Latest / Recovering Out Loud / Busy Is the New Drunk | How Resistance Kills Your Recovery

Transcript

Busy Is the New Drunk | How Resistance Kills Your Recovery · Recovering Out Loud

• 0:00
  You know when you're having one of those weeks where just
• 0:03
  nothing seems to be going in your direction?
• 0:06
  That's happening to me. I'm in the middle of it right
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  now. Things are not going my way.
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  And guess what? I don't need to drink over it
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  and neither do you. This is part of the process.
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  Life is happening and I'm accepting life on life's terms.
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  I am doing the next right thing despite the circumstances in my
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  life showing up. Continuing to do this podcast
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  posting on social media when the results aren't what I think they
• 0:29
  should be same with this podcast.
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  We've got a lot of new listeners that are checking in these days
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  and I appreciate every single one of you.
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  I just want to say that thank you for showing up, continuing
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  to show up, sending me messages, commenting.
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  I appreciate every and I read every single one of them today.
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  I want to talk about resistance and what is resistance.
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  Essentially, to me, resistance is anything that is in my way of
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  getting to my goal. It's from a high level.
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  It's that simple. I'm gonna talk about the
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  different forms of resistance today and there's about four of
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  them that I'm gonna talk. Oh no, five of them that I'm
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  gonna talk about. But essentially, resistance is
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  usually self-imposed, but it's anything that is blocking me
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  from getting to my destination, my goal, blocking me from
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  recovery, blocking me from growth, usually self-imposed,
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  like I said, but there can be external resistance, you know,
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  for health reasons. There can be external resistance
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  from circumstances that are out of our control that are blocking
• 1:27
  us from getting to that goal. But I'm gonna talk about all of
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  them. I'm gonna talk about how to get
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  through it. What does resistance looks like,
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  look like? Why does it matter in the frame
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  and context of recovery and how to push through?
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  We're not going around things in recovery.
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  We're not going over. We're going through them.
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  We're pushing through them despite our feelings, despite
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  how I feel about the CRA not giving me my refund and telling
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  me I actually owe them money, not accepting my medical
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  receipts out of my control. I can do the next right thing.
• 1:55
  I can try to move through it and look for other ways to get
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  through it, like I said. But there's a lot of things out
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  of my control. There's a lot of things out of
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  your control in your life today. So what can I do instead?
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  How can I shift perspective, perception to get the things
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  done that I need to? And acceptance is the answer to
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  all my problems today. That's a tough one to swallow,
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  but it's true. I don't need to be OK with it.
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  I don't need to agree with it. But the the quicker I move into
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  acceptance, the better my life gets, the quieter my head gets.
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  And at the end of the day, I just want peace, man That's it.
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  I want peace, I want Peace of Mind.
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  I want quiet. I don't want circumstances to go
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  my way, although I do. But at the end of the day, how
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  can I just let the things roll off my shoulders?
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  How can I be in that state where things aren't bothering me,
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  where I'm not reacting, I'm responding.
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  So let's get into it. Welcome back to Recovering out
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  Loud. I'm Anthony.
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  I'm an alcoholic and an addict. If you don't know who I am, I am
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  a studying to be an addictions counselor halfway through been
• 2:56
  in recovery since 2015. I relapsed after 7 1/2 years.
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  Now I'm back almost a year and a half sober, clean again.
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  And I'm grateful that I didn't die.
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  I'm grateful that I made it back here.
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  I'm grateful that I'm able to show up and do this podcast.
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  So I want to talk about a specific moment with regards to
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  resistance where I, I sort of noticed these things happening
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  in my life. You're at a meeting or you're
• 3:18
  listening to a recovery podcast or you're listening to a
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  recovery speaker and, or you're online on Instagram researching
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  recovery, how to get through this or how to get sober or
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  whatever. And you, you find yourself in
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  research mode instead of recovery mode where you're sort
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  of just looking for information and you're not changing
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  anything, you're not taking any action.
