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October 10 – Letting God Change Me · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:04
  Hey guys today is uh well hold on today is michael's birthday are,
• 0:10
  you just gonna start off with that yeah it's the today's october 10th but today
• 0:15
  is michael's birthday so happy birthday michael thank you i appreciate that that's really cool
• 0:20
  he said not to put his age because it is pushing it but and that's not why i
• 0:25
  said not to say my age cory if you're going to tell a story, tell it accurately.
• 0:29
  I said, don't tell my age because I don't want identity theft.
• 0:32
  We're trying to be pseudo, you know, anonymous.
• 0:36
  But happy birthday, Michael. Thank you. And today is October 10th, letting God change me.
• 0:42
  This time of freedom begins when I stop trying to change others and allow God to change her.
• 0:48
  Ripple when practical. Today, I will resist the urge to focus on someone else's
• 0:52
  faults before examining my own heart.
• 0:56
  I cannot control another person's choices, but I can choose my response.
• 1:01
  Lasting peace begins when I take responsibility for what is mine,
• 1:06
  ripple too spiritual. As I follow Christ's example of humility and forgiveness.
• 1:12
  The Holy Spirit gently exposes the self-centeredness beneath my anger and replaces it with grace.
• 1:18
  The Father invites me to surrender my resentment, been discovering that changing
• 1:22
  my heart brings a freedom that changing others never could.
• 1:27
  Man, you know, and this is a really cool, because we were kind of talking about
• 1:30
  something along these lines, you know, and I, I find today, you know,
• 1:36
  right here, freedom begins when I start trying to change others. Right.
• 1:40
  And I think that that's one of the biggest promises in this book.
• 1:45
  And I mean, at least for me, because like, I thought it was everybody else's fault.
• 1:50
  And so, so my troubles are basically of my own making and they come from me.
• 1:56
  And like, you know, but I will find every which way to make you the problem
• 2:01
  because I'll just take you down with me, too.
• 2:04
  Right. I don't know if I'm so just, oh, right. Right. You know, we're here.
• 2:08
  We're self-centered anyway. So I don't even have to take full blame.
• 2:13
  Right. Because if I take you with me, then you're going with me.
• 2:16
  And like, you know, we can we can split the blame.
• 2:20
  But when I take full, full responsibility of that, it's a different thing.
• 2:25
  Because, man, I remember part of my story.
• 2:29
  When I went back out, I used to tell the story like...
• 2:34
  My, my dad got diagnosed with brain cancer. The girl I was dating was prescribed
• 2:40
  Xanax, which I love Xanax.
• 2:42
  And I went in her purse and no, she, the way I first told the story was she gave me the Xanax.
• 2:50
  Yeah. What really happened is I went in her purse and took it. She didn't know.
• 2:55
  And that's what really happened. But it, it, for me, it gave me comfort to know
• 2:59
  that she can go down with me, right? It wasn't solely me, and it wasn't solely
• 3:03
  me stealing something from somebody.
• 3:06
  And so, like, but that's what I'll do.
• 3:09
  And so it's a really cool thing, like, when this process, right,
• 3:13
  because it says in our book, we resolutely turned to our own mistakes.
• 3:18
  Resolutely means with determination.
• 3:21
  Had a dude call me last night, two nights ago.
• 3:24
  He's, we're on his fourth step, fourth call.
• 3:26
  He sends me a picture of all his inventory. I don't normally,
• 3:30
  I don't say do that, but he did that. Sure. Yeah. And my fourth column,
• 3:34
  I give the fourth column a lot of respect and a lot of courtesy. I put a lot of writing.
• 3:39
  And so a lot of people think like, hey, I'm just going to write if I was selfish,
• 3:42
  self-seeking, dishonest.
• 3:44
  Anyways, so I said, hey, no, I think it's important to be specific. Right. Yeah.
• 3:49
  So I did the, and what a cool deal.
• 3:52
  What a cool deal I got to watch that dude go through because that very next
• 3:56
  morning he texts me and goes, hey man I'm ready to make amends now.
• 4:00
  Because he saw you know his eyes got open to that thing and through that work
• 4:04
  and what a cool deal because once I see it on black and white man there's no
• 4:08
  more lying about it yeah there's no more self delusion because that's all it
• 4:12
  is self delusion I think but what do you think.
• 4:15
  I'm glad that you brought up, you know, Corey, about working with Sponsee in
• 4:19
  that fourth column, you know, because I think that's important
• 4:21
  because that is the practice that we have, the first practice,
• 4:25
  the intensive practice for when we get here to October and we're on the 10th
• 4:30
  step and we're talking about the
• 4:31
  daily inventory and, you know, cleaning up our side of the street as soon as
• 4:35
  we realize it's messy, basically.
