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May 22 - Not Alone · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:06
  Today is a very special episode because I have a very special person here with me today.
• 0:14
  You don't.
• 0:14
  I've been here before.
• 0:16
  You're still very special.
• 0:17
  You're always very special to me.
• 0:19
  That, if you do not recognize the voice right away, that is my wife, Cristi, and she is going
• 0:25
  to be full of the sauce today, I'm sure.
• 0:27
  And I don't mean alcohol because it's not that type of podcast.
• 0:30
  Anyway, today is May the 22nd, and our ripple for today is titled, Not Alone, The Stone.
• 0:39
  Isolation strengthens struggle.
• 0:41
  Man, that was a hard sentence to say.
• 0:44
  Healing.
• 0:45
  Exactly.
• 0:46
  Healing begins when I step out of self-focus and recognize that I was never meant to do life alone.
• 0:53
  Ripple 1 is practical.
• 0:55
  Today, I will resist the pull toward isolation.
• 0:58
  I will reach out, listen, and allow others into my life.
• 1:02
  Strength grows in connection, not in self-reliance.
• 1:06
  Ripple 2 is spiritual.
• 1:08
  From the beginning, God said it is not good for us to be alone.
• 1:11
  As I follow Christ and walk in fellowship with others, the Holy Spirit builds unity and purpose.
• 1:17
  The Father often works through people, reminding me that I am part of something greater than myself.
• 1:22
  And as always, we will save our prayer for the end of the episode.
• 1:27
  And, Cristi, my beloved wife, I did not come up with a trick question to give you a pop quiz to start the episode today like we did last time where I asked you to explain what a daily ripple was.
• 1:40
  But would you be surprised to know that long before we met, because you've never known me as an active alcoholic.
• 1:51
  You've only known sober me.
• 1:53
  I was about four.
• 1:54
  Thank goodness.
• 1:55
  Exactly. I don't know that we would have been married these almost nine years.
• 1:59
  I do know.
• 1:59
  I'm sure you do. I'm sure you do. That's for a different type of podcast.
• 2:03
  But I wasn't the same person, you know, whenever I was drinking as I am today.
• 2:11
  This part about not being alone, I mean, that was definitely something that
• 2:15
  whenever I was active in my alcoholism at that stage of my life, I didn't have any friends.
• 2:20
  I didn't talk to anybody about anything.
• 2:22
  You know, I went to work and I had coworkers, but that was about it.
• 2:25
  You know, coworkers could be kept at a distance.
• 2:27
  But I did not share struggles, fears, insecurities, any of those things with any other person, much less a man.
• 2:33
  Are you kidding me?
• 2:34
  And this recovery program calls, you know, men to be a friend of man and women to be a friend of women and those kind of things.
• 2:42
  But what do you think of when you first hear this Daily Ripple for today?
• 2:45
  What direction does it take you in?
• 2:48
  As an introvert, which a lot of people do not think that I am one when they meet me, but I am one.
• 2:55
  I immediately draw up and pull towards isolation, as it tells us not to do.
• 3:04
  Because as introverts, you definitely struggle with this.
• 3:09
  You struggle with finding community, wanting to be with community.
• 3:17
  Isolation is where you want to be and choose to be.
• 3:22
  That's where you feel safest.
• 3:24
  That's where you think you thrive.
• 3:27
  But I also know that in isolation comes depression, where unhealthiness lives and thrives, not only in the mental, but the mental then starts to wear down your physical.
• 3:44
  And so when I think of not alone and having community and finding your people, person, circle, whatever that may be, it tends to grow in so many ways.
• 4:04
  And one of those things is, you know, sobriety, but success overall.
• 4:11
  And then I also think about, for me, in the corporate world, we tend to think about networking.
• 4:21
  When you think of the business aspect, you think of networking.
• 4:24
  And when I think of networking, and when I think of not being alone, and God would not have us to be alone,
• 4:32
  I also think it's important to point out, when it comes to networking,
• 4:37
  You are not networking just to see what you can get out of it.
• 4:42
  And I think you and Corey talked about that not too long ago, that you're sharing knowledge.
• 4:48
  So it's not having community, not just being a part of something, just so you can be on the receiving end of it.
• 4:56
  But you're also doing it so that you can share resources.
• 4:59
  That's what networking is about.
• 5:01
  Sharing those resources, sharing what you have to give, sharing your knowledge,
• 5:06
  sharing how you were able to grow. So it's not just a recipient type of thing, but also how you
• 5:16
  can help someone else grow and thrive. Now, another thing that I wanted to point out.
• 5:23
  Okay. When we talk about not being alone and allowing others into your life,
• 5:32
  And strength grows in connection.
• 5:35
  I also want us to be wary of who we have as community and in our circle.
• 5:42
  Because even though they can be like-minded individuals, what are we coming to agreement on?
• 5:53
  Is it something to uplift, to allow us to grow?
• 5:57
  Or are we both in the valley?
