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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 863 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: clyde-m-meditation-workshop-ca-1992-archive-863.mp3 Duration: 00:45:59
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For those of you that might cringe from the idea, maybe I'm one of them old drunks that don't know anything about drope. I grew up in the streets and jails of Los Angeles. In my neighborhood, they sold drugs. It was easier to get than alcohol. Grass at that time was five dollars a can. A can is as much grass as you could stuff into a Prince Albert can. That was a can. And if you couldn't get a hundred joints about that big out of it, it wasn't very good. Prices have gone up since then, in case you hadn't noticed.
Benzedrine was available. Uppers and downers were Red Devils and Yellow Jackets and Blue Heavens. When I was 14, I spent five days with two junkies in Georgia Street Jail, and I decided I didn't need that monkey on my back. But like most of us, when you get down the road far enough, the drugs get to be too expensive and you turn to alcohol. And that's where most of us wind up, and that's the hardest thing to take because it's legal. And if you get busted, you probably won't go to the penitentiary.
Anyway, I wanted to tell you that so you're a little more comfortable, maybe. What we're going to talk about is meditation. This is the hardest step to get anybody to take that I know of. They go around it and around it. I've been in the program for more than 10 years now. And most people, a lot of people that have got more time than me, I see them and they're still gritting their teeth. And they're gritting their teeth because they're not trying to improve their conscious contact with the only thing that can keep us clean and sober. That's a higher power.
You don't have to like it. You don't even have to believe it. All you have to do is show up, just like the rest of the program. When I came here, for the life of me, I couldn't see how this was ever going to work. There were a bunch of these old bastards sitting around smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and lying about how long they'd been sober. They knew nobody could stay sober 10 years. It couldn't be done. I couldn't do it 30 days. But I kept coming back because there was no place else left to go. My wife said, find someplace else to drink.
I didn't have a job anymore. So I decided maybe it was time to get sober. And I came and I lived and I came and I lived in these meetings until I knew how not to pick up the drink. And then began the hard part, that is learning how to live life. Long about nine months, I started with a program of prayer meditation. At the time, there were no how-to's, or if there were, I didn't know them. They said, you got to go to India.
I said, I don't think I'd make India. Join an ashram, find a guru. Or if you got $300, you can take transcendental meditation. The hell I had everybody in the world after what money I did have. I didn't have $300 for transcendental meditation. So I settled on the ringing in my ears as the focus of attention. Meditation has two requirements, the focus of attention and you give your mind something to do. If you don't, it will find something to do, usually run and wander and fantasy, all kinds, especially if you're quiet.
I started there and I've kept with that ever since. And as far as I'm concerned, it's kept me sober and it saved my life. Because when you get further down the road, when the ego found out I really wasn't going to drink anymore, or use any drugs, the next step is suicide. And you may run into this. Did many of us do? A lot of us commit suicide. When I first came into the program in the first couple of years, I heard maybe one or two. Now I hear one or two a month. So be aware of this. When you see this, if you see this, you do exactly what you do to get sober or to get clean. You come right back to the basics of the program. Begin with prayer and meditation. My third wife died and I'd struggled with the depression for about a year and a half. And finally one morning, I used to get up in the morning and trying to decide whether to go to work or go out in the garage and shoot myself.
A very serious consideration. Because I wouldn't drink anymore, no drugs, nothing. And finally one morning I had the interprompting to put in an extra period of prayer and meditation before I went to work. And it made me late to work. But I was on commission, so they didn't say too much to me. And in about three weeks, the depression cleared. As far as I'm concerned, this is the cornerstone of my program.
You do not have to believe in God. You do not have to believe in a damn thing. All you have to do is apply the mechanics. The first time I applied prayer and meditation, I was chasing a gold mine. And I was not spiritual. I'd come out of the streets and jails of Los Angeles,
[00:05:02]
and the gold mine I was after didn't make any difference how I got it. Murder didn't matter. It was a very famous mine, the Lost Dutchman down in the Superstition Mountains. And I was doing research on it, and I was so focused over a period of time that I got the doors open to other worlds. And I didn't know what I had done. This is the mechanics of meditation, a focus of attention. And I started talking about the things I was seeing, and my wife got a corridor and they shipped me off to Provo and gave me a handful of Thorazine.
