Tricia S Speaking to the Barcelona "Easy Does It, But Do It" meeting on August 30, 2023
The Daily Reprieve
Barcelona Meeting - Tricia S
[Music] Hello and welcome to the Daily Reprieve, where we provide essays, speaker meetings, workshops, and conferences and podcast format. We are an ad-free podcast. If you enjoy listening, please help us be self-supporting by going to Donate.thewreprieve.com and drop a dollar or two into the virtual basket. Please consider donating monthly by clicking the Donate monthly button. However, one-time donations are always welcome. Just click the Donate Now button. Now, without further ado, this episode of the Daily Reprieve. [Music] So today, August 30, 2023, we are very happy to have with Drisha S. from Pennsylvania in the US in recovery since 22 June, 1992. She will be sharing on the topic of shame, my biggest block in recovery. So, you are now on Trisha. You have 25 minutes to share and you will be timed by our brother, Aman. He will give you a warning on 25 minutes, sorry, 20 minutes, five minutes before. So, yeah, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you, Iris. Hi, everybody. I want to start with a little quiz. I'm wondering, you might do this, answer these questions, you know, in your own head or take an inventory. These are the shame messages that I have learned to give myself. I've got them from other people. So, you may not have shame problems, but I sure do. And so, has anybody ever told you or have you told yourself that I feel bad about myself when I do something well, even if it's done great, I've done a great job, but it's never good enough. I don't like being alone with myself. I look to others to make me feel better than myself. I need others to affirm my self-worth because I don't feel worthy. I'm uncomfortable with compliments. I'm very sensitive to criticism or anything I perceive as a negative form of feedback. I must do things perfectly, or maybe just some things. It's not everything, but just some things, because if I can't do it perfectly, I got to procrastinate or just not do it at all. If I make a mistake, I'm a bad person, and I feel worthless. Words like "should" ought to have to must. I think in terms of what is right and wrong, black and white, there are no gray areas. I keep very busy to avoid myself. If you really knew me, you'd reject me, you'd walk away, you'd vomit, you know, those are all those kinds of things that I think. And sometimes I even hate myself. I need to control in order to feel safe. And all of this is very exhausting to me. So if you had to just do a few of those, then you might be interested in what I have to share. Shame is often combined with the word guilt. In one of my favorite books in our program is The Daily Meditation, The Real Connection. And the last time I counted, I think I got up to over 30 references to the word shame, and often shame and guilt are put together. So I'm going to explain what guilt is and then tell you what shame is. Guilt is about what I do and what I say. It's about making a mistake. And when I've made a mistake, I can make a mess. You know, that's the fourth step. The fourth step is deals with our guilt. What have I done, quote unquote, wrong, okay? Shame, on the other hand, is about who I am. The word to be in English is called an intransitive verb. It reflects back on the subject. See, when I steal your heart or I steal your money, that's guilt. I've stolen something. There's an object to that word. But when I am a thief, that reflects back to me. That affects my self-esteem, my self-respect, and the way I deal with the world. So they're very, very different. We learn guilt at about the age of seven, when we have a conscience. And the church that I grew up in, they gave us a sacrament, a couple of sacraments at the age of seven, because then you can reason whether or not you were guilty of something. You understood that. But before that, it's very difficult for a child to have that sense of right and wrong. Shame, we learn before we are the age of three. So we get shame messages. By the way, our family looks at us, talks about us, their facial gestures, whether or not they hold us, pay attention to us, when they're crying, feed us. Are we held roughly or not at all? Are we held gently, lovingly? All of those things relate to shame. And we don't talk in the first two years of life usually. Maybe the first one is at age one. But we normally don't talk, and therefore we can't express ourselves. So we learn this, and what do we do with it? Let me think of what else I'm going to say. I've learned that in program, we are seeking balance. And the way I balance shame is a feeling. And I think it's a form of fear. It's about being afraid to be found out, found out that I'm inadequate, unworthy, alone. You know, that's the first lines of the problem. There it is. That's shame. I feel shame about that. And I titled this talk, the major block to my recovery. As a woman, I moved to Pittsburgh almost 10 years ago, and there were no women in the program here. And it's been a long time. They've had program a long time, decades. I think, at least since the 90s, it's probably before them. And so I tease the guys and say, "I'm the only woman in Pittsburgh who has this problem." I suggest to you that the biggest block to coming into the program for men as well as women, but especially for women, is shame, the feeling of shame. I'm not supposed to have this problem. So what do I do with it? Well, for me to balance shame, what I started reading and writing about this, as a matter of fact, I was introduced to shame very early in program before I got to SA. It was in my first program. And they were going to have a talk about shame. And no, I'm sorry. They were going to have readings on shame and share about shame. And I remember remarking to someone, "Oh, that's a waste of time. I don't have any shame issues." Well, let me tell you folks. I cried through the entire share. The readings got me. The shares got me. I saw that I had a problem with shame, but I did absolutely nothing. I'm talking about in the 1980s, I didn't get to SA until late '80s. And I never dealt with shame until five or six years ago. So I think that this is a very important issue to deal with, but it's very difficult to do that when you're new in program. So I'm going to suggest to you that I'm going to share about the problem. And I would have another talk about how I've used the steps to help me heal the shame. Some people, I guess, we don't have a lot of whole timers here. So maybe they've already dealt with their shame issues, but I've talked to several of it, not. And so I think that everyone has that. And it keeps coming up for me. And just in the last month, I've had to deal with my shame. My solution, before I got into program for shame, to balance it, we're always seeking balance, is perfectionism. Perfectionism is my character defect that I use to cover up, to hide, to compensate for my shame. So that's why I went through that. Those shaming messages are all about gotta be perfect. And some people, for some of us, and maybe for myself, perfectionism is I'm going to be the worst of the worst. If I can't be the best, I'm going to be the worst. If I can't achieve it, I'm not even going to try. I'm going to be the perfect failure. That's another of the opposite of perfection, the one that lets you achieve everything. Okay. Oh, I wanted to share with you the acronym for shame. Each letter represents a different word. Should have already mastered everything, shame is should have already mastered everything. Now, if that doesn't define perfectionism, I don't know what it is. So you see in the very closely linked, perfectionism and shame. But it took me a while, just as it takes a while to get into the program, to understand things, to become aware of things. I don't know if you've heard of the three A's. I think this is something very, you know, we can't get everything all at once. And if I came in, you know, I was going to get this and that was going to leave. I think a lot of folks feel that think that way. The three A's are awareness, acceptance, and action. And the steps take us through that. We become, well, we don't even come into the program until we have some sense of awareness. And we also have sin, and then I won't even come and I may know I have this problem, but you know, I'm going to try every other way coming to program for that. So until I have accepted that I have the problem and accepted that I need to do something about it, then I take action. So we don't take action before we have, we understand we have a problem, we accept that, then we're ready to take action. One of the things that I have learned in program is that I have to work all the 12 steps on my addiction. I remember one of my friends said to me, you know, your addiction is the first thing you're going to surrender to your God, the God of your understanding. And that was so true because I can't, I couldn't work on machine issues until I had really worked through my 12 steps. So I'm just presenting the problem here. Understand that this is something that is a very deep issue for me. Yes, I'm a little nervous here. Try not to get into my, when I learned shame from my parents and from my extended family, my parents were trying to socialize me, trying to make me a good girl. And that was how they, that was one of the ways they did that they used guilt to