[00:00:00] Chair: I love that. Thank you so much, Krista. Okay, and now I would like to invite our speaker, Barb M. N. from Woodland Hills, California. Come on up. Thank you.

[00:00:30] Barb: Oh, I'm so happy to be here. What a great lunch and what a great group you are. I just love it.

[00:00:50] So I want to, first of all, thank you all for letting me be here and thank your niece for inviting me and Krista for getting us a room and Michelle for getting a spoon and cutting in the line and all the wonderful people that I've met.

[00:01:10] This is a great program. What can I say?

[00:01:14] I've been here for 50 years. I've been involved with 12 Steps for 50 years and it changes my life every day in ways that surprise me every day because I only thought I was six and it turns out I need to be six all the time.

[00:01:37] I'll start with my journey.

[00:01:41] I need to say my husband is here with me today and he is not my qualifier. So I want to get him a t-shirt that says I am not a qualifier. I started getting qualified real early. And I like to say rather than somebody else qualifying me that somebody else was really bothering me.

[00:02:05] And I didn't know it when I was young because I am an alcoholic father. My mother passed away when I was six and things changed dramatically.

[00:02:19] My father was married shortly after and he was lucky enough to find another alcoholic so we had both of them in our house. So there were four of us and I had two other sisters and then our stepmother brought a brother to us, a stepmother. So there were four of us and they went out and partied at night and came home when I knew they came home. And what I learned really early on was that I always was doing something wrong.

[00:02:54] Growing up in the home that I grew up in, there were a lot of rules. But we didn't know about the rules until we broke them. And those rules changed on a daily basis.

[00:03:07] For example, I remember being sent to the store to buy clothing or school for my sister and myself and I was a middle child. And come home, model the clothes, oh, what a good job you did. Oh, that's beautiful, that's fine. Charges for our account, all of that. And then the pillow would come and it would be in trouble for spending your money. So everything is terribly confusing.

[00:03:35] I was working at a Jewish home and I'm so happy for you to any of those of you that are celebrating that. Today is Rosh Hashanah.

[00:03:44] And my stepmother decided that the better place for us was a Catholic campus. Because that makes all the sevens in the world.

[00:03:54] So I was born Jewish and raised Catholic, which is two different kinds of guilt.

[00:04:03] There was a Catholic guilt which was everything who enjoys the sin, and stick in the lobby. And there was Jewish guilt, which is everything you enjoy to hurt your mother.

[00:04:16] So being in a conference was an interesting experience because I was different.

[00:04:24] I became very aware of being different. And I thought growing up with an alcoholic home was also different. And I took until I came to Avalon to find out that there were other people that were different too. So they knew it would be different because it made me fit in.

[00:04:44] So my father married again, and then we were brought home, and I was a baptized Lutheran.

[00:04:54] I know we're going to talk about religion, I'm just talking about my experience.

[00:04:59] And that was that's that mother because her father was a Lutheran minister, but she didn't like the Lutheran church because it wasn't classy enough, so then I was confirmed Episcopal.

[00:05:11] I've been through all kinds of religions, and I found I was able to find God in every religion. That was my safety place, the doors of God.

[00:05:22] But who I found in Avalon was very different than who I found everywhere else.

[00:05:30] I went to college when I was 16, I think. Oh, yeah, because I was going to get kicked out of school because I got in trouble, and my dad said, he was going to send me back to the common, and I said, how about sending me to college because I have enough credit structure. So I didn't want to think I was smart. No, I just got out of the house. And there I met the man in the back of the room who was not my qualifier. Okay. I have known him since I was 17. He's been married now for 16 years. Oh, wow.

[00:06:07] That's pretty damn cool. Yeah. That's when I really learned that other households didn't operate the way I learned it. I started telling him things about my life. And he thought that was strange. He thought it was strange that when I got back from the paper to send me something for the summer and find something for me to an alcoholic home. I thought that would turn out to be an alcoholic home too.