And I did the Thorazine shuffle for about two years. Somewhere along the way, she picked up a book, There is a River by Edgar Cayce. And after I started reading that, I began to understand what had happened. As I've come down the road, I began using meditation on a daily basis. This is something you do every day, not occasionally, not when the mood strikes, not when you're holed up someplace trying to decide whether you're going to stay sober or not.
You do this on a daily basis. First, it will keep you sober. Second, it will make your life work, like you won't believe. You can't see it until you do it. The first results I saw from the meditation was I began to see a difference in how things went inside. I related better to people. I wasn't angry as often. My life began to take a different turn, and I began to understand what this was about. The big book tells us more will be revealed. As you go along, it will. But this is the only door that I know that you can get it through. If you want self-esteem, this is the step that will do it. If you want help on the other steps, this is the step that will assist you in doing that. Now, there are two bookshops that I usually recommend, because we don't have anything in the program I'm aware of that tells you how to. One is called the Three-Minute Meditator. You've got three minutes. You can learn how to meditate. You've got three minutes. You can meditate, and maybe that's where you need to begin. The other is How to Meditate by Lashon, and it covers several different techniques, and so does the Three-Minute Meditator. Pick a technique and stay with it. If you don't know how to meditate, learn how to meditate. Daydreaming and thinking and praying is not meditation. That's daydreaming and thinking and praying.
Prayer opens the channel. Most of us take our shopping list to God, and, oh, I want this, and I want that, and we run screaming down the road praying, and God's running after us, saying, wait a minute. Let me catch up with you here. Let me give you some of this stuff that you're asking for if you'll just slow down, and this is the step that will slow you down. The way I do it, I get up every morning. In the beginning, and I want to talk about the beginning because most of you may have the same problem. In fact, most of us do. First, I had to decide to meditate, and then I decided to keep it regardless of what happened or where I was or what was going on, and I went around the clock trying to find a good time, and everybody in the world showed up. I think they were conspiring to see that I couldn't meditate, see, and I'm talking about two and three o'clock in the morning, see, I would get up, and there was always a party or kids or dogs or some damn thing, see, and I just couldn't seem to get it together, and finally, I decided on 5 a.m., and pretty soon the kids and the dogs and the neighbors went away, and then the mice showed up. At 5 in the morning, mice are noisy as hell when they run across the carpet, but I finally, I got such some traps, and I got rid of them, and I've kept that time. In the beginning, I had to set my alarm clock. Now, I got my own inner alarm clock that gets me up every day about that time, and I get out of bed every damn day, and it doesn't make any difference where I am or what I'm doing. This is how I start every day, because I know the result. I know what it can do. I've watched it in my life, and I've watched it in the life of other people that have used it. For people who can't stay clean and sober, you will use this step.
It will open the door to whatever you need to do that, and you're going to find some damnedest things happening to keep you from picking up that drink or that drug, and if you don't do that, no matter what's happening in your life, you can handle it. Next, I had trouble staying awake. I'd get up, and I'd drink a whole pot of coffee, fall asleep. I'd wake up. I'd go to the bathroom
[00:10:00]
so bad I couldn't hardly walk, but it didn't keep me awake. Eventually, that went away. This is the process that you're probably going to go through as you come down the road, so be aware of it, and you don't beat yourself up about it. This is why I'm talking about it. Most of it, and I hear this, we have an 11-step meeting, and most of the people go through the same damn thing. The ego is not creative. It uses the same stuff on every one of us.
The only difference is it tells you that you're the only one with that problem, and you better not talk about it because you're going to look stupid or bad or terrible or something, and the thing to do is talk about it. Talk to other people in the program that understand what's going on and can help you pass that. So, if you fall asleep, that's great. When you get up, get up and go about your business. Come back to it later in the day.
I do several periods of meditation during the day. I've kept that extra one in the morning because that sucker saved my life, as far as I'm concerned, and if I have extra time during the day, I do extra periods, and I found one thing, that the more time you take to improve your conscious contact with a power greater than yourself, whatever you want to call it, the more time you will be given to do that, and the abundance to go with it.
That's the one thing I've discovered as I've come down the road. When I got here, I didn't have anything. No money, no job, no nothing. I started the program on unemployment, which is good because it gave me time to go to a lot of meetings. You will do this if you will take the time to do this. You're going to find that it works. You don't have to understand it. You don't even have to believe it. You just have to show up and do it. If you will do that at least twice a day, you're going to see your life take turns that you won't believe.
