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September 30 – A Balanced Life · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  September 30th, a balanced live, The Stone, a healthy life grows through recovery, deepens in unity, and finds purpose in serving others.
• 0:15
  Ripple one.
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  Today I will seek balance instead of neglecting what matters most.
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  Personal growth, healthy relationships, and serving others, all strengthen one another, when one is ignored, the others eventually suffer, ripple to spiritual, as I follows Christ's example of a fully a life fully devoted to God and others, the Holy Spirit brings greater balance to every part of my life.
• 0:39
  The father's work is not limited to one area of my heart.
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  He's shaping me into a whole person growing in faith, love, and service.
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  Good morning, everyone, ah, balance.
• 0:51
  What an interesting word.
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  I find that a lot of people, this, a lot of people confuse being balanced with being bored.
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  And that was a lesson that I earned, learned early on is that, um, when I'm bored is when I'm probably the most spiritual, um, that I'm going to be.
• 1:15
  And it happens frequently.
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  I get bored quite frequently and I find myself needing to do something, which is generally pick up the phone and call somebody or talk to somebody that's called me or something like that.
• 1:26
  And I think that when I, When I think about the concept of balance, From the perspective of a 12 12 step recovery program, I would look at it from the perspective of your daily practices in step 11, right?
• 1:45
  So it starts there on 86.
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  It says that thinking about our day, we may face indecision.
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  we may, we may, we may be faced with imbalance.
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  We may, because here's some characteristics of not being balanced, may not be able to determine which course to take.
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  Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or decision.
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  We relax and take it easy.
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  So we get balance when we ask for that.
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  We don't struggle.
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  Why?
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  Because we're balanced.
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  You know, you ever seen somebody on a tightrope struggle?
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  No, on a unicycle struggle?
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  Uh-uh.
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  Because on the way, if they're struggling, they're on the way down.
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  And that's okay because the way you learn how to walk on a tight rope, well, as long as the tight rope's not too high, the way you learn how to walk on a not too high tight rope and a unicycle is to follow a lot.
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  And it talks really about that.
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  What used to be the hunch or occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind.
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  So at one point what we thought might be balanced, but we weren't really quite sure eventually becomes part of what we're thinking.
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  And, uh,
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  And that's one of the great promises.
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  And then, of course, as we go through the day, we may come, we may fall off the unicycle.
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  We may fall off the tightrope, and we have to, we have to ask for the way to get back up on those things till we can get our balance back.
• 3:04
  And but one of the ways we do that is remind ourselves, uh, that we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day, I will be done.
• 3:14
  You know, It's wild that that statement of thy will be done.
• 3:19
  Um, you know, we talked a little bit earlier, um, one of the, one of the days on unconditional love.
• 3:26
  I think it might have been on the 28th or something like that, 20, you know, the 28th, and I, uh, talked about the crucifixion of Christ, and, and it's funny that we use this, thy will be done.
• 3:39
  And that's one of the places that, that, that Jesus uses that phrase is, thy will be done when he's in the garden begging for his life, you know, because his life about to get unbalanced real fast.
• 3:51
  Uh, but I like, I love, and I say that frequently many times throughout the day.
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  In fact, it's AA's mantra or really the mantra of really any recovery program is that that will be done, you know, not mine, but die, and it's proper use of the will too.
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  That's what it tells us earlier on.
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  But here's what balance sounds like.
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  When we do that, right?
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  We are then much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions, we become much more efficient.
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  We don't tire as easily.
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  We are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.
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  It works, it really does.
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  But that last part of that sentence arranged life to suit ourselves.
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  it's like, it's easy to forget.
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  It's easier to forget what that looks like and how, um, and, and what, what in our life looks like arranging life to suit ourselves. And, and when I study, uh, my literature, when I study, uh, primarily in my big book, I look for words like arrange, and I, when it says arrange life to suit ourselves, I look back on page 60, and it says, most people try to live by self-opulsion, each person is like an actor who wants to run the
• 5:08
  show and is forever trying to arrange, right?
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  The lights, the ballet and the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way.
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  So that's imbalanced, right?
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  Because it's going to tell me on that next page.
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  It says that I've got all kinds of different characteristics.
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  I call them representatives, right?
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  They're representatives of Bill.
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  And so and my representatives, uh, may be quite virtuous.
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  I, my representative, I can be a, have a kind representative, a considerate representative, a generous representative, even a Mazda and self-sacrificing representative.
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  That's a lot of work.
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  In my opinion.