it sometimes. I didn't do something right, so then I was guilty about that. But also I was ashamed about that. And then with my extended family, I got the message, not so much in words to me directly, but my, my mom had a mental illness and my dad was an alcoholic. So we definitely got the message that we want to see. Well, I didn't know that I was wanting or invited to different places, but I was so ashamed of my parents that I didn't want to go and be around the family, the extended family. So I felt shame about, I was ashamed by my family, by my me, a family, and also by the extended family. And it is such a subtle thing. It's a look. I remember an incident when my male cousins were chasing me around the house because I was a pre-teen. I was just developing sexually. And they were talking about that. And I felt very ashamed. And I developed the hunched over shoulders growing up. I did not want to be seen as a sexual being. Well, that was also part of my religious upbringing that, you know, girls are not supposed to be sexual until they get married. And, and then it's okay. You know, so if you turn off a part of your life, you know, for decades, and then you're supposed to turn it back on, it's just crazy making, crazy making. When I started working on shame, I read some, I watched some things on YouTube and I can give you that specific information later on. Oh, I kept wondering why I was having a problem with I can do service or I would try to please somebody. And I thought that seeing perfectionist, I wanted to learn how to do it the best way. And I didn't think I wanted to be the best, but I wanted to do things the best way. And I wanted to be a helper to help others do things. So my desire to improve, I thought everybody else, you know, I treated everybody else the way that I treated myself, you know, so I'm going to be a helper and help you, even if you don't ask me to help you. So that's a great way to turn off a lot of people to lose friends, to push people away. So now I, so I'm learning how to be helpful, only if somebody asks for that, or if it's inappropriate. Now, like when I first came into a program, I was sharing that I was in essay or I was in my other, I haven't made a program, that was my core. And that really wasn't appropriate with some of the people that I shared that. But you know, as it warned us that warrants us in the white book, I didn't pay attention to that. And so in a way, I was shinning myself because the way people looked at me after that, or the way they judged me after that. There's a word that we use in a program called halt. And it stands for it's another acronym, hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. Well, part of my perfectionism is I have to have an S on the end of the halt. So some people say the S stands for stress. For me, it's seriousness. I am so serious about now I want to take the program seriously, but I'm taking myself seriously. I don't know how to laugh at myself, or my mistakes. Everything, everything is black and white. I'm either good or I'm bad. I'm not human. It's no longer in that one time, my spots are in their same setting. Well, when you can make a mistake and admit it and learn from it, when you get an A for being human, that has really helped me a lot. It's funny how these little, little things can help us a lot. There are physical characteristics of shame. Have you ever felt boy, somebody reacted to you, or after you said something? Did you ever feel your face blush? Did your stomach churn? Did you get sweaty palms? Or your heart starts to race? Do you tend to put your head down? I don't want to look at anybody. I'm stealing so ashamed. And they're asked, what is that? That's an embarrassment. That's a shame. That's just about shame. And I always have the urge to run away to hide. And my perfectionistic person, meaning to dress and act like I know everything, that's another way I quote. I remember in 5th grade, I learned that if I keep raising my hand, when the new subject comes and the teacher will call it because usually a lot of kids don't want to raise their hands, I raise my hand right away because I figured it out. The teacher asks the easy questions at the beginning of the lesson. So she stopped, she ignored me after the middle of this lesson, and picked down those introverts in the back. And they had answered the top question. So open my big mouth. Well, the problem with that is sometimes I embarrass myself about that. And then I tell myself, see your bad person, shut up, go away. They don't like you now, see. So it really hinders my ability to learn from the stakes. How does that happen? It hinders my ability to learn from it because I'm not okay. That is why it's a big block for me. I'm not okay if I have this addiction. As a matter of fact, this is a perfect example. I came into essay the first time in 1986 for my ex-boyfriend. How is that? Not for me, I didn't have this problem. No, if there had been an SNOM, I would have gone to SNOM. As a matter of fact, after two years, and when I came in, if you had two years of sobriety, you were an old timer. Everybody looked up to you. That's my laugh when I think about that. That really did help me lose, give away four years and four months of sobriety because I was in this essay. He got to be on the top or on the bottom. Well, anyway, I came in for my ex-boyfriend. It was really difficult for me to stay, especially when a member was somebody that I had acted out with. Now, you talk about shame. There was somebody that was very drunk coming to meetings. He didn't stay very long, but I left before he left, and I came back a couple of years later when I had acted out in a strange city with a stranger, and my sponsor said, you got an essay, or you go to treatment? Thank you. I'm ready for the questions. You have five minutes left. Oh, boy. I would like to share with you the five days of genuine love. I talked about the three days, and I got this from a non-program. I think it fits in the process of recovery. The first day is attention. I have to be willing to pay attention to something. The second one is, I have to pay attention to you. If I want to love you or love myself, I have to pay attention to that. The second one is acceptance. The third one is appreciation. If I can see you and accept you as you are, then I can appreciate you in the gifts that you offer me. After appreciation comes affection, I'd never thought of that as part of love. An affection doesn't have to be touched. They can be affectionate voice, affectionate look. The last one is called allowing. I think of allowing as a form of surrender, allowing others to be who they are, and not put any demands or conditions on them, allowing God to work with me and work through me for God's purposes and not my own. Well, perfectionism is about another form of self-centered fear. And with that, I'll close. Thank you so much. Yes, that's one second. Okay. So, I found like when you are sharing, I found something really interesting. You said that, you know, you try to take the program seriously, you know, you try to take the program seriously. But instead, you found that you were taking your sense seriously. So, I feel like I relate a lot to that. And I want to be, I want to be taking the program very seriously. But, you know, most of the time I find that I'm digging myself seriously. You know, I find myself very stiff, you know. And so, if you could just share something about that, you know, that would be great. That reminds me of the difference between a person who has long-term sobriety and recovery. And a person who's new in programming. The new person is all tense and serious about everything. And they'll share about their problems. And the old-timer will share about their flaws and their craziness and their insanity and make you laugh, especially in AA. There are just so many funny stories. But when they are in the first year, or even the first month, it's very serious business. And as you grow in program, you will learn to laugh at yourself. You will find yourself sharing about, you know, this is really what funny thing that happened today. And I almost fell in the ditch of my lust. But I was able to walk around it. Oh, thank you, God, you know. And I'm so grateful for my wife and drives me crazy, because she teaches me how to surrender and be patient and quiet, you know. So, you're smiling right now. So, you're catching on. It takes time to change. But this is one of the things I've forgot to say is that we are just exchanging a set of habit patterns for a new set of habit patterns. Habits do not change overnight. That's why I keep coming back. Because when I read the same thing over and over again, as I see different things, that's a sign of my recovery. The depths of understanding is not achieved in a day or a year, decades, decades for me. Maybe I'm slow. I know I'm slow when it comes to recovery. But that's okay. See, that's okay. And yeah, I have flaws, and I still deal with the same stuff, just like everybody else. I can get it quicker though. And it's, I still have the ego there. So, that's why we say one day at a time. Oh, I have this today. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Thank you, Emma. Thank you, Tricia. Thomas, you are next. Hi, Tricia. And thank you so much. I related to everything that you said. I'm a shameaholic. And I got it from my parents, too. They always told me how wonderful I was. Don't say that. I'm so glad you said that. Yeah. I do not say I do not want to say I'm a sexaholic. I am what a beautiful, struggling, loving, amazing child of God. I have this disease. I am not the disease. You are not. That's part of our language is terrible. Set this up for this. And you're right. And, you know, I try to be the best in the program. And, you know, I wanted to write a novel my whole life. I haven't written it because it has to be perfect, right? And I really struggle with shame. And my question really is about how you catch yourself. Because I think I can catch the last I can catch guilt. I can catch lots of emotions. But I don't find myself catching shame. I find myself catching procrastination. But shame itself. I find difficult to notice and difficult to surrender because I don't notice it. So can you tell me a bit more about how you got from awareness to action in those three phases? Well, if you have family, if you live with people, they are going to be sources of information about shame. If you're feeling like you want to run away and hide, procrastination is a symptom of feeling shame. You don't feel as though you're good enough so you'll procrastinate or I won't do well enough. So that is a source. So you have to learn to listen to what you tell it yourself. Listen to the words you say. The problem with that kind of listening is our thoughts are so fast. You can have 10 thoughts for my two words. So that's where meditation step a letter comes in. When I'm trying to slow down my thinking and going to listening to others, like just today, I've given you some information about the things you tell yourself. You're not aware of yet. So you got lots of time the rest of your life to learn this stuff. So be patient with yourself. And every time somebody says something and you feel that there's a shame. So be aware of your physical symptoms of that. And you can use information from outside program to learn about that. That was how I started. And then I started seeing perfectionism as in the AA12 and 12. And in ask that literature, we're using the word shame a lot now. So we're getting, you know, as a culture, as a world, we're becoming aware of this problem with shame. Thank you for the question. Thank you so much. Thanks, Tricia. Ilona, you are next. Thanks, Iris. And thank you so much, Tricia. I related a lot to the same part. One thing that kind of currently taught plate and you touched on it was I am, I have what they call the savior complex, how I can be helpful to others and save them when they haven't asked me. So I guess my question to you is, how do you deal with that? I know specifically someone says, please, Ilona, help me. That's obvious. But when to step away, when to not help someone who desperately needs help, because they haven't asked for your assistance and there might be resentment attached to that. So how do I surrender the wanting to help someone when they haven't asked me to help? Thanks. Well, what I have done is I realized that that is part of my perfectionism, my defect. I want to be perfect. So I want to make you perfect. So you will be acceptable to me. How is that? Oh, okay. But this is hard for me to realize that when I'm offering you something that you have not asked for. Oh, I'm giving it to you. I'm pushing it on you and you have not asked for it. And that's how daughters feel about mother's suggestions. My daughter hears of criticism. I make it a suggestion. She hears of criticism. I have to learn to pause and respect her. Everyone is on their own individual journey. It is a form of disrespect. That hurts to say that. It is a form of disrespect for me to push something on you that you're not ready to hear. I need to give that person to my higher power, to their higher power and trust that when they are ready, they will, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. That's what I have to keep telling myself. And I deal with it all the time. I've only been working on this consciously for five or six years. And it took over 30 years to get there. So yeah, I think you're a little younger than I am. So keep going. I'm six. I'm 64. So a little bit younger. Oh, yeah. You know how old I am. I won't tell everybody. Take care. Thank you, Trisha. Perfect. Thank you, Lola and Trisha. Beautiful. What do you next? Thank you, Trisha. I am buddy and I am a healing human being. Thank you so much for talking about this topic. I got sober in 1980 and first heard about shame and had no idea what it meant. I come to essay now in 1997 and have stayed sexually sober and heard this shame and still had no idea what it meant. In 2019, I learned what it meant. I've had depression my entire life. And I did not believe that I matter. I've sponsored men through the years. I've been involved in all kinds of committees, everything. But I could not get beyond this feeling that I don't matter. I knew I'm entitled to a job. I knew and I'm going to keep going. I knew all those material things, but in my spark, I didn't know that I mattered. And now for the past four years, I've been getting outside health and identifying, yeah, that's shame. And it goes back to my childhood. I was injured coming out of the womb, rolling off in the alcohol, the dysfunctional, generational, dysfunctional family. This is the hardest thing I have ever done. And there are times when it is disabling to the point where I kick it out of the house. So thank you for addressing this. And one last thing I recognized, the AA literature itself is shaming. The seven deadly sins are not sins. Those are God-given characteristics. And it took me a long time to recognize that all that language itself was keeping me in shame. I'll stop there. Thanks. I give some of my time. I'm sharing some of my time with Buddy. I have one thing to say. The last thing you said, Buddy, your words are so encouraging to me. Thank you. I have not found the therapist who can deal with that. I did my shame inventory, shared it with my therapist, didn't go anywhere. Oh, that's nice. Right. But anyway, character defects. Character defects are unhealthy ways. I should say, they are ways to do things to deal with life that we take to an extreme and they become unhealthy, unhelpful, not good or bad, not right or wrong. Get those words out of your life. They are shaming words. But what is effective? What is helpful? What is constructive to my goal? That's a me thing. Or God. What would God do? What would God want me to do? My God does not condemn me. My God helps me. I needed that kind of God. So that's what I need to learn. I have what is hell. Hell is the craziness that I do to myself. If I could clean my defects away, I would be in heaven. I don't need to go to a different place. I don't need to die. Heaven is when I am at peace. That's the only goal I want in my life is to be at peace. And that's what the literature talks about. Anyway, I'll go on to the next person. I will stay as long as you're thinking right. I'm willing to stay as long as there are questions. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Gila, you're next. Hi. Thank you, Tricia. Question is like this. And let's say in essay sobriety over the years, like I come to a place where I could go visit a beach and it's not going to like the images that I see there are not going to live in my mind for next year. You know what I'm saying? Like I just in a big book, there's a line called that we don't have an obsession anymore. So I have this obsession with shame when shame starts. My question is, are there specific tools that you do to prevent that obsession for daily maintenance? Or is like after a couple of years, the debt obsession would shame past? Because I've been outsourcing this shame thing to and on an ACOA meetings for past good while. And it's subsided, but I cannot feel like the obsession with it has been lifted. Thank you. Let me ask you a question. Have you had trauma in your child? I don't know. I would assume that. I mean, my parents' divorce was kind of trauma. That's a big trauma. Yes. How old were you? 12. Yeah. That's pre-adolescence. Yeah. That's the trauma was really, I always joke about it that my parents got separated when I was 12 and divorced when I was married. That was much bigger trauma. My parents took 10 years to finally divorce. To me, that's a much bigger trauma than the uncertainty. Yeah. I have another talk that I talk about how you can work the 12 steps on machine issues. I also have developed some letters that I got from John Gray. He wrote a book about divorce. Those are letters that I can't use with sponsors who have had trauma that they get and really talk about resentments in step four. Well, they have resentments that they cannot heal. And that's because they have not forgiven the people who have traumatized them. And it could be people, it could be institutions, it could be anything. So we talk about forgiveness step eight and a half, but actually it can hinder your step four work. Because if I feel like a victim, for me, when I acted out, I acted out with men. And when I acted out, I was a perpetrator. I perpetrated upon them because I was using them for my selfish reasons. And I perpetrated upon myself because I was seeking, I thought that I was unlovable, but I found out that I was lustable. And when I use my body to be lustable, that was a very negative kind of affirmation. I'm abusing myself. I'm perpetrating on