Next thing is your mind. The mind does not quit working. It never stops. Not while you're asleep, never while you're awake, but you can slow it down to about a million miles an hour, see, and when you get it down slow enough, those spaces in between the thoughts are the only places that the door is open. And in those little spaces, the power greater than ourselves can reach us. This is what you plug into. This is the energy source. It don't come from any place else. It can't. There is no human power that can give it to you. There is no priest, no doctor, no spouse, no relative that can do this for you. And it's very simple. You put the body down in a chair or flat on the floor, wherever you're comfortable, and begin a meditative technique, whatever it is that you decided on. And you have, if you don't know, like I say, go and find one. When you get your mind slowed down, you may have a spiritual experience.
Many of the people I've talked to right in the beginning, you know, within a few days or a few weeks have this. You might get into the fourth dimension. You might get out of your body. Any number of things might happen. And then it goes away. I call it previews of coming attractions, which is exactly what it is. How your life can and will be once you get yourself sorted out inside. In mine, it was several years before I got into that. And I got so loaded. I have never been so loaded in all my life on anything. And I stayed there for about two weeks. And then the little voice inside says, well, we're going to have to come back to normal to finish the house cleaning.
Yuck. Normal is yuck, man, by comparison. But I had to come back because I hadn't finished the house cleaning. Regardless of where this takes you, you're still going to have to do the other step. You're going to have to undo yourself from practically everything you've ever learned. And the courage to do that is going to come from the use of this step and from the people in this program. You're going to have to work it out. God's not going to take it away from you. Nothing is going to happen. And bluey, you're there. I seldom see people take a quantum leap. And some of those that have taken a quantum leap still have to come back and do the house cleaning.
Still have to use the other step. But this is the one, this one step, if you will do it on a daily basis, that will clear the way, that will give you the courage to do what you need to do. And And you're going to find yourself going in strange places outside of the program to understand the things that come through this step. More comes to me all the time. And in the beginning, a lot of it I used to doubt, and then I would see it start to happen.
[00:15:03]
And pretty soon I quit doubting it, so I go mostly with the stuff that comes from inside. And I'm not special. I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict, just like the rest of you. I'm no different. I'm never safe, I'm always one drink away from a drunk, that will never change, but if I do certain things every day I'll stay sober, that will happen, and it's happened I've watched strange things happen in my program, and I never got quite around to kicking up a drink, always somebody or something happens, and as far as I'm concerned it's because of my willingness to do this one step on a daily basis, every day, and it doesn't matter where I'm at, I'm down in Las Vegas, I get up every morning and do the same routine, in the morning I get up, come downstairs, get a cup of coffee, smoke a cigarette, go to the bathroom, sit down in my chair, and get my book out, every day, and I read whatever it is I'm reading, right now I'm reading a book from the Course in Miracles, but I've used the big book, I've used the Al-Anon one day at a time, I've used the Bible, I've used a book called God Calling by two listeners, whatever it is that I'm reading at the time that is inspirational and preferably spiritual, and I read for a few minutes, and I lean back in the chair and turn the light out and start my prayer and meditation, and I do this every day, I go out in the desert and hunt rocks, and when I'm out there the little alarm wakes me up, I get up, smoke a cigarette, have a cup of coffee, go to the bathroom, get my books out, I light a candle and read for a few minutes, enough to get my mind going in the direction I want it to go, and I lay back down and do my prayer and meditation, when I get up before I start out again into the field, I may do some more prayer and meditation, because when I'm out there, there's nobody, nobody around, nobody to tell me I don't have to be anywhere, I can do anything I please, and that's the best time for meditation, the only thing I can tell you is that to look within self, decide what it is that you really want, I was talking to somebody about, this is the first time I've seen help for the dope addict, 30 years ago there was a program called Tynanon, I don't know if any of you have ever even heard of that, it was the first program that ever came along that was real help, most of the dope addicts I knew got drunk, or loaded, went to jail, got out, got loaded, went to jail, until finally they went to the penitentiary, Tynanon came along and they opened up a little grocery store down on the waterfront in Ocean Park, I went down there to visit a friend of mine, all they offered was peanut butter sandwiches and orange juice to somebody to talk to, and that's how you