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May 3 – Speaking It Out Loud · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:02
  Welcome back once again to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:05
  Today is May the 3rd, and we're glad to have everybody back with us today.
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  On the pod today with me is Steffani and Memphis again, and we're going to kick it off with
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  our Daily Ripple for the day.
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  And Steffani, if you would take it away for us.
• 0:20
  Sure.
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  May the 3rd, Daily Ripple, speaking it out loud.
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  The Stone.
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  Honesty in private is a start, but healing often requires honesty in the presence of another.
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  What stays unspoken tends to stay unchanged.
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  Ripple 1, practical.
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  Today I will take a step towards real openness.
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  Instead of keeping everything internal, I will share honestly with someone that I trust.
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  Speaking truth out loud breaks isolation and turns intention into action.
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  Ripple 2, spiritual.
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  As I bring my life into the open before the Father and others, the Holy Spirit deepens the work of transformation, following Christ who lived in truth without hiding.
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  I learned that freedom grows where honesty is practiced in community.
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  So for me, for this ripple for today, I think about working with another alcoholic.
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  I know in my own experience, doing the step four, writing it down, wasn't enough.
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  And I was very scared about doing a step five.
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  But my sponsor shared some of her step five when I did mine.
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  And it brought a level playing field for me to be okay with voicing my past grievances, sins, inventory out loud.
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  So I try with my sponsees when we do a step five, I tell them, hey, I'm doing a step four and a step five with you.
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  I'm going to do this with you, and I will be an example for you.
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  So that way it takes the sting and the fear out of it, makes it not so scary, if you will.
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  And for me, I find that sponsees are more readily available to speak those truths, even when it's hard or if it hurts.
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  So how do you encourage people that you work with to actually sit down and get started?
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  I mean, do you give them a deadline?
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  Do you try, you know, what other tools in the toolkit do you have to actually get people to do it?
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  Because that's one of the biggest things that I've struggled with with sponsees, is they get to the point of they're between step three and step four.
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  You know, they've made that decision, you know, and done the third step prayer that the big book outlines, saying, yes, I'm ready to turn my will and my life over to the care of God.
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  And again, you know, in church, whether people know it or not, especially if they're United Methodist, they're praying that every week if they're praying the Lord's Prayer, saying, thy will be done.
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  They just don't quite know it yet.
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  But, you know, once people get to that third step and they're launching into the fourth step, how do you actually encourage them or get them to start the work?
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  Very good question.
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  I take a practical solution to this.
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  I have a printout that I give each sponsee, and it breaks it down into simple terms, follows along in the book on how to do a step five.
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  And typically, I have a pre-conversation with them about the things they think are going to be hard.
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  Is it going to be the fear inventory?
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  Is it going to be a resentment list?
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  What's the easiest thing to start with?
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  And it's different for every sponsor, but I pick the easiest one just to get them started.
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  Give them a week to start writing it down.
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  If they're stuck in the middle of it, we talk about it.
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  I may share examples of my own life, of things that I've written down in my step four, that will get them going.
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  And we'll go over that list first.
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  So that way they have an understanding of what it's going to be like to do that work with me.
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  And understanding that they can trust me as they do it.
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  And so when we do get to the hard stuff, we've already had those conversations.
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  And there is a bit of trust built there.
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  Memphis, what about you?
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  What thoughts do you have about this or anything else in our ripple for today?
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  I go back to, and I think I briefly touched on this in one of the other episodes, but initially, you know, I could openly speak with another alcoholic or my sponsor at the time.
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  There was a level of, I was, I was almost proud of some of the bad things of that.
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  It was, you know, because I had gained something from them.
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  So, you know, when I read this specifically where it says,
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  honesty in private is a start, but healing often requires honesty in the presence of another.
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  My honesty had to start in private.
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  And it had to develop with being able to be honest with myself.
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  And that was one of my challenges.
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  I was avoiding the God.
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  I was told that I didn't have to have a God when I came into AA, that we could choose whatever.
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  And I made a mockery of that as I began my journey of sobriety.
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  So I didn't have to be honest with it because I didn't want to address it.
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  And obviously that was driven by fear.
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  Scared.
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  Scared to have to actually have to be accountable.
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  But as I grew in the program and I did share with others, you know, that the truth started.
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  I started to hear it in a different way as my spiritual journey started.
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  Even though there wasn't much, I was at least willing at the time.
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  And as my willingness increased, my honesty started creeping into, not just with others, but into my heart and into my mind.
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  And that's when I started to have honest conversations with the God of understanding today.
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  And so that's where I truly started to heal.
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  Well, and I think that's where the seeds of faith were taking root, you know, in your life.
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  I mean, you know, in Scripture, you know, Jesus told his disciples that all it takes is a mustard seed of faith and you can do miracles with it.
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  And, you know, in what you just shared, that's just the progression of the fear slowly being replaced, you know, by the faith, you know, choosing.
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  And at first it starts in faith in a process, right?
