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August 10 – Seeing the People I Hurt · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:02
  Well, welcome back everybody to the Daily Ripples
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  podcast, and I'm Pastor Mike. I am your
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  secondary co-host today. Our primary co-host
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  is going to be Corey. Corey, welcome back. Hey guys.
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  And our host is actually a guest host today, and that's
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  going to be our good friend Paris, who's back with us. And so we're going
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  to quickly turn it over to Paris and let him kick us off for today.
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  Hey everyone, how y'all doing today? Um, I'm Paris,
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  by the way. We're gonna start off with August 10th.
• 0:36
  Seeing the People I Hurt. The Stone.
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  Real repentance begins when I stop seeing
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  my actions as mistakes and start seeing the people they
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  affect. Ripple 1. Practical. Today I will remember
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  that my actions, uh, that my actions always touch
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  other lives. It is easy to minimize past
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  behavior when I think only about what I did.
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  Growth comes when I honestly consider
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  who was affected and how they were harmed. Ripple 2,
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  Spiritual. As I look honestly at the people
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  I have hurt, the Holy Spirit opens my eyes to the
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  impact of my actions and gives me the courage
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  to pursue healing where I can. The Father sees
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  every person as valuable and worthy of love,
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  and Jesus teaches me to view others not as obstacles
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  or background characters, but as neighbors created in God's
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  image. Yeah,
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  of course, you know, this is August,
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  so, you know, the first thing that came to mind was
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  like, you know, Step 8. Right. You know, when we made a list
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  of persons we harmed and all those sorts of things. And so when I
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  started reading, I really went to the 12 and 12 in this,
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  on this passage, because I really like it.
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  On page 77, it talks about
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  that. At the bottom it says,
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  if I can pull it up, it said, this reopening of emotion
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  wounds, some old, some perhaps forgotten, and some still painfully
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  festering, will at first
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  look at the purposeless and pointless piece
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  of surgery. But if a willing start is made,
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  then the great advantage of doing this will so quickly reveal themselves
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  and the pain will be lessened as the one
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  obstacle after another melts away. You know,
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  man, I used to, I mean, before I came into the rooms of recovery
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  and all that stuff, you know, Of course I hurt people.
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  Of course I done did wrong, you know?
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  But I noticed with doing this work and doing
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  the program, doing a step format where it teach me how to live
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  a life today, you know, it really switches my thought
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  processes. Like this thinking, thinking, I don't really think
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  about the old, I mean the bad. Stuff I do. But I— of
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  course we got to brighten, we got to look deep inside to see where
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  we have gone. But that's my first thought. What y'all have? What? Hey,
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  hey, um, no, when I was reading it, because it was talking about in
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  here, it says, uh,
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  it says real repentance begins when I stop seeing my actions as
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  mistakes and start seeing the people they affected.
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  And I look at that and I think, well, you know, We're not—
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  because maybe, you know, I did just accidentally did this or did this. And,
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  you know, maybe it was just like, you know, it was— what is it?
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  It's like, you know, when you're going into war, it's casualties.
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  Yeah, there's casualties. I mean, there's innocent bystanders, right?
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  Yep. Yep. And so, like, you know, and there's— and people make mistakes. And,
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  you know, I've looked at it like that, you know, for my whole life.
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  And, well, and I've talked about this on here before, but, you know, when I
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  view this stuff that, like, And I hear this word part and
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  it's like, well, I played my— they like, you know, this was my part in
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  it. And when I start looking at the word part, I automatically look at,
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  well, if you played a part and I played a part, you played
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  a bigger part because that's right. It works. The house always wins. Yeah.
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  Yeah. My ego does that. My ego's always done that. And like,
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  and maybe not the beginning of it, but you give me 2, 3,
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  4 days after I thought about that for some more and my ego's rebuilt.
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  At first it was my fault. My, my played the biggest part.
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  Now, right, it's your fault. And really, man, why would
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  I even go make amends to you anyways? Right. And so I think
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  that's why it's so— or I'll happily apologize to them as
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  soon as they apologize. Absolutely. And that's— yeah, that— but that's,
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  you know, that's how most people operate. And it's transactional. And they can't—
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  and they can't operate like this. But in the big book,
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  you know, it tells me if we were to live, we had to be free
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  of anger. Yeah, the grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be
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  the dubious luxuries of normal men, and that's normal people. And normal people get
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  to operate on that level, and that's cool. And I remember talking to a guy
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  the other day and he was like, well, you know, we're all God's kids and
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  this is how— I said, well, you know, man, you know, all God's kids then
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  go and rob and steal and hurt people and do this and this and
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  this. And I have to operate at this level so I don't ever— because I
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  don't ever want to do that again. And I want to live with some peace.