got off the drugs down there, a few years later they got involved with the government and that was the last I heard of them, so you know, this is absolutely, you can't believe, all the people I've seen that have stuck with drugs, that there was no hope, they went and traded it for methadone or whatever, dial lot or whatever in the hell that they give you, in order to get off of it, you never get off of it, you just trade, it's like trading alcohol for valium, it doesn't take you any place else, I get off the track, I'm a storyteller, I love stories, and I don't know, we got a long way to go yet, I had to learn to keep my talk short, because in most of the meetings they only give me a few minutes to talk, but the best thing I can think of would be to maybe open it up to questions, and then maybe I can think of something else to say about this while we're going along, is there anybody here that's got any questions? God, don't leave me out in the Westfield, nobody wants to ask any questions? Okay, well, well I don't really know exactly where to take it from here, other than the fact that you need to do it daily, that you know, where to go, get with people, you might start working with a group, I have a group in my home that meets on Monday and we study meditation, you're going to find things happening to you that you may not be able to explain, don't talk to people that don't understand, more and more I'm beginning to see this happening as the changes that come in the world go more toward a spiritual level, and you can tap into these through the prayer and the meditation, and again I'm lost now man, I hardly ever speak for an hour, yeah Dave. I see that my mind wanders, and I think about what's happening in my life that day, new thoughts come in, I waste a lot of time thinking about it, and I don't, like, the problem is bigger than I can say, and I don't know, I've run that out over the past few years, and I'm really focused on that.
[00:20:15]
Well, I've gone through that, and right after I got out of the depression, I saw it start to come back, and as soon as I recognized it, I went right back to the prayer and meditation, one afternoon I went to bed at 4 o'clock, and this is how I handle what you're talking about, see, it's refocusing your attention, and you're going to have to do this for self, no one can do it for you, abstractions, music, or anything like that, somewhere along the way, you're going to have to learn to bring your mind back to a focus of center, whatever that is, or a focus of attention, whatever that is, and you're going to have to do it, learn to do it on command, because your mind is going to run, it's going to wander, it never quits, it's always going, most of what you've got in the computer is junk, and that's all that comes in, junk.
What you're trying to do is trade the junk for something worthwhile. Anyway, I started at 4 in the afternoon with prayer and meditation, because I could see the depression coming back, and I went until 10 o'clock before I finally went to sleep, and most of the time what I was doing was refocusing, refocusing, my mind would run, come back to the ringing in my ears, my mind would run, come back to the ringing in my ears, again and again and again, and about 10 o'clock I fell asleep.
Somewhere in the night it woke me up and we went back to the same process again, and refocus, refocus, refocus, and I fell asleep, woke up, same process, and I finally, by the end of the night, it was done, that has never come back, that depression has never come back again, I beat it that night. The next morning I felt like I'd been digging a ditch all night, I was all wore out, but I was done with that.
And this is what you're going to have to do. This is the only way I know how to do it, is that you focus, refocus. The only time that's recognized in eternity is right now. The past and the future mean nothing. That's because this is where you are right now. You're not in the past and you're not in the future, you're here, now. So every time you focus, bring your focus of attention now, now, now, now, now, you've got the door open to a higher power.
The more you do this, the more will flow to you. The less you tell God what to do, the more you listen, the more you understand, the more that you will accept. You will find that you can do mundane things and they will be just fine. And looking back on some of the things just recently, I look back and I've gone through them without even giving them a second of thought. And 20 years ago they would have got me drunk.
Today they don't mean anything at all. As far as I'm concerned, it's the results of this step. Anybody else? Anybody else? Thanks, Dave. I met a group called Spirit Elders. They were very helpful in my meditation. And what they told me to do was to… It's so similar. You can't say it's a different philosophy. Right. It's a different way to meditate throughout the world. And the one that I found that worked for me was kind of the same.
So I said, God's will, God's will. Or whatever you can say freely. It helps to keep your mind busy on what God is saying to you. You use that word. It doesn't mean anything other than that. It helps to turn the next master off. When I first started doing it, I couldn't do it. I couldn't turn it off. I couldn't say it. And I was reading further on. And I got to the end of the book and it said… And if it doesn't work, tell your God to help you meditate.