• 4:37
  And but if but if we don't fully have,
• 4:41
  full details of exactly what our part was when we did that first inventory,
• 4:47
  then how can we know what our part is when we continue to take personal inventory? You know what I mean?
• 4:53
  And so I had a similar situation last month with a sponsee, you know,
• 4:58
  sitting down and taking his fifth step.
• 5:03
  And during that process you know several times he said,
• 5:07
  he either had a hard time identifying what his part was or he wasn't sure what
• 5:11
  his part was and so we had to talk through a couple of things
• 5:15
  and so what ended up happening you know is as we're going through the process
• 5:19
  of you know reading through the book and working the steps as we get to them
• 5:22
  and all those kind of things,
• 5:24
  I I took an extra week with that like I didn't say okay we're done with fourth and fifth you know and,
• 5:30
  we're going to move on, I had him spend another week really digging into it
• 5:34
  and really bringing in his shortcomings of character defects into that fourth
• 5:38
  column, too, to try to really get more robust so that he could really see what his part was.
• 5:43
  And part of that was, if a person cannot see what their part is fully in the fourth column...
• 5:50
  Not to put it too bluntly, but you're going to screw up your amends.
• 5:53
  You know, you're not, when you move forward and you get to step nine,
• 5:56
  you're not going to see exactly what you're needing to make amends for,
• 6:00
  you know, if you haven't fully identified your own part in that.
• 6:04
  And so I do think that that's very important. And I'm glad that you brought
• 6:07
  that forward and brought it up.
• 6:09
  But I also think about, you know, in the practical, you know,
• 6:12
  ripple that it says, you know, today I'll resist the urge to focus on someone
• 6:16
  else's faults before examining my own heart.
• 6:18
  And it says, I can't control another person's choices, but I could choose my response.
• 6:22
  And that reminds me of one of the things that I say a lot in and out of the rooms of recovery.
• 6:28
  And that is that my reaction doesn't have to be my response.
• 6:33
  You know, back before I worked through the steps, before I got sober,
• 6:36
  whatever my reaction was, I'm going to let you know, I'm going to say it, you know, and now I can,
• 6:43
  pause, you know, I can not give my first thought, when something like that comes
• 6:47
  up and I can let it develop into an actual response to what's in front of me.
• 6:53
  But for me to be able to respond to somebody, there's something else that I
• 6:56
  have to do. I have to be able to listen to them.
• 6:58
  And I've had to learn how to listen. And to me, that's the evidence that God
• 7:04
  has been changing me and making those changes that the spiritual ripple alludes to. Because.
• 7:11
  And back when I was drinking, back when I was running on self-will,
• 7:14
  run riot, you know, all those things that the book talks about,
• 7:17
  I didn't really care to listen to what you had to say. I was listening to know
• 7:20
  how to argue back with you.
• 7:22
  I wasn't listening to try to understand what you were saying to,
• 7:25
  you know, I mean, my, I was like, well, yeah, you said that,
• 7:29
  but have you considered, and I was always going to be smarter than you too.
• 7:32
  But I'm glad I don't have to be today, but thank God.
• 7:35
  Well, I mean, don't be putting that on the rap thing.
• 7:40
  No. and just get i'll add a few more,
• 7:44
  but but don't you think don't you think that just it comes into us becoming
• 7:49
  more aligned in being god's kids and you know,
• 7:55
  you know back in there you haven't listened but when my small when bill was
• 7:59
  on here yeah a couple weeks ago yeah he was talking about anonymity and you
• 8:03
  know how anonymity is not viewed in the way people really view it it's the spirit,
• 8:08
  the spirituality of anonymity is pretty much, man, we're all alike. Nobody's special.
• 8:14
  Right. And, you know, so when you were talking about anonymity just a minute ago and I.
• 8:20
  I hate that you haven't listened to that yet. Yeah, full disclosure,
• 8:24
  we're recording quite a bit in advance, and Corey's talking about something
• 8:28
  from the episode that aired the day we're recording that I, as of the time of
• 8:31
  recording, have not listened to yet.
• 8:33
  But this 24 hours is not over yet either, Corey.
• 8:36
  But anyways, what I'm saying is, but the spiritual side of that is,
• 8:42
  man, there's no big pickles in AA.
• 8:44
  I mean, you know, when that happens, right, that's how we establish common ground.
• 8:53
  And so the thing is, man, is like, you know, when I'm walking amongst God's
• 8:58
  kids and I've been working on this little thought because I've been praying about it every day,
• 9:04
  is in present time, always seeing each person as God's kid.