[00:06:39] I didn't know those things were strange. I thought that's how everyone grew up.

[00:06:44] So we married and I became a perfect wife. according to me.

[00:06:57] Because I had to do everything perfectly. When I was in the condom school, on Sundays, the kids would have, their parents would come and visit them.

[00:07:10] That didn't happen for me. So the nuns gave me a job to answer the door when the parents would come and connect them with their children. And right next to the front door was the library. So, again, growing up not knowing what the rules were and how to follow them, they put me in charge of the library.

[00:07:33] And I looked at all those books and they did not seem to be in order to me. So, in the next, in probably that year, that whole year, I changed the library around to put everything alphabetical. Nobody told me about the different best places. So, nothing could be found with the library that I organized.

[00:07:57] But I was laying on my rules because that's what I had to do.

[00:08:04] So, when I got married and I became a perfect wife, I learned at some point, I was an adult, that I brought my disease into that household.

[00:08:19] I thought, I'm not an artistic man, but I'm an Asian glass of wine person.

[00:08:24] Like, I don't need to, I don't have to admit that now, but it's legal.

[00:08:29] But I never was, I never took the approach that my dad took.

[00:08:40] So, I raised a perfect child, being a perfect parent, and being a perfect wife, and somewhere around, hmm, 20 years into our marriage, oh, I should say, I started learning about 12 seconds, so I was probably too smart to go to meetings. So, my approach was to read all the literature, because I could sort it out that way. Never occurred to me that a meeting might help. So, that's how I started in 12 seconds, and I have to really say that was my salvation.

[00:09:17] I started reading things, and discovering that I didn't have to be perfect, that there was a process, that I could have the God of my understanding, not the one that was punishing me all the time. And those are the things I started to learn.

[00:09:37] And, somewhere into our marriage, as I said, we have some challenges, and a lot of marriages have challenges.

[00:09:46] And, I decided that that was my fault, too.

[00:09:52] So, I had to get better. So, then I got really religious about going to meetings.

[00:09:59] And then I discovered that life just happens. Life just goes on, and you do the best you can.

[00:10:09] I didn't really understand why there were problems in our marriage, because I was perfect.

[00:10:16] And, I remember my daughter was a teenager, and I was terrified about something.

[00:10:26] She said to me, she actually ended up pretty healthy. Thank goodness it was perfect.

[00:10:32] And she told me one day, you know, mom, I can't live here with fear.

[00:10:38] That told me a lot.

[00:10:42] I was believing in fear all the time. All the time.

[00:10:49] I was saying the other day, maybe even to this day, but now I have voices to tell me to stop doing this myself. But, if I'm walking along and say I see a key on the ground, I'm afraid to pick it up, because then my fingerprints will be on it, and what if that key is involved in a murder? And, I get blamed for it. That's how I created my voice with my fear. Doom and gloom. Everything was doom and gloom. That voice in me always told me something bad was going to happen. I had a beautiful marriage, a beautiful daughter, and I always believed that something bad was going to happen.

[00:11:36] About seven years into the program, I crashed. And those of you that are new, don't be afraid of that crash.

[00:11:52] I had all these tools to go through life with. I had a huge tool box, and I was learning in this program to let go of some of those tools, and I didn't need them anymore. The fear, the control, the manipulation, the drama.

[00:12:13] And as I let go of them, I didn't know what took place tonight.

[00:12:20] I felt very empty, and I got very scared, and I crashed. And a friend of mine at the program said, oh, you're going to do a second to surrender.

[00:12:31] And I was like, shh.

[00:12:35] There's another one I thought I did this.

[00:12:41] Apparently, it wasn't done. And that's what I mean about this program being ongoing.

[00:12:48] A lot of times we talk about peeling the onion, and there are layers.

[00:12:55] And what I've learned is not to be afraid of those layers.

[00:13:00] That they're just another thing that you're ready to face.

[00:13:05] The topic today is trust the process.

[00:13:09] That's part of the process. Life is in session.

