Inner Calm

0:00Morning Sam. Morning, I'm a couple of people everywhere. Morning, I'm a human, morning God. May we all again? It is September the 18th from opening doors within. I hope everyone's really well. It is your life running smoothly. Are you content with what you're doing? Do you feel at peace with the world? Or is your life full of ups and downs? Are you dissatisfied with the way you are living or with the work you are doing? Do you find it difficult to harmonise with those souls around you? Do you blame your discontent and dissatisfaction on those people with whom you are in contact? On your circumstances and situations? Do you feel that if you were somewhere else in the world, all would be well and you would be at peace? When you are a perfect peace deep within,

1:00it does not matter where you are, or whom you're with, or what very ordinary mundane jobs you are doing. Nothing will be able to disturb you or throw you off-balance because you are perfectly balanced and in harmony within. Instead of fighting against your circumstances, learn to flow with them and so find that inner peace and understanding deep within. That's a good one. I always think of a C, you've got the rough waves on the top, they're like your everyday mundane things. But when you dive down to the bottom of the ocean, it's really still and peaceful and calm. I think knowing that you can get back to that state, no matter what is going on at the top,

2:01that's when you've... Because things are going to come and go, aren't they? But when you think about everything that's bothered us, it's always past. You know, it passes and then things change. And it's just trying to go with the flow, instead of trying to turn around and swim up tight, where it's really difficult in your battling, turn around and go with the flow, and you're just accepting the changes that are coming and just know that you can dive down to the ocean bed and get that calmness. I think that's really helpful to know that if you sit still for a while, you can find that.

3:02That's why I like the hot tub just finding that. Is there a little bit more? Yeah, just peace. Just look at the... Stars. Stars, the world, you know, the birds, the trees, you know, they're constant in your life. And things will fluctuate, weren't they? They do. You know, you go through, you grow through what you go through. And, you know, it's really nice, you know, I was talking to someone yesterday that said, they understand perhaps now why they found recovery, you know, in a way being an alcoholic turned out to be not so bad because of what's happening afterwards because of recovery. That you started... Well, that's the thing is, for my back to land.

4:04You don't know what's good for us. You know, sometimes things that shouldn't bad. Turn out to be the best. It's from good things. It's a good problem. Yeah. So that's a good example, isn't it, of being an alcoholic that, you know, you can have a complete change of life afterwards. You know, you can live out your best years because you find a different way of living. That's more kind to ourselves and gentler and more loving and more understanding and more peaceful. And we can find that deep calm within us that we're so scattered by the surface waves and the surface tides and pools and edges of life that we've got so ingrained in things and now I'm really choose carefully what I engage with, consciously engaging in.

5:06And I know what's good for me to avoid and there are certain people that vibrate on a different energy level. And if I can, I just choose not to be with them. And I don't know what you mean. Yeah, I was thinking about, you know, there are sad things that bother me more than I learned. So if my center is, you know, if you're good, if my core is good, okay. Then trivial things or day-to-day things that I don't tend to get fast, you know, it's like, well, that didn't work out or that didn't work out. You know, that's good. That isn't so good to, you know,

6:06it's like, it is really is. But the bigger things that are more longer-term and time, you know, that are more impactful in my life, then, you know, that they're harder to take off, you know. And it's, can I, you know, that is, I suppose, just the way it went into, you know, in a life. And learning to trust that whatever happens. There's different levels of problems and different scales and things. And, you know, and so, if you've got, if you're faced with a really challenging situation, you know, whether it's pepper, health or bereavement or, you know, very difficult financial circumstances, you know, what I do in a homeless, big stuff, then, you know, it's normal to feel unhappy or feel fear around that

7:13because these things are real. And, you know, that's a normal reaction. But I do feel that what this emergency prayer helps me so much with that, you know. Well, it's a sense of feeling, isn't it? I'm in fear, you know, and I'm just going to have to write out, you know, because the problem that I'm faced with is going to go on for a while. I'll give it over to the character. You know, but you can't ignore it. No, but I do. I do say this problem is so big for me. Please take away my difficulties from this, you know, because I'm putting it in your pair. I'm putting my will into your pair. And that is so, you know, to me, it's like, I can't control this. I cannot control this, but I can give it to you and I can be guided by you.

8:13And sometimes what we fear the most is actually a better outcome for us. I was listening to someone sharing about, you know, what we've got to guide us in the meeting. And I'm, I'm thinking to myself, is the principles? Yeah. You know, you've got guidance. There's these special principles that you're supposed to follow. That's it. Get on with it. You know, live by these principles and when problems come along, you deal with it based on these principles. And, you know, that's doing God's work. You know, so you've got faith in Him. Hand in the lower is like, well, that principle. I love that he's principles, but after doing stuff for myself, you know, after doing responsibility, you know, God, you know, on a site, it's too big deal. Yeah. And, you know, what I find is worth the worst thing I can do is just,

9:17it's just, you know, be, you know, indecisioned, you know, just that kind of economy, I can't be right and don't want to do it. I just end up running out of it for a minute, and I'm not dealing with it. And, you know, that isn't, doesn't work. Doesn't work. You've learned from what, maybe, just stick your head into the doing value. Sometimes you have to wait a while before you know what to do. Waiting is an action sometimes, because, you know, things, but yeah, it's a good way to use it. So just remember. That's still a certain term. You know, the, the, the, the, the portal, the program is the, you know, the principal's, you know, that we practice these principles and all our affairs. You know, that's the ideas until you want to do the steps and then you live for these principles.

