Success.

What does this look like?

And specifically, what does it look like in sobriety?

I’ve got a simple 3-part formula to begin the conversation.

When you hear it, it may very well land with you as simplistic, which for me is awesome, but it also demands that we apply two kinds of medicine.

The first is a ruthless honesty of awareness

And the second is a generous heart of compassion.

Holding these two together, simultaneously, is the way we can accurately assess the ingredients that go into real, lasting success.

That’s what we dive into in this episode of The Sober Shaman Podcast.

Join us in the next Live Session of the Lesson of the Week - where it’s always completely anonymous - and guaranteed to introduce you to a few new ways of viewing some old problems.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. randallyons.com

Welcome to the Sober Shaman Podcast, where we explore ways to make the spiritual practical and apply these medicines to the recovery from addiction and trauma.

Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Sober Shaman Podcast.

Today we're going to talk about success.

Success.

What.

What does that look like in sobriety?

Lesson number five, definitions.

Success.

And I've got a pretty simple formula for success when it comes to what we're trying to do in sobriety.

And this formula has got three parts to it.

The first part I like to call point A.

It's the situation you find yourself in right now.

Second part, call it point B.

It's about where you want to go.

And the third part is, do you have what it takes to get from point A to point B?

Again, I like to keep things really simple.

And of course, as they say, simple but not easy.

And, and I like to start with simple models like that.

The first part is where you're at point A, where you want to go point B.

And do you have what it takes from.

To get from point A to point B?

That's it.

Now, the first thing I want to go over is what it takes to evaluate point A, the present situation that you find yourself in right now.

And as you'll hear me say often, this requires a ruthless.

A ruthless, honest awareness.

We must apply honesty in a ruthless manner using our awareness, medicine of awareness.

That's what we got to do.

And at the same time, I suggest bringing a generous heart's compassion.

So that ruthlessness is just really about sharpening the awareness.

It's about not BS in yourself when it comes to honesty.

And we all do that.

And that's why it takes other people to call us out sometimes.

So whether you're doing this on your own, which is kind of tough to bring a ruthless honesty, but as best as you can, and working with other people, groups, professionals, friends, whatever you've got in your corner, this is what needs to be brought to assess accurately point A, the situation you currently find yourself in.

Now, next week we'll talk about the four stages of recovery.

And the first one is, is.

Is crisis mode.

So success is going to look different in every phase of recovery.

In other words, when we're in crisis, Randy, you know what success looks like?

It looks like coming out the other end of detox alive.

Great.

It looks like getting my lawyer and me on the same page and coming out the other side of this impending Legal action.

Great.

It looks like me getting out of the hospital.

Okay, these, that's point A to point B.

Sometimes it's very simple when we are forced into these situations of crisis.

Otherwise when we are in the second phase investigation, we got, we got a little bit of breathing room.

So, okay, right here, right now, what is your situation that you find yourself in at present?

Your point A, bringing a ruthless honest awareness that sharp mental clarity is required and at the same time holding a, a generous heart's compassion for the situation you do find yourself in.

And then we bring these same tools, the awareness and, and the compassion to point B.

The second thing we need clarity around where do you want to go?

What does success look like?

What does that look like when you arrive there?

Bring that logical mind, weighing out all of the factors and bringing the desire of the heart.

So now you know, success cannot just be not using.

That's a great criteria and place to start.

And maybe that's again all you can think of right now.

And at the same time, if that is the case, I will keep suggesting to check in with the heart.

What is the desire of the heart?

And for so many of us in recovery and many of the people I work with, the desire of the heart and what success looks like is so often not known, is so often been buried, been so often forgotten, clobbered, put away with our, our souls parts and our innocence of childhood that we have no idea.

Which is why I do it pretty darn early here in lesson number five.

Let's start asking these questions.

Let's start opening that long forgotten box of hearts, desires and compassionately, generously looking at them.

Point B, where do you want to go?

That's success when I get there.

Then the third thing is we need clarity around okay, you've accurately described where you're at.

Point A.

You have envisioned clearly point B where you want to go.

Third thing is, do you have what it takes to get there?

Do you have the tools?

Do you have the means?

Do you have the support?

What do you need to get there?

Chances are you're going to need help from other people.

What does it take to get from point A to that point B?

Everything that's necessary.

So I like to make a very clear list and going through these again, ruthless honesty of the situation you find yourself in.

Point A along with compassionate, generous heartfeltness, looking at point B and success and what does that look like and where do I want to get to?

And then the third thing, do I have what it takes?

Being honest, do I really have what it takes.

Now I like to throw in one more thing being that spiritual component that I often do is I want you to invite in the spirits of grace and ease to get you from point A to point B with the tools and the people and the support it takes to get there.

It's important we, we are clear about what we're asking the universe, right?

All kinds of examples of asking for success.

And it comes with an expense that wasn't factored into the equation.

Let's get there with as much grace and ease as possible, with little, as little harm to others and elbow grease on my part and clear intention and generosity on my part to go from point A to point B.

And that's it.

Point A, be clear.

Point B, be clear.

How do I get there?

Be clear.

