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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Uh my name is Don Koas and I'm from the Moheaka nation and um I'm from the coyote clan on my father's side and a turtle clan on my mother's side.

And um in our culture, whenever you introduce yourself, that's who you're supposed to say. Always tie yourself to your people. But my name is Don C.

I'm an alcoholic. And uh so I'm really really honored to be here and to talk about some of the things um some experiences about the about the steps. And um maybe I'll tell you this joke I heard the other day first is uh I was told up up in South Dakota by the reservation there there's uh there's this one road that travels they said right along the border and uh on a reservation says white land on one side reservation land on the other side and uh they say there's a little town there And when the cars come through there, they have to slow down for that town.

So when the cars slow down and those dogs start chasing those cars. So on one side that road Indian dogs, that's where they stay. And the other side of the road is white dogs.

And so uh when those cars slow down like that, they said uh those Indian dogs when that they go chasing that car, they go and they just bark like that, you know, and that car goes behind. But on the other side of the road where the white dogs are, when they taste that car, they go bow wow bow wow bow wow. So then uh after a little while they they were chasing these cars, these Indian dogs, you know, and these other dogs bow wow bow wow bow.

So finally there's uh white dogs they come to this Indian dogs and they said you know why what are you Indian dogs doing they said you make so much noise and stuff now Indian dogs they said well that's that's just the way Indians are we when we do something it's all out you know that's why we do that so the white dogs they said that's not how you're supposed to be said you're supposed to go bow wow bow wow bow wow Indian dogs. Well, I don't know. So, the white dogs, they kept talking.

Finally, Indian dogs. They said, "Well, we we'll try that." So, they went back to that place and they were waiting there for a long time and pretty soon this car come along and um slowed down like that. So, all they went behind that cars with the Indian dogs, you know, they was going bow bow bow bow wow.

And when that car took off, those dog Indian dogs, they stopped and they looked at one another and they went >> a Yeah. So, we'll do that with bow wow bow wow way you see those dogs doing. Yeah.

Um when you look at uh the 12 steps um I think right now is uh a very strong time in Indian communities and um I think contrary to how we look at or have looked at things I think there's a great healing starting to occur among our people and in uh 1991 one we met with uh some elders from the four directions. So we had about 40 elders. They were um from uh north tribes, east tribes, south tribes, west tribes.

And so we brought these uh elders together and what we asked them to to do is to spend some time with us just talking to us about things. And um so in that 4-day conference they talked to us about uh about the earth and about the environment but they talked to us about communities about ind being Indian men about being Indian women things like that about relationships they talked about sex about raising children everything for 4 days. And uh one of the things they did talk to us about they um um they told us some things about prophecies and I think for us the prophecies is very important.

they have been uh told you know stories told on over the years and um there's a prophecy they said that uh the Indian people they said would spend a long time in a real cold winter time of life a real tough time time of turmoil and confusion and uh there's a prophecy it said uh that uh when the sun would get blocked in the seventh moon that would be significant that the winter time is over that period the time was be over and then we as a Indian people we would enter into a new springtime a new time for us as a people and uh if you remember maybe in um that July of 1991 there was a big solar eclipse. So we had just accidentally met just about a week and a half after that solar eclipse. So we didn't know these things until they told us that.

So they said that that eclipse was very significant and that um that that meant we are now entering a new time. It's a new time for us as Indian people. Then they went on to say they said that for that next 12 moons they said that a great stirring that the creator was going to cause a great stirring to take place.

He was going to stir it up. In that in that time of that great stirring he said uh the elders they said that um there was going to be gifts is going to be given out to the people that we have not used before and they said that uh during this time of uh of this stirring there was going to be a selection of uh people to help heal all the communities all the nations. So they said that for the next 12 moons they said that that these people selected they would go through a real mixed up time for themselves and uh like a real evaluation time kind of that they would even that they would think that they were crazy like they might have their jobs and be in place doing you know have everything in order but then all of a sudden they you know how you got your rug of life and you have their careers and cars and everything.

You know, they said it would be like for certain people that he would come and something would grab the edge of that rug and it was just kind of upset everything so you'd think you were crazy, really mixed up. And um they said uh that those people selected that they would go through a real personal uh time like they have to go through a healing time that they would need to uh even their secrets couldn't stay secrets no more. They said it would all surface.

They would come up. They would arise. And um then they said that the that these healers, they would uh um they would know something was going on.

You know how sometimes you have like this urge. You just kind of know. You just kind of know you got to go do something.

Like in our tribe, there's these teachings called uh teachings of the warrior. And uh what it says is that everybody is a warrior. Uh that's not like a battle name on television.

That's a spiritual being name. And uh in that teachings it says that every warrior has a song written in their heart and that song must be sung before you die or your soul forever remains restless. And that sometimes we have to go through life school like that.

That doesn't mean just like high school university. It means life school. And many of us know about that darn life school.

pretty tough roads and at the time we think that that's all bad. But maybe we are just have to do that cuz now we got to other things to do. We need that experience.

Now we have to go back and help the people. But we'd never be believable unless we went and tested that all those things that we needed to learn. And uh so they said that uh that um what would happen is that that a great healing would start to occur among our people.

And they said a long time ago they said the creator came to a place called Turtle Island and he said to the people I'm going to divide you into four directions. He said to a red direction, yellow direction, black direction and a white direction. And he said to each of those uh directions, I'm going to give you each a certain accountability.

There's some things you have to know. And so to the redirection, he said to you, you are the keepers of the earth that you have to go through the cycles of time and learn all the things about the earth, about um land and about plants and about how everything is connected. And you're going to be given that knowledge through those times because a day will come when you have to come and tell uh people those things that you know into that yellow direction or the yellow race.

He made them to be keepers of the air. So they were to learn about breathing and about breath and all of that. And to the black direction he gave them the responsibility to be keepers of the sacred water.

They were to learn all those things about the water. into the white direction he said you are the keepers of the fire. So sometimes in that direction we think about um like the light bulb.

you know those guys they know everything they do it's got like the car the combustion engine it's got like that firepower in the middle and they said that um what the creator said was that the day would come he called it the coming together time that when the springtime would arrive then we would all need to come together sit in a circle and that we would need to start share um this knowledge and this wisdom that each one has because everybody is going to know something about this this healing part. Everybody has a part in that. And uh we white bison we work in a lot of different native communities around the country and we are starting to see wherever we go we are seeing that the healing is starting to occur among our people.

There's even people coming home um by uh you know that they get discontent where they are and they coming home to help and make a difference. We're seeing it all over the place that uh that these circles are are starting together. So I just thought I would just uh share a little bit about that because I think that when they have like a first conference red road conference that's very very significant uh because that's a gathering of these circles is what's going to go and that we don't need to be so concerned about the numbers but who is supposed to be here is exactly who is supposed to be here and that this is good.

Get it going. Get a seed going. do it again.

Do it again and make a police place for the for the native people um to come. So is there any questions on that uh those prophecies? But it's a very good time for us um in the terms of these prophecies.

Um also then uh what we'd like to talk about is a little bit um about the steps. When I come into AA uh my sobriety birthday is uh August 10th, 1978. And uh I had a hard time coming into AA at first.

It didn't make no sense to me. But I kept coming back and going drinking again and uh coming back and going drinking again. And um uh finally I uh I guess I drank what I was supposed to drink, you know, and uh I guess it's cuz of alcohol.

I kept coming back. It wasn't for anything else. But on my uh journey to get here, I lost um like some others, everything.

I lost family, respect, all of those things went. But it always had a hard time um you know, even like with a big book. Uh I they say the instructions are in that book and I would look for the instructions and I could never, you know, ever see them.

I couldn't figure out uh you know what they were talking about. So uh I managed to get a sponsor and that sponsor helped a lot. And so as I got sober for a couple years and I happened to um even though I was sober for a couple years, I always felt something was missing.

There was just something not right. But then I was kind of used to that anyway. So it wasn't like it was a surprise.

So then uh as uh as uh things progressed um I happened to run into one of our elders who also is in recovery and it was then he said you have to go back to the culture. He says you never know who you are unless you go back to that culture cuz I had left it even though I was raised you know by my grandfather and stuff and it was done in a you know in a in a good way. Um so then I went back there and started to look at the culture.

Then I started to see that uh the program and the steps they were uh the culture in the program it was kind of the same thing but just said different ways and uh I'll just make this remark because um and maybe someday I'll change my mind but uh you know I'll just say kind of what I see right now and not everybody uh agrees with this but that's okay too. Um but when I look at uh myself as an Indian person in recovery and in talking to some other people um what I found out was uh and and I'm saying this with the highest respect that I can say I always respect the AA um it's the best program for the alcoholics that's on the whole earth. But one of the things uh I think there's a thing in a big book, it talks about that sometimes maybe the creator will reveal more when we're ready.

So one thing I like about that big book, it doesn't say you have to do nothing. I guess that's why it was attractive to me because I didn't like have to but suggested steps and uh it's got a real good way of not uh saying certain things you know like at first but in a way what I found out was uh when you look at the design of the of the how the program got designed and everything it was kind of designed by uh like white class white middle class males and I'm saying this with with respect I want to say that but like when I come to meetings or they say work these steps in my mind wasn't the things I couldn't I couldn't hook into what they were saying a lot of times you know about Titanics and all this other stuff I had a hard time uh looking at that and So uh what I started to see was uh when you add some of the culture to it then all of a sudden it would start to make more sense to me. So it's the same thing but looking at it kind of of a different way.

I think sometimes I see women struggle because a lot of the steps is written like about power and ego and you know really strong control things and uh like where I was raised I wasn't raised to think like a lot of that way. So when I was looking at unmanageability and stuff, you know, I couldn't quite grasp that. So what we want to share today is maybe just a combination of all of that stuff, my experiences with that and maybe looking at it from an Indian way to look at it that way.

So one of the things I found is uh when we look at the steps in a in the uh kind of how Indian people look at things is in a circle. We know that uh the creator made a way and everything they say travels in a circle. The earth is round, the sun goes around, the moon goes around.

You have seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter. you have cycle of life, baby, youth, adult, elder that everything goes in a circle. So when we started to look at uh the steps and using that circle, what we found out uh that you could do the same thing but do it just in a different way.

So it's just like the circle is sort of like looking at the earth. The sun rises in the east, it sets in the west. Then there's that when the sun is up during the day, that's the growing time.

And then in the north is like the winter where old men winter in the wisdom is. So as we started to look at this we found out if we put steps one two and three in the east that is like the direction of the sun then those steps that direction when you face that that new light you know new life well to that direction that is about finding God or the creator or great spirit higher power. So that's uh that's steps one, two and three is in the east and that's about finding a relationship with the creator.