[00:13:15] So, I have a very good family, and I love my family, and we're all, my father's, third wife, yeah, third wife, I have a couple more kids, so we're all kinds of kids, and my brother, my half-brother, who recently passed away, is in surprise, surprise, an accident, while he was taking the drive-in. Spent a good deal of time in the wheelchair and then passed away and then full of it. And you know what?

[00:13:48] He wasn't raised in a hollow home. That's what he told me. Why don't you say that? Why don't you say that? So apparently he was growing somewhere else, and I just, he was a freaking of my imagination in the house.

[00:14:05] When I was in high school, because we had new babies in the house, I had an intercom in my room. So I woke up in the middle of the night with the babies. That was my job, because my dad and his wife were out there. So it was something we had to do.

[00:14:22] So, so, no one in my family is in program.

[00:14:27] No one in my family has ever been in program.

[00:14:31] And that's okay, because that's their choice. But they think I'm brilliant, because I'll say, well, do you want to be great? Do you want to be happy? Or, like, oh my gosh, like, oh my gosh, or things like that. And they think I'm so smart, and now they're like, yeah, the program, that program is open.

[00:14:54] Flags are one of my strongest tools in this program. To be able to just let go.

[00:15:04] To be able to use, to be able to say, wait, why am I talking? I don't have to talk in the darkness.

[00:15:14] To be able to say, maybe you're right. Even though when I said to my teenager, she'd be like, oh, am I?

[00:15:25] That's one of the massive gifts of this program.

[00:15:29] Those slow dance.

[00:15:32] I remember doing some jokes. I was really, really good at doing the jokes. Not so good, but doing the do's.

[00:15:42] The surrender prayer, I would go with the surrender of prayer. God grabbed me the surrender to accept the things I cannot change. I spent so much energy changing the things I could not change. Everybody else.

[00:16:03] The courage to change the things I can't.

[00:16:07] Me. Oh, no. I don't need to change me. I need to change you guys. Everybody else. Wow. The effort. I was so tired all the time because I didn't have the wisdom to know the difference.

[00:16:24] The body changed other people who didn't know I could change myself.

[00:16:30] And what could I change about myself?

[00:16:33] How I loved the things.

[00:16:37] Out in the when you're selling things they've got a little dice that says God on my own side.

[00:16:44] I got one of those years and years to go at a convention and it sits on my next stand and I wrote that dice almost every day. I just bought some more because God is one of me.

[00:16:57] But every time you wrote that dice it comes up God and that's my reminder.

[00:17:05] That helps me every day to turn it over. Every minute to turn it over because I can't if I can. Think about the steps.

[00:17:19] Admit it, I was powerless. My life would become unmarishable.

[00:17:25] If anybody's new, that's not the easy one. I'm broke. none of them are easy to start with them. Let me get very easy.

[00:17:34] But being able to admit that I didn't have the power that I thought I had is so scary. Fear is so scary.

[00:17:48] If I don't have that power, how can I get up in the morning? How can I do anything if I can't make you different?

[00:17:58] The family rose that second step came to believe that the power created for myself for restoring sanity.

[00:18:06] Wow, on a regular basis, every minute of the day. That's the power of a higher power. It doesn't have to be God. whatever your higher power is. I'm checking my time. Higher power is a lot of powers. Needing is. Try not to make it the alcoholic. I'm just saying. Maybe that would work for you. That didn't work for me.

[00:18:34] But coming to believe that a power greater than myself would restore me to sanity took some time because I had to spend some time saying who is that higher power?

[00:18:47] I'm a little scared of the ones that I learned in all those religions because that was a pretty punishing one. That's the way I interpret it. It doesn't mean that it is for everybody.

[00:18:57] But for me, I praying that God was out today.

[00:19:02] I prayed all the time to that God to not be out to get me. But that was what I was thinking. My crazy thinking.

[00:19:12] And then there was an exercise I did on the 12-step program. We said that you were working too much and being too responsible. Duh, Marilyn.