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  But then you also have on the back end of that, you may have representatives that are mean, egotistical, selfish, and dishonest.
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  You see, so when I'm spending all that time moving everyone around in my life and having to act in a different way, every single time I interact with another person in order to put them in the proper place so that in some way or another, I will get some kind of happiness out of it.
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  And we talked about that and being useful is the key to happiness and peace. And in this particular example, this person, with all the representatives, is not being useful.
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  They're only attempting to be useful to themselves.
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  To myself.
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  And that falls, that falls apart because it's nothing but a house of cards.
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  And But if I practice the principles in the 11th step, I won't have that problem.
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  I will come to rely on my thinking, right?
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  Because now my thinking is returned to sanity.
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  Um, having have, having worked the steps, my, my thinking has, uh, returned to a place where I can act appropriately.
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  You know, if I'm if I'm allergic to shrimp.
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  I say, no, thank you.
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  I don't eat shrimp.
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  You know, I can start to have a balanced life because I'm free from disaster.
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  And I think kind of when I, when I think about that, uh, there's a definition, um, into where I call it, the working definition of a free man and on page 26 in a big book and a free man is somewhere that can go, someone that can go anywhere without disaster.
• 7:18
  And I think what that means to me is somebody that lives a balanced life so that they're not moved around by any little thing that comes their way.
• 7:27
  And, uh, you know, and that doesn't mean that if something happens that I don't like, that I don't have a feeling inside of me that's like, man, I don't like that.
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  I don't like what he said to me.
• 7:39
  I don't like what I said to him.
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  I don't like the way this whole thing went down, but that doesn't mean that I have to change the way I act, because I can feel different and think different and not act different. Because if I haven't, if I'm, if I'm acting differently, then I'm not free because I'm causing physically uh, imposing disaster on the people around me.
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  You know, it's like, uh, ain't it grand, the wind stop blowing, you know, like a tornado roaring through people's lives.
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  That's a great example of not living a balanced life.
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  But when I'm focused, where I'm really focused on, um, steps 10 and 11, and I'm really focused on catching a vision for all my activities, uh, for my day, and that's the proper use of the will. You know, it says that each day is a day we must catch a vision for God's will into all our activities.
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  It's the proper use of the will.
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  And when I'm catching that vision and I'm making that attempt to get this thing pointed in the right direction every single day, then I live a way more balanced life.
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  And I'm certainly grateful for that because I don't change too much.
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  Like when I go through the day, even if things, even if there's uh, ripples, in my day, they don't turn into waves.
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  They stay ripples.
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  Because I just don't, I don't, uh, uh, pay that much attention to them.
• 9:06
  Well, I'll say this.
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  Now, I used to listen a lot to Ram Das, and what Ram Das would say was like, hey, when these things come up, man, I just invite them in.
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  You know, when these imbalances come up.
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  You know, the 10th step says, reminds me to continue to watch.
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  Well, when these things crop up, you know, they're coming because they're just life.
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  That's just the way life shows up.
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  There's not a lot I can do about it.
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  But when they come in,
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  I invite them when they come, hey, you know, in my head, I would say something to the effect of, yeah, come on in, sit down, fear, fear of not getting a raise.
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  sit down.
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  Fear of not finding a job.
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  sit down.
• 9:49
  One of my greatest fears of everyone's going to figure out that I'm not really who I think I am, you know, and that's a primarily, uh, more of a professional fear.
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  Like, one day they'll find out.
• 10:03
  And I invite that fear in.
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  And I say, hey, fear, how you doing?
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  It's good to see you.
• 10:07
  Um, Would you like some coffee?
• 10:10
  Maybe, maybe get you a sandwich or something?
• 10:13
  How long are you going to be here?
• 10:14
  You could be here for a couple weeks.
• 10:15
  Okay, well, that's cool.
• 10:16
  Well, I'll just make the upstairs bedroom up for you and you can hang out.
• 10:19
  Because I understand now from my spiritual work that at some point in time, a little bit of rain must come.
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  And when it does, I invited in because the philosophy of the 12 steps of recovery is absolutely focused on converting defects into assets.
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  And when my defects are converted into assets.
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  When they're converted into assets, they can now lead me to a more balanced life.
• 10:48
  Well, I hope you guys have a great day, and I'm going to end this with a prayer.
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  Father God, continue your work of shaping every part of my life, through your Holy Spirit, help me grow in faith, love, and service each day.
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  Shape me through the example of Jesus.
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  Amen.
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  Bye for now.