• 6:00
  Are we both just in the depression box together?
• 6:04
  Right.
• 6:04
  I mean, it's almost like, is it encouragement or is it gossip?
• 6:06
  Correct.
• 6:07
  Yeah.
• 6:07
  Misery loves company.
• 6:09
  Oh, absolutely.
• 6:10
  There's truth in that statement.
• 6:12
  So when you are building your circle, when you are building your community, be wary of who you're building it with.
• 6:19
  Yeah.
• 6:19
  Be wary of who you're getting around you.
• 6:23
  For me, I want to make sure someone's on my level or someone I can help bring up with me or help me grow or help someone I can help grow.
• 6:35
  But it's not someone to pull me down.
• 6:37
  Right.
• 6:37
  I can do that by myself.
• 6:39
  I can do that alone.
• 6:41
  I don't need help in that area.
• 6:43
  So I just think it's important for us to point that out, too.
• 6:46
  I think that's very important. The older that I get, I think a lot about how the things that my parents told me when I was growing up, how I hated some of the things that they would say, but how now as a parent, as a grandparent, you know, I realize the truth and the wisdom of those things.
• 7:04
  And it might have taken me a lot longer to realize that than it would a normal person,
• 7:09
  because from the time that I turned, you know, I was 18 until the time I was 36, I was drinking
• 7:16
  all the time, you know, and not all the time during that entire time, but it got worse toward
• 7:21
  the end.
• 7:21
  But they say, you know, in recovery that once you start drinking alcoholically, you kind of
• 7:27
  lock yourself in from an emotional development standpoint.
• 7:30
  So in other words, at 36, I stopped drinking and I have the emotional mindset of an 18-year-old still.
• 7:36
  Oh, that explains a lot.
• 7:38
  You don't have to comment on that.
• 7:40
  It's just, anyway, it's part of the psychology of the program.
• 7:43
  But, you know, and I think about that and how my parents, when I was growing up, would always say, be careful who your friends are.
• 7:52
  They would always say, be careful what you listen to.
• 7:54
  Be careful what you read.
• 7:55
  All of those things, which is ironic because I know that my mother had no problem when I was 16 and started reading Stephen King books.
• 8:08
  But anyway, I digress.
• 8:09
  She's also an avid reader.
• 8:12
  But the thing that I'm getting to is that the truth of what you're saying is that who you hang around with and who you associate with is very important.
• 8:21
  because it does either reaffirm the mindset you're already in or leads you to growth.
• 8:26
  And you were talking about networking, and I had to stop and write it down
• 8:29
  because when I think of networking, I think of the example of people who do it almost too aggressively,
• 8:37
  for lack of a better word, where it's clear from the jump that they're only cozying up to me
• 8:43
  to get something that they want or they need.
• 8:46
  In my former career, I had to deal with that a lot.
• 8:48
  You know, everybody was always nice to me.
• 8:50
  Had nothing to do with me.
• 8:51
  It had to do with my position that I held.
• 8:53
  And, but then there are others that it's still networking, but you can tell that they're truly
• 8:59
  trying to build a relationship and you form that human connection with some people, even
• 9:04
  in a work environment and certainly in rooms of faith and in rooms of recovery, you can
• 9:09
  tell when there's somebody that genuinely cares about you and that is hopefully has something
• 9:15
  to share that will lead me into growth as well, and not just looking to receive something
• 9:21
  from me, because it is about giving and receiving.
• 9:24
  But in terms of not living alone, I mean, that goes all the way in Scripture to the beginning
• 9:28
  of the Bible, you know, in Genesis, you know, in the second chapter, I think it was verse
• 9:32
  18, was the first time in Genesis that God said something was not good.
• 9:37
  Did you ever think about that?
• 9:38
  Because He created this, that, and the other, and said, and it was good.
• 9:42
  To be alone.
• 9:43
  That's right.
• 9:43
  And then he said in 2:18, the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone.
• 9:49
  So I think we all know that we need other people in our lives.
• 9:54
  But as an introvert, I'm sure there are times for you that that is much harder to do, to let people in.
• 10:02
  But have you had times in your life where staying in isolation too long actually did more damage than good?
• 10:10
  Oh, I'm sure. But it's hard to admit as well. And there were, luckily, I still had a community of people that were insistent on pulling me out. So they saw where I was, and they were insistent on pulling me out.
• 10:32
  I remember going way back many, many years to my very first divorce.
• 10:38
  And how many?
• 10:40
  I'm kidding.
• 10:40
  You don't have to answer that.
• 10:43
  Three times a charm.
• 10:46
  Third marriage, that is.
• 10:48
  But anyway, you live and you learn.
• 10:50
  But anyway, when it first started, I didn't tell anybody.
• 10:56
  Yeah.
• 10:56
  I told no friends.
• 10:57
  I told no family.