[00:19:27] And it said, write a want dad for the higher power that you want.

[00:19:35] And I wrote back. And what I asked for was totally unreadable. That I would want a higher power that's always on my side. It tells me things that deep clouds me away. It has mercy. It forgives me all the time. It guides me. I mean, the list went on and on and on. And when I looked at that, I thought that's who I could jump my bow and my mouth over to. And that's when I could really do step three.

[00:20:08] And really trusting the processes about step three. It truly is.

[00:20:14] To just be able to let go. To just be able to trust that I'm here for a reason. That God doesn't make junk.

[00:20:29] That what I'm asking for may not be what's right for me.

[00:20:36] What stops me from having that trust?

[00:20:40] What stops me is, what if I get what I want?

[00:20:47] Maybe I'm not supposed to.

[00:20:50] And every time that I look at it that way, it's true.

[00:20:56] Every single time.

[00:21:00] So, we healed our marriage.

[00:21:05] We learned to talk to each other more. We learned to communicate with each other more.

[00:21:11] The guy back here doesn't go to the program, but he should guess it for me.

[00:21:17] And I never got any complaints so far.

[00:21:23] So now, one of the things that I learned about the program is that whatever I'm going through, it works. It's not, I don't have that to balance in my life.

[00:21:39] But I don't have this stuff in my life because I'm alive and I live.

[00:21:44] Last year, my government was diagnosed with music.

[00:21:48] It was terrible.

[00:21:51] And I was so shocked that I trusted the process, that I trusted my her partner.

[00:22:03] She's well announced, she stands free. Thank you.

[00:22:09] But that's a hard year because I had her deal arms with God. Oh, take me and her.

[00:22:18] She's got a 10-year-old, nine-year-old.

[00:22:23] They take a good one of us. We're both still here.

[00:22:28] And as soon as the very day that she was cancer-free, I found my cousin that I'm very, very close to at stage 4 cancer.

[00:22:40] She's still here.

[00:22:44] And guess what? About a month later, I found that I had cancer and I'm still here.

[00:22:52] And when they told me, they told me they thought he was aggressive.

[00:22:58] But we knew it was early. It wasn't aggressive. They didn't make a mistake.

[00:23:04] And I'm fine.

[00:23:08] And the way that I navigated the past year and a half was so different than what I would have done years back, what I would have done without this program.

[00:23:24] Because it applies whether you're living with an alcoholic, or whether you were raised by an alcoholic, or whether you're ill, or whether you didn't get the job that you wanted, or whether you got fired by the job you didn't want. It doesn't matter. It always works.

[00:23:42] It's like every morning the sun comes up.

[00:23:47] It's something you can count on. It's something I count on all the time. So what happens, I'm perfect right now because I always have a higher power, and I was just running on the wrong road.

[00:24:01] I forgot.

[00:24:03] You ever get that feeling you're in this wonderful world of higher power, and it's just floating, and it feels so good, and everything that comes into you, you're handling it so well, and then all of a sudden, you're not there.

[00:24:18] And I don't know why, but all of a sudden I'm looking at that bubble and I can't get in, I'm pinging on the door. Let me back in, I know that feels good, and I don't know how to get there.

[00:24:32] Well, the dice help.

[00:24:35] Reminder helps. Having a partner that says, look at the iron bottle, see, it's something you're doing.

[00:24:43] What about your program? Would that help? And it always helps. It always helps.

[00:24:53] So, I have two sisters, two full sisters, I love them both. One of them is extremely spiritual in her own way. I'm not sure I always connect with that way because I remember when Aunt died and she couldn't believe she died because she had a candle for her. And she said, I didn't think she would ever die. And I said, no, never. I didn't get it for her. So that's one of my sisters.

[00:25:24] My other sister, who's also not in the program, she just made a job on her own. And she has been literally like successfully and she does her things her way. But if you ever talk to her about anything spiritual, it's like, yeah, I don't know, this is that crap. So it's really interesting because I'm the middle sister, and I can relate to both of them.

