We are back at it. The recovered addict podcast,
Jason Ricci and I've been Frank. Yes.
And I want to get into today we're going to go right into the
ego. This is going to be cool.
So if you're an addict then there's a part of you that's
called the ego that plays a role in this addiction and that's
what we're going to get into the role.
It's playing a role on a stage. Hmm.
The role of the ego and addiction and it says this.
This the ego in psychological terms refers to the conscious
mind that mediates between the individual and reality.
So what is reality join? I'm gonna throw a big, what is
reality. Well, if I'm behaving in my
addiction, usually reality is all about me.
In the meantime. Me is the, yeah, you know, how
an addicts alarm clock goes off in the morning.
Me me, me, me, me me. That's what we like to say.
All the time. You know, I'm not much but I'm
all I think that's all I think about.
Yeah. So I have a skewed version
version of reality. I'm usually if I'm behaving in
my addiction, if I'm behaving in my ego I'm not capable of seeing
reality. I don't really know what that
is, the world and its people are here to serve me, right?
That's what I thought that aren't you here for me?
What do you got? I'm ready, I just need to get
mine because the world is cruel. I'm here for me and I need to
get as much money as I I can make and I need to have as much
fun as I want. And I'm just going to do
everything about me and subconsciously, that's not the
real you. But your the ego has you fooled
into thinking? That.
That's the real used. So it says this and I think this
is really good. It is the part of our psyche
that is primary responsible for our sense of identity and
self-worth. So, the ego is not bad.
No, the ego is not bad and it's important to also understand.
I'm never getting rid of it. We don't want to view the ego as
an adversary. We don't want to view the ego as
this thing. I need to remove from my life.
It's important understand. It's a normal part of the human
brain, the functionality of my Consciousness ego is going to be
their lives in my mind, it couldn't possibly live anywhere
else, I'm not ever going to get rid of my mind.
So we don't get very far when we try and fight it.
It's just like saying I circulate my blood.
I digest my food, hold on Jason, I need to tell myself to digest
my food right now and that's not the way those organs work.
That's not the way the mind works either.
I don't say, I think my thoughts thoughts just happen, the ego
just is it's going to be there. I do.
I'm not going to. It's important that we all
understand that, I'm not going to get very far trying to fight
the ego. No.
Yeah. And the ego played a big role
especially back in the day. Day, you know?
And so we have if we look at Evolution psychology especially
back in the day, I mean it it protected you like the fire
flight. Like, if you're running from a
cheetah you need your ego, it's important in.
It will save my life, right? It's necessary again, we're not
ever going to get rid of it and I think so looking at what a
healthy ego is, I think is really important but
understanding the eagle plays a lot of different roles.
The ego helps me win a basketball game.
Hmm. You know, like you just played
basketball and you said you were pretty sore for three days.
If there's a few hours after that game, I couldn't walk, I
hadn't played five-on-five basketball in over in full court
in over a decade. But my ego said you got this?
Yeah, give it everything. You got so you and you wouldn't
have even tried if you had. No ego.
No. And that experience was a blast.
It was very enjoyable for, right?
Yeah. I felt present.
And I was definitely existing in reality and, and you ski to.
So the ego says you got this, you can handle this mountain.
If you didn't have an ego, it would just the ego.
Can also tell me you've never skied before.
Jason, this potentially could be super dangerous.
You don't know what you're doing, so don't go on that ski.
He lifts to that very dangerous, you know, I don't even know what
they call them Trails or your runs or you know, whatever they
call them. So the ego plays, a very good
role in our psyche, in the sense of identity and self-worth.
This is where we get hijacked. This is where the ego starts to
play. It's your it's your little
friend that comes up alongside of you as a one-year-old.
And because I always look at as a baby is Ultimate selfishness.
Yes a baby. A baby is all in their ego 100%.
It's like I'm going to cry. I'm going to do whatever I want
because I right now feel uncomfortable and I need all
these people to serve me. That's kind of like I've always
looked at like a baby or I mean you have a two-year-old I have a
two-year-old and they call it terrible tools.
For a reason a baby is not capable.
I'm surviving without outside help.
So, a baby needs to be selfish. Baby needs to be the center of
the universe. Otherwise, they literally are
not going to survive, but if that behavior persists, past a
functional age of, now, I can fend for myself.
Then I'm acting in my ego. Then I'm the center of the
universe. Then I still have an unconscious
belief that Anyone else is supposed to behave to cater?
To me. I'm used to everyone catering to
me, but only children's innocence.
Yeah, only children have this a lot.
The appropriate role for parents is to be an excellent role model
for their child and an excellent parent takes responsibility for
themselves. How do I be a good parent?
I take responsibility for myself which in turn provides an
excellent role model for my child.
It's not give the child everything they want, right?
That's not the best guy prepared.
It's just not. I'm crippling the child.
Yeah, they were asking this. This guy had hundreds of
millions of dollars and they were asking him the other day.
I thought it was really cool side note real quick.
How he parents whose kids to try to prevent them from being, you
know, you have hundreds of millions of dollars, you're set
for life. You have generational wealth.
So how do you like keep your kids from being spoiled?
And it goes, I really thought about this, like, I've done in
depth. He says one is not to give your
kids. Everything like you just said,
number two is to have them learn things.
You know, and then allow them to understand, you know, to set
rules and boundaries and things like that.
So he had them every day they had to they had a pool.
So every day they had to swim for like an hour then they had
to watch a, if they're going to before they can watch regular
TV. They have to watch a documentary
on something that they can learn from.
And it may interest them and maybe the Michael Jordan Last
Dance documentary. If they like sports, whatever it
is. But they have to watch something
that's going to make them better and then they have to work and
I'm not talking like child labor and all that stuff.
And I'm talking about they have to To do several hours a day of
work and he's like, so far so far, we're, you know, batting a
thousand. I think he has four kids but
batting 1000 with all four of them, you know, being
productive. But if you're and I like to I
like the rich kid analogy as looking at it with just being
dominated by your ego. It's like everything's been
given to you. I have a Rolls-Royce.