Right. So I asked God, help me meditate. And so I started doing it. And I did it. Okay. Okay. And sometimes I don't get too great a reaction from it. Sometimes it's just a habit. An exercise. But you know when I don't do it? My spirit gets together. I haven't done that because I haven't slept on it all day. And I feel anxious. Right. And you can tell when you don't do it. Absolutely. More than when you do it.
Absolutely. That's the first change you're going to see. If you want to get rid of the drunk monkey. And the bubble machine that goes all the time.
[00:25:02]
This is the step that will do that. If you will do it daily. And if you've done it for a period of time. And then get away from it. You're going to see such a vast difference. That you'll know for sure that it's working. That this is the thing to be doing. This is the most important thing I do for myself. On a daily basis. You're going to have good meditations. There are mornings I sit down. I usually pray and meditate anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes.
And there are some mornings I begin my meditation. And I look back at the clock. An hour has gone by. Just like that. And I wake up. And it's hardly a meditation I get up from. That I'm not at peace with myself. And it may only last for a few minutes. Maybe I'll go downstairs. And something will happen. And it will shake me out of it. But for a few minutes. I can feel the peace. I can see it. And there's a real difference.
In my normal state. If you want to call it normal. If you want to know what normal is. It's a setting on your washing machine. Yeah. Well. Again. Most of us are looking for some kind of mystical experience. You're not likely to get that. Yeah. If you will continue that. The depression will clear. I can tell you that for sure. But. And you may. You don't have to do lengthy periods. If you've seen old God.
And George Burns met. What's his name in. Where'd you meet God? Well I met him in the bathroom. Uh huh. That's the best place to go. To meet God. No one's ever knocked on the door and says. What are you doing? Except my kids. I'm taking a pee. You want to come hold it for me? Nobody's ever bothered me. Because they know I might say something like that. So for 10 or 15 minutes. I can be alone. I can be quiet.
I can be by myself. I don't have to do anything. To impress anybody. And this is what I do. If you don't. If you do 10 or 15 or 20 or 30 minutes in the morning. And you're still kind of scattered. You're still gaining. And if you see that. You come back to it during the day. Go sit in the bathroom for 5 minutes. At work. Nobody will bother you. And come out. You keep doing that. You're going to see a real change.
And it will. It will appear. Like it happened suddenly. But you can look back. And see where the graduations are. Once you're out of it. It's a bit. These things are easy to talk about. Before and after. It's a real bear. While you're right in the middle of it. To see anything happening. But it does work. Yeah. You can do that. Don't grade your meditations. Oh that was a good one. And that one wasn't.
And that was a bad one. Every time you sit down. And pray and meditate. Something is happening. Whether you can see it or not. Sometimes when I fall asleep. Yeah. Go ahead. Sometimes I can't sleep. And I can't do anything. And it's hard to concentrate. And it's just a little bit off base. And I can't do it. And I can't do it. And you can't do it. Right. But meditating on something. People. I meditated on this.
I meditated on that. You're still giving instructions. Don't give God instructions. He knows exactly what to do. And how to do it. And in your best interest. Your personal best interest. What works for you. May not work for me. See. And he will bring to you what you need. When you're ready to handle it. This is the way I discovered the program has worked for me. And using the step work. I gave up the stealing.
I used to be a burglar. I can pick locks and cut keys. The LAPD promised me. They would send me to San Quentin. And throw the key away. Luckily I got out of there before that happened. So it was difficult for me to give up stealing. Because when I ran out of money. I just opened something up. And got some more. And that was a real hard habit to break. And learn that I didn't need it. Lying. Same thing.
But these things came to me to be dealt with. to deal with them. And the strength, and the courage, and the self-esteem come from this depth. They don't come from any place else. It comes from within, for you, personally, individually. What is best for you, and it may not work for me, and it doesn't matter.
[00:30:04]
When you understand that, you will begin to live what we would call an authentic life. When you clear the junk out of how you should be, or what you should be, or where you should go, or who you should marry, or how much money you should make. The answers to what you really need will come through this step. And they may not come during meditation. They may come sometime later, like you were talking about.
They may come days or weeks down the road. Don't meditate on anything other than an improved conscious contact. One thing I'm going to share with you that I don't usually share, and that is when you start your meditation, you cover yourself or protect yourself with a white light. That's something I usually don't say in an open group. I do this with the people I work with. There's a reason for that. This is a very crowded world.