Then steps four, five and six that's in the south and that's a direction about finding relationship with yourself. So then even like we found as we share a little bit later when we work the steps when you do the work on them you face that way. You work steps one, two, and three.

Whenever you sit at the table or wherever you are, you face in the east because there's powers that we all know come from that. Then when you turn to the south, that's steps four, five, and six. That's about finding yourself, a relationship with you, the inventory steps.

And then steps 7, 8, nine, that is in the west. That's that forgiveness direction like the sun going over the horizon the letting go that direction and that is about finding a relationship with others that's where you establish a relationship with your brothers and sisters and then steps 10 11 and 12 that's in the north and that's that direction of the elders like the that's where the wisdom in that direction comes. So we started to see that when we looked at that going in a circle, then you'd see it's not like a straight line, you know, where you go down a page and then you say, well, well, what?

And I think the other thing that used to baffle me at first when I got a sponsor and I got in the steps, you know, it was uh it's like they just say uh the steps are in order. See, do step one. Well, what does these other things mean?

Don't worry about that. Do step one, you'll know, you know, go to meetings, do all that. And they'd listen.

And so, I always look forward to the steps with fear. I just inside of myself was a resistance. It's like, you know, well, you knew what Donna says, turn your life over to this car.

You know, you see, I don't understand that. Why would I want to do that? That doesn't see.

So, it's always like a resistance. And it always baffled me that it seemed uh tone was uh to work the steps through fear. And uh a lot of that was just my own tapes, you know, like when I was in the boarding schools or the mission schools, you know, it was always like they always painted a picture of uh like they would teach you about God or whatever.

So this is like one of the ways they would always do like some of the teachers or prochial schools or whatever they it was almost like they paint a picture of hell. You know they always that's how they motivated you to seek God. So they'd say you ever been burnt by a match or a fire and you go yeah I have your whole body is going to burn all over just blisters.

You're going to be away forever. Okay. Then they would say things like, "Uh, you ever been thirsty?

All out in the woods all day, no water." I say, "Yeah, ain't no water in hell. Your tongue gets big and your body is going to be all blistered. Now you want to see God." And you say, "Well, yeah, I do." Right?

So, it was like you always had like the flames of hell licking your ass, you see, to see God. And so there's always this resistance, you know, but kind of the way, you know, that I that I grew up, it wasn't a positive experience. I didn't see God cuz it was good or like the culture.

It was always the flames of hell. See, kind of licking your way there. And so there was always a resistance, you know, to these steps.

Even though when I come in, I was ready uh you see, to do them. But then as uh as I saw later on, there's other ways to look at things. And the elders they tell us they say there's always two points of view of the world.

They say one point of view of the world is a point of view of the mouse. The mouse you see. So the mouse gets up in the morning.

All the grass is bigger than the mouse. Every rock is big. Every golly is everything is an obstacle.

So that mouse goes along. See, oh my god, inches off. Oh, look at this.

The grass is tall. Look at the rock. All this big valley.

Ah, just not going to make us real bad day. See? Well, at the same time there's a point of view of the eagle.

So the eagle is flying up. They're looking at the same thing the mouse is looking at and it's looking down at that mouse. It says, "Mouse, why are you so worried?

Lighten up, mouse, you know, don't take it so serious." So there's always a two points of view, you see, for everything. And so we want to kind of uh spend some time looking at things from two points uh two points of view. Um now looking at uh also about the steps is um we found this in uh what makes always makes me comfortable.

Indians always learn the best when they know the whole first show that big picture first and then you can go work the parts. But if you just show a little part and you can't see the whole then you have you tend to want to resist. So I used to I used to wonder I say why is there always you hear people say I'm stuck in this step I'm afraid of this one and I can't do this and inventory is negative and this is you know there's always like a and I says it seems strange to me that the creator would give a program to recovering people and then make it a fear program.

I said, "It doesn't make sense that he would do that." You see that? Maybe there's another point of view. Maybe that's a point of view of the mouse.

Maybe there's another point of view of how to look at this. Is it possible to come in and work the steps and look forward to them that you anticipate doing the next one instead of looking at the resistance uh you know of it all. So, uh, as we continue to, uh, go back to the culture and learn some of those things, then, um, I found that, uh, there was other ways to look at at the steps and that recovery and to look at from a Navy point of view just started to really make sense to me.

See, I'm not afraid of the steps at all today. There are places in there, you know, where things go on, but I always look forward to uh, to making that change. So what we'll be using a lot in u this morning is we will be talking about these um steps from a medicine wheel point of view from the circle point of view.

So pretty much it's like Sam read um we'll be looking at uh some of the prophecies some of the meta wheels a cycle of life and uh in doing that with intent sharing some information that allow one to look forward to uh working those steps and then we'll look at an overview of the steps and then we'll spend the primarily the late morning and the afternoon doing a lot of workshops also for uh for those um We'll try to take breaks about every 45 minutes. I believe in taking uh frequent breaks. So, I'm not going to be set in here.

And if there are any questions as we go through this, just please feel free to just raise your hand or um whatever is your customary way of uh signifying that uh you have a question to ask. Um Deborah, could you hand out those workbooks, too? Um, also we'll give you a workbook.

Um, and then we'll explain that kind of go through that workbook so we're kind of familiar with that also. But in looking at um at these steps, uh, what I want to kind of do is tell you a story about something that happened to me when I was four years sober. Uh, because it's very important, I think, for us to locate.

when I come into uh recovery, um I I had lost everything and was in debt and uh lots of things like that and I managed to uh to get sober going to uh AA and getting in a sponsor eventually. So over the next as I come in the first year was crazy as heck and then uh you know the second year and then by anyway by time you know 3 years or so it was sort of like I did have a rug again and there was some uh sanity on that rug. I had a, you know, a res car with some good tires and uh I wasn't moving every month or playing those games and paying my bills, getting responsible again.

And so it was going pretty good by the time I was getting three three and a half years sober. But then what happened was uh I I had about I must have been about four years sober and all of a sudden it was just like somebody took that rug again and just upset it all. I was in trouble at work.

I was in trouble in my relationship. I was just I hated going to meetings. I sat in meetings.

They were just they just stunk, you know. And uh my sponsor got stupid and I this book I I had read every damn thing in it. I didn't want to see this crap again.

I didn't want to pray. I couldn't work steps. I didn't want to work them.

And I wanted to run. See, I was having a hard time. And uh and I really didn't want to go to meetings.

So after a while, I thought uh you know, I better go see somebody. So I went to see this one elder in uh Denver that I used to go see a lot. And uh so always by the time I see him, then I'm just really scattered and just just rambling all over the place.

So uh when I go see him, he sits in the backyard. He'll grab a chunk of wood and he'll whittle with his knife, you know, waiting for me to get done. Just shakes his head like that.

Mhm. Mhm. And so I got through all what I haded to get through and u so then finally he said to me he said uh well how long are you sober now exactly?

I said, "Well, four years and I think it was like a week." And he says, "Well," he says, "You're right on schedule." And you know how you hate to hear that when they talk, they say things like, "You're right on schedule." But he told me, he said, "Uh, I want to tell you something about uh that not a lot of people know." And it's to do with uh growing and uh do with cycles. See, everything he says goes in cycles. And we all participate in a cycle.

Like geese, they know exactly when they're supposed to go this way, how long they're supposed to stay, and then they know exactly when to go back. And everything in the whole earth works by a system of order that there is an order to everything. But he says very often we as a human being, we think we're the exception.

We always think we're the exception that everything else participates but not us. But he said I want to talk to you about uh about the seasons of growing. He says because this will really help you in a recovery.

And he said that um that every human being we participate in a four-year growth cycle that we have one year of spring, one year of summer, one year of fall, and then one year of winter. That there is a cycle that we grow through. So when we grow, it's like you you don't grow like there's a there down there.

When we go, we travel like this. Spring, summer, fall, winter. We travel in a circle.

And every four years it takes to make that circle. So, I'll just talk about these seasons cuz I think it's it's really helps because have you ever noticed a lot of times how uh people seem to get in troubles what years? 4 to 5, 7 to 8, 11 to 12, 15 to 16.

Four year cycles. You see a lot of people will slip four to five, 7 to 8. A lot of relationship troubles or divorces and stuff take place in sobriety cycles.

So, we're going to talk about these seasons, but they're not to do with the seasons outside. They're talking about seasons inside seasons. So, we'll look at uh some information about these and see if these seasons make sense, these seasons of uh of recovery.

And then I'll also talk to them about a little bit in terms of uh like groups because we have uh our groups or organizations whatever. So, I just kind of talk about both of those, but mostly I'm going to talk about personal growing. So in a spring season in an organization you'll see these type of characteristics like when something first starts out even like how this conference started first one see lot of hope lot of energy lot of excitement I wonder who's coming I wonder if they are going to show up so you have all these questions when you first start so at individual level uh you know how like a oak tree.

See the oak tree standing out in the forest like that? Nothing's going on. Then unknown to the oak tree, that sap starts to work its way up into a kind of a form of life.

It starts to work its way up inside of that tree, but at first the oak tree don't know it. So a lot of times we come into recovery at first. You'll notice other people will notice things before we notice them ourselves.

So it's like that oak tree standing out there or our friends will come up and they'll say, "Geez, you look different. What'd you do? your hair different or not something?" Nah, same old way.

I've been wearing it for 10 years. Ain't nothing going on here. See, then a couple days later, you'll see people will come up and they'll say, "You get different clothes or something.

Is this something about you seems to be different?" Nah, same old lag as I've always had. See, ain't nothing going on here. Then maybe a couple days later, a week later or something, they'll kind of kid you.

They say, "What did you do? Go snag a new man or something." There is something different about you. So the other people will notice a change going on.

But usually inside of ourselves, we don't. But the day comes when you get up and you walk into the mirror, you know, in a breakfast or whatever for in the bathroom and all of a sudden you look in your own eye and you know something's going on. you know, you just you don't have any idea what it is, but you kind of know that it's going on.

You're not sure, but you know. So, it's it's like when you look in a mirror and you realize that, see, then uh what you do is you close the door so nobody's looking and you look at yourself, you know, really good in that mirror and then you say, is this like how a oak tree would bud, you know, you get those little buds start appear on its branches. That's when you notice it.

You don't know what's going on, but you just kind of look in that mirror and you say, "Check my out myself out. I think I'm budding." You know, so you just kind of know things are going on, but you don't know for sure. And most people that get into recovery, you kind of sense that.

So then you go through that first year and if you take a look what happens to that oak tree, all that really happens is those little buds, they break open and things start to turn into young leaves and they're not the leaves don't have shape yet. But over that first year, a shape starts to form. Little things start to like attitudes.

