Latest / The Daily Ripples Podcast / October 12 – Choosing My Words Wisely

Transcript

October 12 – Choosing My Words Wisely · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:04
  Hey guys today is october 12th choosing my words wisely and you know i was thinking
• 0:10
  about this right after i read the topic,
• 0:12
  oh we didn't appreciate the people that helped us you know take a little breather
• 0:17
  from this like the bill and the stephanies and them and like you know i think
• 0:22
  it was a really important thing for them to do that
• 0:25
  absolutely and i appreciate that because,
• 0:28
  It was funny because me and,
• 0:31
  Pastor Mike were sitting up here doing it one day.
• 0:36
  And I was kind of starting to get a little irritated some days.
• 0:41
  It was really cool, though, because Pastor Mike was getting really hardcore
• 0:44
  into the big book. I was getting fired up, man. Fired up.
• 0:48
  Which is not always a bad thing. I looked at him and said, man,
• 0:51
  we should take a couple weeks off.
• 0:54
  And here's what I meant to ask you about that at the time.
• 0:57
  Because some of the things you've talked about here on the podcast in the past
• 1:00
  is, and it is that you have a tendency to like, if you are feeling a certain
• 1:07
  way, Corey, you want other people to feel that way too. I'll take it away.
• 1:12
  Yeah, yeah. You were talking about that the other day about take someone down
• 1:14
  with you. But in context of like that example that you're given and the break
• 1:18
  that we had, you know, I think, yeah, I definitely appreciated the break,
• 1:22
  but I think it was that Corey needed the break. You know what I mean?
• 1:26
  I thought it was a mutual thing I thought it was a great idea It was a great
• 1:30
  idea And going back to it Thank you, Bill
• 1:33
  Thank you, Stephanie Thank you for all those Who have been on the podcast These
• 1:37
  past couple of weeks Because it was extremely helpful We loved every single
• 1:41
  one of the episodes And yes, Corey, take us away.
• 1:45
  I'm choosing my words wisely. The stone, a moment of self-restraint can prevent a lifetime of regret.
• 1:52
  Ripple 1 Practical Today I'll pause before speaking when my emotions are running high.
• 1:58
  Rash words often create wounds that careful words could have avoided.
• 2:04
  A brief moment of reflection can change the course of an entire conversation.
• 2:09
  Ripple 2 Spiritual As I follow Christ's example of speaking with both truth
• 2:14
  and grace, The Holy Spirit slows my tone and steadies my heart.
• 2:20
  The Father teaches me that wisdom often begins with silence,
• 2:24
  giving me the patience to respond in love instead of reacting in anger.
• 2:29
  And, you know, in 1 Peter 5a, it says, Be alert and of sober mind,
• 2:36
  that your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devout.
• 2:44
  And I think about that like so you know I need to be alert right you know and
• 2:49
  I've tried to and I try to do this you know I've tried we talked that we've
• 2:52
  been talking about this but I try to practice that a lot because if I'm not
• 2:56
  alert when we were talking to your wife.
• 3:00
  Right like when I in my household when I am alert watchful when I'm pausing,
• 3:08
  and everything's just rolling through,
• 3:11
  And you give a little bit of time lapse into that, like, and it's not a big
• 3:14
  one, maybe a week. Mm-hmm.
• 3:17
  Man, like my words, because I've gotten a little loose at this point,
• 3:21
  right? Yeah. I've gotten a little loose and I let up.
• 3:24
  And I let up just a hair. But letting up just a hair could change someone's
• 3:29
  complete mood in a second. Yeah.
• 3:32
  Just, you know, it doesn't take a lot at all for anybody. You know,
• 3:36
  you can just change the tone of something.
• 3:38
  And so, you know, and then I get brought back down off the mountain.
• 3:42
  And I start back, you know, then I'm back to being watchful again.
• 3:45
  I mean, you know, it's not all the time, but, you know, I don't know if that,
• 3:49
  goes true for you, but it's true for me sometimes.
• 3:52
  I can't remember the exact wording off the top of my head, but there's something
• 3:56
  in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that says that the spiritual life is
• 4:01
  not a theory. You have to live it. Yeah.
• 4:03
  And that's where, you know, it relates directly to kind of what you just said.
• 4:07
  I mean, we have to live that watchfulness, you know, every single day.
• 4:11
  You know, anytime that I let off of it, you know, I'm inviting.
• 4:15
  Calamity back into my life, you know, especially when it comes to my words.
• 4:19
  I mean, the power of life and death is in the tongue, you know.
• 4:23
  Is what it says somewhere.
• 4:25
  But I also think about, you know, the wisdom from more of the Old Testament
• 4:30
  in the Bible, you know, in Proverbs 21 and 23, it says, those who guard their
• 4:34
  mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity.