I live in a mansion dad's provided everything for me.
But what type of Am I, I'm depressed, I'm suicidal, you
know, I can't function in the so-called real world because I
totally disabled and that's what the ego will do to you the ego,
want your comfort? It wants you to eat the
doughnuts. It wants you to go to the
casino. It wants you to pick up the
bottle, it wants, what's good for you and it's limited
capacity. You know that bottle the ego is
like you know, we've handled lots of problems with this.
This, let's try this again. You know, we've done.
This is comfortable. Yes, let's grab this bottle and
do it again. Oh, now, you're blackout drunk.
Oh, now you're in the hospital drawing what, you've experienced
my story. Yeah.
So, the materials has, however, when the ego becomes overly
dominant this, what I want you to talk to, when the ego becomes
overly dominant, it can lead to a host of issues including
addiction. Yeah, my world is chaos when I'm
behaving in my ego. I'm ruled by selfish and
self-centered decisions, thoughts and obsessions.
And if I don't have a way out of that, if I don't have an outlet,
if I don't have an Avenue of service, why would it be of
service to somebody else? I'm here to be of service to me.
I didn't know that was an option.
So pretty paradoxical thought for an addict to help somebody
else. I'm just interested in getting
mine and that type of behavior creates a lot of suffering.
Discomfort disconnect, and, I don't feel, I don't have any
sense of self-worth. It was never presented an
opportunity to take responsibility.
For my inner, my inner, my inner peace.
My inner being for how I'm feeling on the inside, the
gentleman. That's raising those four kids.
I try and have similar plant practice with my kids.
They have their chores around the house they need to do.
They have Guidelines boundaries and expectations.
I try and teach them and form them.
And what's acceptable not acceptable.
And with one of our kids, we even are doing a reward system
where if they get these chores done then they get a like a
token. It's like a pretend piece of
gold, right? And then if the, if the, if my
son acquires five pieces of gold, he can cash those in an
experiment. So it's a little, you know,
external Reward there, but at the same time, we're teaching
him. Work ethic.
We're teaching him, delayed gratification.
You don't get the, you don't get the the treat right away, you
don't get that. Go to the ice cream parlor with
one gold coin, you have to work for it.
You have to earn it. You have to it's on you.
If you don't if you don't do the chores.
Sorry. You're the one that doesn't get
it. Yeah, that's okay.
You didn't take action. So we're teaching
responsibilities were teaching sense of purpose.
We're Teaching boundaries were teaching consequences, and if
I'm not presented with those opportunities, of course, I'm
going to be a selfish, self-centered individual
selfish, self-centered individual loves to live in
their ego and it's easy for that ego to lose X function, its
original function of fight, or flight and need to keep myself
safe, work, hard, we want to win this.
We're in a competition, those type of Original functions,
those type of natural functions can be taken to an extreme, if
I'm in a delusional lifestyle of addiction.
So, whenever we look at the ego becomes overly dominant, So it
hijacked and for majority of people, they're living in their
ego. Absolutely.
And it's become overly dominant. Yeah, instead of and you had
said something before, and I thought it was so good.
The spirit and the ego, the spiritual side in the ego, can
you kind of explain that a little bit in the submissiveness
to that? Yeah, absolutely.
So like we've discussed in the past hope good way of
understanding for me and a nice spiritual tool that we have in
our tool kit is Portal. Dimension of existence vertical,
dimension of existence, horizontal existence.
Is the world of form is the world of job relationship,
money, anything form-based exist in my world.
My horizontal world what most people believe.
That's it. That's it.
And we would also say human so human form exists in that
horizontal and then if you enter vertical Dimension, enter World
of spirit Source. God Consciousness, we could also
say being. So we're human world of ERM
where the ego lives and being where my spirit lives.
So we're both, it's very important to understand that
we're human beings. I'm not ever going to just get
rid of the human part and be total Buddhist monk floating on
a mountain. And, and that's it.
I don't even need to eat anymore because I'm just pure spirit.
It's important to honor both honor.
The part of me that is form. That is human honor, the part of
me that is being. That is It the correct place for
us. Is the marrying of the to we
want them to blend together. And in my opinion my ideal is to
have this Spirit foremost in that marriage to end to have the
ego. Submissive to my spirit, they're
working in coherence. They're working in agreement but
the eagle understands Source gets to make this decision.
So allowing the spirit are for me.
A higher self. That's kind of how I look at
allowing my how herself to be the dominant force in everything
I do. Because I'm understanding that
is eternal wisdom. I'm understanding that as, you
know, God or whatever it may be. That is what needs to be overly
dominant, not the material, not the ego in addiction.
It's the ego. That is dominant.
It's the ego that says this will work.
This will work now. Do it.
Mmm. Don't seek spiritual solution if
I'm trying to feel a god-sized hole.
Hole inside of me. It takes work.
Yes. Yes, it takes work touching
spirit, it takes work. Tapping into A different
perspective of life. That's going to enable me to
feel free instead of feel fear instead of feel in bondage.
I'm just bent up. I'm totally Limited.
If I'm coming from my ego and I'm unconscious to it, if I'm
unconscious to it. Usually means I'm behaving in my
addiction. Yeah.
And overly dominant ego, I want you to share the store.
If you don't mind, you've shared with me offline before is, you
know, you were sober for a while.
And then there was a time frame where you weren't and then you
happen to meet someone and they had a conversation with you and
you were, you didn't even realize that at the moment till
they cheered with you but you were An overly dominant ego
stage? Yeah absolutely.
It's funny how? My selfish, self-centered
Behavior. In the world when I behaved that
way in the world, usually the world will kick my ass in
response to my destructive behavior.
And one of our great analogies is I'm living such a
destructive, addictive, lifestyle.
I'm actually in the gutter. No, no, I'm in the gutter, I'm
bleeding. And the ego is so powerful and
revealed so quickly. I'm in the gutter, I'm bleeding.
And I'm still judging people's shoes as they walk by.