I start to believe this. I see hope. I get a car.

See, I get a job. I keep it. I quit lying.

I get responsible. just very very slowly these little buds start to happen. So we go through that first year and that's just the budding that budding season.

Then we come to the second season that's called the summer season. And it's during the summer seasons that those buds seem to just kind of solidify. They get the shape that they're supposed to be.

And all of them do that. And if you step back and you look at that tree, that tree kind of has a shape. not like it was shaped in the spring, but it kind of has a shape of how that tree is going to be.

You see, for that season, so on an individual level, it's sort of like things just kind of solidify. You get a job and you keep it. See, a few bucks extra in the checkbook or whatever and you do the checkbook and you balance it.

See, those kind of like responsible things. You tell somebody you're going to be there to make coffee. you get there, you say you're going to be here.

You usually do. If you don't, you call. But you start to get some kind of sense of responsibility.

So during that second year, it's just kind of a smoothing out place. You just it just kind of smooths out. So you'll hear people say, "Well, that first year was just crazy and heck, now the work begins." And you know, there's all these little different sayings that we have.

So then we come to the end of that second season or that second year and it it's kind of comfortable for the most part. is pretty comfortable. Then we think it can't get any better than this.

But then lo and behold, the next season approaches. So the oak tree is standing out there with all its green leaves and all of a sudden it starts to notice it's turning yellow and orange and there's fruits and harvest and nuts and so it's like that third year is usually we talk about like I'm in the groove, you know? It's sometimes it's like you can't do anything wrong.

just uh just things start to really fall in place, you know, during that third year of sobriety and you really, you know, things line up, relationships and all that stuff, they just really line up. So, in organizations, you'll see those types of characteristics. Uh even in AA groups or meetings when they form that third year, usually things are just really in order and see everything is happy.

So, that oak tree is standing out there. during its uh third uh season. And it's it's just saying they have little sayings like you'll hear, if it's not broke, don't fix it.

See, in other words, don't touch anything. I want it to stay this way forever. This is good.

See, I have arrived in sobriety. See, some people said it was going to take 10 years. I did in three.

See, look at how my life is. But you see the oak tree standing out there and then one day the temperature changes just a little bit and this gust of wind comes along goes and it blows most of the leaves away. So it's the approach you see of that winter season but the oak tree is saying no problem.

The kid's tough here. So I lose a few leaves. See not a big deal.

So about a week later, the temperature changes just a little bit and the oak tree loses more leaves and the oak tree is standing out there wondering what the heck is going on. But it's still saying I can maintain. See, I kind of got it together.

So then a few more weeks go along. The few remaining leaves that's hanging on the branches of the oak tree, the wind blows those away too. So in a few more days, the oak tree all of a sudden it starts to say, "Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Something's not right here.

And it starts to look at the forest and it sees the forest looks dead. Just a little while before it was colorful and everything was together or it looked like at work. You say work sucks.

It's it used to be fun to work here, but it's not fun to work here anymore. So it starts to do an examination of its rug of life and it looks at the relationship and it says, you know, this relationship used to be fun. We used to do things like he just sets on the TV watches what we didn't do nothing together and it's not that great either besides you know it's just like rut time and you kind of look at yourself in the mirror you know some mornings like during that beginning of winter season you go you know it's like you you start to not to be able to stand yourself and then you have a you just start like something's wrong but you don't know what it is you just sense like I must have done something wrong but you you Then you go to meetings and you find out meetings suck too.

Jesus, what I mean? They these make no sense. You know, I'm supposed to go to these meetings to get something and that guy there talked 23 minutes.

He didn't say anything. That one judged this one and that one did this. I can't stand those meetings.

See, you call up your sponsor and he's a space case or she's a space case. They make no sense. You try to read the big book, can't read the big book.

try to pray, you don't feel like praying, not reading, you know, it's just lip service. Besides that, it doesn't work. So, you see, it's during that winter season, you kind of have withdrawal.

You kind of want to like be alone. You just all of a sudden something seems to not be right. Now, there's a wintertime prayer and it goes something like this.

We say one morning we say to the creator we say you know I know in a big book it says I'm not supposed to pray for myself but in case you're making an exception I have a little list I had been thinking about. So here goes in case you're listening. So I'll put these in a priority in an order of which I would like them granted just in case you were willing to make an exception.

One, I would like a cabin in the mountains. Two, I want to go there by myself. But your man, I know, you know, I love him.

I know it doesn't look like lately that I do, but I really do. But I don't want him along. See the kids, let him keep him.

These kids are just driving me nuts, you know. I just can't I can't stand this. I'll take the dog.

I'll take a bunch of books to read. I'll take a big pot of a chicken noodle soup with an infinite supply of fried bread. I take no no television.

I want no television, but I want to go there by myself. I want nobody to know where I am. I just want to be alone.

So, in that winter season, it's a season of withdrawal. That's good. We're supposed to.

It's a it's a time of reflection. Now, people will do a lot of dumb things during winter season if they don't know about winter. They will uh a lot of times you'll see it's called burnout at work.

It's time to move on. See, burnout, what happens? Three to four.

See, it's time to move on. It used to be fun. Look, these managers here, they just got everything all screwed up.

If they just left it alone, it would have been good, but they had to go mess with it. Now, everybody's fighting. It's not fun to work here anymore.

See, you look at the relationship and you just just drive you nuts. You don't want to, you know, participate in it and you feel guilty cuz you're thinking that way, but it just doesn't seem right. People will leave jobs.

They'll go take new jobs during the winter season. So they'll go take a new job, not necessarily cuz this job is really good because it'll benefit them. So they'll take the new job to get the heck out of that one.

See, so they leave for the wrong reason. They they they very often move across country, do things, you see during that winter season. Many people will leave relationships that didn't need to have been left.

things could have been worked through. Years 4 to 5, the next season, years 7 to 8, 11 to 12, see 15 to 16. Many people slip in sobriety.

Years 4 to 5, 7 to 8, 11 to 12 because of that winter season. See, they do dumb things cuz all of a sudden it seems like something's wrong, but nothing is wrong. Cuz you see during the winter season there's three questions that we lose the answer to.

There's three questions that we get the answer to when we first go into our spring season. Like in the Indian cultures, our ceremonies, our dances. Those the cultures things that we do are always about putting us in touch with the answer to three questions.

And that if I know the answer to these three questions, I can pretty much take life on its terms. If I know the answers to why am I? See, what is my purpose?

Who am I? What is my identity? And where am I going?

That I know a direction. So in my mind will always feel comfortable, grounded, centered. If I know the answer to those three questions, why am I, who am I?

And where am I going? But if I lose the answer to one or more of those three questions, then I start to appear to be lost, crazy, insane. If I don't know why I am, if I don't know who I am anymore.

See, now I think it's important for us to know that during that fourth year, like during the fourth year, you work a set of steps different than you do the first three, right? You always work in harmony with the season. Now, like how do you season that you're in?

Well, see, so you know, am I in spring? Am I in fall? Am I in summer or what?

It's kind of easy. Uh, one way is tomorrow morning when you get up, get a cup of coffee or tea, whatever. And you just sit and think, when was the last time that my life really turned to crap?

When did it really go to hell? So if it was 2 years ago, then that's winter. So if it's now, then I'm in spring or I'm in summer.

You see, but very often you'll see that these seasons of sobriety are right in sync with when you first came in to a program that that starts out your season when we come into recovery. And these seasons are not necessarily in harmony with the seasons outside. They're in harmony with seasons in here.

So it could be winter outside and you could be in your spring, your personal springtime of growth. Now you take uh being in a relationship. A relationship also will have a cycle of seasons.

So every four years typically a relationship will go through a type of a need for renewal because what happens in when we look at how do we grow we grow um we grow in circles. So we really grow in a direction like this like in a virtual ring. But what happens is say we go spring, summer, fall, winter.

What happens is we transition to a new orbit. And this is why we appears to be nuts. You see, when we go along our first seasons and we get our leaves, what are our leaves?

My new truths, my clarity, what I learned through praying. I know to go in a big book. I know about acceptance.

If this goes wrong, reach, see, read 449. Sponsors tell us we go again again and again. Now all of a sudden, we know when this goes wrong, do this.

We start to get it. See, when you get mad, instead of letting your lips move, zip your lips. See, go to 11 step, pause, ask for the credit for the right thought or action.

And when we don't let our lips move against other people, we start to get along with them. It's like we start to get that. But the other way was let the lips move first.

So we start to see these leaves are these little techniques and these skills that I have learned and we build this tree of who I am now. Then we develop our way of kind of getting along in life. But what happens is the creator causes a shift to take place in the unseen world.

We shift. So now we're traveling at a different momentum. See a different speed likes.

But at the very center of my being, in the center of the atom system, I'm connected in the very middle of everything. I'm connected. So let's say we put you under that microscope.

Focus down, down, down, down, down. Say, Jerry, then we would see that you are, you couldn't tell me from you at that level. Just a system of atoms that makes up a human being.

But the very center of your system, we are connected like this. at that very center. Now when we talk about this interconnected system, so that means then you are connected to everyone here in that same way.

We're connected to every plant, every rock, every tree, every bird, every insect cuz they're made up of the same things, but the electrons change. But at the center of all things, we're connected. But then we say, "Well, so what?" You know, like big deal.

Now, have you ever noticed how you can tell when you're not liked? Ah, yeah. See, have you ever noticed how you can tell when you're not wanted?

Have you ever noticed how you can tell when somebody thinks you're dumber than dirt? Have you ever gone into a store as an Indian person and you know you're being watched? I mean they're really cool.

They watch you in that mirror and you know that you that they know that they think you're going to go take something. You ever watch that? See now why is that?

You see if my thinking is in harmony with those principal laws and values where they are is at the very center. That's where they are located. So if my thinking is in harmony and because we're connected, you will be able to sense that.

But if there are a harmony, you will sense that too. Now it's not the words that makes it so. There's something else how we can tell.

See, if it was the words that made it so, I would be able to say I love you. And it be so. But let's suppose I said that to you 5 minutes to one Saturday night in the country and western bar just before it closed.

Right? Well, see, so if I say I love you, true love, see, haven't we met before? See, we've been together in another lifetime, right?

Whatever it is. See, you look like someone I know, don't you? See, so if I have just using the words, but my intent is something else.

See, so she might say, "What is he after?" So if I'm out of spirit and intent, cuz we're connected in the unseen world, you will always pick up spirit and intent. See, if it's in harmony, you will sense it. But if it's out of harmony, you will sense that, too.

