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October 5 – Traveling Light · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Good morning, everyone.
• 0:05
  This is MacKenzie and Steffani and the Daily Ripples.
• 0:08
  October 5th, Traveling Light.
• 0:11
  The Stone.
• 0:12
  Honestly, self-examination keeps yesterday's mistakes from becoming tomorrow's burdens.
• 0:17
  Ripple one.
• 0:18
  Practical.
• 0:19
  Today, I will take an honest look at my thoughts, words, and actions before the day is over.
• 0:24
  I cannot change yesterday, but I can learn from it.
• 0:27
  A daily inventory helps me travel lighter and live wiser.
• 0:31
  Ripple 2, spiritual.
• 0:33
  As I follow Christ's example of humility and truth, the Holy Spirit gently reveals what needs to be confessed, corrected, or released.
• 0:40
  The Father does not ask me to carry yesterday's failures.
• 0:44
  He invites me to learn from them and walk forward in his grace.
• 0:48
  So I'm going to begin by breaking down what it means to have inventory.
• 0:53
  So it's the daily cutting away of what isn't suitable for the next day's objective.
• 0:58
  And the reference I'm going to make is a little bit elementary, but I've played a lot of Minecraft.
• 1:05
  And if anyone's ever played a 1st person game.
• 1:09
  There's often the character's inventory.
• 1:12
  And it's typically limited, so you can only carry a certain number of items before others have to be displaced or discarded.
• 1:20
  So practically, what does that look like?
• 1:23
  It means cutting away false words and actions from yesterday's inventory, things that are not suitable for today.
• 1:32
  What happens when we add to a full inventory?
• 1:36
  We become overwhelmed.
• 1:38
  We experience stress and anxiety.
• 1:40
  And so what do we do about it?
• 1:42
  We need to give it to God because it isn't ours to carry.
• 1:47
  He doesn't desire for us to carry our guilt and shame.
• 1:51
  When we do this, we live outside of his desire.
• 1:54
  So to put your faith in Christ is to let go of what it isn't yours to carry.
• 1:59
  And the verse that I want to reference is 2nd Corinthians 13.5.
• 2:04
  It says, examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith.
• 2:09
  Prove yourselves.
• 2:10
  Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?
• 2:15
  Something in particular in that passage.
• 2:18
  I want to break down, and that's the word examine.
• 2:21
  It means to inspect, test, or look at carefully, to learn more about its condition, nature, or quality.
• 2:27
  When we do this, we're looking at our own characteristics, the words we use, the feelings that we have, the emotions that come on a daily basis, when we're faced with different external stimulus.
• 2:43
  And those things affect us long term, short term, When you're moving...
• 2:50
  When you're moving throughout your day and you find yourself using language that isn't suitable for the growth that you want to have, we have to look at how we're going to cut that away.
• 3:03
  How are we going to fix or modify the way that we speak to others?
• 3:09
  And I think that ultimately comes down to examining our inventory.
• 3:14
  Mom, do you have any thoughts on that?
• 3:16
  Well, you know, I think of, um, You know, a hangover.
• 3:23
  Speaking from an AA perspective, you know.
• 3:27
  If I tied one on the night before, how good is my next day?
• 3:32
  What does that look like?
• 3:34
  It's probably ruined.
• 3:36
  I feel bad.
• 3:37
  I eat a bunch of greasy pizza or something disgusting to make my stomach feel calm and I've got a headache to beat the band and I don't want to do anything.
• 3:47
  So I'm not productive at all.
• 3:50
  Um, in the 12 and 12 on step 10, on page 88, it says, when a drunk has a terrific hangover because he drank heavily yesterday,
• 3:59
  He cannot live well today.
• 4:01
  But there is also another kind of hangover, which we all experience, whether we're drinking or not.
• 4:07
  That is the emotional hangover, the direct result of yesterday, and sometimes today's excesses of negative emotion, anger, fear, jealousy, and the like.
• 4:19
  If we would live serenely today and tomorrow, we certainly need to eliminate these hangovers.
• 4:25
  So, in AA, we talk about emotional hangovers because once you finally put the drink down, you get your sanity back, but you're still the same person you were while you were drinking.