And we make very clear lists about these things.

And when compiling these lists, I like to.

I like to invite maybe bigger ways of looking.

Listen, point A.

What, what is your current state of health?

Current state of your marriage or your closest relationships or your family, friends, your job and career?

What about, what about your time, your stress level, anything else you can think of?

Be clear about these things and the requirements that are required of you right now.

Your point A, don't underestimate them.

Be ruthlessly honest.

This is where that kind of clarity, you can't BS yourself.

Hope is not a strategy, is a line I've been repeating this week.

People know.

The one thing that I don't leave a lot of latitude on when doing private sessions is ambiguity.

I don't like the, I don't know, come up with at least a few options.

Point B, be clear about your health, about your marriage, your.

Your closest relationships.

What do you want that to look like?

What do you want your family to look like?

In every aspect, Head and heart, your friends.

Do you need to lose some?

Do you need to gain some?

Do you need to transform the ones you have or transform the relationships, I should say, with the ones you have through honesty.

You may have to let go some of those ones that just are slippery and pull you into slippery situations.

Your job, maybe your job does that, right?

How many times have I brought up the.

The family business and what does that look like?

And the intricate web that is involved, all of the strands you need to get clear about where you're at.

And point B, where do you want to go?

If you're in the family business, Your sobriety is intertwined in there.

Your definition of love is intertwined in there.

Your definition of success is intertwined in There and what their perception of view is intertwined in there.

And as we've talked about for the previous four weeks, the definition of addict, well, you are the fill in the blank, the one who's got the problem.

Yeah, that whole thing has to change that point B has to be transformed and.

But what about your time and your relationship to time, your relationship to stress and how that affects everything else we just talked about?

And then get clear on those tools.

The tool.

You know, some things are obvious, right?

The tools for your health might be support in the form of professionals, whether that is your physical health or your mental health.

Or it might be a professional in the form of a trainer of some kind.

Hit the gym, take that Muay Thai class, you know the routine.

Same thing with all of these categories.

What tools are going to be necessary to transform, to get from point A to point B with grace and ease?

Grace and ease doesn't mean easy.

Grace and ease means applying your ruthless honesty and bringing a generous heart's compassion at the same time.

And when you do that and you bring the clarity of what needs to be done, magical things happen.

When you part the clouds, remove the fog, you do what it takes to get from point A to point B, bringing along the spirits of grace and ease, what support is it going to take to get there for your family, your friends, your job, your career, your time, stress and anything else you can think of.

Now this simplicity is something I return back to time and time again and I'll bring a.

A recent twist to the situation that's been occurring in a couple of different situations and examples in my life and with regards to, to relapse.

And I'm speaking in terms of others, not my own.

Knock wood.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Spirits of grace and ease.

And so the idea of this kind of honesty and specifically with what happens to honesty when situations change and I'm going to just be stereotypical generalistic here and speak in those terms, alcohol, Alcohol tends to invite in the spirits of anger.

There seems to be Chinese medicine, it's the liver and liver's related to anger.

So it makes wonderful sense and translates into Western medicine of how that of how alcohol affects the liver and the liver's function in Chinese medicine and brings out frustration and anger and a hardening and a stagnation which is under the domain of the liver with a capital L in Chinese medicine.

And when this starts happening, it's generally when permission has been granted at such a subconscious level, at such a slippery level in the water element is if we're going around the cycle of addiction in the five elements.

It's been done in the depth, the dark of the subconscious.

That this permission has been granted where some future situation is presenting itself, is inevitably going to happen.

And the lies start coming up.

And one lie that's been presented that is common enough is I can do it different this time.

I've got it all under control.

As another person said to me, no, no, you don't.

You know why I know that no one has it all under control.

That's right.

No one has it all under control.

I'm talking about trauma, abuse, heartbreak and loss.

My acronym, tall tahl.

They are coming.

They are inevitable.

We don't have it all under control, meaning that, okay, maybe we're not going to be subject to the trauma and, or the abuse and, or the kind of heartbreaks and losses that we experienced in the past.

But I guarantee you that more heartbreak and more loss is coming.

That's life and death and the cycle and the way that things are.

So when we start to tell ourselves these kinds of lies and believing them wholeheartedly, it's not the heart, it's the pericardium.

It's the protector of the heart protecting the defense mechanisms.

I've got it all under control.

It's going to be different this time.

Are the two lies that are red flags that I immediately then question, which are generally, when confronted, met with, you guessed it, indignation and righteous anger.

This is what anger does.

This is what stagnation does.

This is what the hardening of the liver's energy looks like in the mental, emotional, and the words coming out of the mouth.

Anger is always protecting something.

Anger is always defending something.

Anger is always defending a cause and an idea.

And when that cause and idea is rooted in a lie based upon the.

I give myself permission when this coming thing is going to happen.

Anybody who dares confront the truth and bring in some ruthless honesty is going to be met head on with this in indignant anger.

And it's heartbreaking because it's unoriginal, because it is a re.

Action.

It's a reaction.

It's immediate.

It's knee jerk.

Like really, that doesn't.