To be superior. I'm so glad feels to look at her
bleeding from my addiction. So, yeah, I had an experience
where I was five months, 20 days sober.
I was very lucky and graced to be around spiritual teachers
that were helping me at that time in my life.
I was working a couple jobs. I didn't have many spiritual
tools at the time. I didn't have enough spiritual
tools at the time to disidentify from my ego.
My ego said more. Money is going to make this
better. You probably need to work even
more. So I was putting in 8088 hour
work weeks and Getting burnt out, burning the candle at both
ends. My ego.
The part of me that is unconscious said, you know,
cocaine would make this a lot easier and I returned to drugs
and I don't know, 20 minutes later I returned to alcohol.
Five months, 20 days was out the window.
And then amazing. How?
Yes. And because of my destructive
Behavior, I picked it right back up, exactly where I left off.
So the ego, the ego said, the ego said, this is the upper
limit problem to the eagle turned around and said, you know
what? You've been working 80 plus H,
you've been doing so good. You deserve a treat joining.
If you have this heat, let's get you some nose candy.
Yeah. Nose candy will help you work
even more as well? Oh, yeah, it was like I said,
you got you could work more. You have to have the thought at
all. Was it just so unconsciousness?
As I want this, I'm going to take it now or was it?
Like, I think I could handle this.
I didn't have the thought of, I think I could handle this.
I just was not well practiced enough to come from vertical
Dimension. First, I was not making
decisions based out of my spirit, I was making It's based
on the former world of the world of form out of my ego and just
pure pure pure emotion. Like oh my God, that sounds
awesome. Let me go.
I got money money. I want more money right?
If I get it. So the money was making me feel
better. I wasn't drunk and I thought
well I just need more money. I'm going to feel even better
because this is really important right now at the stage because I
think there's a lot of people that are listening to this, or
watching this, that are at this stage right here, where they
their ego is tricking them and thinking that they got it.
Correct. Yeah, they're good and you Be
five months over you, maybe five days over, you know, you maybe
five years over. It doesn't matter.
It's scary how quickly. The ego root will rebuild my
addiction, will administer a good beating and usually that
good beating puts me in a position of submission and after
that position of submission, I come in asking for help please,
you know, I'm willing to live different, but then I'm right
back to my old ways because I don't have the tools to retrain
or rebuild. Yes, structure, that is
destroying my life that structure exists in my mind that
structure is condition. That structure is my
selfishness. That structure is my
uncontrolled ego, my ego foremost, not my spirit.
So five months. 20 days sober. Get a little cocaine.
Get a little alcohol. The way that I participate in my
addiction. Took me two weeks to get into
the hospital. So you are hard-wired like
that's your thing. I don't know any other way to go
100%. I have two speeds All or nothing
makes me. Very successful in business,
makes me very deadly in my addiction.
Hmm, Frank got it's close to dying as I ever want to get God
willing. That was my bottom.
That was my last drink, that was for 13 years.
That was your last drink. Yeah, that was.
So that was 13 years ago. And you had a spiritual teacher
that yes, I had something to you that I was already.
I was already exposed to some spiritual teachers by grace and
I came in and saw this spiritual teacher.
Now, this was a very, this was a tough man.
This was a rough man old school old school.
His name is Dick. And dick was was dying of COPD
and he was on oxygen. And he sound like Darth Vader.
He would You knew where you were spiritually.
If you spent any time with Dick and because he would rub people
the wrong way, they would just be furious being in his
presence. No, I can't stand and and so if
you weren't in good on good spiritual terms, you were
bothered by your outside world. And anyways, dickhead he had
done time in Leavenworth State Penitentiary, he had, he was
convicted. Of attempted murder of a police
officer. They gave him 25 years.
Wow, this is a hard man and I was a, he died, 70 years old, 10
years sober. And I had the gift of getting to
be in his hospital room with him as he passed away.
And I've helped, I've been, I've done that with a couple people.
A couple spiritual advisors that have helped reshape my life and
dick was one of the first men that helped me and You know, I
came back after after that trip, to the hospital.
My ego had already rebuilt when dick was in prison in
Leavenworth. He was doing a construction job
to get his sentence lowered. And a big cinder block had
fallen on this construction, site landed on his hand and
severed his index finger. Dick was a hard man.
He picked up his severed finger, jammed it back on his nub and
then went to the infirmary and the infirmary sewed it on, but
they sewed it on all crooked and messed up.
Not like professional doctors. It's just a prison.
And anyways, He was interested in living a paradoxical
lifestyle in his recovery. He was interested in helping
other people. He knew if he was of service to
others, he was coming from Spirit rather than coming from
ego. And I can't, I saw him that day
after I got out of the hospital and he said, Dwayne, Dwayne.
I'm so glad to see you. I was worried about you and my
ego had already rebuilt and I said, really, what was going on?
a lot of guilt and shame, and I didn't know how to communicate
that and I said, yeah, I'm glad to see you too dick.
I got it. I think I got it this time and
Dick. Hit me real hard in the chest
with his nubby little index finger and he said you don't
have shit. God has it.
That's awesome. Completely crushed my ego.
I was vulnerable enough at that moment.
From the beating alcohol had just administered me that I was
willing to listen and I heard him, say this old man dying on
oxygen with a Broken body and messed up finger.
I heard him say you don't have it, you can't do this.
You can try as much as you want but you're not going to be able
to figure this out. God has this is a spirit inside
of me has this? That's so good.
Yeah he saved my life, that's so hot.
But that little nubby finger you never drinks and that moment of
truth the and you don't know what that moment of truth can be
for someone. You never know.
So that's why you just constant service to others?
What I learned about the story, one of the things that is so
beautiful about it is and people don't realize this.
I don't think with the ego because it's such a trickster,
that's why I look at it as, like, just tricking you all the
time. Yeah.
That guilt and shame that you experienced guilt and shame is a
direction of ego. Absolutely.
You're in full bore taking over, like, Alien Invasion.
Like the ego has took over if you're in guilt and shame.