myself. So we talked about coming into the program as victims. Well, I believe that a perpetrator in order to give himself or herself permission to perpetrate on somebody else or on self needs to feel like a victim. That is my opinion. And that has been my experience. I build up resentments that is victim had to take victim coins so I can cash them in and act out in some way. That makes sense to anybody. That's one of the things I've learned. And I act, I build up shank coins in my mind. I start feeling bad, feeling worthless, depression, anxiety, all of those things. And I must relieve that we're seeking balance again. And I'm going to relieve it by acting out, doing something that I think it feels good short term. And that might be a few seconds or a few minutes to balance out that feeling. Then go right back into the cycle, building up more coins, cashing them in, in an addictive manner. But I hope that answers to some, but you need to work the 12 steps on shame. And I have letters that help. I can describe the letters later, but I'm going to get through their questions that help with trauma and I'm getting over resentments about people of hurt you. You can't just forgive. It has to be in the specific. Just as the white book says, you surrender in the specific, you surrender each little thing about your addiction, you surrender your resentments in the specific. Jerry? Thank you, Rockiva. Thank you, Trisha. Here's Jerry. You are next. Thanks, Clarice. And thanks, Trisha, for a wonderful talk. Right on the money, as far as I'm starting to carry a lot of shame with me in my life. I've read a lot about it. And all the reading about it hasn't done much for me with this program. And you probably deal with that when you talk about using the steps. But this program has helped me more than anything. Because I've had to look at, and when I share, I usually say that my earlier life acting out and drinking is described in the first sentence in the problem that many of us felt inadequate unworthy, as you said, alone and afraid. And that was me. I never made the connection between the fear part. That's very helpful. I've asked myself, well, why? Why has higher power because I believe that higher powers would work me through the whole thing. Okay, right from the gig though. Why is higher power given to me? And I said, thank you very much. I've said to myself, well, I suppose you didn't have this in all the other characteristics. Well, what happened then? I said, well, I didn't, no need for higher power. I have no need for the program. I have no need connection with anything. I'm fine. Thank you very much. I can go on with a merry way. So what's your question? God doesn't want you to comment on that. Well, that's something I think is important to understand that humility is not humiliation. If I'm feeling humiliated, I'm in my shame to get out of that. Humility is, they call it right size, to be teachable, to be open. Yeah, if I, and, besides reading about, if it had, like, Bill W's awareness, you know, happened all at one time, if I would have been aware of all my defects, and then got them removed instantly, or even within a year, that would be too much too soon. So I need my defects to keep my humility, but not only humility, compassion. How can I, if, if math is easy for me, I don't understand somebody that doesn't get mad. But if it's tough for me, and I was a teacher, I've had several careers. I was a teacher, and I would tell my students, I was not an A student. I was a C student. And if I wanted to get a B, or an A, I had to work very hard for it. So I learned ways to help me study better. So I want to be a C human, so I can have compassion and be of assistance to others. So because what are we here for? To be a service. So we have service to others. We have, we have conduits for God. That's where us keep my defects. They keep me humble. And I've got to say, I'm sorry and make amends, my living amends. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Juan Carlos, you are up next. Thank you, Riz. One or Tricia, I know of yourself. You have, you have drawn my big picture of my life. I will review that when I was in the program for more than 45 years, I was nurturing my yield, and I was hiding my shame every day. So underneath my sexual addiction was shame, addiction. I fell in the slave of shame. So nowadays that I'm recovering, I have found that, you know, the only way that I can spell that in, that way of living is being open to others and being vulnerable, being myself. And the second world that I resonated was professionalization. And you know, for me, the opposite of professionalization was being defective. If I am not perfect, I am defective. So this is the black and white. So I would like to know more about it. Please. Thank you. This is the thing about questions. You bring up things for me just to share. My defect is perfectionism, self-centeredness. Okay. When I, what I want to do is embrace it. Embrace the things that I cannot control. You know, that's necessary to do that. Embrace my defect and say, yes, you're right. I have that problem. See, I had, I had an instance woman at work. I used to be a purchasing agent. And I had to, I guess on what the, what the shipping cost is going to be. I could think, you know, I could get the price right, but I never could guess what the shipping cost is because it's so variable. And so she would call me and say, you know, you got this shipping all wrong. And because I was in program, I said, oh, thank you so much. I'm so glad you're there to take care of that. So that we, we didn't get cheated or whatever. And the company, for the company. It turns out, I never got another phone call from her, by the way. It turns out 10 years later, the company, I'd left that company run to work with somebody else. She was in this other company that I went, I eventually worked for. And she and I got along beautifully. So you take the shame away, if you can accept your defect, I am imperfect. Yes. Oh, thank you, God, for giving me an opportunity to work on something. As Jerry said, if you were perfect, you wouldn't need program. And look at all the people you'd, you'd miss meeting. Look at all the beautiful experiences you would have that you would never have, because you would just be alone. You're perfect. Who wants to be with somebody who's always perfect, because we always compare ourselves to each other, right? So love your imperfections. I had, I had a, I had a boyfriend once. This is before I got into program. And you said, I love you with your defects and all. That was the most loving gift you could give me. And I did not understand what the hell I was talking about. Forgive my language. But yeah, embrace your defects. They are your tools. They are the tools I talked about when I came in like a victim, I had a crown of thorns. You know, I was raised Christian. I had a crown of thorns on my head. Guess what those crown of thorns turned into? A crown of jewels. My gifts for my sponsors, my gifts to give to you today. Because of my defective person, I had to do this research. I had to figure out what's going on with me all these years. Why do I feel like a piece of crap? Why do I feel unacceptable, unlovable? For me, it's unlovable. I feel unlovable. You cannot really love me. And I prove it. I set myself up for you to reject me. Yeah, I'm showing sorry. But this is so intense. You know, I just want to cry. God, relieve this from me. But I feel so connected to you guys as I share my flaws, not my asset, but my flaws. That's where the connection is. Isn't that beautiful? This is the where can you go except in 12 step program and share your flaws and be loved for it? Because we share our flaws. We all have this. Everybody miss this. So you're not uniquely terrible. You're just uniquely human. You are human. You're own special, unique white one. Love you, dear. So beautiful. Thank you. Wow. Beautiful. And thank you. Thank you very much, Michelle, about today's topic. My question is, I totally was, I can identify with all or nothing. But usually I am with nothing. Like, I would, if something is hard, I would just give up because I know I'm not going to do it thing. And like, it's not going to turn out as I like it. So when I did my, my, my first step on perfectionism was one of my character defect, even is that my inner voice is like, how you can say is that you are a perfectionist. Like, you don't complete stuff. You don't do it. And you like, you're already nowhere. So how you can be perfect and anything. So my question is how to get out of this estate, like, how to, to be able to do stuff with this voice in my mind, or how to, sometimes it's even shameful to, like, say that I have this character defect, because I think it was on the other side. Okay, I finished it. If I was on the other side, it might have been better. I know it's not, but like, how to get out of this estate that make me not able to do stuff. Thank you. I love, I love that you asked the word how, not why. I'm a how person. How is what are the actions I need to take? Well, that a couple of suggestions need to talk back, but to this, to this other voice. And you need to understand that you are not your voices in your head. You are the awareness of the voices in your head. You are aware of the body that you are moving around in to communicate in this world. You are conscious awareness, not a physical being. That's what I believe. Because, you know, people are in situations that they could have died 10,000 times, but they live on because they decided that's that conscious knowing that yourself will that you and with it with the power of God within you, you can do anything. This can happen. So, but you have to understand that the part of you that you are talking to with these these voices that have there's a full therapy called transactional analysis, and they take a person split them up into three parts, a parent, a child, and an adult. And your emotions, they say, are in your child. And I have the way I say it is, we are all children inside big bodies. We have grown up physically, but we're not necessarily mature adults. So you are dealing with a child. And if it's shame, you're dealing with a child who's three years old or younger. So would you talk to, how would you talk to a three year old? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, quite the finger and give them the arm, give them the head. No, you'd say, what are you afraid of dear? What's the problem here? Okay, you're afraid that you won't do it perfectly. Well, guess what? We're going to practice. You know, doctors, they don't do a perfect job when they do things. They're practicing medicine. What do musicians do? They practice their art. So if you want to get better at being a human, you got to practice. So take a step. Oh, we're in a step program. Ah, I love it. We're not climbing mountains in one fell swoop. We are climbing the mountains one step at a time. And we have buddies with us and we have literature with us. And we have marathons and we have Zoom meetings. We have all kinds of support. So give your little kids support. Tell her she's practicing. It's okay. And you see the way I'm talking, you just lower your voice. You bring your sweetness out to her because she's scared. Perfectionism is I'm afraid that I'm unlovable. I'm afraid that I can't do it. You know what? You're never going to be better on little till you practice. But you want to practice better each time. And you don't have to worry. Guess what? If you make a mistake this time, you'll have another opportunity. That's why the defects don't go away. There are opportunities to deal better with them, to deal with them in more healthy ways to learn. You wouldn't be in this meeting if you didn't have the courage and the acknowledgement that you have a problem and you want to deal with it. You want to solve it. Everybody here, tremendous courage. And most of you are, you know, you don't have long, you don't have long-term sobriety. Right? You are more open than these old timers. How many old timers are here? Not very many, you know? So yeah, buddy. Yeah. But so I'm not telling you that you're going to handle the shame stop right away. I can tell you about how I work the steps and the use of the letters. There are ways to do this. But you need to work your steps first in the program. Use your sponsor. Go to your meetings. I get five meetings a week and I was so sick. I wanted to go seven days a week, but I had to do my laundry grocery shop and clean my eyes. And I cried a lot and I dumped a lot. You know, I had a lot of stuff to get rid of. But they never told me I wasn't welcome back. They love me until I can begin to love myself. And I'm still learning how to love myself. And I love that. Ilona, I love your smile. Thank you. And Nancy. Yeah. I love when they're women in the program. God, that's what that's my mission is to help women overcome their shame and come and join us. You don't have to treat yourself like a piece of crap. You don't have to perpetrate on yourself one more day. But you do have to call on the courage and strength of a higher power. You're not doing it alone. You always have higher power. And higher power is with skin on is everybody in this meeting right now. So, oh, there we go preaching again. I hope I've answered your question. Yeah, same thing. Thanks a lot. Is it okay if I could have you for number? Nancy can send that. Yeah. And if someone would tell me who that was last, I can send a number. A money? I say, a money. Yeah. I can send you a message. Yeah, we'll do it. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's right. I also also read that wanted Tricia's information as well, Nancy. Yeah. You made me a message already. Yeah, just send me one and remind me. Thank you so much, Tricia. It's so good to see you. And my gosh, I back in the early 90s, I thought you were great then. You are you have so grown. It gives me hope. It gives me hope. I love that you said perfectionism. The flip side is shame that I can't do it right. So I don't even start. I love that, you know, in school, if I would get 108%, you know, they got two bonus questions. So I got 108%. Well, the only reason I did that was they didn't ask the right questions. You know, if they'd ask the right questions, I wouldn't have for sure. Okay, I've been around long enough and thanks me to God. The lust, compulsion, temptation, obsession has left. I find myself going into other kinds of behaviors that I can't stop. And I find myself doing it when I'm shaming myself. Yeah. And I'm trying to I'm trying to think of Tricia. Thank you. Yeah, I guess just tricks for noticing, saying, I'm okay. Yeah, if you could talk about that. Picking dino lines, I can stop on a 10 acre pieces of ground at my church. I can possibly pick one day in a line here, one day in a line there, so I can clear the whole property of dino lines. Anyway, thanks. I think you're talking about boundary issues. So I have to have an agreement with myself. This is what I'm going to do and no more or just setting ways to check myself. I too have developed other addictions to replace the sexual and my core addiction is compulsive overeating. And yeah, if I'm into the shame and in a way, you know, that's walking over to the front. What am I opening the fridge for? So yeah, we are compulsive, addictive personalities. And I need to embrace that, you know, and it makes me a great employee. It makes me, you know, I do a thorough job and things. But you know, I hated to write because I was an English major in college and I wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote, and it was just never good enough for them. Got an F and getting one misspelled word in my paper. So that really reinforced being a perfectionist, though. Yeah, I think, you know, check it out, guys. So I think all edicts are perfectionists in some way, shape or form, because we all have shame. You know, why would we do things that are so hurtful to us, if we didn't have some kind of shame? So we're right there with the rest of the world only with the attitude of gratitude, not superiority, I have to grab at least I'm aware of it. And I can do something about it. Oh, thank you, God. I pass. Thank you. And I'm sorry, Amani. I didn't take your name. It was your turn, actually. Please go ahead. Yeah, never mind. Thank you, Tricia, for your share. When you talked about shame, I remember the situation happened with me when my relatives just committed on how I laugh. And that made me so impressed and just was so silent. I never expressed about how I feel. But these days, I'm only called them. Yeah, it's how I laugh and just try to sit boundary by that way. So this is my question. Is that a good way to express or is that the solution when I just sit boundary? Is it a solution for shame or not? Yeah, thank you. You can you can express a boundary or set a boundary in a shining way. And when you heard another, you heard yourself. What I would suggest you do if you want to set a boundary with someone is to write down exactly what you want to say to them. And whole no bars, that's an expression is just get out your anger and your frustration. Okay, usually when I'm feeling angry, it means I need to set a boundary. Somebody's crossed my boundary. So explore what you're angry about, what you're upset about, and write that all out. Then you've expressed yourself in writing and you haven't done it to that person or acted it out on that person or anybody else. Then write what a calmer voice would say and think in terms of how would you like somebody to talk to you if you had that problem. If you needed reminded that that's an inappropriate thing, what would be a kind gesture? Firm, gentle, firm and gentle, kind and firm. You need to be firm and you don't make excuses, you don't tell a long story when you're when you're setting a boundary, you tell them what you need. I feel this way when you do this and I need this. So that's where you do say an eye message, definitely. And this is what I need. And they're going to try to argue about it or this is what I need. And then you have to have you have to have a consequence. If they violate your boundary, you have to think for yourself what do you need to do to take care of yourself, to protect yourself. Okay, so that would be to get your frustrations out so you don't exercise them on them because then now they're going to feel like a victim and they'll really come back you. But then to express it in a gentle loving kind way, because remember, you're talking to a child in a big body and they have egos. You want to be respectful of them. And when you can be respectful of others, that invites invites them to be respectful of you. You cannot command respect, you cannot, you command respect, you cannot demand respect. My mother said, you