So if somebody doesn't like Indian people, even though they say, "Oh, see, do you know this? I know this one Indian lives in South Dakota. Do you know him?

And they'll give you their name. You know how they do that? See, some of my best friends are Indians.

But if they are speaking out of spirit and intent, then you will be able to sense that. See, or if you are speaking out of spirit and intent, someone will be able to sense that. So a lot of the things we are looking at in the steps is to do with looking at also the unseen world.

Where have I been out of spirit and intent? Because if I think that I can see sometimes they call it sweet lips training, you know, where I got the I got the stuff and I walking around trying to be cool and trying to be not who I am and all this stuff. Other people will pick up on that because I'm out of spirit and intent.

they will just sense that. So very often I have lived out of spirit and intent for a long time when I'm drinking and then my the certain results I get for living out of out of harmony. See that's the other road.

So the steps is about finding out where that is and letting me come back so that I speak from that place of principles that the steps talks about. We live these this principle way of life. So it means I come back to that road and I'm start I have to start looking at desiring in my mind a way of living in harmony with the unseen world.

But very often we're under the delusion I can get away with it if I got good words but we cannot. Not in relationships not to one another. See what step you want.

See do you see that? No it doesn't take about 3 weeks to get in a program. The best place to hide is say step four.

Especially the old-timers come around. What step you on? Four.

They leave you alone. See? Well, you they'll come in and say, "What step you on?" Well, I'm between step two and three.

How do you get between step two and three? Well, I'm on steps one, two, and three. Oh, you're a walter, right?

1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3. See, so it's about knowing ourselves and how that how do we work? So, we need to know the elder said it's interconnected.

You cannot get along with nothing. You can think you can but you cannot. That there is a unseen world in the unseen world where we're all connected.

You cannot hide but you will think that you can. So it's about getting right with that. So as we start to look at the steps, see we look at the whole thing, not just the piece.

Everything that we do, you see, is a balance. It's about harmony. Conflict is what will guide us to harmony.

Conflict is going to be the friend in the step, not an enemy. Because you experience a conflict, see many times in our religious training, we are taught when there's conflict, you're wrong. See, there's a sin.

You sinned, you know. And so when we grow, like the same elder I was talking to you about earlier, when I was about two years sober, I went up to him and I said, I had just had it with growing, you know, working steps and praying, doing all this stuff because I said, you know, I said, trying to walk this red road, man, this is tough, you know. And he said, well, let me uh show you something.

So he took a stick in his backyard and he drew a line on a road on a ground like that and he said, "Now I want you to walk on that row on that stick on that line, one foot behind the other." So I got on that line like that and I started walking like this and he was older. He'd walk right side of me like this. And all of a sudden he gave me a big push and I go way off this side.

He said, "Get back on that line." So I get back on there. He say, "Walk." So I walk like that and then he push me this way and I go way off that line. Get back on that line.

So I get back there. So he walked like that. So he just seven eight times he pushed me like that.

So then he said to me he said when you are growing he said what he says is you are walking a red road not a red line. So he took that stick and he drew a line way on each side of where my footprints was. He said, "That's how wide the red road is." He said, "You're trying to walk a red line.

It's a red road." That the mistake is just as sacred as being on track. The mistake is just as sacred. He says, "You need to respect your defects cuz it is through the defect that you learn the knowledge of the great spirit." That's where he talks to you.

So he said, "Don't be criticizing yourself when you make that mistake over there cuz that happened. is not wrong. Sin, guilt, all that stuff.

He say you're really there to look for the correction. Always looking for the correction. So he says in a way lighten up.

That road that the creator made for us to walk, the red road is a big wide highway. Everything on that road is sacred. That life and growing.

See the creator made us to learn by trial and error. Everything he made learns. You take a little baby learns to walk, right?

You when they get that age, they hold your fingers like that and they learn to walk. First thing they do is bam, right down on their butt they go. Make a mistake right away.

Now, you could imagine the adults, what we do to that little baby, we go, "All right, you did it." See, that little kid just, you know, puts his fingers back up and gets back up, smashes his head to the left. Right. All right, you did it.

To the right. Back. Well, all that time they're learning balance and they're learning all that stuff.

Then seen about 3, four months and all of a sudden see just walking. How do you learn to do that? All by mistakes, by trial and error.

And we respect that. But that's how the creator made us to learn is by by going off track, on track, off track. So we need to respect ourselves.

When we come back from a break, we're going to then talk about the medicine wheels concepts and laws and how do they fit to steps because then they make you want to look forward to doing the steps. So, let's take about a 14-minute break. Finding those issues which help us discover that knowledge of the creator.

It is through the defect where we discover that knowledge. That doesn't mean that it's bad or wrong. Now in the medicine world too we often talk about the four directions of things.

So we'll talk about the four directions of life. Baby, youth, adult and elder. And that's our directions.

That's the way life goes in a circle. But very often when we come into recovery, many of us there is a place where the medicine wheel is broken. And for many of us that medicine wheel is broken between the youth and the adult cuz you see we uh grow up or whatever then many of us we start drinking when we are in the youth.

So physically we will grow up our bodies will grow we get married we have children but emotionally we are like teenagers we don't grow up we're immature even though we're older. I remember I first come into recovery, you know, I was I went through a divorce and all that stuff. Then when I finally got to that point, I went in a relationship.

I went out with this uh this uh woman twice and I found myself going in my jewelry box trying to find my class ring. I wanted to go steady. Hell, I was 33 years old.

He wouldn't even go steady no more, right? But I wanted to go steady. I wanted to pin her, you know, so you show all your buds, you know, she's wearing my ring.

Christ is, you know, nearly halfway to the coffin and I'm still, you see, still going this old way. So, very often when we come back and we work the steps, it's about growing up, you know, it's about coming back to that place and continuing my growth. Does that make sense?

There's this is broken. This it's not good or bad. That's where we stop in the unseen world.

So we got to come back there, do some things and grow up to become mentally healthy and mature. Now what we're leading up to is because the steps is uh uh to take a look at the human being who is in recovery from a native point of view. Well, let's look at what would it look like for a native person to grow up.

Did the creator make a path of things that we are supposed to experience as we grow up? Is that already in place or is it just a accident? You know, or or is there something we are supposed to do?

So, if we look a little bit further at what is it like to grow up as a native person? Because if we have an idea about that, then we get into the steps. we look at the steps or we read the big book from a native point of view.

So we want to just take a look at this cycle of life. So we're going to look at that and then we're going to go and apply just these basic concepts to an approach through the 12 steps from an Indian way of looking at it. Now, we're going to talk about these these developmental cycles here and about growing up.

See, very often we uh judge one another just based on things that we see about one another. So, we look at that one, we say, "Oh, those those Indian men see they can't trust, don't talk, don't feel that's what you hear sometimes you about that." or look at that stone face or that one don't talk or this one does that or see so we tend to start judging and putting people in categories but you know a lot of times we don't know what's really going on inside of a person sometimes we don't even know what's going on inside of ourselves. So we want to talk about about growing up because it seems that the creator made he made a system for us to grow as human beings to grow up to be mentally healthy that there's certain things we're supposed to experience and if we don't experience them then we will see behavioral differences later on.

So we want to talk about that. So when we look at certain things in the steps, we're looking at it with a point of reference that that will make sense to us as human beings. So if we take a look at the cycle of life of an Indian person and this applies I think to any human being but it seems that when a baby is born as a human being one of the first things it needs to experience is a sense of trust and this might be from a birth to maybe 18 months that time frame that child needs to experience a sense of trust.

It's a feeling. In other words, that little baby, you see moms, they always hold them every time they cry and they touch them and carry them and they do all this stuff, you know, just constantly with them. That's why in a traditional way, they carried them every place they went, right?

In a traditional way, they all they never never the discipline, everything was just they just no matter where they worked, what they did, they just had that baby hanging on them all the time. Now what happens see cuz there's two roads let's supposing that the baby like the sense of trust it doesn't develop a sense of trust see a sense of trust when you have that is a feeling and it's and it's this feeling it's like the world is a good place and man I belong in it. See that sense of trust because if you don't have a sense of trust there's two roads then you have a sense of mistrust.

So if you have a sense of mistrust inside of that human being then you later on you'll see behavioral differences occur. So if I have a sense of mistrust in other words the world isn't a good place and I don't belong here then later on you see wall builders difficult time in relationships cannot connect. see cannot be intimate.

So as we look through these steps when we start to realize now that maybe trust is an issue that's the normal state for the human being. See I thought for a long time trust was abnormal. You're stupid to trust where I raised was raised is dumb.

Uh when I was drinking I would never trust no one I didn't drink. Gez look at the guy. Don't drink.

Don't trust him. Right. It's like you don't know what you don't know.

So I was, you see, I thought you only trust, see, you trust your buds that are drinking. So I thought it was abnormal for a human being to trust. I thought it was stupid if people trusted.

But then later on I learned that the fish by its design was designed to swim. The bird was designed to fly. The human being is designed to trust.

That is a natural state of the human being. But I didn't know that. See, until a little bit later on.

Now, let's just say that uh like a baby like uh they have this thing called TLC. Like a long time ago in Germany, they used to find that most babies put in orphanages died. They'd feed them, see, change their diapers, but most babies put in orphanages died in the 1800s.

So when they started to research that they found out in Germany there was this uh orphanage where the babies weren't dying and they so they sent a little team over there say why is that happening? Well somebody got over there there was this big German lady and she had uh uh you know work there but she had this system she had a string of diapers. She'd have this diaper hanging on her shoulder and she'd have one kid in that little pouch this side she'd have another pouch.

See she had a kid hanging in there and then she'd have one on her back and they were hanging in their back. three of them. So she walk around doing her work and cooking.

See these babies are just flopping all over her like that. Well, what they found out was that that was this simple. Those kids had developed this sense of trust.

And so they would they would continue to live. See, so one of the things we need to know when we come back to this principle, laws and values, when we start to change our thinking, if I find and I discover, look at my my unmanageability or I get see where am I in terms of spirit and intent with that. If I find out I'm a mistrusting person, I have a lot of mistrust.

Well, then what happens if I go work on that? get see where am I in terms of spirit and intent with that if I find out I'm a mistrusting person I have a lot of mistrust well then what happens if I go work on that because very often we work on symptoms there's something wrong with me in relationships like cannot be intimate I just can't take risk I got to learn to be a risk taker but can I be a risk taker. If I don't create back within myself a sense of trust.

So if I work on a trust, will the risk-taking ability change without me working on it? So I'm working on the right stuff. See, you can listen, I don't know what I don't know.

You can work on the wrong stuff and be working on the symptom and it won't ever change. Even it was just really a struggle. Now the neat thing about the human being is if we have missed something in this developmental process, we have the ability to go back and put it back inside of ourselves.