[00:25:54] My higher bar talks to me through my gut.

[00:25:58] My gut is spiritually oriented. You know, I can't see.

[00:26:05] It's because I have to hold in it. That's how my higher bar speaks to me.

[00:26:10] And more more speaks to me loudly that way. But you know what else is in my gut? All of my experience, strength, and hope that I have gotten from living life for 79 years and being in this world.

[00:26:29] It's hard to believe. It really is hard to believe that a lot of people think you're freaking on their mind when we say this stuff. But it's so true. And what I realize is that I lean more toward be a believer than a denier.

[00:26:47] Because I don't want to be challenged on whether this works.

[00:26:55] It's good for me sometimes to be challenged, but it works.

[00:27:02] We say it works when we work it.

[00:27:05] I've also heard it works when we let it.

[00:27:10] I've also heard that phone be dragged instead of just like because it's so true. It's so true to get back into the boat whenever I can.

[00:27:25] I'm not perfect. I'm a whole lot more perfect than I was when I thought I was perfect.

[00:27:30] I learned that.

[00:27:33] So I'm 79 years old.

[00:27:36] and did you want to clap?

[00:27:44] I'm a nurse of 81 year old. He's 81 years old. Yeah. I'm sleeping with an 81 year old when I find his side doesn't tell him. Oh, no. one of the challenges today is aging. Aging is not easy. It really, really isn't.

[00:28:14] No one told me. My mother died when she was 31. My father died when he was 61. No one hung around on earth except Gary Ruby. Our age Ruby said aging is not for sissies. She went to 94.

[00:28:29] And she wore those that way. But she just felt it was not a deal. But I know how to do it. It's called programming.

[00:28:38] One of the things that was very, very, very central to me was being responsible on it. There was a girl who's got me up for 35 years. Long beyond that when I thought it was wrong. I wasn't a girl so I didn't think that's what you know.

[00:28:59] Be prepared. Do it right. All of those things.

[00:29:05] Be responsible. Something went wrong. Barred. Fix it. Queen a fixer here. I was good at it. She was pretty good at it. But I was miserable.

[00:29:16] And one of the things I learned in aging is to not be responsible.

[00:29:24] I spent about the last 10 years learning to nap.

[00:29:30] To lay around.

[00:29:33] To say I don't have somebody else.

[00:29:37] To say I can't. not I'm discouraging volunteers here. But I gotta tell you I was the queen of volunteers. Whatever you need I will do. And what I realized is that I was living a life with no death.

[00:29:57] So I started doing something strange.

[00:30:01] Every time I finished anything even if it was just thrown in the bathroom.

[00:30:09] I would take a minute and breathe.

[00:30:13] How I feel.

[00:30:16] Checking in with feelings.

[00:30:19] That is so critical.

[00:30:22] I was reading today. I think it was in what was I read? Hope for today. I read the books. The books matter. And there's a really nice word. I just say to my phone.

[00:30:35] phone. I'll leave and share. And it pops up some weird stuff every day. Because it gets how they go. It helps me understand. And it always knows what I'm going for. Isn't that weird? I don't know if I'm getting different messages than anyone else's when they turn on phone. But it always knows. So today somebody talked about being new at online and having a sponsor help them get in touch with their feelings and that it hurt.

[00:31:09] And this person wrote, I came because I was in pain. Why is this program making me in pain?

[00:31:20] it's pain that I process in.

[00:31:25] It's pain that I allow myself to feel so that I know who I am.

[00:31:33] I'm back to a point in life, and I was probably in my 40s at the time, that I realized I don't even know what kind of music that I like. I know what kind of music I can tolerate what my daughter likes, or what can't use my husband likes, but I wonder what kind of music I like. It's been actually funny actually.

[00:31:57] I didn't know what my favorite color was, but I knew what everyone else's favorite color was. I knew what everyone wanted for Christmas.