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  Faith in somebody that you trust telling you that I did this and it worked and you believe them, you know, and it starts that faith.
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  And the, you know, but as you take those actions, that is where, you know, the spiritual ripple of the stone of truth, you know, starts to take, you know, form in our lives, you know, because God does work, you know, within us whenever we're willing and we show just a little bit of that sign of faith.
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  And that's definitely very much, you know, a scriptural connection there.
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  Don't you think, too, Michael, that the steps of AA and any other recovery program, they're put in place in a certain order for a reason.
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  Step number three means that you have a God of your understanding that you're relying upon.
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  I insist on sponsees having a relationship with their God and having a practice that they do that they can rely on.
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  Because step four, you have to do it with God.
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  Step five, you have to do it with God.
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  You need the help.
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  And there are those in the rooms, you know, that talk about, because there are people that come in, obviously, you know, just kind of like, you know, Memphis described, you know, a little bit earlier about, you know, they come in and they don't really have a relationship or they don't have a higher power that they name or claim.
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  You know, they don't have a relationship with God or anything like that, and they're still
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  able to progress through those steps and, you know, and recover.
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  You know, some people that have gone all the way through the steps and they still remain,
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  you know, atheists at the end of it, and they use as their higher power the others in the
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  room or what have you.
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  Now, I personally don't think that I could have done that, and it had been successful
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  for me, even though in my past at one time, you know, I claimed, you know, to be atheist or what
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  have you. But it's that courage to speak these things, as it talks about speaking it out loud,
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  to my higher power and to another, you know, drunk. For me, where the power that comes into
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  play is because if I say something out loud and I admit a fault or failing of my own, I immediately
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  know that I can't stay there because that becomes almost, and I'm probably going to use the wrong
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  words, but it almost becomes a good use of shame a little bit, right? Like when I say to, you know,
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  one of you that I've done X, Y, and Z, well, the fact that I've now vocalized it and admitted it and
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  somebody knows that about me means that me as a human being, I'm going to try to, you know,
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  protect my life and not do it again, because I don't want to have to admit that again to somebody
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  else. So there's a certain power in that admission too, because once I've said it and I've done it,
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  that I've done it before, I don't want to do it again. Right? Memphis, have you experienced that?
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  Yes. You know, it came in time, obviously. You know, once I did, you know, I was with the God of
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  understanding um those those conversations that came out so easy um before you know in those rooms
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  um they came up as almost like entertaining um oh god memories and you know you could tell when i
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  was sharing i didn't share it the same way i wasn't it wasn't enthusiastic it wasn't a performance
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  there was a level of shame
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  that because
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  because I had gotten
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  started to get honest with myself and with
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  the God of my understanding
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  I could
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  I did it was it was a beneficial shame
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  and
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  so I approached
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  the conversation with
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  people differently and it was
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  much more of a lesson of
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  what not to do
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  and it
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  banged in my mind that I made better than it was.
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  So, yeah, I don't know.
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  Until today, I would have called it shame.
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  But I think that's why when I share today, it comes out differently.
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  Yeah, and that's why I kind of struggled to put the label shame on it as well.
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  And I don't have a good word for it, but it's that sense of, you know,
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  by vocalizing this, I automatically don't want to do it again, right?
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  And another way of putting it, like in what you just said,
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  is that it's almost like talking about the past becomes less a performance
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  and more of a parable.
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  You know, it's less about entertainment and more about learning from it,
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  you know, and moving on and progressing.
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  And today it's because then I know that that's not the way that God would want me to do it.
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  It says in Proverbs 28 and 13 that whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
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  And so I think that's what we've been talking all about and around is that once we are admitting these things in the fifth step, to a certain extent, we're renouncing that past.
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  We're saying this is not who I want to be anymore.
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  You know, I want to be somebody else, you know, from this point forward.
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  And in the rooms of recovery, that's what everybody helps each other to do.
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  And hopefully that's what people are finding, you know, in their faith communities as well.
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  They're finding assistance in renouncing those things of the past and moving forward and allowing God to grow, you know, more honesty and peace within them.
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  Steffani, what else do you have for us today?
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  I have the prayer.
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  Are we ready for that?
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  You do have the prayer, but I'm a little bit sad that you don't have any more Corey-style big book, you know, page numbers and references.
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  You know, Corey would have given us about 10 of them by now.
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  I actually do have one.
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  It is on page 72, chapter 6.
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  It is step 5.
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  We have admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
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  That's right.
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  And that means that we do not hide things when we're doing that.
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  It says the exact nature of our wrongs.
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  It doesn't say that we just hint around about them at all.
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  Well, that's a good place for us to stop for today.
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  Again, thanks, Steffani and Memphis, for being there.
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  And Steffani, if you would close us out with a prayer.
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  Father, give me courage to speak honestly and not hide.
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  Through your Spirit, use truth and trusted relationships to bring healing and lasting change in my life.
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  Amen.