• 4:38
  And then back in Psalm 141, verse 3, it says, set a guard over my mouth,
• 4:42
  Lord, keep watch over the door of my lips.
• 4:44
  And I have to continue to pray that, those prayers, you know,
• 4:49
  from those Psalms and Proverbs all the time, because it's exactly what we've
• 4:53
  been talking about this week so far, you know, over this weekend.
• 4:56
  You know, I know today is just the Monday of this week, but,
• 5:00
  you know, in the episodes that we had over the weekend, you know,
• 5:02
  we were talking a lot about reacting and responding. And, you know,
• 5:05
  and that plays right into this choosing my words wisely too, because,
• 5:09
  Somebody may not stick around long enough to see my actions if my words are negative to begin with.
• 5:17
  I don't get a chance to show somebody how to walk this walk of either recovery
• 5:24
  in the 12-step program or how to walk in the way of Jesus.
• 5:28
  I don't get a chance to do that if my words turn somebody off or turn them away.
• 5:33
  But I was also thinking about pause before speaking when my emotions are running
• 5:38
  high, right? that's what it says in the practical riffle.
• 5:41
  And I have an example of exactly how that's done because it happened recently
• 5:45
  for me. When I say recently, it was probably about a month, month and a half ago.
• 5:49
  And I remember it distinctly because my wife and I had gone out onto the back
• 5:54
  porch and we let the dogs out, you know, do their business after they ate.
• 5:57
  And we were standing on the back porch chatting while we were watching the dogs.
• 6:01
  I don't know why we were outside because, you know, it's been like 90 degrees
• 6:04
  the past two months, but we were.
• 6:06
  And we were talking about something and she started, she started talking about
• 6:09
  something that she wasn't happy about in, in,
• 6:13
  my interactions, you know, specifically with, you know, our kids,
• 6:17
  you know, we got a blended family and all the kids are over 18 now,
• 6:20
  but you know, I've got three daughters, she's got two boys and,
• 6:23
  and she was pointing out some, some differences and kind of the way that I interact with them.
• 6:28
  And she said something that at the time, I, number one, didn't agree with what
• 6:33
  she said. And number two, it was extremely hurtful to me. And.
• 6:38
  But I've learned enough through, you know, studying scripture and all the guidance
• 6:43
  that we have in scripture, as well as studying the bid book,
• 6:46
  you know, and just God working in me.
• 6:49
  I knew and sensed in that moment was not the time for me to give my feedback
• 6:54
  on why what she said bothered me so much.
• 6:57
  She needed to get something out. She needed to say something.
• 7:00
  And so then it's kind of like I go to a meeting at noon just about every day.
• 7:05
  And there's a guy in there that always says Silence can be often misunderstood But never misquoted,
• 7:11
  And how true that is. And so I held my tongue in that instance.
• 7:16
  I didn't respond. I didn't try to argue back.
• 7:19
  If I had, there wouldn't have been any peace that night or probably for a couple of nights after that.
• 7:26
  But I held it in. And it's not that I never came back and addressed it. So I held it in.
• 7:32
  I was choosing my words wisely. I was pausing before speaking those emotions.
• 7:35
  I didn't want those rash words that would create those wounds.
• 7:38
  You know, all the things that it says in our practical ripple today.
• 7:41
  And so what I did with it is I took it to my therapist And I talked to my therapist about it,
• 7:46
  and she guided me on how I should follow up and address it And so by the time
• 7:51
  that enough time had passed to where I could actually come back And my words
• 7:56
  were a response to what had happened and not an immediate reaction,
• 8:00
  There was no heightened emotion.
• 8:02
  There was no anger. There was no, you know, none of those negative things happen
• 8:06
  And we're able to resolve that issue and move forward, you know, and so that's Just
• 8:11
  a very recent, for my own life, very practical example of all that it required
• 8:15
  for me in that moment, whenever my anger spiked because of something that she
• 8:20
  said, was that self-restraint.
• 8:22
  And I don't have that self-restraint on my own.
• 8:24
  That's a fruit of the Holy Spirit where it could ever be, for sure.
• 8:27
  Yeah, no, I agree with that.
• 8:30
  I mean, because it's not me doing this anyways. This is not who I am.
• 8:35
  You know you know and i i would agree with when i listen to this you know this
• 8:40
  podcast when i'm talking to people you know when i'll go out and do do a talk
• 8:44
  you know and i gotta listen to it after the talk.
• 8:47
  That's not me you know that's a really cool deal it's not me because who i am
• 8:51
  what i've done in my past is not right suitable to the to civilians i guess
• 8:57
  yeah yeah yeah yeah Normies.