See, to be restored to sanity. So we have the ability if we've missed something. So most of this that we're going through these developmental stages is to kind of get from I don't know what I don't know to now I know what I don't know.

So once I know these things, as I start to work those steps and you see I should be able to really accelerate my growth and really grow at a very sound path if I know how the great spirit made us and I work in harmony with getting me back to that system he made and not invent it. Now let's just say that you have a little baby say 18 months old has developed a sense of trust. In other words, they have this feeling and we've seen some of them the world is a good place and man I belong in it and then they start walking.

Now the adults will call that next stage autonomy or it also means a sense of independence. So a 2-year-old when they can start walking it takes three adults full time see working in shifts just to hang with them. speak cuz they get up there.

You start set them on a gun and their feet are going like this. They're just waiting for you to let them hit the ground and they're off and they're into everything. I mean, they're just into the dirt and they're tasting this and taking toast and dumping it in the milk and reaching in and squeezing it, making messes.

See? Now, what's the two most favorite words of a 2-year-old? >> No.

Uh-uh. Now at that developmental stage that 2-year-old by has to develop a sense of independence. So they try to break away from mom and dad.

I am my own person now. See you want to do this? No.

Well, let me butter this. I'll do it myself. Uh-uh.

You'll need this. Uh-uh. No.

Uh-uh. No. No.

No. No. See, and it did.

A 2-year-old would be a perfect juvenile if they could just drive a car, right? They just tearing everything up. Now, you'll see very often like say two daughters come over to mom's place, each has a 2-year-old, and one uh one of the moms will come over, they take their 2-year-old, they sit him on a chair, and she just sits there so perfect and so proper.

The other sister brings her kid over and I'm telling you, that little boy just tears grandma's place up. He's into everything, the pots and the pans and exploring and doing all this stuff. And they say to that person, why isn't that one like that good little girl, that good little girl may very well be the one that's not developing mentally healthy.

You see, cuz you're supposed to develop that sense of trust, that that sense of that freedom because it's at that stage where you start to learn to make choices and decisions. I'll do it myself. Thank you.

So, you see those little 2-year-olds doing that. You see, when you see them making a choice or a decision, like they draw this weird thing or whatever and they show it to you. Oo, I like how you decided that.

You're something. You're good at it. And you see them, you know, the you walk nose up in the air.

Well, I'm good at it. So, at that stage, you see, you're supposed to develop that sense of that sense of of independence. Because if you don't develop that sense, it's a feeling, a sense of being independent, then what will you see later on?

can't make decisions, indecisive, say, wishy-washy, not taking risks, afraid of this, afraid of that. Does that make sense? So when we start to develop ourselves, we go through the steps.

If we start to come back and take a look at this developmental cycle as we work the steps and I see I'm having trouble choices, decisions, I'm having a hard time in relationships. And I can ask myself, do I have this feeling of independence? If not, then maybe I need to go back and do something to bring it back inside of myself so I can have that stage cuz that's how the creator made me.

He says one thing to grow up in my world that I created to be mentally healthy is you must develop a sense of trust that you belong in this world. It's a natural state for you. You see and you love being here and not only that you function from choice and decisions.

See that you have the ability to do that. >> Uhhuh. on what >> indiscriminate.

Well, the that's really handled in a step like you you see where is it you function from trust. Um at the level of spirit intent. Uh trust in that sense is a decision.

Um if you trust someone too much that's not trust, right? That is a different issue than trust. and uh that's some kind of a fear.

We'll get into some of that. Could we just ask that one just a little bit later? Cuz there's more information will really help.

Uh it's like you cannot trust is not a volume. Trust is a decision. So you cannot trust too much.

There's that's called some other things but not trust. Any other questions or comments on this? The next stage you go through is a stage called initiative.

And this happens about ages or maybe four to seven. Now you see little kids. What you'll see them is uh all a sudden they just go from tearing everything up all a sudden you see them they they become really uh pretending type.

They have like imaginary friends, pet turtles, and they make you set uh places for them at the supper table, set here informary friend, and they talk to them just like they're real. And then you'll see them uh they do all sorts of weird things. You know, one one day they're uh they'll have a pan on their head and they pretend to be a policeman.

Then the next day they're like a cop. Then the next day they're cowboys and they want all this stuff on them. See?

Well, it's at that stage they are developing. And so they're saying, "I wonder what it's like to be a policeman." See? So they put a pan on their head and they went around blowing sirens and doing that stuff.

And the next day, oh what it's like to be a call call person, you know, cowboy. So they started shooting like this. You see Dar stuff and you'll see them sometimes.

They'll come up like on their they'll pretend like they're a dog. See, they'll come up woof woof woof woof and or bow wow bow wow. And they'll see grab your pant leg like that and they'll set up and bark like that.

And you reach up there, get a cookie. See? Make them speak.

See, you give them that cookie, pat him in the head. See? kick him in.

See? And help. Now you Now it's okay.

You see if you're three, four, and five doing that. But if you got a teenager that's doing that, like barking like a dog, you're really in trouble. You got a sick kid.

It's really bad, right? So it's at that stage where they are developing now imagination, the ability to vision, creativity, skills. So they're developing that.

Then you'll see this you this young person will grow and they'll come to that next stage of development called industry or another word for it is sense of accomplishment. So at that stage these are those pre-teenage years there's two feelings that the human being needs to have. One feeling is I'm good at something feelings.

I'm good for something feelings. We need to have that feeling. I am good at it.

Now you'll see uh uh like culturally we always we knew who we were. You see there that why am I who am I? Where am I going?

We always knew well you know him he's a hunter. You know her she's the and that feedback was always to give us that feeling of being good for something good at something. You see a lot of teachers are pretty good at in schools.

They have little badges and little happy faces. You know you go up there you get your test. Ooh look.

You get a blue happy face. See, man, you're something. See, I'm good at it.

So, you get those I'm good at it feelings. Or you'll see boys clubs or some of our drum groups. What what they're doing is they're giving those youth those feelings.

We I'm good at I'm good for something feelings. But you see what happens if you don't develop those feelings? It's a polarity system.

So, I will develop then I'm not good for nothing feelings. I'm not good at anything feelings. >> Excuse me.

What age would that be? >> 8 >> 8 to 12. >> That's the pre-teenage years.

So if you develop at that age, I'm good for nothing. I'm not good at anything. Feelings.

Then later on you'll see behavior. Hey, why don't you go try this? Ah, not me.

But I think you can draw. You can. No, I I I wouldn't be good at it.

See, and you even see in body language, they just just not good at anything, you know, those type of feelings. And you'll just see a resistance and can't make decisions and just real withdrawal, you see, type of things. So, it's at that age, it's very very important, you see, to develop within the human those two feelings.

Now, let's say I get in recovery and I can examine through the set of steps that I don't have those feelings. The neat thing about the human being is I have the ability to come back and develop them. I need to have those to be to grow mentally healthy.

Now you take a look at how many of us have been raised in dysfunctional families. How many of us have been raised by alcoholic parents like me? How many of us has many of our relatives drinking?

How many of us have been told I mean did we did somebody like when we were growing did we develop a sense of trust or did we uh have good choices and decisions at 2-year-olds you see were supposed to be going no uh-uh or yes you will shame on you bad girl bad boy smack see slam kick then all of a sudden you don't develop those feelings that's normally so you start to grow up acting a certain way there must be something wrong with me. Then you start into some of the violence and some of the sexual abuse and some of the other things many of us have experienced. So we start to grow up with no sense of trust, no sense of independence.

I am good for nothing. You're good at nothing. Even the input from schools and all these different things.

So we started to grow up as native people growing as dysfunctional families not having these feelings which the creator designed for the human being to have. Does that make sense? >> Yes.

>> Yeah. You just described one of my second grade classes, a majority of the second grade class that I had show a lot of the time and you know what they're talking about a lot of times. They're talking about mom and dad broken promises and they don't trust they don't trust and they're you know they respect.

>> Yeah. See, >> I can just imagine a lot of parents alcohol. >> Absolutely.

But even for us, you know, as native people, alcohol is but a symptom. There's other things that we have to work on. But I think you see a lot of that in in our kids.

ourselves grew up that way. Many of us, that's the way it was. Now, we just grew up thinking that was normal.

I didn't know there was another way, right? It's like my dad would go drinking or whatever. Well, we knew, you know, his patterns really well and we heard when he come back to the res, you know, we always had like a lot of old cars and stuff out in our backyard.

So, we'd hide food in there. So, we'd when he comes out the back window, you go back to where that food was. We had stuff stashed.

See, hoping he wouldn't come find us. And that's that was But we weren't the only ones. See, a lot of people did that.

That was just the way you did it. It was a real Now, you know, it was a survival thing. But you see, well, it's just like uh myself when I was uh I grew up in a pretty dysfunctional family.

And when I was in this age here from age uh that since where I'm supposed to be developing a sense of uh industry or accomplishment from a time I was uh little before I was 10 years old to a little after I was about 11 and a half I was sexually molested by a uncle minimum weekly. So it was also one of the favorite uncles come from a large family and that went on all the time. Then one time he went to the res to a party there and somebody shot him six times.

They got a big fight. I was so happy when that happened. But then when I saw how my mom and everybody acted, they were all sad.

I had the wrong feeling there. I was glad the son of a got it. see is how I thought and I never ever told anybody that ever till I was 33.

But then you would see me in relationships, relationship after relationship after relationship. I built these walls, you see, and I just couldn't let anybody through. And God, I wanted to.

Or sometimes you'd see a woman, you know, that would have that insight to get through those walls. I was just given signals. See, come on.

Come on. Come on. back back.

Come on. Come on. Back.

And they would say things like, you know, you never let anybody close to you. You ought to I couldn't do it. It was just a paralysis.

So what I do, I just go drink some more. See? So, so I just go through them, but I could never get a relationship and keep it.

I couldn't even tell you how I felt. I didn't I didn't recognize feelings. I was 30 some years old.

It wasn't. It actually wasn't. In a certain case about 2 months ago, I was telling I was telling Deborah, when you feel like this, what is that called?

I'm still discovering them. Before that, I went through a, you know, a thing where I went through a set of steps and everything. I had a whole bunch of them crop up.

I didn't know what that name of that was. I never had that. I had to run around trying to find out what is the name of this thing when you feel like this when this thing isn't there.

What is it? I didn't know that. But you see the law is it doesn't take account whether you are a child or not.

It doesn't take account for that. It takes account for whether you live in harmony with it or not. If you are raised out of harmony with it, then your style of life is going to be a certain way.