[00:32:08] I didn't know what I wanted for Christmas.

[00:32:11] Because I didn't know me. Why? Because I never took the time to explore. I just went from one way to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing, and I was responsible.

[00:32:26] Not as responsible anymore, except I didn't look and see how long I've been talking. Okay.

[00:32:32] I got a really long time.

[00:32:35] So, what have I learned in the last 10 years of my program? I learned how to breathe. I learned that fear and faith can't exist at the same time.

[00:32:51] I've learned to answer my voices.

[00:32:56] My mean, mean voices.

[00:32:59] For a long time I would say, oh, that voice is going to cover. Oh, I have to blame that.

[00:33:04] Then I realized, I was that voice. Yes, I have incorporated things I've learned from them, but that's me talking to me.

[00:33:14] Someone wants to have a talk with your inner parent and fire them and hire an inner parent if you wish me that. And I spent a lot of time thinking about what kind parent I wish I had.

[00:33:39] And my answer was me.

[00:33:45] The way the parent does an aunt, my daughter. Maybe not the parent she wanted. That doesn't matter. It's the parent I wanted. Because that's how I treat other people. Because my mom would treat me that way back. But I don't treat me back by back. That's what I learned.

[00:34:06] So I hired my parents and hired a new one. And the new one, and the last one I used to have been doing, they're getting the job. They're getting better and better.

[00:34:17] The other day I was thinking I had an extension for my business taxes. I had filed my personal taxes.

[00:34:28] And I had gotten an extension and an extension last, for those of you who did like I do, until October 15. And oh my God, September is coming out to finish it. Okay. And then the IRS is going to come after me and go me in jail. Those are the kind of stories I'm very, very, very telling myself. And I started writing, it was for the Lawrence of communion time to start writing. I started writing this whole thing. And then I addressed each thing. I started with, I haven't filed the taxes.

[00:35:05] And my answer was, yeah, but they're 90% done, and you're going to file the business taxes by mail. And there's a mistake.

[00:35:17] So it was. I don't owe him any money because the tax was to my personal that's all I'm going to pay. So, and if I die, if I die, I'll see the day of the time.

[00:35:33] That may be on their decision in the morning, by the way, in that mobile, when I fight for taxes.

[00:35:40] And when I do the whole thing like that, and if I'm dead, I can't come and get me anyway. So I have to go through all this stuff. And then I have to the next thing, IRS will come and get me. Come and get me? What does that mean? That's insane. That's crazy. They're going to come knock at my door and handcuff me because I didn't lie a horn?

[00:36:04] And anyway, they're, they're, they're, well, this isn't a problem.

[00:36:09] And I heard the last thing they threw away most of the things. So I'm only there, and then I'm asked to prison part.

[00:36:19] And then four o'clock in the morning, I was laughing hysterically at myself. Yay!

[00:36:26] My voice is laughing at me for being that. That is so healthy. That is so good.

[00:36:36] And that's when I woke and see where have I come because of this program.

[00:36:42] That some of the things I have thought that torment me are insane. They're just crazy. Why would the higher power call me in jail at age 79 for not going out of court?

[00:36:59] That's not the higher power I believe in. It doesn't go that way.

[00:37:08] So have I changed for this program?

[00:37:13] You bet.

[00:37:16] Trust this process. What do you remember to worry?

[00:37:23] I like to not call them defects of purity. I think sometimes some of those things you were written were harsh. I like to call them um, I'm sorry, crying, oh, I think it's in my house. Everyone's complaining about poetry, I don't know, but poor it's in my house.

[00:37:45] no, so negative coping mechanisms, that's what I like to call them. When I had that fresh, that second surgery, when kids took me out of this, I realized that I had gotten rid of all those crazy things in my toolbox that were negative coping mechanisms.