• 9:09
  Not after the fact, not before the fact, but in present time. because when I do that.
• 9:17
  I'm not above or below them. I'm not listening to defend or attack.
• 9:21
  And so I think that's a, and that goes back into our big book,
• 9:25
  and we cease fighting anything or anyone.
• 9:28
  But I think this stuff is, you got to practice. This is the 10th step.
• 9:32
  And then I don't believe, so when you look at that page on page 84,
• 9:36
  it's an interesting thing.
• 9:38
  It says the four things that we're going to be talking about them all month.
• 9:42
  It says four directions to do, but then it says love and tolerance of others is our code.
• 9:47
  Then it ends the paragraph and then it starts a new paragraph and says,
• 9:52
  and we've ceased fighting anything or anyone, including alcohol.
• 9:57
  So when and starts a paragraph, it continues on the thought before.
• 10:01
  So really where they're used, I used to think there was four instructions.
• 10:05
  I believe that those are, there are six instructions.
• 10:09
  And so like, cause I thought cease fighting anything or anyone was a promise
• 10:13
  of this work. and you kind of alluded to that just a second ago because you
• 10:17
  said, man, like, you know, if I did everything, or maybe you said something,
• 10:21
  but you said, if I did everything I thought,
• 10:24
  Am I reacted the way I think instead of waiting to respond? Oh, man, I'd be in jail.
• 10:33
  But if I practice and I'm cease fighting anything or anyone on a daily basis,
• 10:38
  and I'm practicing that, and I'm practicing that, man, because this is a practice.
• 10:43
  This is not like, hey, wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. You know what I mean?
• 10:47
  Right. At least for me, it's not. Right. I have to practice this stuff on a
• 10:51
  daily basis for this stuff to be true in my life.
• 10:54
  Yeah, that's absolutely true. The last thing that I'll add is just in the spiritual ripple.
• 10:59
  I mean, it is the Holy Spirit, my higher power, you know, God, three in one,
• 11:06
  that works the change in me as it says, you know, that that self-centeredness,
• 11:11
  you know, underneath any of my anger or resentments gets replaced with grace.
• 11:15
  And that's because as I work through the steps, as I do the inventory,
• 11:18
  as I see my part in everything, I realize that I'm just as messed up as anybody
• 11:22
  else that I'm going to come across.
• 11:23
  And that allows me to be gracious. But I didn't come to that realization on
• 11:29
  my own. Even if you go all the way back to Psalms, and we both love Psalms,
• 11:32
  and Psalm 51 is one of my favorite ones.
• 11:35
  And David says, create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
• 11:42
  And that prayer is exactly what I would say that you and I have both seen come true in our own lives.
• 11:49
  You know, that God is not that our hearts are always pure, but they're certainly
• 11:53
  much purer today than they were in the past.
• 11:56
  And this was David's prayer right after he'd been confronted by Nathan for,
• 12:00
  you know, cheating with another man's wife and then sending that man off into
• 12:03
  battle to be killed, you know.
• 12:05
  So David was feeling pretty low at that point.
• 12:08
  But his prayer is something that God will work in all of us,
• 12:12
  you know, when we just ask. But that's all I got for today.
• 12:17
  Prayer, Father God, help me surrender my anger and my desire to control others.
• 12:22
  Through your Holy Spirit, change my heart where it needs changing.
• 12:26
  Shave me through the example of Jesus. Amen. Amen.
• 12:32
  We're trying to be pseudo-anonymous, which, by the way, brings up—we might as
• 12:38
  well talk about this before we get into it. We might move this to the end of
• 12:41
  the episode, I don't know, but the tradition of anonymity relates to this podcast.
• 12:47
  And just to put it out there for anybody that's ever wondered and said,
• 12:50
  hey, does this particular podcast that I'm listening to, do the guys doing it,
• 12:54
  are they breaking the spirit of anonymity that comes with recovery programs?
• 12:58
  And I would say that we have been careful from the beginning to try not to do that.
• 13:03
  Now, sometimes we talk about things that people who know us may know,
• 13:07
  but somebody listening right now in Korea,
• 13:11
  and somebody listening right now in Japan or even somebody listening right now
• 13:14
  in California, they have no idea where we are, how to locate us.
• 13:18
  We don't give a full name.
• 13:19
  We give even the names that we have on here. Only people who know us in person
• 13:24
  know whether or not we're even using the same names or not.
• 13:26
  So anyway, I probably will move that to the end of the episode,
• 13:29
  but it's good for us to get that on the record. Russ, this is how we handle that.
• 13:34
  We put it in a spirit of anonymity. Well, you know, what's... Anyways, well...