Yeah. What are the best examples of my
ego is? Oh, there's an alien invasion.
They're coming for me. Thinking that the cops are
worried about you. Yes, thinking that people are
out to get you. You know that's all the
hijacking of the ego. It's making you the center of
attention for everything often a lot of substance is increased
sense. Perceptions vision is increased,
hearing is increased. That's what I'd so easy to get
addicted to the outside world around me is like wow this is
incredible. It's like I said it's a tree,
it's a leaf. Yes it is incredible.
You can get there without drugs. but when sense perceptions are
increased, it's very easy for the mind to start taking over
and trying to compute, trying to make sense of these increased
sense perceptions. So I get lost in the mind.
Which if I'm behaving unconsciously in my addiction
means, I'm also lost in my ego so the mind is taking over in
the next thing. You know you're seeing rats or
your you're worried that the cops are right outside your
door. You know, different things like
that. I know the side effects of
staying up all night long, doing cocaine.
You get ninjas on the lawn, possibly peering window to see
if no one ever came for me. But I knew someone was coming to
get me. Yeah, and that's it.
That to me, it. Revelation but being
passive-aggressive being where you're sacrificing.
Oh, you know I just have to do so much for my kids all the
time. It's just, you know, I just do
so many things for them and they just never realize all the
sacrifices. I make that's all he go.
The guilt it's just tricking you and people get mad about this,
you know, and I I used to get mad about it because I was so
into my self-pity I would go down the rabbit hole saw L pity
that it would lead to depression.
But I was so into self-pity and so into how much of a victim I
was and how every single person I ever interacted with would
take advantage of me. Yes like every single person
well obviously those aren't it's not the people's problem it's my
problem one. Why am I attracted people take
advantage of me? That's the first question.
I said number two it's like why is every single person my
parents my sister my my family you know the people that Why why
is every boss mean and always just making me work.
So many hours. Well it was the illusion of my
mind. My balls really a lot of my
bosses didn't even they're so busy.
They're not concerned about me. They're not thinking about me
but I'm obsessed. That they're seeing me slave
away. Very good.
Do you see what I'm saying? The eat.
I want people to understand a lot of your thoughts. 90% of
them are ego-based. Absolutely.
And this is But a large component of what we're addicted
to, it may be whatever any substance doesn't matter where
we're really what we're taking for me.
It was the alcohol from. You was the cocaine But the
thoughts that arose, hmm from the unconscious ego taking over
and then the energetic response, the emotions the chemicals that
were released as a result of those thoughts.
That becomes the addiction. I've become addicted to the
energetic response of fear. I begin addicted to the
energetic. Responsive, we have to fight
these people. All these people are against me.
Rrr, I feel so good as I'm driving to the casino.
Yeah, exactly. I'm gonna be I'm gonna do
24-hour poker game. Yes.
We say, if you've met for
assholes before, lunch, you're probably the asshole?
That is so good, bro. They think about themselves.
Because he they're all thinking about you now.
Start to align your behavior as such but that's so freeing, it's
freeing. When you can get out of that rat
race in your head of you being this most important thing in
everybody's Minds, very good. Because now, it gives, if you
can take that space, like, you talked about our last podcast,
if you could pull yourself away from that emotion and be in that
aware space. Mmm.
Now, you can begin to look at it and you can be like, Oh my God.
My ego has been tricking me. I've been living in this Spear
and I've been taking people's opinions as the reality of who I
am. And I've been putting them all
together. Even if I'm like a mom or dad or
whatever. This is obsessed over their
kids. Yes.
And they live for their kids and their kids become a god, an
idol. You know, we talked about this
before and so they, when their kids leave, they have no
identity. You know, you see couples
separate, you know, like they've been married for 25 years, 30
years and they separate when their kids.
They're gone because there are a whole identity was put into
their children. Absolutely, you know, and so,
they needed their kids to function, they needed those
events, you know what? I, it's so crazy, you see, it
with the proverbial, the crazy dad, that goes to the football
game and he has a son, you know, he's like, you know, he's going
crazy and you know, he looks like that asshole.
Mmm, that is he's not he's not there.
His he goes there for him, he's using the kid, very good for him
to be there. It's About him in that stage
because you're not supporting your child.
In fact, you're being cruel to your child by forcing them to do
something. They may not even want to do,
you know? It was, it was so hilarious.
When, you know, I have three sons, it was so hilarious.
All three of them. Only one of them wanted to do
Sports. You know, the other two were not
and I gave him, I gave everybody a choice.
Like what do you want to do? You know, like what are you
like? What is it that you really
really want to do that? Makes you productive for
society, you know, and And they all three love mechanics, that
was just their thing, you know, and they do do that as a
profession now, so it's just funny how all three of them got
into working on cars or working on, you know, whatever, heavy
equipment. But if I wouldn't have allowed
them to do that and push them to do basketball, like, I did, yes.
None of them. They didn't even like to play
basketball, they had no interest in basketball.
Now my ego wants them to play basketball.
It wouldn't have served them. It wouldn't have served you,
right? Right?
Because you would have been upset that they didn't become
the menu thought. They were supposed to be the
man. I thought there you gave them a
gift. Yes, I detaching your
expectation on their reality, but I think this is what this is
what I'm getting at when the ego becomes overly dominant.
And then the host of issues that are material talks about it
leads to a host of issues, including one of them is
addiction, but it leads to a host of issues.
And these issues are affecting every single part of your life.
Very good. Yeah, very good.
There's a web of it. Yeah, to return.
To our initial conversation I think was podcast won the first
greatest lie of addiction is This time will be different.
Mmm. Yeah, tell him.
I'm not going to get arrested this time.
I'm not going to lose the relationship.
This time. It'll be different.
The, the experiment of insanity. Let's try the exact same thing
but this time would be different.
It was never any different. The second greatest lie of
addiction is well, what's wrong with you?
Is me, excuse me, is wrong with me.
Is you if only you were different I would be okay.
If only the world behave, the way I Think it needs to behave
I'm going to be okay if that's my delusion.
