them all on their, go through my thing. That's the beginning of my relationships with others. Now I did the God thing. I did self thing. The others thing. There's a lot of different kinds of relationships. My real, I'm a married man, right? Anybody that knows my wife knows I'm married up. Anybody that knows me also says, and they say, how's your relationship with Lori going? I say, as long as her denial holds, we're going to be fine. They think I'm kidding. Not kidding. I'm the weak link in this deal. I am. She's one of these astonishing people that's really good at the things required to be successful in a relationship. She is just good at it she's got an amazing heart she's a terribly kind human being her ability to just automatically think of others is remarkable and listen to me i'm saying this she ain't even here it's who she is she's just she's an amazing person but i have to remember she is of another species she's female i am a male i have a certain way of looking at things that just doesn't seem to work well for her a lot of the time. And there's a middle ground that we have to get to. There's a middleground that we had to get through. Again, she's very good at the middle ground. If I come to her and say, I'm really upset, boom, boom boom, right? She's like, listens to me. She'll say, now let me see if I've got this right. This is what happened and this is why you're upset. I go, right. When you say it, it sounds kind of silly, but right. Right. And she says the stuff that would never occur to me. She says, well, I love you and if there's anything I can do to help you, let me know. And I just think, well I feel better. I don't really know what just happened, but thanks. Now you flip it around, whole different scenario i come home i see her she's upset she's sitting at the table she's upset and i think to myself okay last week i've heard like you're not listening about 54 times i'm not listening so i think i have this is an opportunity all right focus real focus mayday mayday focus we're going in and i go over tentatively and i say honey are you all right? And she says, no. And she begins to tell me her problem. I'm listening. I am focused. I've got this one. This is going to go really, really well. I am listening. I hear the problem.I think this is so great because when she's done, I'm going to say and she finishes and I go and she's looking at me and Igo, okay, I got it. This here's the problem. Okay, here's what we're going to do. Because in my head I'm thinking, I'm taking this is great. Because I mean, I'm going to show her, okay, here is the problem, I've got the solution to this problem, I am going to apply all that I have to fixing this problem. Time, money, personal sacrifice, no problem, my man. I'm gonna fix this and she's going to know. One, he was paying attention. Two, he clearly loves me, he dropped everything to help me with this problem. Three, he was, the focus was remarkable. He's solving this problem for me. The man loves me. He listens to me. This is terrific, right? This is what I'm thinking. So I say, I got it. Here's what we're going to do. And she gets up and storms out of the room. You know, I go outside and wait, you know, a period of time. And And then I go back in the house, and I go, listen, I'm sorry. She goes, why are you sorry? I said, I don't know. I don' t know. I don''t know why I'm sory. But I got to tell you, you know, this may be really bad news for you, but, you know, that was the best I had. That was absolutely the best that I had, and I'm pretty sure based on the exit there that I missed the mark by a long way. There was a time sidebar. There was a time I went into a flower shop, right? I was in trouble with some female. And I was buying flowers and there was a card rack and there were all these flowers on the cover it said, I'm sorry, and you opened it up and it said I'm wrong. The cover was I'm Sorry, you opened that up and it says I'm Wrong. I bought all of them. I just took them all. I'm going to need these. Because I keep insisting on interacting with women and I don't know, I'm in the dark. I've had it explained to me and I'm going to pass it along for you. This cost me a lot of blood. Guys, when the woman is upset and you say, what's wrong? Women, stop me if I missed a mark, please. Again, being attended is good. She tells you this whole thing. Here's the problem, boom, boom. boom, boom, here's the response. Find your way to have this come from your heart. You say to her, honey I love you and I am so sorry that you are faced with this problem. Here's the part guys, if there's anything you need from me, you just let me know and I am there for you. You say this as you are slowly and carefully approaching the female and hugging her. I repeat, no sudden moves. Now, there are the moments also. Women, if you're going to accept that, you've got to accept this part too. There are times when women will come to you and ask you questions. There is no right answer. It's a setup. You can usually spot it when they have two bags of salty potato chips under this arm and four candy bars in this hand. They have a tremendous amount of salt and sugar right with them, and they walk into the room, and that gentle, kind, loving, supportive, strong woman will ask you, why do you love me? You go to DEFCON 5 right there. The only thing that's ever gotten me to the door is, how can I not love you? It'll pass. You just got to stay below the radar, fellas. Just stay out of the way. So, I mean, look, it's tricky business. The thing about a relationship, I mean, if your mate-to-be, your spouse, says to you, looks you in the eyes and says, I love you more than I've ever loved anyone in my life, I will always be there for you. Thank them for being so generous, but don't count on it. That's an unreasonable thing to expect from another human being, that they will be there voor you always and precisely when you need them. Because we're all doing this, you know? Sometimes the wavelengths are in unison, we're parallel. Sometimes they're in direct opposition to one another. You're never going to get hooked, linked up, matched up, in sync all the time. It's just not going to happen. We're individual units evolving and reacting and perceiving life on life's terms at different paces and different ways. It's juste going to be the way it is. So because the variables of the significant other, the friendships, the acquaintances, the business associates, all those relationships with others are so varied and so different and are constantly changing, There's nothing that really remains the same because all that's going on, my efforts have to be in trusting God, cleaning house and bringing the best, most balanced guy I can bring to whatever situation is going on so that when I'm in a situation, if I don't know what's happening, I'm In a position to say, I really don't know what's happening right here. I don't know what is going on. How did we get here? One thing I've been able to tell my wife is when we're in the heat of battle which for us only lasts maybe a minute or two because that's just too uncomfortable and too painful and nothing is worth it and we just don't really like doing it. We don't do it, right? But there's those moments where I'm here, the significant other is there and there's this ball of energy between us and we don't even know how we got here but we can't even get to each other because all this stuff in the middle. Some of that stuff is always mine. That's all I got to know. Some of that stuff is always mind. That what I gotta look at. I gotta yell across, right, the mass of insanity and say clearly some stuff to deal with. I love you, right? I can tell you I love you. I can feel it right now in the middle of all this, right. Love you. Want to kill you but love you. I know I love your right now. I'm gonna go deal with this stuff. I am going to call a sponsor. I'm going to call the guys I sponsor. Louie, how are you doing? I'm great. Wrong guy. Click. Nino, how you doing ? I'm having a good day. Great. Keep it up. Click. Right. Danny, how you doin ? I' m a nightmare. Beautiful. Talk to me. It's the guy I'm looking for. Get that guy and get out of myself. Be of service to somebody else. It' s relationships. Be give service to somebody else, and I hang up that phone, I can go back to my wife or my employee or my employer or my family member or my friend and say, you know, that's not who I apologize. That's not how I want to be with you. You know, I got to clean my side of the street up and let you know that I love you. And the reason that I get so emotional about this stuff is because you matter so much to me. And start over. Get to start over, get to admit to not knowing what's going on. Trust God, clean house, help others. That's relationships. Are there any questions? Back to the beach. Wait a minute, announcements.