should respect me because I'm your mother. I respect her as my mother. But as a human being, I did not respect my mother when I was a child, because she did not keep her word. She would do X, but tell me to do Y. I cannot respect a person that tells me one thing and they do another. So you give respect to them in the way you deal with this and they will respect you back. Expect respect and you will command it. I hope that helps. Yeah, thank you so much. I'm very helpful for me. And I need your number if you don't mind. One of the things that I would like to do since this is, I have numbers. One calls here, I would like to have a workshop with women on dealing with shame and trauma. But you need to have a period of sobriety and you need to have worked your steps, at least through the fifth step. Because we're going to be, it's very intimate. I've done this with a small group already. Great idea. I will be there. Thank you. It would be wonderful if we could just do it in person and let me correct the small groups for them. This is something very important to me. Thank you. Hi, I am Iris from India. I was just gathering courage and it took me more than half an hour to raise my hand to ask this. But I thought not to miss this opportunity when you are talking about this very important and the most important topic, which is to be dealt with almost everybody in some or the other way. I am another perfectionist, a sexaholic and allastaholic myself. So, yes, now I understand and I have taken notes from your share. I will be hearing your recording again. My question is, I am on step six at the moment with my sponsor. And when I was writing step four, I happened to remember when I objectified an animal. It was once, but I did that. And I was in my teens. I think I was around 17, 18. Thanks. I was around 17 and 18. I used to live alone in the afternoons when my parents went away to their studio for work. And then my younger brother was very young. So I didn't bother about him. I just used to show him away. Just you go out and play. And I had so many things to do with self. So how to deal with it with this thing to overcome? I have already shared with my sponsor and I cried and I didn't feel nice about it. So that brings me to the letters. So take notes here. It's three letters. And you want to have time. You want to share each one with somebody you really trust. The first letter is you write out what you're upset about. And you go through a number of feelings. I'm angry that I'm angry because I'm angry when. It was that because and when. And each time, don't say one sentence. You may need to write a paragraph about each one though. But each word gives you a different aspect of your anger. Okay. And just get out all your frustration, your anger, and you go from anger to what I don't. So we know it's here on that. Disappointments, self-pity. I get into this in other talks. That's why this is so in-depth. It's just there's so many things. So many parts to this stuff. And then the second letter is you're writing to a person. So you could write to your brother. You could write to the animal. But not to yourself yet. You need to do it. And then how much do you're on step six? How much sobriety do you have, Iris, I forgot? Oh, I'm 27 months. Okay. So you're coming up on three years. Okay. Yeah, at least you're your past step five. Then the second letter, you pretend you are that person. And right back to you. What they what you need to hear from them. Maybe you need to hear them forgiving you. And if it's a trauma that somebody traumatized you, you need to hear from like a parent that abused you, you would need that parent to apologize to take responsibility. And to ask forgiveness of you. So it's a real reversal. Then the third letter is a letter of gratitude and acknowledgement that you're what you're working on. Thank you for acknowledging. And there are four, there are specific ways we start each sentence or each topic. And it starts out with anger and a whole bunch of other words that I don't have. I can't find right now. I'll look forward for minutes here. See if I can find it because I did come across it. So let's, let's go on to the next person and see if I can. Okay. Thank you. I'll try to connect with you Trisha again, maybe on watch my platform. Thank you. Omar, please. Boy, thank you. This is Omar, sorry. Thank you, Trisha, for your talk. You know, the perfectionism, I'm really struggling with this character defect. I'm having a bad days in the school because of the perfectionism. I'm really scared from studying because I feel shameful. I feel that I'm less than other people. And also I feel that if I want to study, I want to do it perfectly. You know, so do you have any suggestion about this problem? And if it's okay to have your number, I would like to have. Thank you very much. No, I don't talk to them one on one. I did come up with the, I would suggest that you use letters. Why don't you ask, why don't you write a letter to God about this problem? That would be the first step. That would be the first letter. You would write to God and say, God, why do you keep me in this thing? Why can't you cure me of this perfectionist? I just don't understand it. These are all the problems I'm having from it. And what am I supposed to learn from this? Let me tell you something else. Everything is a lesson God would have me learn. That expression has helped me so much. I got it from the course of miracles. Everything is a lesson. Everybody in my life, every situation in my life, there's a lesson God would have me learn. If nothing else, patience, acceptance, serenity, so surrender. Yeah. So if I approach this, that this situation is, okay, what's the lesson though? I'm in a traffic jam. The lesson is patience. Calm down. Okay, maybe I can say a fair note, or maybe I can think about something else, rather than thinking about the negative thing. So that changes my whole attitude. See, and then what book he talks about, what is the change that we're seeking? We're not seeking to change our behavior as much as we are seeking to change what? What is the core that we're really trying to change? Anybody raise your hand or say it out loud? I think we want to change to clean our connection with high power and others and ourselves. Yeah, we want a connection and we get that connection when we make this change. What is the change we're seeking tonight? We want to feel better. So what do you know? Change of attitude, change of attitude, right? Yeah. To get the gold star, to get the gold star attitude. My perfectionist won this bottle. And how do we change it? The program says you take the actions of love and the feelings will follow. So that's why all those tools we have. Those are the actions we take. And I'm telling you, there is a wisdom within you that does not compare to my wisdom that I'm sharing now. You have the answer to all of your problems within and your steps will help you clean and clear away the ego crap so that God will come and give you those messages. I get them early in the morning before my mind starts racing. I may pray about this and do that, but I have to surrender that and what do I need to be dealing with? Right now, I have lost my two checkbooks. I put them away because I was taking a trip and I don't remember my age. I don't remember everything right away. I cannot remember where they are. And so now I'm going to start a cleaning project. So I can find my two freaking checkbooks. I'm not going to cry but I'm going to leave them. And I'm not going to tell my daughter because she'll see that I'm isn't longing about it. I'm going to just handle it. But I've already figured out I can always order more checks, you know. See, see, you laugh at yourself. Oh, I made them a sick again. And my daughter, she will correct me about something. And I just started laughing. And then she starts laughing. Because there isn't a wonderful weekend left. That encourages her to tell me the things that bother her. So she doesn't build it up. And then she comes at me, you know, with cutting remarks. Or she cuts me off. She's a ninja, but she cuts me off. Okay. So laughter, it, it heals the world. My world. If I can laugh. Nancy? Yeah, I just, it was what you just said about you notice first thing in the morning. And I love the word notice. I've I've learned to pay attention to that like notice. For me, I notice it towards the end of my day. When I'm getting more tired, all of a sudden I'm getting all these negative messages. First thing in the morning, I'm great. But notice so much of this stuff that you're sharing without judgment. This is amazing. You know, now we're in the parking lot. Well, I don't want to put you in the spot, but maybe I do want to put you in the spot. If you have two, we have had so many comments about where's this talk on her 12 steps? And you and I talked about how we don't schedule speakers back to back. But maybe in two weeks, if you're available two weeks, a lot when I was supposed to come. Yes. Yeah, I just erased it on my calendar today. And I thought, is she going to ask me to do it? There you go. There are a lot of people say that. Or we had someone say, where's the recording of this talk? And for giving the 12 steps I'm saying. Well, if you haven't worked your 12 steps on your addiction, it's going to be very shell. Absolutely. You know, and I see the old timers running, you know, those heads going