If you could see half of the stuff that was here, it would probably scare you to death. I talk to other people that can see these things, and it's scary. But they're always here. So if you can protect yourself, just see yourself in a bubble of white light. You don't have to believe it. Just do it. This will keep those things away from you. Anything that wants to come to you has to match the vibrations of that white light.
If they can't, they can't reach you. You can pick up practically anything. This is the importance of improving your conscious contact. A conscious contact, not an unconscious contact. One that works with you on a daily basis. That works continuously. That you can call upon. And if nothing else, get a feeling of confidence, a feeling of reassurance, a feeling of courage and strength that you can't get from any place else.
Except maybe a bottle or a drug. But that only lasts a little while. Anyone else? Yes. Yeah. Well, there are people in the program that have gone to pain clinics. When it comes to our meditation meeting, I attended with Johnny. He had a broken back. And they taught him, through mind control, how to focus away from it. And now he drives a truck. I can't think of any harder job with a broken back than driving a damn truck.
So, yeah. Very, very possible it might be a technique of self-hypnosis. Yeah. Okay. Anyone else? Right. Okay. That's why the big book says, upon awakening. Prayer in 86, 87 and 88, the big book. And I didn't know when I read that what they were talking about. Now I understand. There are still mornings when I put my feet on the floor and my head says, it's going to be a rotten day, fella. So wait a minute, I haven't even got out of bed yet.
But I automatically do exactly what I've always done. I get out of bed, come downstairs, get me a cup of coffee. You don't need coffee. Whatever. Go to the bathroom, smoke a cigarette, get my books out. This is a habit. There is nothing more important for me on a daily basis than to begin the day with prayer and meditation. I did it in the beginning because I didn't want to drink anymore. That's the only reason.
And after I began to get results from it, I understood that this is the most important thing I do for me on a daily basis. There is nothing more important than this. This gets my life going in the right direction for that day and continues the process. We will continue this process starting with prayer and meditation. And using the steps, your life is going to turn in a direction you can't believe.
It's going to get better than the fairy tales. Yeah. I don't know about they lived happily ever after. That's usually where the story stops. I often wonder what they did after that. Nobody ever said. Any relationship I've ever been in is never happily ever after. A lot of hard work. But this step will help you with that. It will help you take you where you need to go. See, that's the most important thing.
We don't know where to go to get what we need on an individual basis.
[00:35:03]
We go to experts. It's like being in prison. You go to another prisoner. He helps you change the furniture in your cell. But you're still in prison. And a lot of these people are well-meaning. But unless they take it a spiritual step. Unless they reach for a higher power, a conscious contact. You're going to be shifting the furniture in your cell all your life. And eventually that will get you drunk again.
I can just about guarantee it. I've seen the same thing in my own program where I refused to take a step. And it got to a place where I was either going to do it or I was going to get drunk. So I had to do it. This is the part of the program most of us don't like. But if you will do it. If you will just do it. Just show up. Bring the body. Put it down in a chair. And get quiet. Learn how to meditate.
Do it on a daily basis. I can't emphasize that enough. Anyone else? Yeah. Right. No, I'm glad you. Well, this is good you asked. Don't keep this stuff to yourself. If what I'm saying doesn't make sense, ask, damn it. That's the way to clear it up. Yeah, that's good. Damn good question. No, I get my books out and I read. I may read a few pages out of the big book. I may read a few pages out of the 24 hour book.
This is the beginning. This is what I do. First thing to get my mind going in a direction that I want it to go. In other words, I don't just pop down in a chair and I'm worried about the kids and the dogs and the bills. I stop that stuff by focusing my attention on something spiritual or something positive or both. Now I got it going in a direction I want it to go. Okay. Now, I turn out the light. And my prayer is nothing more than Step 11.
An improved conscious contact. Knowledge of His will. Which if you work at this long enough, you will find is your will. God's not going to tell you how to do it. Nothing happens till you move. And power to carry that out. The knowing, the understanding, the power to carry that out. That's as simple as we can get it. I went through that worried about whether I was doing God's will or not for a while.