Hmm and that's easy to come from that delusion if I'm in my
addiction if I'm in my egoic self, centered mind.
For some reason, I get a host of issues, you know, you shared
something. I thought was really important,
you may not even realize it. It was really really cool.
The story you shared and you baby shirt real quick because
this is a small story but you had said something a couple
weeks ago where you had a party And I was, I really thought
about this because it was really interesting.
You said, you said, you and your girlfriend.
We're just in flow. Yeah.
And you guys were just like, moving around and both of you
had been in food service so it'd be easy.
So I don't know if you had 20 people, 30 people at your house
and backyard. Having a supper party break
apart or whatever it is. And I began to think about how
people get in such big fights and they get so angry and, like,
before the party, and after the party and do, During the party.
And there's people right now that are that are just just had
experiences that they they can't be present.
And in the moment because ego has to say I'm doing this party
and I'm sacrificing it don't you realize I stayed up all night to
make these hors d'oeuvres. You know and I'm a damn,
absolutely perfect and everybody just ate him really fast because
everybody's drunk, I didn't really care.
And Jim you know, spilled alcohol on my we spilled wine on
my white carpet and you know, Susan did this, you know and
Teresa got, can you believe she did this?
We're in the moment when you had two people that were spiritually
just serving others. You see what I'm saying?
There was no, like, I can't believe I have to barbecue, you
know, you were just happy in the moment and you had told me, you
said, you were excited to see how people were talking to each
other, like family members. I hadn't talked to each other in
a while. It was just complete service to
others. Yeah.
It was, it was a beautiful experience that my son, had his
seventh birthday and we threw a party at her house.
My my partner, she put the whole thing together.
She's incredible. And it was themed it.
Had Spaceman cupcakes, Spaceman Spaceman banners and that's
normally like a super stressful situation.
It was it was a themed party. She put it all together.
She was the host of this party and she for that moment,
honored, that role I was able to take a I guess a step back.
Offer my presence instead of offer my judgment.
I had like thirty five people at my house and kids running around
throwing water balloons. My backyard is pristine, she
knew better not to tell me that they were going to do water
balloons until she was filling up the water.
All right. Little plastic pieces can be all
over the yard. Are you ready?
Wants it to be my way. My ego wants to say, well,
what's wrong with me? Is you guys in your behavior.
If your behavior is different, I'll be okay.
Just don't throw those water balloons and I'm going to be
funny. I don't don't be a kid.
Don't have fun. You couldn't possibly make fun
of my back. Why are you here?
So, if I'm coming from horizontal Force, if I'm coming
from ego first, I'm extremely controlling an extremely
selfish. You need to fit my idea of how
this supposed to go, but if I'm coming from Spirit first, if I'm
coming from source, First, if I'm coming from the part of me
that his presence that can be present and I offer that
presence. We talk about this all the time.
What's the best thing I can give anyone ever my presence?
The best thing you do for an addict.
If you're listening to this and you're trying to help somebody
just offer your present for your presence, instead of offering my
judgment instead of offering my fear.
Instead of offering, my anger, all those things exist in my
ego. Those things don't exist in my
presence if I can. For my presence is the best
thing I can give anyone because it feels so comfortable being in
someone's presence. I can just be who I am.
These kids can just be who they are, they can just throw the
water balloons. I didn't take a backseat, but I
took the role of Manning the grill.
I've cooked a brisket, we had Burgers, we had hot dogs going.
I was on the grill, she was playing host.
We never communicated once at the beginning of this party, Ooh
saying okay, you talk to the guests and and be host and and
interact. I will cook and and and be on
the grill and cook and take care of the food that just unfolded
organically and it's cool that you are able to understand the
potential that made that available.
Well, what normally happens is I can't believe Bill, you know,
the wife to the husband you're just hanging out in the garage
and I've done This work, I spent six hours getting ready for this
party and you don't care, you just drinking, you know,
pre-gaming before the thing watching and you're not helped
at all. And then the guys, like, well, I
don't want to be around her for a party, so I'm just going to go
do my own thing. You know, I mean both are at
fault here. It's all ego and then they've
gotten into big fight. She's crying, while she's trying
to figure stuff out and then one of their close Neighbors comes
in. And then the close neighbor
turns around, it's like you. Okay, what's wrong?
Just like I just kept you know until for 20-something years.
You know what? Then she's just make both the
people and then bills out in the yard.
Just, and with the bunch of guys, you know, sitting there
smoking and then talking shit about their wives and how
horrible there were there. You could just all ego.
Yep. None of that was service to
others, all ego and very common. That's why I'm saying, I believe
that relationship also. Yeah.
Too much control, too much chaos.
Hmm, not good for anybody. Yeah.
And the material says, this is an inflated ego can make us us
feel Invincible leading us to take unnecessary risk like
experiencing that the Des acceptance or behaviors and you
had talked about this earlier you at five months, you know, an
inflated ego makes us feel invincible and there's a lot of
people like and I've heard this from addicts, I'm talking like
drug addicts or whatever. Like I've got this.
I think I got it this time and you'd said that to Dick.
Yeah. You're like I got this.
I got it. I can think I got it this.
Figure it out on my own. I have some game left.
I have some moxie. When he hit me in the chest, he
was he didn't have any other tool at the moment to tell me
you're coming from your inflated ego.
You know, a large portion of spiritual practice is deflating
the ego. I'm get, it's gassed up enough
on my practice now it's deflate that ego a practice of humility
is a difficult walk be careful, be careful.
If you start asking for humility, we I want to make this
very clear anyone that's listening, you're gonna get it.
So you get lots of learning lessons, a lot of lessons
opportunities II prayed for humility one time, I'm my girl,
my girlfriend at the time. Was pregnant six months later.
So, be careful. If you ask for humility, you
might get it. Life was no longer about me
because there's no problems in life.
They're just learning lessons correct.