The only catcher is the human being can change and I as a human being it doesn't matter who did what to me. Bottom line see is this like a what did I really want this relationship with my uncle after he died and after I started you know try to get free of it. What I really wanted is I wanted him to come back to life.

Just give me a day with him. That would have done it. Then he could have died and I could have went on you know died again.

I could have went back and forgiven him, but he didn't come back. So I spend this time, you see what's wrong with me? I must have done something wrong and dwelled in that forever.

See, really was impactual. Even though I kept a hit, it was it touched every area of my life. There was no area of my life wasn't touched.

Jobs, relationships with children, relationships, every place was because of that issue. But I couldn't bring that up. So I hung on to it.

But then you would take a look at me. My sister used to call me a onguard. She said it in our language, but it was it meant on guard.

See, I could never set s set with my back to the wall. And I always knew where the doors were. See, even at the supper table, we eat.

I couldn't sat in the middle cuz we had a large family, like a table. I could never sit in the middle. I had to sit on the end.

I couldn't do it. See? And I just eat.

never said nothing. Always watch him. See, and and a lot of those things you see has happened like your dad will come up and say, "I'm going to ask you the truth one.

I'm going to ask you one time. Tell me the truth." You tell him the truth. Bam.

Right across the room. So pretty soon you learn you're going to get it anyway. Just say nothing, right?

Don't say nothing. So see, then you start to grow up that way and then you become very silent. So then it's not do you not say nothing to him.

You take no risk. You tell nobody nothing unless you want them to know it. Or you might tell him something you see to use or to manipulate but you don't tell them anything because if you do you see you're going to get it.

Does that make sense? Now you just take uh once we come to uh the stage of identity and these are the teenage years. See at the stage of identity this is a very very critical stage for the human being.

This is the first time in the life that a human being will consciously seek the answer to those three questions teenagers do. Why am I? Who am I?

And where am I going? And that's why you see them doing all those weird things. Geez.

One day their hair is green and they wear these kind of suits and see a week later uh they're dressed like this. They like this kind of music. So at that identity stage, the human being must have this feeling, the feeling of belonging.

It has to belong. It's a feeling that it seeks. So they you'll see them clusters.

They get little groups, right? They fight mom and dad. What kind of music do you like?

Country and western. They like rap. See, you're out.

See, we're in. So they start to develop, you see, this this identity. And you see them doing a lot of weird stuff from an adult's point of view.

They're just really weird. But they're seeking out. That's why gangs are so effective.

See, in our culture, it wasn't that difficult to get an identity because we hunted. See, we fished, we cured, we tanned, we did all these things. But you take these modern times.

Hell, you don't need to hunt. You don't need to cook. See, when are you one?

When I get my driver's license, gez, I can't wait. 16. Hurry up.

Hurry up. Hurry up. Then what's next?

Well, drinking. Say 18. Well, I can't wait to get there so I can be one.

So, we end up with our identity without with a hard. See, that's why gangs work so well. If you think about it, see, it's very hard to be somebody.

You take native people come into a urban big urban society. If we don't have, you know, good like drum groups and pows and that kind of stuff where people can start to develop that gangs always fill that need of belonging. You know him, he's the Lord.

you know her or she's the you see so gangs are very very effective. Now what'll happen say as we grow up and we don't get an identity later on maybe in the late 30s you'll see you will see very funny behavior among like men for example you'll see a lot of alcoholism suicide a lot of depression you'll see a lot of them will dump their wives about that age and they go back and they try to find one 17 18 19 see 20 real young ones and you'll see them they'll even dress funny they'll like roll their cigarettes up in their t-shirts again. You know how they used to do lucky stripes or whatever.

They roll them up in there and uh they dress in green hats and purple pants and pink socks. And you see them coming to a party, smack open the door, run to the middle of the living room, jump up on top of the coffee table, and they make the announcement. I'm here.

The party can begin. See the kids here. See, acting like a teenager trying to recreate the past.

And so we'll see that type of behavior happen later on. Then we get a stage of identity like in the late maybe 19 20 years old if we're growing up normally. So it's at that stage we're supposed to be searching trying new things finding the answer to those three questions.

Who am I? Why am I? And where am I going?

So once you get Yes. >> You know nothing about men act that way. Do you know what how women go back that way if they don't develop the identity properly?

>> Uh same >> same way. Uh you'll see a lot of different behaviors in women also doing that. It's good.

One of the one of the things you touched on that was real important to me about my recovery is like all the time I was sedated, you know, I was, you know, like I'm catching up and like, you know, like somebody I'm criticized sometimes because, you know, they might say that I'm having like pre-adent childlike or adolescent behavior, but that's natural for me because I know where I'm coming from. So, one of the things that you don't hear a whole lot of dialogue about is men trying to catch up emotionally, let alone women. And a lot of the times when I see it, you know, you come, I mean, you might hear somebody share a meeting that you might have known for a long time and they're starting to identify it because we're able to read between the lines a little bit, but it's not talked about openly.

>> Oh, no. You know, I've I've heard very few women talk about trying to catch up like like for me like I was a stone going alcoholic when I was 15 and uh like now probably maybe I was about 19 or 20 and one of the things that's been exciting for me is because I was dated like during those real important years like when you date it means a lot to me now like it's even like basically just holding hands >> something like that it means a to me whereas I see a lot of other people uh young or old or adult take take it for granted and see with me in my development I don't take anything for granted anymore it means a lot to me but like I said you don't hear a whole lot of dialogue dialogue about it and I think it's real important that we as men and women should start talking about start getting into you know and uh I don't know I'm just excited for myself because uh you know I'm not worried about whether I catch up or not, but it's just being able to identify what I've lost and just kind of holding on to it and just going through my own. >> Well, you know, there's more and more uh native people are getting longer term recovery than we've ever had before and in larger numbers.

But one of the things we're finding in a lot of communities we work in in recovery, people are stuck. there's like a level you get to and it's like so like what next you know and I and I think we need to start sharing some of that that new stuff everyone is working in but once again you think like you're the only one has it >> yeah cuz I I just had a birthday on the 21st and since the 21st I've been kind of like going through a renewal phase so like it's a real exciting time for me I kind of almost feel like I'm in my first year surviving And you know that that that means a lot to me, you know, but more importantly, I've been able to share that with other people and they understand it. >> Sure.

>> Did we answer your question about women's behavior? >> Well, I don't know. In my experience, uh, when I reached that point where I'm supposed to have identity, I was abused and I shut off.

I turned off and I stayed turned off for many years and then I turned to alcohol. >> Uhhuh. >> And and and many of my sisters had babies.

Mama didn't have babies at that time. You know, I had a clinic. But um for me I I don't recognize what what I miss in that development.

So I wouldn't even recognize if I were back into it because maybe for men getting up and partying and and having sex and going to women is natural for them in that period. But for us, for us to do that is adant behavior cuz 14 to 17 women shouldn't be doing that. So we aren't really going through our adolescence again when we're doing that.

We're punishing our >> right. >> So it is a totally different experience for us. >> But I don't know what that experience is.

>> I don't know. Deborah. >> Yeah.

Um I I would like to say something that I don't want to felt any other in this room. I love my parents very much about not well. My father is an alcoholic and my mom is an alcoholic as well.

And um their behavior at the 50 and 17 years old is exactly like it was when they were teenagers. Yeah. She's got the same hairstyle.

you guys that I had when you were a teenager. They're bodies of age, but mentally and emotionally they have not changed. Um they had raised 11 children and most of my brothers and sisters are either alcoholics or drug addicts.

They fell in prison. Um throughout the whole time I was growing up, the same scenario played over and over again. and you know he would break her arms and then she would run away and they would get back together but they were locked in this game with each other and they're 60 and 70 years old and that game still takes place and they can't see that they're locked in.

They're not well but they progressed physically. They got old physically. Their bodies are old.

Their behavior is bad as a teenager. And women behave that way too like men do. And I don't think necessarily that they see it and I don't think necessarily that they do it intentionally.

um when we're in some of the communities, Indian communities all across country, what I see, which must be incredibly frustrating for somebody that's 15 or 17 years old, is I see those 16 and 17 year olds trying to figure out what they're supposed to be as an adult and what they're looking at or experiencing in a whole community with a bunch of teenagers in both bodies >> and and they're having a real hard time. They get real rebellious and it and it must be scary. If I think about it, I had no idea.

I don't I don't have I I don't know how this is all conflict. You get or you run. You know, you are the aggressor or you run away.

Those are your two choices. I'm 40 41 years old and I'm just figuring out now, you know, how you get to the other side of conflict and there can be everybody can have their own opinion and not be wrong. I just learned that you don't understand that intimacy.

And when you're 16 and 17 and you're starting to to to come into adulthood, how do you know what an adult that you've never seen or experiencing? You have you have no idea. And and I don't know about you guys, but I have these ants and and and I love them dearly.

And I'm Don has the same kind of ant little curly hair on the top and it's long and straight curly on the bottom. have the cell and it's a guy jet black and it's like they've got stuff in that ear and I'm not saying this is I'm just saying I don't think they even see it and it's like we can't give our children to that next stage if we don't grow up as adults if we don't go back and repair that thing our kids don't know how to do it they don't know how to do it How old did you show that? >> You know, on some of the lines of what you're talking about, like when I was growing up, you know, I'm 45 and I look around and I ask questions to other people my age.

Well, I felt 45 when I was in the fifth grade. I was ready to retire with all that responsibility that I had, you know, with a job taking care of, you know, seven sisters and three brothers, my dad always out looking for my mom, me taking care of my mother, you know, I I was an old man, you know, when I got out of junior high school, I was ready to go out. I really was.

You know, >> I was the hero, too, in my town. The only one and you do do that. and I was my mother's mother and then I was my father's mother and I took care of everyone and and I and I'm not saying I'm anywhere near there well I'm saying I'm still learning and and the girls in the family responsibility kind of light up and see that's one of the things I appreciate right start to lighten up the important thing for me is to be able to recognize a lot of things and accept them for for what they are that All right, wrap up the front here.

>> Uh, from a woman's point of view, I knew exactly what he was talking about when he put his cigarettes in and flee. Actually, did not do that. Um, and went to the party and said, jumped on the cocktail, said, "I'm here." Well, I didn't hear that he went to a party chasing women or anything like that.