up and down. You know, that if for no other reason, we're those freaking steps, you know, we're good. Yeah. If I'm ready. So they've got two weeks to finish their step work. Yeah, you know, easy peasy, easy peasy. Yeah. Well, I'm writing again my steps and sharing with another old timer. And I'm, well, I just did step three. Man, for somebody that I was when I came into program, I came in in ACA, the victims program, you know, I was no addict. Thank you. Two years, I was in ACA. I could never do the fourth step because I did not have a God that I could trust and was loving. So now, now, what is what is this? This is about shame. My God was shaming and condemning because it was my father's face that I put on God. And a program I went to a weekend workshop. Two weekends, I think it was. And in that workshop, I realized what I was doing by writing. Somebody had me write a letter to God. And I got all this stuff out and I read my letter to God and I had a few tears. And then the leader of this group said, now I want you to read that same letter and say, dear dad. Oh, my God, did the tears. The tears and everything else flew. I had my father's face on God. Whoever was the person of power in your family, in your early life, that becomes your image of God, I guess. That's what I did. So I'm assuming, you know, you're like me. You might do that. And so I had to write this letter to my father. And I was in therapy for two years, trying to process my anger towards my father, but I couldn't do it because I thought I wouldn't love my father if I was angry with him. That's how strong we are. We women are prohibited from feeling anger. We can feel sad and weak. And what else, ladies, joy, you know, and sympathy, men have two feelings. This is my theory. This is my opinion, I acknowledge it. They can have sexual feelings, which are never feelings. And they can feel anger. Well, why do boys at age five or six tell me? They can't feel soft feelings. They can't feel vulnerable feelings. They can feel anger. They are taught. You're supposed to be strong. You're supposed to. So men are inhibited in one way, and women are inhibited in another way. And they are not, they are blended in a very sick way. You know, the hand and glove go together in a very sick way. Women need to be able to express anger appropriately, instead of being called the BITCH. You know, and aggressive. A man is assertive. If he gets angry, a woman is aggressive. I even wrote a term paper. Well, women's negative role when I was in college in grad school. So anyway, I digress. Oh, and it's being recorded. Natalia. Hi, everybody, Natalia Sexaholic from Poland. Oh, my, that's my mother's. My mom was Polish. Oh, really? Yes, I have strong Polish roots. Why, why didn't I see you at the convention in Krakow then? Oh, well, I think because I didn't know about it and didn't have enough time to get there. I don't, traveling across the ocean is quite a challenge at my age. Well, maybe we can meet in LA then. Anyways, I think I finally got to a question because I'm, for some years, I'm unable to cry and I do not allow myself to feel vulnerable almost at all. But even when I feel very emotional or, I don't know, sad, I just don't allow myself to cry. I just can't. And it's very, it's, it's annoying in a sense. And I'm, I was just wondering if, you know, it clicked in my brain right now, while you were talking that it might be connected to all this shame that I carry on from the ways I was acting out. And the ways I was crossing my boundaries and active addiction for all this years. And I don't know, I was just wondering. Okay, I got a response, you know, I get a response for everything. When you cry, you let go of about 15 different poisons. That's what a meditation teacher told me. I, my own experience with crying was when I was, I don't remember in childhood, but as an adult, especially after my divorce, I had to call somebody on phone in order to cry. I could not cry alone because I would thought it, I'm going to say so. But it's really a thought. I thought that I would fall apart and there wouldn't be anybody to pick up the pieces. That's how unworthy I felt that I, that I didn't have anything in me to hold me up. Because I had no connection with higher power. Without this that I trusted. So I suggest that you learn to shut down very early in life, that there was something it was very traumatic for you to be vulnerable, to show tears. You were told, shut up, don't cry, we don't cry. You got, they don't, the adults don't have to say it in words. They, they give you a look. They say, put you away. They ignore you. You know, what unique explore? Where, who taught me this? Where did I get this? And then you see the world. Excuse me. Once you have decided, you know, in order to have a sense of control of your world, you make this decision. Okay, it's not safe for me to cry. You are going to look at the world as an unsafe place and you are going to find more reasons not to cry rather than cry, even when you're in a safe place or with safe people. Does that make sense? Natalia? Yeah. Yeah, I have this, I think, from my mother. Yeah, I think she even verbalized that, you know. Okay. So I would suggest to you that your mama, your mama, your mama, moshka, I know babushka, you see. Yeah, mama, she's a Polish word. My mother never told me you're Polish. I'm so sad for that. But anyway, she was a very fearful person. I would suggest to you that she did not know how to handle your feelings of vulnerability, your tears, your sadness, your grief, because she didn't know how to deal with her own. We only can give what we have learned and grown and developed in ourselves. As I take care of myself, then I have gifts to share with you. That's what we do in program. As we let go of our crown of thorns and big evidence, crown of jewels. Now we have jewels to share. We have skills to share. They're just skills to share. She didn't know how to deal with you, darling. She did the best she could. She didn't kill you. You know, did she beat you? You know, my mom didn't. Everybody's mom is a little different. They give us different things to deal with. Those are the gifts we, those are the struggles that make us strong. Struggle makes you stronger or weaker. That's the power of choice. Do I decide to be stronger for this? Grow from this? Or do I decide to let it kill me? Because we're like trees. That's another thing I say. We are like trees. I love trees. We are the growing taller and stronger and broader. And in unity with the whole world, are we getting smaller and we're dying and we die spiritually first, then emotionally and then physically. Just like recovery. You get physical recovery, then emotional recovery, then spiritually. And you lose it. The spiritual first, the emotional second and physical. Lost my sobriety. That's what happened to me. Four years I lost my sobriety. I gave it away. I was in total denial. Four years and four months in program. Do you think I can trust myself when it comes to this kind of behavior? No, I can't. So I surrender the right to seek relationships. I'm core relationship addict. The right. If God wants that in my life, it's going to happen. But I see God uses me in other ways because I don't have a spouse. I don't have a big family. I have you guys. You're my family. Thanks, Trisha. Appreciate it. Thank you. You brought out new stuff? Everybody's question. Different aspects. You know. Fancy. My friend. I am so glad we have connected again. Oh my gosh. I've got another question. I guess it's called double dipping here. And I don't know if this has to do with shame. Maybe you have some ideas. I don't have what I call a foxhole prayer. I don't like a knee drip repair. It seems like everybody like, well, they say, of course you're going to pray. It's it does not come out of me. It doesn't even occur to me. It's not like I stifle it. It just doesn't happen. And I don't know how else to ask the question. I don't have a knee drip. What do you do when you're feeling highly stressed? Probably sink into myself isolate. But does it my reaction is not especially in a sudden situation? I mean, my reaction is just not to pray. If it's about somebody else, I'll immediately think of praying. If it's myself, it just doesn't even cross my mind. I isolate. I go into sadness. I go into just sitting and doing nothing. But that's your prayer. You go with you withdrawal. Is that an old behavior? Yes. Okay. You might you might write a letter to God and see what God suggests. You do. So that's a defect. You're not allowing yourself to be in the present moment. There's your little or even left hand, right hand. Are you left handed or right handed? Right handed. Okay. Your right handed is your adult. Your left hand is your child. You can write a letter to your child and ask her what she's afraid of to not pray. Maybe she's afraid that God won't be there for. I do know that I learned that there's no help when you ask for help. It's just not there. But that's why you don't pray. You've answered your own question. Yeah. I mean, I really do know that. Yeah. Yeah. So you need to explore. You know what? Every career I've had has helped me become a better sponsor. When I was in sales, we did the Benjamin Franklin close. You ever hear about the Benjamin Franklin close? You make a list of all the positive. So I would suggest to me and say, make a list of all, well, start with the