Yeah, it's so you're just going to if you want humility, you're
just going to get a bunch of learning lessons are what we
call problems. Be careful asking for that one,
but it is a wonderful spiritual tool to not be the crazy dad, on
the lawn who can't believe he's with his wife or 27 years
because he's not getting his way ever.
Mmm. I'm not at all.
Humble in that moment. Coming from a perspective of
just a member of, I'm just a part of I'm not King Dwayne, but
you didn't get to piss on me either, right?
I'm just a part of the, I'm just right sized.
One of our favorite definitions of humility is being
right-sized. The ego, does not allow me.
My unconscious ego. Does not allow me to be right
sized. My unconscious.
Ego is either, I'm King Duane you behave the way I need you
behave or Your everybody just pisses on me, I'm the worst
thing. There is there doesn't get any
lower existence than me. Whether it's really, really - or
really really positive. If it's selfish self-centered,
it's still ego and those oscillate with a person with an
addiction Personnel. Absolute.
That's how it happened. I could be like this person is
the greatest person ever. I love them so much, and then
five minutes later. It's like, oh my God, I'm so
depressed. Yeah, like, I mean, I can
oscillate that bad with my emotions if I'm not careful.
Just some people have more of an empathic.
Yeah. Motion, you know, this.
I thought was interesting. It says, it can prevent us from
seeing the truth, about our addiction, causing us, to deny
the problem, and reject, help from others.
It's a wild. Tool that the mine has.
Like a, it's basically like, putting a pair of sunglasses
over my eyes, like a psychosis like my.
Addiction is so powerful my delusion moment in my selfish.
Self-centered Behavior. I need to keep doing what I'm
doing because it's the only way I know how to do what I'm doing.
I refuse to look at reality when I have this selfish pair of
glasses that come down over my eyes.
It's like blindness. Like I said, a blind was, like,
I can't see reality. I'll do what I need to do to get
what I want. The truth about our addiction
and we've talked about this before.
But I want people to understand what is the truth about your
addiction Dwayne like what's the truth about yours?
Like your alcohol and drug abuse but mainly alcohol, right?
Yeah. We've talked about this a lot.
Now, we're going to get, I'll be vulnerable and we're going to
get, you know, pretty deep-seated.
These are usually stem from deep-seated issues, but the
truth about my addiction. Is I didn't have a way to
address. The trauma or the
uncomfortableness I grew up with.
I didn't have a way to address the pain that was living inside
of me as a result of my conditioning, or as a result of
My environment. All I knew was this is not what
I want to feel. So alcohol and drugs allowed me
to not feel that you felt amazing.
I didn't have to feel hmm if initially it felt amazing but
then it just turned into I don't have to feel and the truth of
that it at that progresses. The truth of the addiction
becomes I need this in order to be okay.
Just to be okay just to be okay because the pain is so
embarrassing. Yeah I'll lose a job.
Don't care. I need to be okay.
Lose a relationship. Don't care need to be okay.
It's been every cent in my bank account.
Don't care need to be okay. And so through this pain, this
childhood pain that you experienced its sought it self
the ego came into if they the ecos like Dwayne I got you Yeah,
we're going to we're going to take walk down this road
together. You know, we're gonna go down
this journey, this ego journey and it's going to be, it's it we
don't have to worry about your pain anymore.
I got you the pain. No more pain.
If you do this, you like doing this.
Do this more. I didn't have any tools to slay
the dragon. Yeah, exactly.
And we all have this, we all have passed.
We all have hurt. We all have life happens.
Whether you live a spiritual life are not life happens.
We don't we all have to go through.
Hard stuff. So, tell me because our material
talks about this part and tell me if this related to what you
just said. Because I kind of set you up,
this is really good. Listen to this.
The ego can also lead us to believe that we are Unworthy of
love, happiness and Recovery. Keeping us stuck in the cycle of
addiction unworthiness. Yes, I definitely experienced
unworthiness. In the progression of the
addiction. I didn't, you know, I didn't
feel that right away. Hmm, I believe that I've always
had the god-centered inner being inside of me.
But the more and more dependent I became upon alcohol in order
to feel okay. The more I turned away from that
part of me that God centered piece that already knew.
I was okay. so the sense of worthlessness is sense of not
good enough to sense of Shame. I needed to get further and
further away from that which made it easier and easier to
progress into the disease. And I think, for me, the
unworthiness part hit me harder because of the trauma that I
experienced as a child too. And I think that's pretty much
all of it. You know, that's what your
blueprint is that your Matrix, that's what your judge.
If you had a great experience on something.
You know, if I go out skiing for the very first time and I have a
terrific experience, I probably won't go ski again or I think -
You that your number one thing like for Flow State.
Like you love skiing, you know, so it's all about our
experiences but for me, the unworthiness part, I think hit
the most being raised in a very fundamentalist Christian home.
You're never good enough. There's so many sins out there
and you're always sitting, you know, and it needs sins like and
you got to be careful because the devil will have you sinned
like all different kinds of ways you don't even realize it you
know it's almost like the devil becomes the ego you know that
whole thing. But for me it was like Your and
then the Hell Fire Brimstone preaching and you always felt
guilt and shame and you never felt good enough.
I'd never felt like here. I'm a 12 year old boy and I
discover my penis but you can't do that.
That's a sin. So then I'm just constantly, you
know, as twelve-year-old, I'm not be too graphic here but you
know what a 12 year old boy, does he said you are one?
Yeah you're just sitting a lot and then obviously you start
looking at girls, you know. And then it's like I never Just
that on a girl before you know, at 12 and 13.
So I got all this guilt and shame and then I'm going to the
Altar and praying you know and asking for I'm crying and asking
for, you know, am I even saved? Am I going to go to heaven?
I'm probably going to go to hell because you know I looked at a
girl's ass you know what I mean? And so then I got to go repent
for that. And just all this constant of
just repenting and repenting and going through this whole
process. And so it developed in me, this
sense of empowerment, Unworthiness.
And so it got to the point and here's where diction happens in
my life, in different formats, not an alcohol or drugs, but
other ways. My unworthiness would be like,
well, fuck it. I'm unworthy.