10:17And, I'm, probably, you know, volunteering, you know, you know, you're not actually able to do it. Fear. Faith, you know, when you've got fear, you've got your faith. And, um, it's certainly a lot better than the way I used to just doing con fear. That doesn't solve anything. Makes you feel worse, doesn't it? When you look at it now, you can just think, what was that doing? But, you know, I was, I didn't know. There was a different word, I think. I do. So, as you say, you know, sometimes you're grateful. It's kind of a project of life's fear. Yes. You know, that, that you're still going to be speeding. And your song. The last anxiety. Yeah. Step nine. Nine. Nine. The grind continues. The grind continues.

11:22Most of us begin making certain kinds of direct demands from the daily joy and alcoholics and on this. They won't be telling families that we're really going to try to program the process as we begin. In this area, there are seldom any questions of timing or call from. We want to come in the door, shouting like it news. After coming from our first meeting, perhaps after we have finished, we can be a big alcoholics and on this. We usually want to sit down as some member of the family and read the damage we have done by our drinking. Almost always, we want to go further and make other defects that have made us hard to live it. This will be a very different occasion. And in short, come fast with those hangover mornings when we alternated between reviling ourselves and blaming the family and everyone else for our troubles. At this first sitting, it is necessary only that we make a general admission of our defects. It may be unwise at the stage to be harsh and harrowing episodes. Good judgment will suggest that we ought to take our time.

12:25Well, we may be quite willing to reveal the very work. We must be sure to remember that we cannot buy our own piece of mind at the expense of others. Maps the same approach will apply at their office or façade. We shall at once think of a few people who know all about our drinking, who have been most affected by it. But even in these cases, we may need to use a little more discretion than we did with the family. We may not want to say anything for several weeks or longer. First, we will with to be reasonably certain that we are on the AAB. Then we are ready to go to these people to tell them what AAB is and what we are trying to do. Against this background, we can freely admit the damage we have done and make our apologies. We can pay the promise to pay whatever obligations for an anthem or otherwise we owe. The generous response of most people to such quiet sincerity will often astonish us. Even our severeest and most justified critics will frequently meet us more than halfway on the first trial.

13:28The atmosphere of approval and praise is out to be so exhilarating as to put us off balance by creating an insatiable appetite for more of the same. Or we may be tipped over at another direction when, in my case, we get a cool and skeptical reception. This will tempt us to argue or to press our point insistently or maybe it will tempt us to discouragement and pessimism. But if we have prepared ourselves well in advance, such reactions will not deflect us from our steady and even purpose. Don't promise too much in the beginning. I think you need to get some time on to your belt, don't you? Well, it seems to be, you know, they don't mention steps one, two, it's just like, you know, what to go on with it at the first meeting. But as not done these days, we miss backers written in the 1950s after the big book came out in 1952.

14:40So, I mean, 17 years, shoulder, I think, time. For me, you know, I've made so many promises about stopping drinking when I came out of my second treatment center. And also the first treatment center, you know, they deemed that it didn't work. So my family were quite skeptical. So I just knew I had to get my head down and just get to meetings, you know, get on with the work. And then, you know, wait until step nine to say anything. I really just, I was, you know, I'd hurt them so much. You need to do four and five, you know, and not really get a kid to understand enough who you are, and who you are, and who you are. That's it. Because, you know, you don't realize, you know, before you start putting pen to paper on the columns, you don't, sometimes, you haven't even thought of people. And people come into the meetings, you know, and haven't been around a few years, and, you know, they're banging on about how amazing it is,

15:45and it's changed their life, you know, and they're too short, but you just think, oh, you know. Just be patient. That's a super thing. It's not a good start. You're going to pick up, you know, I mean, because it's just, it's that, that's a pattern. Yeah. And, you never say that again. But I, as people, you come in and don't say much, you think. Yeah. You go, okay, chance. You know, you listen. Yeah. You know, getting carried away with this idea and more. Yeah. And, you know, it's like the. The man's process, you know, and getting a defense. It's a vital part of. The program working. You don't want to take it lightly or fuck it up. Well, for me, it really is a defense, because I don't want to, I don't want to do it again. I don't think it would have been accepted in the same way.

16:49For me, for me. I just find it easier to just get on with the work which I have to do to keep you safe, but so that I don't have to go through that again. But it's coming, you know, it's, it's, so it's becoming. It's very patient. And it will, you know, sometimes surprise people that have been saved before a long time. The other aspect of it is that you know, I'm still doing step nine. Yes. We are doing steps three-fourth kind of every day. And the content, and the 12th, and the answer. The answer. The answer and the answer. You're practising the steps. He, he and to change steps with principles, practising the principles, the steps in all your affairs. And that's what we need to do. We need to continue to do that. And I do look at the people with long-term sobriety, and I do see what they do, and I do copy them.

17:50them because I don't want to go back. It's not for me. It's not for my family. They need me and I need them. I'm going to carry on. I've got to share tonight on my spiritual journey and to the mid-Brain 200 members over 50 years sober. 55 fucking years sober. One hundred years sobriety between the two of them. No pressure there. It's very inconsistent to me. You know, people that were that gigantic continued sobriety, you know, still really valued going to meetings and being part of the A. Felt as a. I'm still helping others. Yeah, enthusiastic. They're very, very

18:52with it. Yeah. Holy it is. Because they, they really take their meditations and I guess they also enjoy their status and they you know, revered, you know, rightly so. And it's just like, so yeah, it's a bit of an honor to go and do a show. No, good luck. I think I'm going next week. You're off next week and I'm your chauffeur. No, no, no, I'm not going to stay away. You'll be fish. I've got, I've got another one. And so, I'm a bit of a competitive a bit of cheer. the dots to see. Mark, show the tone. Yeah.