• 4:37
  You still have the same character defects that you've had all along.
• 4:41
  And so now you've got to deal with these emotional hangovers.
• 4:45
  At least for me, you know, that could be somebody says something that hurts my feelings.
• 4:50
  It makes me depressed and I want to have a pity party.
• 4:52
  I end up in the bed and I don't want to get up the next day.
• 4:56
  I may have a bad attitude.
• 4:58
  Well, you know, if I'm doing a self-examination like what you were talking about, McKenzie.
• 5:03
  Um, that's a that's a step four.
• 5:05
  That's a step 10.
• 5:07
  And step 10 requires us to do a daily inventory.
• 5:11
  So we take a look at the day and we say, you know, wow, that really hurt my feelings.
• 5:16
  Let me examine that a bit.
• 5:17
  Why is that?
• 5:20
  Maybe it's something from my past.
• 5:23
  Maybe it's something of an old idea that I need to let go.
• 5:26
  Maybe it's something I don't know how to deal with.
• 5:29
  What do I do?
• 5:31
  Well, AA tells me to take an action.
• 5:34
  I can't just sit in my bed and have a pity party for myself because that may push me right back to drink because I need to figure out how to deal with these feelings without trying to numb it with some substance or some person or some thing.
• 5:52
  So I call another member in AA.
• 5:56
  Um, I do some self reflection on why it is that this is bothering me.
• 6:01
  What part is it?
• 6:02
  When I am disturbed by something that's happened, why am I disturbed?
• 6:08
  And you know what?
• 6:09
  These are uncomfortable things to look at.
• 6:11
  You know, I drank for the longest time because I didn't want to feel.
• 6:14
  And I didn't want to look at these things that made me uncomfortable.
• 6:18
  I didn't want to get honest and do a self-examination as to why.
• 6:23
  But if I want to cut these things out of my life and I want to go forward and be fruitful, like we talked about yesterday.
• 6:30
  I have to do the self-examination.
• 6:32
  I may need to make an amends.
• 6:35
  I may need to say I'm sorry to somebody.
• 6:37
  Um, I may need to uh, call another alcoholic.
• 6:43
  and help somebody else.
• 6:44
  They say in AA, the best way to get out of a pity party is to go be of service and to go help another alcoholic.
• 6:52
  So at times, when that emotional hangover happens, be it sorrow or anger or fear or righteous justification, it requires an honest and willing look at my insides.
• 7:08
  And um, You know, internal bleeding doesn't show up.
• 7:16
  until the effects come out to reveal themselves.
• 7:19
  Um, You don't know that you're hurting on the inside or bleeding on the inside until it results itself externally.
• 7:27
  You know, it's not like a wound when you cut your finger.
• 7:31
  It's an internal thing.
• 7:32
  So you don't know all the time what's going on.
• 7:35
  And you may need to ask somebody to help you.
• 7:38
  You may need to say a prayer to God to show you the direction you need to go.
• 7:44
  And sometimes being uncomfortable in sitting in the uncomfortableness in order to have self-reflection is needed. And uh, That's a very hard thing to do.
• 7:55
  Even not as an alcoholic, because who in life really wants to examine themselves?
• 8:01
  Um, it really requires a daily Uh, a daily walk with God.
• 8:10
  It requires uh, asking God to jump into my thoughts and my actions before I do.
• 8:16
  Because there are times when I can get stuck in my own head.
• 8:20
  And when I do that, it will cause me to have an emotional hangover.
• 8:26
  So I would, oh, you want to jump in?
• 8:30
  Sure.
• 8:30
  I want to make another another point on the self-examination.
• 8:38
  I have a friend who has been in and out of a relationship with a man who is not healthy partner.
• 8:45
  And this is usually, I guess what you end up seeing is that Bryn comes to me and she says, hey, you know, this is the situation.
• 8:56
  This is how I feel about it.
• 8:57
  This is where it's going wrong.
• 8:59
  And maybe not all the time the relationship is terrible, but something that I told her the other day is there's a threshold, right?
• 9:07
  Of unacceptable behavior.