negative. Make a list of all the sayings that say nobody's going to be there for me. God's not going to be there for me. All the different ways that you tell yourself all that. And then on the other side of the paper, make a list of all the ways that God has been there for you. God has been there through other people, through gifts, you know, all the ways that you have been supported in your life. All the ways you've been abandoned and you're like, John Bradshaw says, abuse is abandonment. So think of abandonment and think of gifts. Everybody, you know, you're having a problem that you want to go. Okay. All the ways that you're supported and all the ways you've been abandoned. Then the second step is to give each one of those pointers a score from one to five or one to ten. The more traumatic it is, the negative side, the more devastating it was, a higher number, the more positive something was support. You know, I got enough money to go to college and that made my whole career and that was really important. So I get that a high number. And then you put them at the bottom, you score them at the bottom and see the way you feel. So that'll make you conscious of all the things you tell yourself that no one will be there for you. And then you have the answer to that. It's right. Some people call it a gratitude list. Thank you. I'm a collector of information part of my professionism. I want to know about everything. I love it. I take these OSHA classes, you know, for older people. I am studying the five cities of Italy that nobody ever heard of. You know, I've studied biology, geology, oh, all kinds of stuff. I love it. I have to discipline myself to take no more than four. I love to take six every time that I can't do it. I wouldn't have time for my own wife. Buddy. Yes. Thank you, Tricia. I just want to comment on something you just said and maybe others will fight itself. I'm right-handed. My left hand is my non-dominant hand. That's your child. Last week, he's speaking with my sponsor about resentment and anger. He asked me, he said, "Who are you really angry about or toward?" And as I sat with that for a moment, I recognized I'm angry at my parents. And he asked me which is non-dominant hand to write a letter to your parents. Now, the reason I called him was because the knot in my stomach was on fire. I mean, I was in physical agony in my gut with this pain. And I started to write a letter with my left hand to mommy and to daddy. I hate when I nearly drowned. And when my 10-year-old brother drowned, I was pulled out in the river and set by myself. And no one put an arm around me. No one talked to me. No one put a blanket upon me. And we got home. And you never asked me how I felt. You didn't ask me a thing. And I just kept writing all those feelings that now with my left hand, it's kind of scribbly. But when I was done writing that letter, the pain was gone. Its place was a sense of resignation. So kudos for the left hand non-dominant writing. It worked. That's the first letter in my series of three letters. But I want you to go beyond resent. What was that word you said? Well, it began when I called my sponsor. At the end of the letter writing, you said you had resignation. See, that's not acceptance. Okay. But my point was the left hand, the non-dominant handwriting. Prior to starting, I could not even eat food. That's how bad my stomach hurt. But you've only taken step one. There's two more steps to take. I've been at this process for a couple of years now. I hear you. I do. But I just wanted to share that. You need to have your need to have your parents, each one separately, right back to you, telling you what was going on with them at that time. It sounds to me like they were in their own grief and totally unavailable for you. And I was a reminder, every time they looked at me, I was a reminder of what they had lost. And the guilt would not deal with their guilt. And that's right. Yeah. So that will give you compassion and understanding. And then you can forgive them. And that's the third letter. Yes. Well, I like to have a copy of your letters as I continue to work this journey. Well, let's talk about that. We'll talk about that. It's really best not to just do it alone. You can get the John Gray book. The book on divorce. Oh, I'm not going it alone. I'm working with a somatic therapist who's working with my body to get all that sadness and get out of my flesh. I don't call it disorder. It's post-traumatic stress injury. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. The body and the mind are connected. And the body keeps the score. That's right. I'm beyond 70. I take no medications at all. I take vitamins, but no medications. And I'm of normal body weight. That's what recovery has done for me physically. So I guess I'm going to have to hang around a while while I'm ready to go. Got any telling? But, you know, thank you. You won't you will heal in all kinds of ways as you recover. But we have to keep working on it. That's why you said day by day by day. It's life in ten perseverance. Learn the principles of the of each step and the principles of each tradition. You know, if you want to have better relationships, guys, study the traditions. I have studied the traditions with a sponsor and I've gone through the concepts with a sponsor. There's more beyond the steps. Yes. There's always more. Welcome, John. I don't think have you been on the call the whole time? John W. Anyhow, I got it. Yes. Thank you. Yes, I have. I guess that was a hand raise there, wasn't it? Well, I was just inviting you to share if you wanted to. You know, if nobody else is sharing, then I wouldn't mind sharing a little bit asking a question. You know, I am I'm trans, transsexual. And, you know, it makes it complicated to to be someplace. You know, I get this voice from the guys. Yeah, well, if you're that weirdo, then we don't want to talk to you. And the women say, yeah, we only talk to women. And so, yeah, it's yeah. I'm feeling the shame rise up right now. You know, just saying that out loud in. But, yeah, thank you for your share. You're welcome. We are all spiritual beings. That means asexual. We don't have the sex, the spirit. We're just having the body happens to be one or the other, and now there's all kinds of things. We want to see beyond the physical. Yes, but you only take calls for women. So, yeah, thank you. So, are you transitioning into a woman? Or to me? I don't know. No, I am. He am his, her. I'm not. I'm still. I'm both. And I'm grateful to be there. Grateful to discover that. Well, I think we've answered all the questions. Tricia, you've been around a long time ago. You know, I can I see John W's number. Maybe there's, I mean, I know maybe there's physical, biological man who has the same struggle. And so, the thing about sharing men's and women's numbers in essay, but I don't know if that would help John. No, you don't. You can give him my number. I can give John your number? Yes, I can. Okay, okay. Let me write it down again. Thank you, Tricia. Thank you. So, shall we say this, Wendy, prayer? Anybody else want to say hi or something? Logan has the same. Do I have a confirmation that you can come back in two weeks? You know, I think it's really important. What I do think it's important, what you said, and you can say it over. Please work the steps first. You need to work on your fiction first, then you can because if someone's over one of those shame, okay, okay, I'll work the steps. There's a lot of people that have asked that. Okay. I'm going to miss my English dancing class. Well, you and I will talk. I don't know if I love to do that dancing. Besides, I have to go into town and I hate it. We'll talk. Yeah, okay. Oh, shoot. I didn't get all the John's number. Look, John's here. There's a number there. Yeah, I got it. I got it. Logan, want to say hi? Yes. Yeah, hey, I'm not there. I'm still pretty new in this thing. Still a lot of dealing with humiliation, the embarrassment factors and so not really grasping the whole kind, but I've really enjoyed listening to the sugars and I can relate to some of them. So thank you. Yeah, it's a process to just become aware of all those manifestations that we can just do. So we're ready to close? I guess so. I don't think we want to, but I guess so. So I rest. These irises in here. Oh, okay. Yes, I would have asked you if you would want to suggest another prayer. Well, there's a seven step prayer, but everybody won't know that probably. So let's do the. Do you guys know the seven step prayer? We might. You can let us. We'll try. Okay. My friend, I'll say it slowly. God, I offer myself to the. I think that's a good. No, yeah, it starts out. Yeah. God, I'm already that you share all of them. Good. That's bad. They go to the bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single, then I'm a character. It stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your thing. Amen. I would like to thank you for listening to this episode of the Daily Reprieve, the best source for experience, strength and hope for essay members. Please subscribe to this podcast to be alerted of new episodes. Please show your support by donating to the Daily Reprieve by going to donate dot the daily reprieve dot com and choosing either monthly donations or a one time donation by clicking donate now. Thank you for listening and stay tuned for the next episode of the Daily Reprieve. [Music]