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  But I think the most important part is on the next page, on page 67
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  in the Big Book, because it says, we placed them before us on black
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  and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly,
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  and we were willing to set these matters straight. See, after I put
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  it on black and white, I don't argue with it anymore. After it's on pen
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  and paper, it's set in stone, and there's no argument there. And I'm not going
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  to go scribble out as my ego's building. And after I do that,
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  you know, there's a piece of me that's left on that paper. And all
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  I have to do after that is go do the actual work and let's go
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  face the people. But I think that black and white's
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  one of the most important parts in this because if I can't see it on
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  paper and it's up here, man,
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  when it starts rolling around, it tends into, hey man, I'm going to go
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  make that amends anyways. Yeah. And I think that's why
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  it's important and it's said through the program of recovery all the
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  time that the 12 steps are worked in order.
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  Because me, that step 8 that Paris mentioned at the top
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  of the episode about making a list of all the people that
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  I'd harmed and becoming willing to make amends to them all, that flows
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  naturally from the inventory that I did. And it flows naturally
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  from the 5th step when I sit down with another person and that person points
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  out, sometimes coaxes me to share things that I would not have
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  otherwise shared. And in the process of that, also assists in in pointing
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  out through that sponsorship process of
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  what my part is and who I do owe an amends to,
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  because we need other people to be able to see what we've done wrong sometimes.
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  Because like we've been talking about, and I like Corey that you brought in the
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  casualties of war, because that played in exactly with my scriptural
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  grounding for this that comes in. Y'all familiar with King
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  David back in the Old Testament of the Bible? And so,
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  you know, King David, he'd been, well, he slew Goliath,
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  you know, with stone and slingshot. So there's that story. And then,
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  you know, he was anointed by Samuel to replace Saul
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  as king. So he had some tension with Saul and David coming
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  up. And then in 2 Samuel, by this point, he's the king, you know,
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  he's the king of the Israelites. And he had
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  already done just some horrible stuff, you know.
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  And so there was a prophet named Nathan, and in 2 Samuel 12,
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  in the beginning of it, just kind of read the story a little bit.
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  It said, the Lord sent Nathan to David, and Nathan being
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  the prophet to David the king. Now when he came to
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  him, he said, there were 2 men in a certain town, one rich and the
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  other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep
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  and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb
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  he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children.
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  It shared his food, drank his cup, and even slept in his arms. It was
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  like a daughter to him. Well, I guess they didn't have a good concept of
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  pets back then, but anyway, now, or at least not
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  indoor pets. But then it says, now a traveler came to the rich man,
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  but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep
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  or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him.
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  Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared
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  it for the one who had come to him. So David the king, it says,
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  burned with anger against that man and said to Nathan, as surely as
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  the Lord lives, the man who did this must die. He must pay for
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  that lamb 4 times over because he did such a thing and had no pity.
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  So David's pointing out from the story who was in the wrong.
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  Then Nathan said to David— and here's the fun part— he said to the
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  king, he said, you are the man. This is what the Lord, the God
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  of Israel, says: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the
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  hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you and your master's wives into
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  your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if this had been too
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  little, I would have given you even more. Why then,
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  you might say, did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is
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  evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took
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  his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
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  So here we have the king who had played out that story that Nathan
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  told him. Nathan told it to him as an example of somebody
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  else, but he was cloaking his language as a prophet to speak to
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  what David had done, because David, he had seen you
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  know, I think it's Bathsheba was her name, seen her bathing
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  nude across the rooftop. And he said he wanted that woman
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  even though she was Uriah's wife and Uriah was the captain of his guard
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  who he sent off to war so that Uriah would be killed so he could
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  be with the woman. So that's some pretty shady stuff.
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  Right. And so, but it just
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  points out the fact that I'm sure up until that point, even King David
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  saw what he had done as just a mistake. He probably even said, well,
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  you know, I'm just human like everybody else. I mean, after all,
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  she was pretty and she was naked and you'd have done the same thing.