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  I've been here many times. I'm, I'm researching, like I
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  said, and I'm not actually implementing the research into
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  my life. Resistance doesn't always look
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  like saying no. Sometimes it looks like saying
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  yes to everything except the thing that would actually change
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  you. So to me, that means resistance
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  can hide itself, can disguise itself as me doing other things
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  instead of what I ought to be doing, what I what I normally I
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  don't want to say should. I don't like the word should in
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  recovery, but things I ought to be doing instead for my
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  recovery. I'm going out with people
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  instead of going to that meeting or I am putting other things
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  above. I'm prioritizing other things
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  above my recovery. Resistance can look like that
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  too. And if you've ever done that,
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  don't worry, you're I'm not here to shame you.
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  You're not a bad recovery person.
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  You're not failing. This is just a reminder that
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  resistance can take many forms, and I'm gonna talk about them.
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  So 5 forms of resistance that hide in plain sight.
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  The ones that don't get caught because they don't look like
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  resistance. They can disguise themselves.
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  Like I said, Resistance 1. The unsexy work.
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  You're wanting transformation without the boring inputs.
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  Sleep, water, calls returned, answering the phone, calling a
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  newcomer, going to that meeting, eating before noon, the stuff
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  nobody puts in a real or a video on YouTube.
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  It's just the the boring, unwatched, quiet stuff.
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  The do things, the reading your books in the morning, the
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  meditation practice, the prayer, the stuff that nobody sees but
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  that moves the needle little by little.
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  So you would rather write a 2 hour journal entry about how
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  you're stuck before you'll just go to bed at a reasonable hour?
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  The simple things. The unsexy work feels too small
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  to matter. It feels insignificant when
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  you're doing it or when you're thinking about it.
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  It feels like you're not doing enough, so you skip it and you
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  reach for something that feels like gross.
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  A book, a workshop, a deep conversation, Anything but the
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  boring 4 things. The boring 4 things being sleep,
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  water and calls, returned connection, going to a meeting,
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  eating before noon, recovery stuff, meditation, prayer or
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  whatever your routine looks like.
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  Those routine things that aren't fun, not sexy, but they work.
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  They move the needle. Progress, not perfection.
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  You are. It's like AI like to think of it
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  as like a rocket ship when you when NASA and I'm not smart, I'm
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  not trying to be smarty or pretend that I'm a NASA
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  scientist, but when when somebody, when NASA launches a
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  rocket into space, they do such incremental shifts in the
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  trajectory of the rocket that over time will benefit the
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  rocket greatly. So 1° at launch angle changes
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  into maybe 30° down the road 30,000 miles from here, if that
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  makes sense. So I'm making the small changes
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  in the beginning to get the great outputs, the great results
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  in the end. I'm not sure what that's gonna
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  look like, but I'm doing the small things in the beginning.
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  So why, Why does this stuff matter?
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  Why does it outlive the drink, outlive the drug?
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  Addiction was a high intensity solution for us.
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  Big swings, big crashes, big meaning recovery is mostly low
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  intensity, boring, unsexy on purpose, work the wiring rebels
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  against boring. So the boring things that I
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  talked about, why do they matter?
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  Well, sleep, food, water, one human contact a day talking to a
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  new alcoholic or addict or anyone in your life.
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  If those aren't dialed in, nothing else matters.
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  If my routine isn't dialed in for me, it's reading the book in
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  the morning, it's prayer, it's meditation following a guided
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  meditation app. If I don't have those things
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  dialed in, I can't have the rest of my recovery program working.
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  I can't be the man I want to be. Jim is another one working out.
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  I can't believe I forgot that running for me resistance to
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  slowing down. So the move is you're staying
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  busy as the new new numb, your productivity has become your new
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  drug. If you don't stop moving, you
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  don't have to feel anything. If I just focus on filling my
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  calendar and moving and being active, doing things, I don't
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  have time to think about my emotions.
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  I don't have time to feel. I don't have time to think about
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  how shitty it is or or whatever to deal with that underlying
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  issue, that underlying emotion, that underlying pain.
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  I'll just stay busy all the time because now I'm worth it.
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  If I'm busy. I feel like I am contributing to
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  society. I am important, I I matter.