That kind of thing. It was more of a of a personhood type thing of identifying myself in some way and then accepting you to recognize and accepting me and sometimes you don't recognize these resolved recogniz It's like if you're in a relation or that kind of thing, you know, maybe maybe it's something else. Maybe I would think around issues a lot of time having body and not having I was talking to Sue Elder her um yesterday or day before yesterday and I asked her I says what is shame you know looking at it from a culture point of view and she sat there for a long time and uh she come back and she says shame is the deepest wound that a human being can experience shame is the of all of them that is the deepest one and I just thought about that because that's a lot you know of what uh we have many of us how we have been raised those are the types of things we need to work in the recovery process is to find a lot of that because uh it's inside of ourselves but >> yeah I know exactly what you're talking about too of the man and why um I because and I I went through this you know in recovery I went through this I'm not alcoholic I'm an alanine but what I found myself doing in recovery after I'd been in a while was that I realized that I never honored my femininity.

You know, it's like uh uh growing up as a teenager, I mean, I look nice, curl my hair, you know, did the makeup, but then always growing up with responsibility, I was also that 45year-old woman. Sure. >> Which is exactly what my mother did.

My mother like never went through adolescence. So like immediately she was this 45 year old woman. Having had a child at 17 I was ready to be that 45year-old woman.

And so what ended up happening was that I gained a lot of weight. You know 35 40 lbs. No longer had that picture of femininity.

You know it was like I was just this big thing. No no no feminine, no masculine. just just a being, you know, like because also cuz I was afraid.

I was afraid of being attractive because what happens? What if you are what if uh you have to deal with all the feelings? That's right.

>> And saying no, exactly what you were talking about. So, what I ended up doing in recovery um once I lost some of that weight was that I started to dress and to act inappropriately. you know, wearing clothes that didn't really it it did that looks great on a young teenager.

I mean, how many times do you walk down the street and you see, you know, women who are in their 40s or something and it's like you go, why is she dressed like that, you know? It's like that doesn't look great on her teenage daughter. And and I did all that stuff.

>> I did that trying to reclaim that part of me that I lost when I'm a 40year-old woman, you know, in a 12year-old body. >> Sure. J I'll call it.

Uh there are a lot of things in here that are u really good and it's really important that we ask these questions and also that we take back to uh people we sponsor some of the solutions that we hear in here. I believe a number of us because we grew up in dysfunctional families are stuck in the survival mode because that's how we grew up and it's the only way we know. And so for me getting into recovery and trying to do some recovery step, I always go back to that and and a lot of times I catch myself doing it not even justified.

It's just the snap reaction. And so for for me uh sharing with other alcoholics and being involved in something like this is really important because it gives me an opportunity to uh listen how other Indian people how we survive in the world, you know. And uh actually after survival we've cut to live and I'm right at that point.

Uh I'm learning to trust. >> Mhm. >> Just barely learning to trust.

I'm 8 years old and I'm just now getting developing a sense of trust in uh non-Indian people. >> It's taken a long time a long time. And I think that uh that search for identity that comes with uh adolescent is something that I'm just not getting in touch with.

And so it's important that as alcoholics we continue to work the steps of recovery especially into the inventories because in the inventories I believe that we begin to find some of those issues that keep us from becoming the people we can be. >> Okay. Thanks Terry.

>> I had a question on your that medicine wheel that you know for the areas of development. It sounds or see things to me like when kids grew up in the um 50s that probably added to you know child not fully developing and a lot of them or were educated in school now parents or grandparents that >> well one of the things is uh uh that you touched on is really critical for us to look at as native people um in part of recovery and we finding this is really critical for many of the tribes and us as individuals and uh I there was this one point I was uh when I come in a sober sober I was very angry I mean almost violent that's the only thing I knew so as I worked through that there was this one thing there were certain things if I would just hear about the story like the walk of our people or I would hear other thing happens to other Indians you know a long time ago I get very rageful I mean just get really pissed about it and I just I say look then was then now is now what's the matter with you but one of the things we like when we work with the communities that we find is very important for us to look at in in recovery is this intergenerational healing and that means this when they started a long time ago the boarding schools some of the Indian schools that was really initiated by the department of war and it was a strategy to assimilate native people back into dominant culture and that's documented that's not like a secret but when they grew up um and and they all the ways that they got the kids into the schools the ones that they got in there which was a large portion of of our of the children then but they were successful in that they taught them hey being Indian don't speak your language don't speak your culture. See, don't do no ceremonies, don't do this.

And they grew up uh uh being quite successful for the most part. Then what do you happen when those kids got married and how did they raise their children? Hate being Indian, don't speak your language, the culture is bad.

Then they have a grownup and then they raise children. We work with youth right now that have not attended boarding school and they are have boarding school behavior. You can recognize it.

The way that they talk and the way that they are punished by their parents is the way boarding school was punished three and four generations ago. They make them kneel on things. They do the same thing to them.

So sometimes today we don't know why. I mean there's some level sometimes that uh it was just like when I started going back to the culture my mom was late in boarding school. So I started to want to relearn the language and letting my hair grow long again.

Made her mad. She said why are you letting your hair grow like that? That's stupid.

And don't be speaking that language around here. I don't want to be hearing that here. you know, and I started to see that this I grew up that way.

There's some things happen in boarding school directly affects us even as recovery people. I talked to an elder and our um because I've been interested in this boarding schools that I'm starting to understand. I have boarding school behavior in part of my recovery.

I have to look at it's not I'm not trying to blame anyone. See, I'm fully accountable for my growth. It doesn't matter my uncle molested me.

that that happens. Why I'm accountable to change myself because I want to be happy. But I talked to this elder.

He said, um, he's an uncle of mine, but he said we went to mission school the first day. They got there at night. They put him all, you know, in class or, you know, to bed and everything, but they brought him over the next morning and that priest brought him into the school and he said, "I want to have a talk with you all about your behavior and about how I want you to mind me." So he talked to him, the elder said, then he took him downstairs.

I have a furnace there. And uh he talked to him about doing exactly what he said. He didn't want to be, you know, but then what he did was he had all his kids lying in front of this furnace and he reached in this um box.

He took a lid off that box. He pulled out a cat and he opened up that door and he just threw that cat in the furnace alive and shut that door, you know. And um this elder he's just he's 87 just broke down and cried that type of hurts.

A lot of us are raised by people have experienced many many things like that. And when we look at uh getting in recovery, where do we get stuck? That's the things we got to start looking at.

You know, when you when they start to surface to understand there's other things intergenerationally that has affected us. Most of us are there's a lot of sexual molestation went on in the boarding school. Nobody wants to say that.

But sometimes working with some elders, they'll tell you what went on there and it wasn't pleasant. There was people, women we know some is uh early 40s younger than me that were sterilized when they were in boarding school with no medicine, no nothing. They held them down on tables that went on.

That wasn't like in the 1800s. They're now healing and processing that kind of stuff. So I think part of recovery is to look at that intergenerational stuff also cuz many of us are we are it's like I started to understand why my parents were like they were.

>> It was just all of a sudden I my relationship with him changed cuz I didn't know it was like you don't know what you don't know. I said, 'How could an Indian parent tell their children to don't be Indian, don't be speaking your language, don't go back to the culture, it's bad, leave it alone, don't go that way. Now I understand.

See, before I couldn't understand does that make sense? And those are the things like when we are in recovery a longer periods we need to start even looking at that and see what is that effects on us because even some of the children now that's that's still happening today in many other schools. How many here was to boarding school?

Just out of curiosity. see quite a few. All right.

>> Um, >> I heard you say something about that cycle in the truck. I'm in a confusing area right now. I'm a single parent.

I've had my kid ever since he's 3 years old on my own. and I'm doing the best I can to raise him. And coming from an alcoholic family and my father in recovery, you know, and I did, you know, made sense what you said about different changes.

Maybe my father's in one area and I'm in another. When we when we connect, we like we explode, you know. And I see myself taking those same things home with me when I go home and I see myself reacting to my kids sometimes like that.

Sometimes it's kind of hard to to um you know I heard what I was saying about trust you know and it's like how how you I'm confused about what are you supposed to do when you're telling me something and then you can't do it because you have other responsibilities. I mean, it's like I can clean my own house, my own laundry, you know, and he's a very big house, you know, and then, you know, then tell him, "Well, we'll go ride bikes." And then, you know, and then I have the time and I'm I'm po down the tire, you know, what do you do in situations like that? I don't I'm not here to hurt my kids.

I have no intention to hurt my kids. I don't know how to to balance that, you know, when you see the same thing, 28 years old, 29 years old, you know, and I see those same things with my dad telling me comes in and then, you know, change and I can't figure out the balance and I don't know how. Well, when we get into steps this afternoon um into the workshops, we'll be looking at a lot of that because I think when you start to look at understanding the interconnectedness and uh uh a lot of the thing about the steps, I think that a person has the ability to really look forward to the steps as an interconnected system that allows each individual um see to really accelerate growth.

It isn't about wallowing in it forever. And it's about learning, you know, where to focus. It's sort of like you can't fix that which you don't know is broke.

And very often we focus so much on a couple of things. We think we're all screwed up. You know, it's like your car doesn't run.

You take it to the garage. You say, "Your car is all messed up. It's all broke.

God, it's going to cost me millions to do it." You take it there. First thing has to be done is to identify where it's broke. Carburetor needs to be adjusted.

Brakes need to be fixed. You got a flat tire. We do those three things, it can start running.

But we say everything is broke. But we're not as broke as we would like to think that we are. But it's a matter of locating that right place and then learning to use tools on you see on focus um and to live a balanced life.

They created a harmonious system because we were alcoholic whatever went out and did some stuff. It doesn't mean I have to wait for 15 years before I can have a harmonious life. It's to the degree that I come back and work with the principal laws and values and then it starts to happen.

Right? So, we'll take a look at that part of the steps this afternoon on how to really how to identify things quickly and make adjustments and not tear ourselves up in the process of of recovering. You know, I I think one of the most important things all of our go through in my family, you know, like a key issue right now, he's he's able to identify that there's something that possibly wrong and he's able to dialogue it and willing to do something about it.

Like even for myself, you know, being in recovery, like I I enjoy being a parent and I want to always be a good parent and I whenever I see anything free for parenting classes, I go, you know, and I learn and then I take it and I try it out and it doesn't work and I look for another friend of mine, you know, it it works, you know. But I think he's on a track because he's just able to identify it right now. And it sounds to me like he's willing to to work on it.

>> Yes. >> Well, for me, the best thing I've ever done was uh I got involved in Aline and and that's where I learned what uh you know, corporate normal was what I should have felt. For me, it took u not thanks to God.

And then about a year later getting into adult and all that 5 years ago on October 11th world. I was raised in I didn't receive no record, no music, no tape, not one person, nothing about there. But I had Alan support and did work twice in two years.

I got person and then I got when I got into by all those kids. None of them have been like I had brains back from my dad and then my granddad did later in the military. And uh then I got these for the arms off the Belgium works full strength and my dad stronger and he never ever hit me again.