• 9:09
  And let's say if 13rd is that threshold, meaning 13rd of the time you spend with this person or in contact with this person, it's resulted in some level of toxicity or sour feelings, then if 13rd is a threshold and we exceed 13rd of that time, then that person can now be considered toxic or unhealthy or maybe just not compatible for you.
• 9:40
  Now, the issue is what happens when we deviate from the threshold and the standard? What does that say about ourselves?
• 9:50
  Because that's no longer that person.
• 9:52
  They have shown you who they are.
• 9:53
  They've given you an opportunity to see them at their worst.
• 9:57
  I told her, I said, if we're, if we're determining who we want to be a lifelong partner based on the best of themselves, then you could find any person on the planet and say, man, they'd be great long term.
• 10:12
  Because you're just looking at the best version of them.
• 10:15
  If we look a little farther, and we say, look, I'm looking for the worst of you, and I want to see how well we can work together at your worst, and if they still manage to exceed the standard.
• 10:28
  Meaning, It's really hard when we experience conflict, but they're always willing to be open-minded and listen.
• 10:36
  Right?
• 10:38
  We could disagree 100%, meaning I believe this, and he believes the exact opposite, but if he's willing to listen, and we can come maybe to an agreement to disagree.
• 10:46
  Then, you know, I felt like we both got something out of that conversation.
• 10:51
  Well, that's a lot different.
• 10:53
  And that's the worst of it, right?
• 10:55
  And I think the problem in lies is when we deviate from our standard.
• 11:00
  We say, well, this isn't acceptable, but he tiptoed on the line, so I'll let it go this once.
• 11:06
  Well, every time he tiptoes on that line and we push it back a little farther, there's something about us, something about our character that is diminished in the process.
• 11:16
  And I think self-examination comes into play. And as we look at the reasons why we are okay with letting someone tiptoe on our lines.
• 11:26
  So there's self-justification, you know, I don't want to cut this relationship out because I get something from it or I don't want to quit going to this bar because they have great nachos.
• 11:37
  You know, that's a slippery slope for an alcoholic.
• 11:41
  I mean, you know, you talk about relationships.
• 11:44
  It's a slippery slope for lots of different reasons.
• 11:47
  You know, the self-examination requires you to question, um, Is this path the correct path?
• 11:55
  And if I get on this slippery slope and don't do a self-examination, will I end up somewhere I don't want to be?
• 12:01
  You know, I, um, the thing that pops to mind for me is lamentations 3, 22 and 23.
• 12:09
  Through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed because his compassion fails not.
• 12:15
  They are new every morning.
• 12:18
  Great is your faithfulness.
• 12:20
  And this says to me that God gives us the opportunity, to reset every day.
• 12:27
  So, you know, if I if I don't do a self-examination perfectly today.
• 12:34
  God's mercy allows me to do an excel-examination tomorrow.
• 12:40
  I want to extend on that and say that just because we're trying to make ourselves better holistically doesn't mean that everything has to be fixed tomorrow.
• 12:49
  I think it's important that we have increments where we're building on one thing after another.
• 12:54
  Take your weakest sling and make it stronger.
• 12:57
  And as those things improve, you'll have a new thing to work on.
• 13:01
  Right?
• 13:02
  It was the same in athletics as your weakest, if you're a bad sprinter, then you got to work on sprinting.
• 13:10
  And as you get better at sprinting, maybe you need to improve your endurance.
• 13:15
  And so there's always something that you need to work on, but only let it be one at a time.
• 13:21
  Otherwise you will overwhelm yourself.
• 13:23
  Right. It's the same as God does not reveal everything at once.
• 13:28
  Otherwise, you would probably not feel great.
• 13:30
  That's right.
• 13:31
  And it's a practice.
• 13:32
  It's not perfection, you know, and we're we're broken human beings practicing being.
• 13:38
  And, uh, thank God, God provides mercy.
• 13:43
  It's all right.
• 13:45
  And for the prayer, Father God, give me the courage to face myself honestly today.
• 13:50
  Through your Holy Spirit, replace my fear with the confidence that comes from your grace.
• 13:56
  Shape me through the example of Jesus.
• 13:58
  Amen.
• 13:59
  Amen.