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  I've had weeks of my recovery where every hour was scheduled
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  work, gym, podcast content, calls, errands, and called it
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  productive until I realized I hadn't been alone with myself in
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  like 11 days. When was the last time you did
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  some kind of self-care activity? For me it's going to the movie
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  theater by myself or watching a movie somewhere else.
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  When was the last time I just sat with myself?
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  Went for a walk by myself. I have to schedule that in now.
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  I have to make it a point. I have to make it intentional to
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  include that in part of my recovery today.
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  The trick here is busy looks healthy.
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  Busy looks like the opposite of using busy gets praised.
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  Everybody gives you an attaboy and a way to go.
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  You're productive. 2 jobs. Nice.
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  This guy's got it going on. Nobody texts you concerned
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  because you're working too much. Why does it outlive the drink or
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  drug? Drinking was a way to skip the
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  uncomfortable parts of being a person sober.
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  You need a new skip button. Busy is the most socially
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  rewarded 1 available. So what helps me is scheduling
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  blank space, 30 minutes, putting it in my calendar, No phone, no
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  agenda. If that 30 minutes feels
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  unbearable, that's the diagnosis right there.
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  Resistance 3. Resistance dressed as
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  preparation. So the move is consuming
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  recovery content as a substitute for doing recovery.
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  Reading the book about boundaries instead of
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  implementing or having the boundary conversation, the
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  difficult conversation. Listening to the podcast about
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  hard talks instead of having the hard talk.
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  So this is the person that can name 6 podcasts on attachment
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  styles, but you haven't called the person you owe a call back
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  in three weeks. I'm guilty of this all the time,
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  man. I'm terrible at answering calls.
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  I'm terrible at answering texts. I got to work on it.
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  The trick here is it feels like work.
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  You're learning, you're growing, you're doing the work in
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  quotations, but the work isn't the input.
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  The work is the action the input is supposed to lead to.
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  The work isn't the input. The work is the action the input
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  is supposed to lead to. This is a program of action.
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  We say that we can't think our way into recovery or think our
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  way into good actions. We have to act.
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  And if that means pretending at first, faking it till you make
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  it, I'm all for it man. Take action.
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  I don't know what I'm doing. I'm doing it anyways.
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  I've done that many times. This guy told me it would work
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  to stay sober, so I'm going to do it.
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  Why does it outlive the drink? So addiction taught us, taught a
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  lot of us to confuse intensity with progress.
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  Reading hard things, feeling them deeply, sitting with them,
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  that's the intensity. Doing the small, concrete,
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  uncomfortable action, that's progress.
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  It's easy to mistake one toward the other.
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  So what helps me here is the one action test before I consume one
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  piece of recovery content. What's the one uncomfortable
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  concrete saying I'm avoiding? Let's do that first.
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  And I'm not perfect. Let's be honest, I there's a lot
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  of stuff I'm avoiding in recovery.
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  Calling people when I should be calling them, going to more
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  recovery events, getting outside my house, getting over my
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  isolation and just showing up to things, planning things, doing,
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  being social, social aspect of my life sucks right now and I'm
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  working on it. Resistance for good things.
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  So the move is sabotaging and I have a whole episode on self
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  sabotage. Go check it out.
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  Self sabotage. Why do we self sabotage in
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  recovery? I go into detail on that
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  episode. But self sabotaging When life
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  starts working, you pick a fight, you skip the thing you
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  said. You don't.
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  You do. You disappear for a week, you
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  watch Netflix for two days straight.
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  You doesn't always look big. Sometimes it's just letting a
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  good thing rot through neglect. The trick here is that chaos was
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  home for a lot of us. Stability feels like wearing
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  someone else's clothes. It's uncomfortable.
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  I don't know stability because I'm so used to being here for so
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  long at the top of the at the graph, and I'm so used to being
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  at the bottom of the graph that being in the middle, being
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  comfortable is so uncomfortable for your nervous system.
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  Reads calm as wrong error. Why does this outlive the drink?
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  Addiction trained you for crisis.
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  Crisis was the baseline. Without crisis, the baseline
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  goes quiet and the quiet feels suspicious, uncomfortable.