So just fuck it. Yep.
And then guess what happens? Major destructive behavior.
I'm talking torching things. You have any relationships.
I feel sorry for with girls that I were in where I just torch the
thing I would say. Okay.
You want to have wordplay here, okay?
And I'm talking like physical, none of that ever that.
But it was like words that hurt. That is the thing that I the
things that I said you can't go back from, you know, I would
just Just okay. I'm hurting inside.
So I'm just going to throw a whole word salad, torch and just
cool just flame throw and I'm going to be super
self-destructive all because I did not believe I was worthy of
love, you know? And I think this is really
important because the the material says keeping us stuck
in the cycle of addiction. Yes, that's the problem.
Yes. I don't have the tools to break
free from the cycle. I'm unworthy.
We also understand, we're powerful creators whether we're
conscious of it or not. So I start creating environments
where I'm going to feel Unworthy.
Of course, I'm going to have a relationship that falls apart.
I couldn't possibly be deserving of a real relationship of loving
healthy relationship so I'm going to attract and create an
environment where I get the blowtorch things.
Why? Because I'm used to blowtorching
trauma bonding. It's exactly.
Right. Trauma bonding.
And again, this is the pair of glasses that come down over my
eyes. That was not what I chose.
I didn't choose that and I would never be what I signed up for
the Eco wants the best for us but often produces the worst,
that's the same as the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. We don't really care what your
intentions are not in a spiritual lifestyle, and
spiritual lifestyle were very concerned with what your feet
do. What are your actions say?
Dear? Action, say you love me your
actions. Say this is a safe environment,
your action say. I can just be who I am?
No, my actions, never said that my actions had.
You need to be this way in order for me to be okay?
If it's not I'm Wiley Coyote, I'm gonna blow it up.
I had the same experience over and over and over again.
Isn't it funny that we seek a safe environment?
That's so beautiful what you said in and it funny that we
seek a safe environment and then we're not safe at all.
No. I mean it's not safe to be in a
relationship with us. Our diction.
It's not safe in my mean it's safe.
Now for me, I believe, but I believe is my spiritual
practices and stuff like that. But you know, ten years ago.
It was not safe to be in a relationship with me.
My mind is not a safe place, but I was seeking safety all the
time and I thought that externally I could get into this
with this. And that goes into the second
part. It says not only does it this
unworthiness of love happiness recovery at the same time.
The eagle can fuel are addictive behaviors as we seek external
validation and escape from feelings of inferiority.
Already or inadequacy. So this is an ailing me like
this material right now is just hitting me so hard.
I got the two before the spiritual, 2x4 under rights.
So the eagle can fuel are addictive behaviors as we're
seeking external validation because the unworthiness seeks
the validation. That's also part of my ego, can
dress it up. It looks good.
Look at him. He's the best employee.
We have he works every day. And it's I'm not really I don't
care a damn about this job. I want your validation.
If I don't have your validation I don't have self-worth.
It's very difficult to articulate that in a Unconscious
Behavior. There's no way I will ever
articulate that I'm just killing myself, working all the time,
but people don't even realize this, the cruel father that I
had, or the cruel mom that I had not me personally, but like, if
you have that, you seek that in bosses.
Absolutely. So you want the off chance that
the Basta at any moment is going to go off the handle and tell
you, you know fire you or whatever and you're all nervous
about it, are you had a bad mom? So all of a sudden your bosses
are all women. And, you know, you feeling like
they're all mean to you, you know, yes.
Because I'm unconscious and I'm a powerful Creator.
So I'm creating the unconscious trauma that I'm used to mine
which was a big deal for me. And it will continue to be a big
deal. I still work on this daily is
the fear of outshining others. I was born and I instantly
outshone. Members of my family, I got more
attention, I got more love, I got more kisses, I got more
presents. Just by the fact of being born.
As a result, I was treated differently as a result.
I was punished. So I had this unconscious
imprint of needing to get in trouble for doing.
Well, I would do really well and Contour over and over Oregon,
put myself in positions where people were going to punish me
as a result of My Success. That's a wild coming from
vertical Dimension. First coming from Spirits
Spirit. First, I love my parents.
No one can ever behave past their point of awareness.
So I can't Take the victim role anymore because my parents did
the best they could with what they had.
No one is ever going to behave beyond their point of
Consciousness and I have excellent parents.
I love them very much. Today, we have a wonderful
relationship today. But seeking an environment where
I was going to be in trouble for doing well.
I cannot understand baguette into understand that or even
know I'm doing it. If I'm coming for my ego because
being an environment where I'm doing well, my ego is pushing
that. Do well, do, well you're the
best and then getting in trouble.
My ego is pushing that too because now it's all about me
and can you believe how she behaves can you believe they
want to do this? Can you believe they're going to
fire me? Because I'm the best one.
They have. Thank you, Kimberly, and it's
still all about me. Learning to detach from that not
coming from ego. First coming from Spirit, first
is a fascinating Adventure, it's probably going to take the rest
of our life, however, the rest of my life.
However, I'm willing to go down that path now because I'm not
willing to get in trouble for doing well anymore.
I'm taking my power back owning the god Consciousness inside of
me. I'm not the situation of
Behaving. Well, I'm getting in trouble.
I'm not the energetic emotion of anger.
What am I? I'm the aware space.
That gets to deal with both those things.
So in that moment I'm separate and so in your zone of genius
and your creativity, it allows you the freedom to expand the
the the key word there is freedom in that moment.
I'm free. You're exactly right, you're
exactly right. I don't want to go through the
world in the bondage of self. We are so free, we can choose
bondage. But that's usually unconscious.
So I do want to go through the world.
A free man, taking responsibility.
Owning. My delusion choosing to come
from Source. First gives me a good chance
gives me a shot and interestingly enough you know we
discussed this to how many thoughts a day do I have on
average 60 thousand? If I'm a high functioning addict
it's probably more like 70. I have 70,000 opportunities a
day to take responsibility and come from Source.
First have source for front. That's a better way of living.