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  He didn't see the other people that he had hurt and he needed somebody else
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  to point that out to him. And that's just like us sometimes. We can be
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  just as, have our blinders on the same way and not see how our
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  actions are impacting other people. Right. And that's why we
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  have to remember, as the practical says, that our actions always touch other
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  lives and not to try to minimize our past behavior
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  and think about only our part, but The growth comes in considering who
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  was affected and how they were harmed. And again, by the time we get to,
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  if we're on the 8th step in recovery, we already have a good idea of
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  what that is because we've already been doing the work. You know, one thing I
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  think is, uh, is important in this whole
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  process though, right? Because I was just looking at it in
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  my head is this, and you know, you got your columns, your column is a
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  name. What they did, how it affected
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  you, right? And well, you know, and you put, you know, what you—
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  how you, how you were selfish, dishonest, and all that stuff. But I was
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  thinking about it kind of like the other side of that, because like I
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  had the courtesy in my life to go write about how you affected my
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  self-esteem, how you affected my pocketbook. And when I do
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  that on the flip side, right, when I do that on the flip
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  side of, you know, How I perceived that I affected their
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  pocketbook, how I affected their self-esteem, their ambitions,
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  and all that. Because that's how I do my inventory. I mean, that's how I
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  do my amends. So on the front side of the card, I put
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  who they are, what I did to them. And so on the back side,
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  I'll put how I affected their ambitions, how I affected
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  their personal relationships, because I did that with them already. And now
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  I'm doing it the opposite side. And when I start doing that, and I found
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  in this process, when I really start looking at that and how I affected them,
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  man, I start seeing so many, because that opens the door to so many more
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  people I affected in those majors, right? Because I called so many,
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  and breaking it down I think is really important because I think that
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  just the courtesy, just the courtesy
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  to write down how I affected them because I already wrote
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  down how these, all these people affected me, I thought, yeah,
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  is a big thing for me. And that's where I saw— I mean, you're giving
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  them the honor of actually trying to grow in empathy
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  and compassion for other people, you know? Yeah. Because, because if
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  I don't see how I've exactly how I've impacted another
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  person through my bad actions, then I'm not ever going to stop and think about,
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  well, that whole thing about doing unto others as you would have done unto
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  you. Like, I clearly think about, as you pointed out, I clearly
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  think about what they did to me and what they affected in me. So why
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  wouldn't I think about it in reverse? Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
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  I agree with both of y'all. I'm looking at the spiritual part of this and
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  it says the Father sees every person as valuable and worthy of love.
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  And I think of that, that's exactly where I'm
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  at today because it says in the book, asking each morning
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  in meditation that our Creator show us the ways of patience, tolerance,
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  kindness, and love. And if You know, that's the thing.
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  See, I could easily, you know, go back into
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  the way I used to be, right? When I'm not showing that love.
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  Can you? No, I mean, not now. I ain't gonna say easily, but I mean,
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  if I don't practice this stuff I'm doing, then probably so. You know,
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  I mean, yeah, you can get back to it if you don't practice. That's why
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  I said asking each morning, right? You know, um, yeah, Corey,
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  as he said, asking each morning, Corey. Come on.
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  And then, you know, because I mean, I As I go through these rooms of
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  recovery, people get a lot of time, right? And they
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  get a lot of time and then they end up stop doing the daily maintenance
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  of the spiritual growth. And that's the thing I've been working
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  on a lot lately is praying and meditation.
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  And it teaches me now to be kind even
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  if someone hurts me. Today I have to be kind because
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  it mean what What's so bad that they can do that? They're just a
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  sick person. You know, that's what it teaches us. Um,
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  and that's what I feel on this part right here. Um,
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  yeah, but Paris, as you were, as you were saying that
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  about especially about people that have a little bit of time and they stop doing
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  the, the daily things, yeah, that's why it's been such a
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  blessing to me in this season of my life, in this season of my
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  life in recovery and everything that I've gone through in the past year I
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  started, you know, I met both of you guys during this past year,
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  really. I mean, I may have met you before, but we didn't really connect at
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  that point. But once we really connected, because both of you guys are,
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  you know, this go-round in sobriety, I would still consider you to be fairly new.
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  You've got some years under your belt, but you're not in the decades,
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  you know, kind of thing, the old-timer category. No. But you guys both
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  have just such a drive, you know, for helping others.
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  And I'm not trying to fluff you all up or give you ego, but it's
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  really been a motivation to me as somebody who's been in
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  the program and sober for a few more years to see that energy.
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  Because this is what I felt back when I was at y'all's,
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  you know what I mean? Like back when I was first new to the program,
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  the first few years when I was so excited about it. And yeah, there were
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  bumps along the way, but just having that energy behind it. So yeah,
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  y'all keep coming back and doing what you're doing for sure, because you never know
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  who you might be inspiring. You want
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  to send it with a prayer? Yeah, we can start with a prayer. Um,
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  Father God, help me see others as you see them.
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  Through your Holy Spirit, show me where I have caused harm
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  and give me the courage to make things right.
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  Shape my life through the example of Jesus and teach me to
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  walk in honesty, humility, and love.
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  Amen.