• 10:59
  I just went silent and I just shut down because there was so much angst behind it. There was so
• 11:10
  much of, I didn't want to be another statistic. There was just so many things. So, okay, if I
• 11:16
  don't talk about it, maybe it doesn't exist, but I really just shut down and didn't want to talk
• 11:23
  about it with anybody. And I do mean anybody, but it was, it took people pulling me out of it,
• 11:30
  coming to my aid, telling me what I needed that helped me, helped me get through it, helped me get
• 11:36
  through the tough times and the dark times, because there were some dark times. And that's where
• 11:42
  community came in. And that's where that introvert needed help. And I'm so glad about that. And I knew,
• 11:49
  I'm glad that I had the right people in my circle that could see past me and saw my need and was there for me.
• 11:59
  And I think about in the church, just like in really the rest of the United States right now, even in the church, there's so many reasons for people to divide and to disagree and to isolate,
• 12:11
  whether it's around various issues that arise in a church,
• 12:18
  or whether it's just around the classic issues that have been around for generations,
• 12:22
  such as race and economics.
• 12:25
  There's so many reasons for people to be divided.
• 12:27
  But what I've found is that those divisions sort of seem to melt away
• 12:32
  whenever you get two people who are different to sit around the same table
• 12:36
  and just have a conversation with each other.
• 12:37
  Most definitely.
• 12:38
  Because that's when you can always find a commonality in that shared experience.
• 12:45
  I could sit down and talk to anybody for five or ten minutes and be able to relate to them.
• 12:49
  Now, could I have done that 13 years ago?
• 12:52
  Absolutely not.
• 12:52
  But it's something that I've had to grow into.
• 12:55
  It's something that really the community and recovery has taught me a lot about.
• 12:59
  Because when I walk into, especially early on, I can kind of spot people a little bit easier now just with age and experience.
• 13:05
  But especially early on, I'd go into a meeting of AA.
• 13:10
  I wouldn't have any idea if the person sitting next to me was a CEO or homeless and living in their car.
• 13:17
  All I knew was that they made it to the meeting the same way that I did.
• 13:20
  And it didn't matter.
• 13:21
  I was able to talk to others.
• 13:22
  They were able to talk and help me at the time.
• 13:25
  No matter what other things in life might have said, well, that's a different person that I'm not like them.
• 13:31
  And it's really, and that's one of the things that recovery is really good about teaching us is that to find the common factor, you know, with other people.
• 13:40
  And that's been one of those things that I've been able to apply in everything, really.
• 13:44
  And I think that it's funny looking back about how those experiences that I went through, and I'm sure you'd say the same about some things you went through.
• 13:51
  Those experiences that I went through were tools that God was using to shape me and to where I could be of service to other people today.
• 13:58
  Because if I couldn't relate to anybody, what kind of a pastor would I be, you know?
• 14:02
  If I couldn't talk to people that I, on paper, had nothing in common with, you know, I would not be able to be effective.
• 14:11
  And I wouldn't have the, well, really the opportunity to listen to and learn and grow from other people and other experiences.
• 14:18
  If I weren't open to that, I don't know if, you know, you and I ever would have, you know, started dating and gotten married and all of those things.
• 14:24
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:25
  I just mean in terms of, just because for those who are listening and don't know, I mean, there is a racial difference between us.
• 14:30
  You know, I'm a white man and you're a black woman, you know, and so those things we have
• 14:34
  to be able to set aside and find the common factor really is the common love when you come
• 14:40
  down.
• 14:40
  And I was just about to say, based on your sermon yesterday, the common factor that people
• 14:45
  can share is love.
• 14:49
  And it's not the romantic love, it's just being human and having the empathy for one another
• 14:55
  or for your fellow man.
• 14:57
  And that is love at its truest form.
• 15:00
  So, yes, if nothing else, you can come together and sit at the table on that alone.
• 15:06
  That's right.
• 15:07
  And as you also know, because I've preached on it several times, love is not just a feeling.
• 15:13
  Correct.
• 15:14
  That it's also a verb, a verb, being of service to other people.
• 15:19
  Don't be completing my sermons over there, okay?
• 15:22
  Okay.
• 15:22
  I do listen every now and then, as long as you're not talking about me.
• 15:27
  Or forgiveness.
• 15:28
  But anyway.
• 15:30
  On that note, we'll close out today's episode with our prayer.
• 15:34
  Our prayer is, Father, thank You that I am not alone.
• 15:38
  Through Your Spirit, lead me into deeper connection and help me walk in the shared strength found in following Your Son.
• 15:45
  Amen.
• 15:46
  Amen.
• 15:50
  And as you know, and as I think about probably more than I should, you know, this year, I'll be 50 this year.
• 15:58
  You know, because you've already way past that.
• 16:00
  But anyway, we don't have to go into the age gap here.
• 16:02
  I've got an older woman here.
• 16:04
  But anyway, yeah, I'll probably cut that out of the episode,
• 16:08
  especially given the eye stares and the mean mugs I'm getting right now.