• 8:59
  I don't know. But man, like, you know, when our life, I think,
• 9:03
  you know, when we have the spiritual experience,
• 9:07
  Well, me and my sponsor were talking today about this. I was kind of thinking
• 9:11
  about some thoughts along the lines of a really misunderstood word in AA, the word acceptance.
• 9:20
  And everybody's like, man, you just got to go accept it. It'll be like your
• 9:25
  wife cheating on you. And they're like, man, acceptance. Read page four. Anyways.
• 9:30
  It's the funniest thing because to think I'm going to change the way I feel
• 9:34
  about something because I'm accepting it.
• 9:36
  But acceptance is when it's something comes, like I've already made acceptance
• 9:43
  right when something comes into me.
• 9:45
  And I've chose whether it's good or bad, right? When it's good, it's cool.
• 9:49
  When it's bad, it's bad. You know, me accepting it is nothing because I've already
• 9:54
  accepted for good or bad. It doesn't matter.
• 9:57
  But when it's used in the terms that we hear it, acceptance is almost like I
• 10:02
  should feel better about it. Yeah. I don't have to.
• 10:07
  I do not have to feel better about something bad going on in my life.
• 10:11
  It's just like the train we were talking to, right?
• 10:13
  Bad things are going to happen. Yeah, man, I don't have to fight it, though.
• 10:18
  Right, right. It's like trying to stop a river with my hands.
• 10:22
  You know, I might as well just, like, you know, flow with them.
• 10:26
  You know, get skinny. I don't know, like, you know, let the river flow.
• 10:30
  You know, but, like, so when I think of that, but I think of that God consciousness
• 10:34
  when I think of that place.
• 10:36
  And it took a spiritual awakening for me to come to that place.
• 10:40
  It wasn't me just practicing all the time either because the way I think about
• 10:45
  what we're talking about here is a brief moment of reflection.
• 10:49
  A brief moment of reflection to what?
• 10:52
  Well, maybe that I need to be of use to this human, to this God's kid,
• 10:56
  right? Yeah, because it says in the book of Doc Ops 9, it's on page 20.
• 11:02
  It says our very lives as ex-problem drinkers depend upon our constant thought
• 11:08
  of others and how we may help their needs,
• 11:11
  so if that's where if that's my position and i'm in the middle of something
• 11:15
  like that and i could come to that position of how can i be of helpful this person right now
• 11:22
  instead of what i want what cory wants because what cory wants is you to say
• 11:25
  what i want you to say and you to be nice to me and you want them to say it
• 11:29
  every time yeah and it comes out of different packages every time.
• 11:32
  So like, you know, it's always presented differently.
• 11:35
  And so I'm always throwing it out differently too. But like when I'm not,
• 11:39
  when I'm pausing, when I'm asking God to come into it and how can I be helpful
• 11:42
  to this person and being trying to be of use to God's kids, I think I have a,
• 11:47
  I get completely different outcomes.
• 11:49
  Well, anytime the topic of acceptance comes up, I think of it in light of courage,
• 11:54
  of course, you know, because of the serenity prayer, you know,
• 11:57
  accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can.
• 12:01
  So even in that example of a cheating spouse or what have you,
• 12:05
  I mean, you shouldn't accept that. You should have the courage to do something about it.
• 12:09
  Do something about it is either you work on restoring the relationship or you
• 12:14
  work toward ending the relationship.
• 12:16
  I mean, you basically got two choices, but you don't just sit in acceptance
• 12:19
  while you your spouse is out cheating on you left and right either,
• 12:21
  you know what I mean? Because you're right. Nobody should feel good about that.
• 12:25
  And there's a multitude of things that like, you know, I think it's so fun and,
• 12:30
  you know, we're going to get into a rant, we'll end it.
• 12:32
  But, you know, I've heard it for years and, you know, people are like,
• 12:35
  something will be going on with somebody and they're like, let go and let God.
• 12:40
  Well, ask that same person what that looks like.
• 12:43
  You know, they don't know. They don't have an answer for it.
• 12:45
  And sometimes God is telling you, no, go do X, Y, or Z.
• 12:50
  Make an action. Exactly. Because I come into these positions in my life,
• 12:57
  and man, if God hadn't put me in some of these positions, I wouldn't have made an action.
• 13:03
  But it's really cool through all this, I get to learn and grow and be a part
• 13:08
  of this whole deal with people, the unity of that.
• 13:13
  But let me end it with a prayer.
• 13:16
  Father God, guard my heart and my words today.
• 13:19
  Through your Holy Spirit, teach me to speak with wisdom, patience, and grace.
• 13:25
  Shape me through the example of Jesus. Amen. Amen.