[00:38:12] But you know, I can get it back if I want them, and that's what's coming. It's like, don't worry, I'm not lost, I'm not just sitting in the garage on the counter, you can do that, you know, if you got it on yourself, you can do that, but I don't need to. So when I take an energy, which I do pretty gradually, because I find it gets deeper, back to the onion, I encourage anybody that's 12-step, that's 4-step to do what women wants.

[00:38:42] It's not what I'm done. For me, it wasn't what I'm done. And as the years go by, I need to do it again. So I look at those. First of all, inventory, when you have a store, and you close down and take the inventory, you don't just look at the stuff that's there, you look at everything.

[00:39:04] And you say, okay, those are things that I don't get your references. There's an expiration date on or whatever reason, but those are good. Let's keep those.

[00:39:14] And so that's what I do when I go through my fourth step again and again.

[00:39:22] I look at my negative coping mechanisms and ask myself, do I still need them? And some of them might do, some of them aren't too scared yet, they might fall just yet. But eventually, when we look at them, they'll let me know it's time. It's time to let you go.

[00:39:43] And the place I'm at in life right now, this is well past time to let go of the fear. I don't have to have that.

[00:39:52] And when it comes knocking at my door, I can say no, I'm sorry, I can't let you in right now.

[00:40:01] I have the right to say that.

[00:40:05] I have the right to feel that.

[00:40:09] Every one of those negative coping mechanisms is based in a swing.

[00:40:18] The other thing that gets me through the day and keep like this gratitude.

[00:40:24] Another argument I have with my intellectual sister. Because I have to be grateful that I lost my mother at six years old. Why? Because this is who I am today.

[00:40:37] I wish I could have been in this without that. Sure, I could be doing another bad guy instead of taking away my mom.

[00:40:48] But that's the way it was. And that's why I've become who I've become. Everything about me that I am today is from the life I have lived and experienced.

[00:41:05] And that's a good thing because I do believe that we become what we respect.

[00:41:12] When we look at ourselves, the traits sex, we incorporate. If everything is about life, maybe we don't get rich, but we incorporate it. If everything is about integrity, that's who we become. If everything is about honesty, that's who we become.

[00:41:33] And for me, everything is about a power greater than myself.

[00:41:39] I am a drop in the ocean. I'm an individual drop. I'm not minimizing, but I can't maximize it either. Come on.

[00:41:52] I remember a friend of I was telling this once that somebody of his company, about his very big deal, got fired. And the guy said, you're going to be sorry that he fired me. I run a lot of things here. You're going to really be sorry about this. And his boss said, I want you to go home and fill up the bathtub.

[00:42:16] And then I want you to put your elbow in the bathtub.

[00:42:20] And when you take your elbow out of the bathtub, I want you to see the dent you got.

[00:42:28] I'll let that sit there for a minute.

[00:42:31] The dent in the water. Okay?

[00:42:36] We are like a drop of water in an amazing universe. It works the way it works.

[00:42:43] It makes me crazy, yes. It compounds me on a regular basis, yes. But I know this, I don't know the big picture.

[00:42:55] I don't know what's around the corner. If I didn't get that party stopped, there might have been no reason. If I left ten minutes late, I might have missed an accident.

[00:43:06] I don't know.

[00:43:10] But I do know I did everything on my list. That was good. I do know that without this program, I would not be who I am today. And I like who I am today.

[00:43:34] Yeah, I wish I didn't have all my hair.

[00:43:37] I wish I had beautiful white hair. I really would do. But you know that's minor, I don't mean to mention my hair, it's beautiful.

[00:43:50] But I am who I am today for every single minute I've lived.

[00:43:59] I've learned to breathe in between.

[00:44:02] I've learned to take naps. I've learned to say I can't.

[00:44:11] And for that, I thank my higher top, who I was introduced to, and who has expanded and learned me to still be alive, 79 years old, through this program.

[00:44:30] So I thank you all for being here today, and listening to me, and giving me the energy to remember what the program is about, because all of me represent all of you are living in and put what we need to be living in right now.

[00:44:49] Don't give up. Trust the process. Thank you. Thank you.