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  So a part of that you starts manufacturing the next crisis to
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  get back to known territory. I like crisis.
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  This is comfortable. Chaos is comfortable.
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  I'm going to rock the boat here. What helps for me is naming it
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  out loud when I notice it. So I'm in a good stretch and I'm
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  trying to find a reason to ruin it.
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  Things are going too well. This can't.
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  It's got to come to an end soon. This is too good to be true.
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  You ever said that before? The minute you say it out loud,
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  it loses some of its grip. Resistance 5.
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  The final resistance. I'm going to talk about today
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  being seen. So keeping recovery surface
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  level, telling the story you've told 100 times.
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  Because the new, tender, fresh thing, the thing you're actually
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  struggling with right now, is too raw to put into words.
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  You've told the rock bottom story so many times it doesn't
• 13:00
  feel like yours anymore. Meanwhile, the thing you've been
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  white knuckling this month, you haven't told anyone.
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  Not your sponsor, not your partner, not your group.
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  I love this one. This is the the pretender in
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  recovery that I talked about in the episode about which are you
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  member a tender or pretender. I'm not getting current if you
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  find yourself in recovery places.
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  If I find myself in recovery meetings, places with other
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  people, sharing about my past too much and I'm not getting
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  current, I'm not sharing about this financial insecurity that
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  I'm going with. I'm not complaining.
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  I'm sure it sounds like I'm complaining.
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  I'm probably complaining. Sorry about that.
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  If I don't share about the stuff that I'm going through, I'm
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  never going to get through it because it's going to live in my
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  head as well. This is too hard to go get over.
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  You're never going to get through this.
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  There's a difference between complaining about my problems
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  and talking about them to look for solutions.
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  I want to live in the solution today.
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  I have lived in the problem for far too long in my life.
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  I still can live in the problem for far too long.
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  Let's move into the solution. Put the the magic magnifying
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  glass on the solution. Stop focusing on the problem.
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  Look at the forest instead of the tree.
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  What do I have good going on in my life today?
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  What can I do that is positive instead of looking at all the
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  problems? We all have problems.
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  We all have circumstances. My perception is the problem
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  here. I don't have any real problems
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  today. I have an issue with perception.
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  I'm looking at things with the glass always being half empty.
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  The trick with this one is because you're talking about
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  recovery. You're saying you're quoting the
• 14:30
  book. You're talking the talk.
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  It feels like you're being seen, but you're not.
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  You're performing recovery and I, I've done this many times, so
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  it feels like you're performing recovery and that's the
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  difference. Am I performing or am I doing?
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  Am I actually practicing integrity when nobody is
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  looking? Am I doing the right thing, The
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  small little insignificant, seemingly insignificant right
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  thing? Why?
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  It outlives the drink. Using was, for a lot of us, a
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  way to be in the room without being in the room sober.
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  The polished story does the same job.
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  Looks like presence functions like absence.
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  If I keep telling you that I overcame this terrible addiction
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  and my rock bottom was getting kicked out of a hotel and that's
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  all I focus on is how I got through addiction, I keep
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  telling you that this is how I got through this thing that can
• 15:20
  be beneficial to a lot of people, but not yourself.
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  If I'm continuing, if I'm continuing to tell the story of
• 15:27
  how I triumphed, said circumstance, said hurdle, I am
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  not actually getting current. I need to talk about what I'm
• 15:34
  going through right now, not how I got through that thing two
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  weeks ago. That's beneficial to a lot of
• 15:40
  people, don't get me wrong. But if I'm not getting current
• 15:43
  in my recovery, if I'm not telling you that I am just
• 15:45
  thinking about money every single day and I'm scared I'm
• 15:48
  going to lose my house and I'm scared my wife's going to leave
• 15:50
  me and I'm scared. But whatever that thing is, my
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  fears, if I'm not getting current, if I'm not journaling
• 15:55
  about that every single night, which some nights I do and some
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  nights I don't. If I'm not putting an inventory,
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  a daily inventory together and getting open and honest with
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  myself and looking for solutions to move through it, asking for
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  help, I'm fucked, man I'm fucked.
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  That is a good barometer to know where you're at in recovery.
