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July 6 - Naming What's Underneath · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:04
  Well, welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
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  Each day we take a stone of truth from AA's Daily Reflections.
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  This ripples out to the practical and spiritual application at the intersection of faith and
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  recovery.
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  Well, today is July 6th.
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  Naming what's underneath.
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  The stone.
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  What if the real problem is not what I'm feeling on the surface, but what I'm afraid of underneath?
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  Ripple 1. Practical.
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  Today, when I feel irritated or off, I will slow down and ask a better question.
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  What am I afraid of right now?
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  I will name it plainly instead of masking it with anger or control.
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  Ripple 2. Spiritual.
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  Fear loses power when it is brought into the light.
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  God is not leading me into fear, but out of it.
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  When I surrender the fear beneath my reactions, the spirit begins to loosen its grip and replace it with peace.
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  And of course, we say the prayer for last.
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  So.
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  Yeah, you were laughing ahead of this one.
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  And that's always scary.
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  Well, for me, it was because, you know, if I'm irritated or angry, sometimes, well, not sometimes, I know why.
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  But it may be I'm trying to spare somebody's feelings.
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  So that's why I am not sharing what's truly going on underneath.
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  So I will just bury it and try to keep moving forward.
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  That happens between you and I.
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  Oh, yeah. Not necessarily with the anger, but where it says naming it plainly instead of masking it with anger or control, you try to mask it with control. And after, as we were talking about, nine years, well, I could see it a mile away, but I just let you sit with it most of the time.
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  You'll get to it eventually.
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  Yeah, but when I had enough of it, then it'll turn into anger and then everything just starts pouring out when I probably should have went ahead and said something about it on the onset of it.
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  So that's why this one really made me laugh when it said naming what's underneath.
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  Because I'm like, yeah, no, I don't want to say anything because it's going to feel like I'm nitpicking or it's the same subject again.
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  So, nope, I'm going to let it go.
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  And then it'll keep happening.
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  And then all of a sudden I go, okay, yeah, I've had enough now.
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  Okay, this has gone on too far.
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  And then it blows up into something else.
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  So, yeah, it's usually not about fear.
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  It's about, you know, just going ahead and being honest about it, being open about it,
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  going ahead and bringing it to the surface.
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  I'm not afraid of what you're going to say.
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  Sometimes I don't want the conflict between us, so I try to let it pass.
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  But in the end, once it does come out and we discuss it, 9.5 times out of 10, I feel better.
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  So why didn't I just start that way?
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  So what do you think is the what holds you back from just saying it when something comes up?
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  Because I don't want to nitpick at everything and I'm hoping that it'll pass.
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  So would you say that the fear is that you'll turn into a nag?
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  i refuse to answer that question it was a legitimate question because i think at the
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  end of the day you can always get to some kind of fear underneath whatever the action is that
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  we're hesitant i may fear that you may think i'm a nag it's not that i'm afraid of turning into a nag
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  because yeah i am who i am but at the i may be at the underline
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  I like where we are, I like who we are, so I don't want to create unnecessary conflict between us.
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  Especially if it's something that I could have resolved within myself.
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  I know for me that part about when I feel irritated or off, you know, slowing down, asking, you know, what am I afraid of right now?
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  I mean, that's not something that I do all that often myself.
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  know, I, when I have time, I try to, you know, assess that. I mean, an example of that is like,
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  you know, for a little bit today, I was just feeling a little bit off, not necessarily irritated,
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  but I was just feeling a little bit off, you know, earlier today. And I was thinking,
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  well, why is that? You know, what, what am I, you know, off about? And it, where it says,
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  you know, what am I afraid of right now? Well, I think it was sometimes my fear is just that I'm
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  going to have to do something that I don't want to do, you know what I mean? Or that I'm not going
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  to be able to just sit back and enjoy things, you know, like I want to, you know, in that moment,
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  sometimes it's very much still, even still, you know, a selfish or self-centered kind of fear that
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  pops up of just not wanting to be bothered, you know, by whatever it is. But kind of like you
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  mentioned about, you know, if you bring forth and talk about whatever you've been sitting with,
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  you know, that you usually feel better after that. Well, for me, it's more if I'm, you know,
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  feeling like I need to do something for somebody or on behalf of somebody that in the moment I'm
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  not wanting to do. But when I do it anyway, I never regret it. You know, an example of that,
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  you know, for people in recovery is they always talk about how the meeting that means the most to
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  them is the one that they didn't want to go to, you know, because, and I've had that happen,
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  And, you know, in my life too, I'd be sitting there and just not wanting to go to a meeting.
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  I remember one time this was, it was, we're going to call it BC because it was before Cristi.
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  And so back, you know, before Cristi, this was about 10 years ago.
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  There was a, I was struggling through some things and I don't remember exactly what it
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  was.
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  I'm sure it was related to some kind of woman or another, you know, given the time, but I
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  was about two or three years sober.
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  And there's a guy that I've known since I came into the Alcoholics Anonymous program and knew him through HeartSong Church where we met.
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  And he was a part of the personal adventure group there on Wednesday nights.
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  And he had to the month, because my sobriety date's in March and so was his, that he had exactly 30 years more sobriety than I have.
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  And so I'm at 13 years.
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  Yeah, he's at 43.
