Hey there, it's steve again and thank you for joining me for this week's podcast. Thank you again for all of your support and for those that have been following me. I can be found at www dot believe in big change dot com. I'm gonna talk about some more change today and some steps that I had to take a while I felt were necessary for me to recover from the disease of alcoholism that I have, and the shame that has carried with me for decades. Actually, believe it or not, you know, I went from a person running a very successful company for a number of years to a person that started to believe that they weren't enough and that they weren't lovable. And for a while it got the best of me and I became an alcoholic. So I go to treatment again. That's a part of my story. Relapse is a part of my story. I'm sitting in treatment and the first weekend I had to just hang out and watch some tv. I got to do some things, but I'm detoxing. I didn't come in to treatment in good shape, Nobody comes in on a winning streak. By the way, we don't clean ourselves up and get our ship together and say, oh, by the way, yeah, we're gonna go to treatment. I think that might be beneficial fortunately for some of us, we make a decision to say yes and show up. So we're gonna talk a little bit today about connection and connecting with others. It's so important to me, I need you. I need connection with others. It's my lifeline. It's a part of my daily life, my my recovery without it. I'm going to feel cut off detached. I'm going to start feeling lonely. My tendency then is to withdraw and isolate and then start to believe the stories that I've told myself for so long, basically stories about feeling that I'm not enough for myself and for others, not a good place to be in, what I do to get outside of my head. That can be in an amazing, inspiring place to be and it can be not a great neighborhood to hang out in and how I connect to build myself up worth to feel that I'm enough for myself and and for you, how I connect to help others and be of service and how it helps me to raise my energy level, to vibrate at the highest level of energy that I can on a daily basis and ultimately silence for today. Those voices inside my head that want to say I'm not enough, you know, that neighborhood can, that looks so pretty after a while. So I have to counter that shame, neutralize it for today. So, I want to share with you what I do two to work through this on a daily basis and connect with you. You know, I was in treatment, I came into treatment again. Relapse is a part of my story. Um I wasn't in good shape, I had to hang out for a few days in detox, watch tv, it's amazing. You show up and you haven't been in a good place. You're not doing much of anything except drinking, You're isolating your inside your head. There's a lot of shame going on and you show up and all of a sudden you want to do all these things, you don't want to be by yourself, you want to go to the gym, you want to hang out with other people. But I had to chill, you know that it's part of the medical process and I had to hang out and watch tv and I decided, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore in my life on a regular basis and sit around and not do much realizing I need other people to, to make myself feel good. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about what I do here and why I think it's important and how it's empowered me, how it's created opportunities, how I make people feel better and how I improve my happiness At least 5-10% every day by doing a few things. If I don't do these things, the self critic will take over, avoid you avoid conflict again. I'll internalize, I'll isolate and my fear level will rise. So here's a few things that I work on that I wanted to share with you for some of you. It's gonna sound so basic and simple, but hey, that's a part of life is the challenge to keep it simple, right? We tend to complicate things at least I do at times. So I make an effort on a daily basis to say hello to people first and a lot of them are new people. It could be at the supermarket, could be at the gym, could be in a support group meeting. It could be for some of you, you go to church, whatever it is, how you interact. I wanna say hello to people first smile, be polite. Second, I want to shake hands with people. Connection. A physical connection. An appropriate physical connection hugs are good hugs. You get bonus points for everybody needs a hug every day, including me and I wasn't a hugger historically, you know, relatives when I was growing up and I was a little boy and they want to hug you in and come give your aunt or uncle a hug. And it was like, hey what are you doing? You're kind of getting in my space and I feel a little violated and it just, you know, with people I know I look forward to those hugs. They're very important. Oh and there's one thing I wanted to say here when I talk about these few things. No texting, it doesn't count. Texting is okay. I mean I use it on a regular basis, but for this kind of connection that we're talking about, it's in person. It's face to face. texting has a purpose, but you don't get any points for this. The third thing I like to do is give somebody a compliment. Hey, you look nice today. You sound good. You have a nice smile or you know, I guess if it's a woman, tell them they have nice shoes. You know, give out a compliment. I like to be of service. Now there's a number of ways we can be of service to others. A lot of times it's just holding the door for somebody. Most people appreciate that. Some people, hey, we all do it. We get caught up in our heads and we forget to thank somebody. It'll be okay. You could feel like you're rejected doing these things, but most people will appreciate it even if they don't say something because I've done that. I've been caught up in my head, forgot to thank