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  Are you getting current? Are you talking about what's
• 16:14
  currently going on, or are you just letting resistance run the
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  show? I'll do it next week or I'll do
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  it the week after that. You're the best part about this
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  is it's so easy to jump back on the horse to get through
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  resistance. It's a lot harder when you
• 16:29
  relapse to come back in. I always say that.
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  Catch it while you're in the middle of it.
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  You never know. You share openly about something
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  that you're struggling with currently.
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  It might save someone else's life.
• 16:38
  Somebody else might have the answer to it.
• 16:40
  If you're struggling with divorce right now or separation,
• 16:43
  you share about it at a recovery space or with someone you trust.
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  They might have an answer for you.
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  They might have another way through that resistance.
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  Get open, get honest. It helps me every single time I
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  do, and it's hard. It's uncomfortable.
• 16:54
  I don't want people to know that I'm not perfect.
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  I don't want people to know that I have struggles.
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  The more I share about it, the better my life gets.
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  Today, I have a lot of resistance in my life.
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  I have a lot of resistance specifically to plans to going
• 17:07
  out to do things. Whenever I always talk about
• 17:09
  this, but whenever I say something, see something in my
• 17:12
  calendar that doesn't directly benefit me, I my brain is like,
• 17:16
  oh, that's going to suck. I'm telling this story.
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  I'm spinning this movie about how I don't want to go to that
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  thing and I spend so much time trying to get out or avoid or
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  poor me self pity sad situations that I could just be accepting
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  it and being present in the moment.
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  It takes me out of my the moment when I am suffering.
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  I'm just suffering because I'm thinking about myself and how I
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  don't want to do this thing later when I could just be
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  accepting it and praying, asking for help to look at how I can
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  bring something to the situation instead of what can I get from
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  it. What can I bring to the meeting
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  instead of what can I take from it.
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  The more I am a giver in my life today over a taker, the better
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  my life is. If I can show up and give.
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  Bring good conversation to the scenario, bring good vibes, good
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  energy to whatever environment I am going to, whatever plans I
• 18:10
  have. That is a better way to live and
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  I am happier that way because I get, if I give without
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  expectation, I receive without limitation.
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  Think about that for a moment. What can I bring to this
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  scenario instead of man, this is going to suck, I have to do
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  this, I have to go to this thing and Oh my God, poor me.
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  I can't believe how do I get out of this?
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  That's suffering. That is the definition of
• 18:34
  suffering for me. Remember pain times.
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  Resistance is suffering. So pain is going to happen in my
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  life. I'm going to experience pain.
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  Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
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  How much suffering? How much resistance?
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  Sorry, how much resistance am I applying to this pain that is
• 18:52
  fully in your control? Am I sitting in it and crying
• 18:54
  about it? Doesn't mean that you don't get
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  to grieve over sad scenarios or feel sad.
• 19:00
  Feel sad but don't sit in it. Look how I can get through the
• 19:04
  resistance instead of let it control my life and run the show
• 19:08
  and take over and drive the bus. Usually how can I be of service
• 19:12
  is the best answer to all problems, but I get it, it's
• 19:15
  tough. I don't always want to help
• 19:16
  people. I'd rather sit in my shit and
• 19:19
  complain about it because don't you know the world revolves
• 19:22
  around me and poor me and Oh my God I'm not going to be able to
• 19:25
  get through this. Nobody else has to suffer
• 19:26
  through this pain times. Resistance is suffering.
• 19:30
  Look at the resistance in your life today.
• 19:33
  Look at how I can reduce that resistance because it completely
• 19:36
  is up to you. Resistance is 100% in your
• 19:38
  control when it comes to pain and suffering.
• 19:42
  How can I practice? The sooner I can practice
• 19:46
  acceptance and move into surrender, the less I'm going to
• 19:49
  suffer. If you're not following the
• 19:50
  podcast yet, please like, follow, subscribe, send this to
• 19:53
  a friend. I appreciate every single one of
• 19:55
  you. If no one's told you this yet
• 19:56
  today, I love you man, I love you.
• 19:59
  Recovery is simple, not easy.