Yeah, and it's so crazy. It in the material talks about
says, the ego went unchecked can thus lead to self-destruction.
Recognizing understand the role of ego in addictions critical
first step towards recovery the ego unchecked.
And you talked about this, I mean, being in the hospital or
whatever leads self-destruction, that's where it goes.
I mean you have to realize your ego unchecked will lead to
self-destruction. Even though I know the god
Consciousness part of me knows it's killing me.
Ego and addiction doesn't care. I still had.
I'll do it. Even if it's going to kill me
and this is going to you know there are people that are
listening now that will resonate and this is, you know, important
if there's a window of Grace and you can hear it.
That's usually when it's time to make a decision.
Let's go on to The Bitter End. I'm going to continue and do
this and die. Or am I going to make a decision
and try and do something different?
We're here to say something different is available for you.
I don't have to continue my destructive path of dilution
meant. I can choose to live a different
way of life. Again, that's that's that stage
of change at that. Unfortunately, that
self-destruction, when you're at that, when you're in the
hospital bed, or your blacked out laying in a ditch judging
people choose or whatever it is, whatever it may be, you're
you've become 400 pounds in the doctors, told you, you know,
like my addiction with food, you know, you've become 400 pounds.
And I used to be way heavier than I am now, but because I
sought comfort in food, you know, so that, that would, that
would help my pain, just like a bottle did for you.
Whenever you're in that self destructive mode and ego is just
full rain. There's there's no point of
living you know like when I would get into those moments it
was just be like, well I'm gonna die early.
Yeah. Yeah.
One of my friends who's always tell me I'm not good with pets
30. Anyways, you know, you kind of
the ego even puts these You know, Jesus only lived to 32 or
whatever, you know. So if I make it to 30, I'm doing
pretty good. It's wild.
How we are not unique Even in our selfishness, I'm still not
unique. I never expected to live past
23. Yeah, that's what I hear.
That a lot. I never expected to live past
23, so my suffering does not make me unique.
However, that type of lifestyle that destructive.
Addicted lifestyle. It's not worth living, right?
The god Consciousness inside of me knows.
This is not my my choice and I obviously don't recommend this.
We recommend recovery. But the god Consciousness inside
of me knows death is actually an improvement.
To that type of existence. Yeah, and you that happens, you
get a new meat suit. You can be starting this all
over again, you know, you just playing the same game level
because you didn't beat the dragon at the end.
You're just gonna play that level again in a different meat
suit. And this is a part, it says,
goes right into so beautiful that you said this, it says it
sets the stage think about setting the Stage, IT sets, the
stage for the essential process of surrender.
Yeah, which it says, which involves letting go of our ego,
German desires and behaviors accepting the reality of our
addiction and opening up ourselves to the possibility,
the possibility of change and healing.
It's beautiful language. The In order to be born into
something new, my old self has to die. in order to be willing
to go through that death takes a lot of Courage, takes a lot of
faith, takes a lot of willingness, if I'm In my
addiction and unconscious. I don't have faith.
I don't have curves, I don't have willingness So there's
this, I believe there's this moment of Grace.
We've talked about it before that's presented to us that we
can step through this little window.
Where we can muster enough courage?
We can muster enough faith. We can muster enough willingness
To start taking those actions. So it's almost like a prison
with the very small window in it, you know like a like a I'm
picturing in my brain, you know, like with the cinder blocks and
there's just like the mold and there's rats running around and
I've been in this prison for years and then all of a sudden,
look at the window and said, there's no bars on that window.
Maybe I can break it. What if I can squeeze through?
Yeah, you know, it's that moment and this is the cool part.
When you this render process and we're going to get heavy into
surrender. The next we're going to do a
couple pockets on surrender, but it's this process of admitting
that you're powerless over it. You know, that that's the
process of saying, you know what, the life that I'm living
is self-destruction and unmanageable.
And I have to admit to myself that it's not all about me and I
can't fix this. That's the that who I am right
now. Jason maybe right now cannot fix
this issue. Absolutely.
Yeah. The to get to that place is so
difficult and usually again all it takes is everything.
We got in that moment, have to be willing to put my ego aside
source is screaming. So loud.
We need you to put us first for once.
Please put us first in that moment of putting Source first I
can allow this idea of I'm not King Dwayne, I don't have it in.
That's one of my favorite definition.
Essence of admit admission when they give you a ticket at the
movie theater. And it says admit one, that
means I got let in to the theater.
They let me in. So I have to let that in to the
part of me that is not ego to the part of me that a source I
have to absorb that. I have to surrender to the fact
that I can't do this, that's crazy.
What we're going to get into the next episode.
We'll get into the surrender side of things and understanding
a little bit more and give you some tools.
If you're at that window of Grace right now, that may be in
your life. I encourage you to delve into
this. I mean you could study on your
own there's lots of there's thousands of programs out there
that you can be a part of. There's hotlines that you can
call. We are not like medical
professionals, all we're doing is just During our, you know,
we're not certified anything or anything that all we're doing is
you're sharing our journey in Sharing.
What is going on in our lives and kind of trying to be honest
and transparent and and hope that that helps you.
But if the best thing that you can do for us before we close
out, Dwayne is I want people to understand sharing this.
That's all we ask of you is to share this with others.
If you know somebody, if this has helped you and you know
somebody that has addiction just take the Time to just send them
the link. You don't know.
Maybe they'll laugh at you. Who cares?
Maybe they'll be like why are you sending this to me?
Or maybe they'll be like thank you so much and most people are
going to be like thank you. You know I needed that.
I need to hear that. Also we're on Instagram.
We're on YouTube. Leave a comment on YouTube.
I saw that. There was a bunch of comments
there today so and I love the comments and we'll do some
answer in the comments. That'll be a fun show where we
can, you know, answer the comments.
Some of them were funny which I love, you know.
I love some good sarcasm and stuff like that, but you can DMS
at at our Instagram Channel and if you have any questions, we
would love to be able to answer them and just share our journey.
Excellent.