somebody and go, wow, I forgot to do that. And if you find yourself in this place or you feel like I didn't reach out to enough people or shake enough hands. You picked a number on a daily basis, pick something that is attainable. It's gonna challenge you a little bit to get out of your comfort zone. But something that's attainable and I would encourage you to add that to your gratitude list when you go through your day at night. I like to go to bed with a clear conscience and give myself a pat on the back for all the things I accomplish in a day. Not all the things I didn't do if something didn't get checked off the list. That's okay. And I'll hopefully get wake up and get an opportunity to do it the next day. So be gentle when you're working on this again. The fourth thing be of service to people can be something real simple or you can choose to volunteer for a couple of hours on the weekend. There's a lot of places you can look it up online and it's, it's good stuff. It'll make you feel good. We're making others feel good. The last thing is gonna be a little more challenging for some of you and I've talked about this, I've written about it and that is to listen. That doesn't mean talk. That's why I paused and there was a little bit of silence. It means to actually listen to take up some of your time and listen to somebody else for five minutes without saying anything. We did this exercise in a class that I'm taking, I'm going back to school pursuing the certificate certification for drug and alcohol counseling. I think it's gonna be a part of my calling and I think it's a good place to start and get educated. So we did this exercise you pair up into, you know with with another person. One person does all the talking for five minutes, which is kind of hard for me to do. Ha ha, of course I'm on a podcast here talking to you for north of 10 minutes, the other person has to sit there and listen without saying a word. It was very challenging for most of that classroom to not say a word. The instructor jumped in and said, hey, why are all of you talking? Half of you are supposed to be listening five minutes, give somebody a few minutes every day, it makes a difference. We all need to feel heard and sometimes that's all we need. We want to try and fix things. We want to all of a sudden take the conversation and turn it about us and make it about us and we interrupt people, we talk over them, we talk through them, we think we need to fix something and offer something up. We can be of service by simply listening to somebody and sometimes have you ever been in this situation? Sometimes, that's all we need and it really matters and it makes people feel good. So with this, we're creating opportunities, We get to be of service and make people feel better. We increase our happiness level on a daily basis, let's just say it's five, maybe 10%, I'll take that every day. And there's other things that I do that 5-10% of daily activities adds up the next thing. You know, you're having a really great day. Again, it makes us feel empowered to know that we can make a difference by doing these things that helps build my self worth again. Otherwise, if I don't, I know what my tendencies are, I'm gonna want to avoid conflict, conflict avoidance, that's something that a lot of us do. And a big reason why some of us fall prey to addiction and other unhealthy coping behaviors. The self critic takes over, we internalize isolate and we become fearful to the some point to the to the point where you can almost start to it can build up and think that people, other people are a threat and we can become hypervigilant. So when you're taking a crack at this and you don't get them all in one day, be gentle with yourself. It's all about the effort we're providing hope for others, support with these things. We get to build our self worth, make ourselves feel better. And again, we're making other people and this stuff matters. It really matters every single day. So let's take this opportunity to work on it. The next podcast. I think I'm gonna talk about the listening part of it aspect because it's really a skill to listen to somebody to identify and to not think of that. We have to talk and respond as a skill and it's an active service, it's one of the most precious things we can do is give up our time to somebody else and listen to them. So when you do feel good about it, I do and it's amazing what can come out where people were at what they're battling in their minds. It's like, wow, I really didn't know that about that person. They've got a lot going on. You know, there's a story behind the story as they say more will be revealed. It's a great way to get to know people. Otherwise we start assuming things, we've created this perception which many times can be false of somebody else. And by not listening, we're not even giving them an opportunity to maybe change the perception that we have fair or unfair and to um you know, make us think about them a little differently. So I think it's called compassion, you know, so listening, identifying with empathy Is a Big one. So again, say hello first, physical connection, if appropriate, handshakes, hugs or bonus points, compliments being of service and listening. It's great to be with you all again, thank you so much for your messages. Again. If you have any ideas or any topics that you'd like to talk to me or have me talk about. Excuse me or talk to me directly. Of course you can reach me through the site. That would be great. I love the uh the connection and the topics that some of you have mentioned, I focus on, connection, uh dealing with shame, shame, resilience in recovery or some of the main areas that I focus on. So again, thank you so much for listening. You're amazing. I love you. These efforts matter, you matter. So let's be impactful today and I will talk to you soon. Take care.