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  and I don't think that he listens, but you know, Papaw Richard, if you're out there listening
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  somewhere, I'm talking about you. But I remember one time I was going through stuff and I was
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  struggling with things and I think he called me. I don't think I even called him. I think he called
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  me and because it had been at the group that I was going to at the time, I was going pretty heavily
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  to another group that he was a part of, which was the Germantown Noon group right around the corner
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  here in Memphis. And he called me up because he hadn't seen me in that meeting in probably a
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  couple of weeks. And so because he called me and was checking on me, you know, I shared with him
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  some of the stuff that I was going through and what have you. And he listened to me and listened
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  to, you know, all of my, I'm sure, you know, fears and talking about what was underneath all my
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  irritation and pulling back at the time. And I got down and I remember he just kind of said, well,
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  it sounds like what you might need to do is come back to the meeting and take the cotton out of your
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  ear and put it in your mouth. And I was like, well, dang, okay. But I had enough respect for him
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  and I knew that he was saying these things, you know, out of love. And so I did that, you know,
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  I went back to the meeting and I just sat for a period and just listened. And next thing I knew,
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  I wasn't worried about all those problems.
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  It was over time.
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  It was a series of events.
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  But it was about, it was less than a year later, I think, that we met and started dating.
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  So apparently his sage advice kind of led me in the right direction and cleared out some things for my life to make me open to receive what God had in store for me in the form of sometimes loud and, but always loving wife.
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  just know that i'm throwing him a uh salty look oh there's some glares going on but i can't just
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  i can't just be too sweet you'll start to get a big head we got to keep our pride in check uh-huh
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  okay but yes but i yeah you know when you admit what is going on within you your thoughts or
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  whatever, fear definitely loses its power. And God would not have us live in fear at all.
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  No one is meant to live in fear. And of course, we need to surrender to it and
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  be honest with what's going on inside of us. And when you do bring it to the surface,
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  There is connection.
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  There is resolution.
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  And that's what we've experienced in so many ways.
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  I think about in the Psalms, Psalm 34 and 4 says,
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  I sought the Lord and He answered me.
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  He delivered me from all my fears.
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  Yes.
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  And I was thinking about that seeking of the Lord because we talk in, you know,
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  recovery language a lot about prayer and meditation.
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  And I like the and meditation part, you know, not just stopping at the prayer, because for me, prayer is speaking and meditation is listening.
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  And so, you know, seek the Lord, make my request known, as Scripture says.
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  And then the meditation is having the patience to listen for what God has to say for me.
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  It says, I sought the Lord and He answered me.
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  Well, sometimes also seeking the Lord, not just through prayer, but sometimes seeking the Lord is going out and trying to find where He is.
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  Jesus told me where he was because he said, as he told his disciples, whenever you fed
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  the hungry, whenever you clothed the naked, whenever you brought relief to the prisoner,
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  whatever you did for the least of these, you have done for me.
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  I think that's in Matthew 25, if I'm not mistaken.
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  But in that teaching that he had, it tells me sometimes seeking the Lord is going out and
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  serving somebody, doing of service. I mean, you already talks about this a lot, and he lives it,
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  too, and I've seen that. But Corey talks about it a lot, about how this whole thing is about
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  being of service to other people. In recovery context, it's about showing an alcoholic who's
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  trying to quit how we did it, you know, and in our life of faith, it's carrying the message,
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  carrying the good news, you know, of Christ's saving power and how he has saved us out to
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  whoever will hear it and receive it, whoever has the ears to hear. And so sometimes seeking the
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  Lord means I lace up my shoes. I got enough of them. So I lace up one of my pairs of shoes. I got
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  to make sure it matches the shirt for the day. But anyway, once I get all that done, and I also have
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  to make sure that your shoes match your shirt before you leave the house for the day, or you'll
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  go out like you tried to do today with some maroon shirt and blue shoes. But anyway, we digress.
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  But sometimes seeking the Lord is going out and being of service to other people.
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  One thing that I've gotten from today's ripple and the last few that I've been a part of.
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  If you do the work for all of these that we've talked about, the one thing that you're going to gain amongst other things is peace.
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  Yes.
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  You're going to get a peaceful life.
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  And oh my goodness, that, it's a beautiful thing to have peace in your life because it
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  opens up the capacity to do more and to be more.
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  When you have peace within yourself, it opens you up to do more and to be more and to have
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  that abundant life.
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  the abundant life that you are intended to have.
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  So peace is there, a gift from God,
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  not to earn by doing, but to experience and to be part of.
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  So when we submit to God's will, that's what we'll get.
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  I was just thinking that exact same thing as you were sharing and talking about how,
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  You know, it's not that I'm doing so that I can earn it.
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  It's that that peace is there and always has been there.
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  And it's just when I finally stop trying to do whatever the heck I'm trying to do over here,
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  I get to see, oh, God, this is what you wanted from me.
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  Yeah, well, well, why didn't you just tell me, Jesus?
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  Oh, wait, he did.
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  Never mind.
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  I was just too stubborn.
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  There you go.
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  I think that's a great place on my stubbornness to end this run.
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  And thank you, Cristi, for being here with us.
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  We will probably have tomorrow we'll be back with, Corey will be back with us, either with
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  me, with some others.
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  We'll just wait and see what happens.
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  But we're certainly glad to have had you on here with us these past few days.
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  Well, it's been a pleasure.
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  It's been a pleasure.
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  And I wish the best, peaceful and abundant life to each and every one of you.
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  So let's close with a prayer.
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  God, help me to see what is really driving me today.
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  Give me the courage to name my fear and trust you with it.
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  Free me from what I keep trying to hide.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.
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  with it.