And if you confront it in a, in a way that invokes or implies shame, then you've just given the anger now tangents to be angry about.

Well, you don't know how to do it.

You're shaming me.

It's like, okay, now we're not even talking about what we should be talking about now we're going down these side roads and making you even angrier.

And we're not going to get to the main point, which is the permission that you granted yourself and the lie that you're truly telling you don't have it all under control.

It's not going to be different this time.

If you haven't made anything truly different this time.

If generally speaking, you're going to enter into the conditions that are exactly the same ones that catapulted you into rehab, what's going to be different?

No, I'm different.

30 days, 60 days, 90 days of sobriety under my belt.

That's fantastic, that's wonderful.

Maybe you got some new tools and you're not being ruthlessly honest about the present situation.

The present situation of entering into the family, the house, the old exact structure that I like that word, catapulted you back to rehab is not a good strategy.

That's not an A to B.

The tools to keep you safe are not waiting there.

As a matter of fact, the slippery conditions are waiting for you there.

So we need to be ruthlessly honest about this.

And one of the things, one of the blessings about the work that I do, we do together on both sides of this aisle is when we, and by we, I mean as practitioner and as human, fallible at any point, admitting I don't have it all under control and that I also am subject to all of the slippery voices that anybody else is of giving permission in all kinds of ways.

Once we do that and bring in honesty and can meet each other in that place of honesty and heart, safety magic happens.

And the veil of lie and the spell of that subconscious message that is the root and the seeds of that lie.

It's going to be different this time.

I've got it all under control.

And what other brand of lying voice comes out of those seeds?

When we meet each other in that place and we look at the lie for what it is and we take a ruthlessly honest assessment of where I'm at.

And where I'm at is believing that lie is A, is defending that lie, is using anger to keep any help out.

When we meet each other in that place, then all of a sudden that magic happens where it's not necessarily, I am identified with my anger, I am identified with my relapse.

I am, you know, who, who are you to say what's going on in my subconscious?

We have the separation and we as two curious hearted humans can go, huh?

Will you look at that?

Will you look at that permission that's been Granted.

As an idea, as a thought, as permission floating by on a cloud.

Hey, Randy, I can give you permission.

Oh, I have a choice in this situation.

And when we are able to then look at that anger, I don't.

I don't need to be angry.

And it doesn't come from that reactionary place of boring ass, cycle of addiction, protection of the lie.

And we see it, the anger, as it is protecting a lie.

Will you take a look at that?

The whole house of cards falls apart again.

And we have these magical moments and we have this clarity.

We bring this awareness.

And when that lands in our hearts who are meeting in this place together, the medicine of connection, of viewing it and viewing it together, creates a connection of medicine, health.

Will you look at that?

I have another choice.

I can choose this magical place.

I have this experience.

I can come back here.

I can choose this, this objectivity, this choice to not engage and express anger as a reactionary defense of holy moly.

A lie put a lot of energy into that.

Man did I put a lot of energy into that.

I don't.

I don't need to do that.

Magic happens.

Magic does happen.

For me, this transformation, this viewpoint, this new perspective, this being seen and seeing each other, what medicine is this?

That what magic is this?

What beauty is this?

Then we are connected and bold, empowered to take with us, take a little piece of that with us in our heart, like a flame.

It's like we pilot light each other's flame to be seen, to be heard.

Regardless of which side of the desk you're on, the practitioner side or the.

The client side, it doesn't matter.

Both hearts get their pilot lights lit.

Because as I talk about as a practitioner, I'm in need of having a place to put my gift.

That's what gives me meaning.

That's what gives me the empowerment, the intrinsic motivation to be clear to myself, to be honest with myself when these reactionary voices of anger and fill in the blank pop up in my life.

I need it just as much as you need it.

It's just that we happen to be talking about you and this situation of sobriety, but it's just as powerful for me.

I can speak for myself and the people who I know I talk about this with as practitioners, when we're sitting in that practitioner seat, for our hearts, for our minds to be seen, to have a place to put our gift and to keep that cycle of manifestation rolling, we take this with us.

Why?

Hey, it's the next medicine.

It's the physical realm.

It's part of the practice.

This is the practice.

And you give me a place to practice.

You give me a place to put my gift, to talk about these things, to bring this little bit of experience that I have of, of witnessing magic, of having the honor to witness magic with clients.

I wish you a little bit of this magic.

A lot of this magic.

May the spirits of grace and ease carry you from your point A to your point B and introduce you to, or reinforce you with the tools it takes to get there.

That's.

That's my blessing to you this week.

May you have that.

May I have that.

May we all have that in our lives today.

And this will do it for lesson number five's companion piece on this episode of the Sober Shaman Podcast, Definition of Success as always, send me any questions, comments, concerns you have.

I appreciate you doing that.

If I don't know the answer, I'll refer you in a direction of someone who does.

Till next time, blessings.

Thanks for listening to the Sober Shaman Podcast, where we explore ways to make the spiritual practical.

Please subscribe.

Wherever you listen to podcasts, send me any questions or comments you have.

Just check out the website randallions.com I look forward to hearing from you.

Until next time, blessings.