I was out for a long time that time, but it's been a hell, but the kids they taught me I need to learn what a kid is going to work on needs to know and I learned it. >> Mhm. >> All the kids knew more than I did.

Thanks. >> Okay. um looking at this these developmental stages, you know, they trigger a lot of good of good things, but we're really just trying to set up to do that.

This afternoon, we learn mind map and how to trigger more. We're going to workshop in groups um capitalizing one another's experiences where that's appropriate for us to share something. But we'd like to finish these uh stages because I think they are very very important.

Yet when we get through our age of uh our late 20 late teens like 1920 that's the first time that it's sort of like it's at that point we can walk off a stage of life like pretty much just like oh before we've been acting you know trying to figure all this stuff out. But once we get our identity we know why we are who we are and where we're going. It's like you can get off that stage finally like when you're 20 and you say you say like I now know who I am.

I know my strengths. I know my weaknesses. I know my strengths.

I know my weaknesses. And if you don't like it, stuff it, right? It's like you get off that stage of life.

You just not around like people pleasing. But then you be next we will go to this um stage of intimacy. And this will happen between maybe the 20s, 20s to 30s or so.

And it's at that age the human being needs to develop the ability to share their feelings. It's about building relationships. I need to be able to tell you my opinion whether you agree with me or not.

See, I need to be able to share that. And you see like college students, they'll uh you know notice this in the student union, whatever they just taught. And they come home from school and they have opinions on everything.

They know the government should run. This is screwed up. That's bad.

Tribal council is like this. Gez, who hired that one? Look at that jerk.

And they just have opinions on everything. You know, when they're in that now, you'll see them even talking to one another. You see one talk, the other one's listening.

You ever notice that every other one's not listening? They're thinking the up onesmanship story just waiting for them then to get done. See then they go back and they oh you think your mother was bad let me tell you about my mother how bad she was.

See so they start to switch stories back and forth. Now you see these things are like building. So let's just say that I am I am in this age of or as a as a human being in relationships.

Do you think I have the ability to be intimate in relationships if I don't know who I am? Do you think I have the ability to be to be uh effective in relationships if I cannot trust? Do you think I have ability to be intimate in relationships if I don't have these feelings about myself?

I'm good at something. I'm good for something feelings. See, but I have the ability to come back in areas where I am off.

I can rebuild myself. So a lot of times if I having issues in relationships, I got to take a look at the steps. There's other key things I need to notice when I look at unmanageability or writing inventory.

I'm looking for these patterns. I need to be able to see these patterns. You see where where I'm off track then knowing and working step 10 and 11 is where I go and rebuild myself back.

So I get that right away. We don't need you see to wallow in it forever because very often um see if we if we don't know these things. So if I have issues in relationships the relationship is not the issue.

There's something I need to look at inside of myself. So how do I go find that so I can change that. So as I come back and I I can discover what that is then you'll see relationships will improve.

But when I get through this uh intimacy then I go to this age of generativity and this might be um I don't know 40 to 50s and that generativity is uh is then the need for the human being to go be to do something for others. I have to be a giving person. You see a lot of people will just be involved in volunteer work.

They do all sorts of stuff just free. I mean without in other words they do it not for credit or glory or to get something back. They just do it cuz they have to do it.

It just makes them feel good. So you see a lot of times it's at that point where prior to that we're takers but we'll get to that age of generativity. Then all of a sudden we got to go and do something for some.

You just got to do it. See in order to be happy. Then we enter that age of the elders the stage of integrity.

um that stage of integrity of the elders that's at that point if you notice if you watch elders that have integrity see you just kind of see a worthwhileness to all things when you go there you're like a mouse just wound up on this little thing and they just sit there and they just kind of see it all connected even the conflict right they just see a worthwhile to all things usually when you have integrity that stage of the alder By then you have developed your own set of codes by which you live your life. Like when we're younger a lot of times you ever notice if you're honest the real reason we don't do things is cuz I might get caught and that's the reason I don't do them. Right?

If I knew I wouldn't get caught, I'd give it a go. But I better not cuz I might get caught. But the gotten past that.

They just do it cuz it's not right for them. They seem to have uh a philosophy that it's okay to be who you are. You don't have to be like how they think to be okay.

It's okay to be young. It's okay to be a breed. It's okay to be white and this.

It's okay to right. It's okay to be man. It's okay to do work.

It's okay not to work. You don't see them. Well, what is your amount of blood?

you know, you were traditional or a you urban one that you don't know nothing about here. You know, they don't spend his time getting things in buckets and categories and all that. It's okay if you're Indian this much.

You're Indian and you're all right. You don't see them getting all hung up, you see, like we are sometimes. So, so what I thought I would do is just kind of show that those developmental stages before we take a look at the steps.

So we have a form of reference that when we start to look at unmanageability and we start to look at those that were looking at the creator did make a path for the human being to grow mentally healthy. Many of us did not have the opportunity to do that. So it's not mom's fault.

It's not dad's fault. It's not the way I was born's fault. Right?

The issue is I am accountable to correct my life. It doesn't matter who did it. And it's later on this afternoon, we also talk about the ability to forgive the unforgivable.

But there's certain things sometimes that we need to do if I want to have the style of life that sobriety has to offer. Sobriety is just not about not drinking. It's about another whole style of us coming back to all those things that uh that is available to us in our culture you know and it's about living.

So we'll um talk about about those things. Did we really get those lights? Oh because you see if we take a look at uh very often when we are measuring things worse looking at results.

You ever ask yourself where do results come from? Every result will be preceded by an action. Cannot be no other way.

The creator made everything to run by a system of laws. So you say where do actions come from? You ever notice you got to think them?

They don't just magically appear. So if I think a certain thing, it causes the actions, shows a result in my life. Well, where does thinking come from?

Well, it comes from here, the human being. Basically, the human being is 98% of everything that we do is run by eight thought patterns. It's not like it's all as complicated as we think.

There's just thought patterns we do, and we just repeat them. Then we say, what is it that drives the being? It's our will, our free will.

The creator designed us to function from free will. And what is it that drives our will? Our spirit and intent.

So we want to change the results. See, there's this definition of insanity. It says you can't keep thinking what you're thinking and doing what you're doing and expect different results, right?

You want different results. There's something has to change to change that result. And that's how we'll be looking at the steps from an Indian point of view.

All right. Any comments? All right.

So, when we come back from our lunch, we're going to um take this and apply it to the to the 12 steps to see how does all these concepts fit into the into the 12 steps. So, we were starting at uh let's start at 102. 2 minutes after 1.

2 minutes after 1 102 we'll start >> go on to the next step and um I think there was one important thing um I guess my own experience when I first got into looking at doing the steps and I talked to a sponsor about that was Um remember in this one diagram, oops, one diagram here we talked about uh that flow of results and um what it says there basically is that the human being it never does anything unless the will says it's okay. So everything always has to pass through the will. I will do this or I will not do this.

Then depending upon which way I go then the results go. And the reason for that is that the creator designed us to function from free will and that if we do anything other than a free will then we are designed to push back or not do it. So, if I could just pick on uh on you, if I have you put your hand on mine, if you would.

If you notice, soon as I push without saying a word, he pushes back. But if I ask, could I push your hand? Then you get cooperation.

Now, that's physically we are designed that anytime anyone pushes us, we push back. Well, it's also designed, we are designed mentally to push back anytime something is against our will, you're supposed to see true motivation to get the full force, the first full motivation is always when we do something on a want to, choose to like it, love it. I want to do that.

See, I choose to do the steps. I love to do them. I want to I want to walk the red road.

But as soon as the mind hears I have to, it has a little mechanism that wakes up and says, "Oh, no, you don't. I'll get you out of it." So, it very creatively kicks in a system to have you go do something else. You get procrastination.

Oh, I'll do it tomorrow. See? So this voice in a sense, this force starts to kick in to get us to not do it.

So we always function at that level of the free will. So what I'm saying there is that really applies a lot when you come to working steps. Why are you working steps?

Well, I have to so I don't get drunk. Not see that little voice wakes up says, "No, no, you don't. See, I'll get you out of it." So what we're saying is if you're telling yourself you have to work the step because my sponsor says I have to that little thing wakes up.

He said I'll get you out of it. So it starts all these little plans to divert you to do something else. Now there are no have to in the whole world except one.

See you don't have to work steps to stay sober. There are thousands of people in AA staying sober and they never worked a lick of steps in their lives. Now they're miserable as Now that's true.

You see the only catcher is you make the choice. You have to take the consequence. So like getting sober or whatever is sort of like a banquet.

On that banquet is many things are available. Steak, lobster, right? Buffalo t-bone, whatever.

But then it works its way down to meatloaf and to cheeseburgers and on this ends peanut butter. So if you want peanut butter sobriety, see then you don't work. So you don't get steak by not working steps.

You can get peanut butter sobriety, but the only problem with that see peanut butter always sticks to the roof of your mouth. You know, love my sobriety. So what he's saying is what I'm saying is in looking at the steps though if you were saying you have to do it don't do it cuz you won't anyway right you not only you but you have a mental resistance because it's designed we only designed to function from free will so the only catcher is is there are no have to really in the whole world except one is we have to die but pretty much Everything else is a matter of choice.

So you don't have to pay taxes. See, don't pay them. Now, there's a catcher.

There's always a consequence for every choice. You don't pay taxes, you end up in jail. Well, that's true.

But you do not have to pay taxes. Now, you get in jail, you can get out of jail in one day or maybe two at the most. If you're in jail, you want to get out, hang yourself.

So, you'd be out in a pine box. That's true. But I don't want to see die.

Well, then shut up and pay your taxes. See, but do it on a want, to choose, to like it, love it. So, I think it's important for a person to think just a little bit about that in terms of steps.

You do not have to work steps to stay sober. Honest to God, you don't don't do it. But there's a consequence for that.

But if you want to be free, want the freedom, you want the promises, you want whatever that is, then steps will get you that. So if you want that, see, then do it on the want to choose to like it, love it, not cuz you have to, cuz you don't. A lot of people stay sober and never work steps, but they never taste the honey either, right?

So this is about tasting the honey uh of life. So I think it's very very important to take a look at deciding. See what works in the decisions is I choose to do this.

I want to do this. So then you align all the powers of will and you don't have that little resistance thing. You know if you ever notice when you tell yourself you have to do something you ever notice how you very creatively go do something else.

You say geez I intended to do I I have to do this today or else. And then it seems like we never end up doing it. So I think it's important to uh come to terms with that.

If you're going to work the steps, do them cuz you want to. Cuz you really won't anyway. If you're telling yourself you have to do them, you won't.

>> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.