And after wrestling with that for a long time, I finally came to the understanding that God's will is my will. What do you want? That's what he was asking. What do you want to do? Ask. Then listen. Meditation. Let me give you some suggestions as to the best way to do that. If you're listening, these suggestions will surface to the conscious mind. And your life will work. It says in the big book, things that you…
We will know intuitively how to handle things that used to baffle us. And this is where those answers come from. And if you open that channel every morning, they're going to reach you sometime during the day or when you need them. Anyone else? Yes. You know, I found when I was just trying to meditate, when I was just trying to get up after in the morning and meditate, that I did say this. And so what I did was I'd get up, and I'd say as long a prayer as I wanted to say, and get out of…
You know, I mean, to me, I feel always getting and stopping this, you know? Yeah, for God's sake. A lot of times I, you know, ask God, please get me out of this job. Please guide me down the right road. And so I'll get all that stuff out of there. And there's my job and my, you know, all my problems and my… And anything as long as I practice, before I'm determined, it's not going to last forever.
Okay. All right. All right. Okay. Sounds great. Sounds great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what I… In the beginning, I had prayers so damn long that I got tired of hearing them pray. And they got shorter and shorter down through the years as I realized that God was doing for me what I could not do for myself. And I wasn't able to see it until I'd been in the program several years and could look back and see the events that occurred in the beginning of sobriety
[00:40:01]
when I was absolutely insane. I couldn't tell you whether I was coming or going. And most of the time, I didn't care. The only thing I knew is I didn't want to drink anymore. And I spent a lot of time with the people in the program. But once I started this step, I began to see results. And it was several weeks before I began to see some kind of results that I could point at and say, yes, that's the result of prayer and meditation.
And you will find this with the rest of your life. God has not sent me any angels. I have not had any bolts of lightning. And there's no voices out of the clouds yet. But the answers come intuitively. And a lot of times, I'm right in the middle of the answer before I understand that that's the answer. That way I can't screw it up. Because if I knew about it ahead of time, I'd probably fix it. And if I fix it, it's usually fixed and I have a hell of a time getting it to work again.
But if I do this, little by little, I become quieter. Things become easier. I slow down in here. This doesn't screw up my everyday life. I don't believe in going up on a mountain. This is my nature. If I had my way, I'd go out in the desert, dig me a hole and pull it in after me and let the rest of the world go ahead and do whatever they're going to do and get it done. And after you're finished, then I'll come back.
That's me. But I can't do that. The most important thing for me is sharing with people the results I've got from using this step. This is the hardest damn step to get people to take. It's un-American. You sit down and don't do anything. See? American way is you got to be doing all the time. Busy. No. You want good things to happen, you sit down and listen. You sit down and ask for help. Contemplation, prayer, meditation, in that order.
Thinking about what you want to happen. Praying about it. Asking for help. Meditation, listening. Allowing the power, allowing these things to flow to you. Rather than blocking them out while you run down the road. That's how we do it. Anyone else? Got to be some questions, Ann. Go on. What about journalizing? Well, journalizing is good in that a lot of times you can get out what's going on inside because you can't get it in a single block.
You understand what I'm saying? It also helps you look back and see what it was like, what happened, and where you are now. And that makes a great deal of difference and encourages you to continue with the program, continue with what you're doing. A lot of times we can't look back in a way that tells us about the success that we're having because we're still caught in the problems of now. But if we have a journal and we can see where we wrote and you couldn't hardly read the writing and the person that wrote that was not you, and a year later you can look at that and say, my God, what a difference.
That helps there. I get so angry when I hear about people, mostly women and men. They had those experiences also when they were kids. I have three kids and two stepkids and I've shared that for them. And I try to blow it off in my own life, but because it only happened to me once, I need to let it go and forget about it, and I can't. And I hear so many horror stories, I don't think that my music is important to somebody else's.
I was assaulted by my father when I was eight years old and it only happened once. And I want to believe that it was a blackout. I want to believe that you don't remember it or I'm the only one who has to deal with it. And in that same year, a couple months after it happened, my mother was taken away from me, not permanently, but she was in a car accident and paralyzed and then knocked down. And in that same year I lost my mother Then I lost my mother, and I no longer have her there to care for me.
And I don't remember. I did have an outpatient in my recovery room.
[00:45:00]
And my counselor asked me once, well how did you feel when you found out that my husband's coming home because he can't be here in the hospital? And I don't remember, and that's part of the way I dealt with things, because I was in my early 20s when I started remembering that my father assaulted me. And I think I just, I learned those things in the last month, and I still don't remember how I felt when I found out my mom was recovering.
I have a lot of feelings about alcoholism and things that I have not been doing.