this podcast was created on messi, create your own show today at messy dot FM. Welcome back everyone to that christian and recovery podcast and I'm your host, vernon ale and this is that podcast where we talk about life's problems and we also talk about the solution to those problems, but if we don't know the solution, we talk about our role in the problem, because I do believe that everyone is recovering from something. Mhm. Let's talk about relationships this morning. Y'all relationships can be very painful. That can be very confusing. They can be very challenging and if we get real honest that a lot of us have not been real good in the area area of relationships. Now, when we talk about relationships, we can talk about a whole lot of relationships, we can talk about relationship with our spouse with our Children, with the co workers with the neighbors, they're, you know, uncles and uh you know, there's a whole lot of relationships that we can talk about, we can focus on, but I'd like to talk about relationship with the inner child and the reason why I want to talk about the relationship with the inner child because my life changed when I got in touch with the lost child, deep inside of me now, I didn't know nothing about no inner child until I got to the 12 step recovery program.

And a lot of people told me, they say, look, man do the 12 steps, they say you're gonna find someone, they said you're gonna you're gonna find someone embrace him, love him, accept him, but they didn't tell me who he was. So I took the suggestions and I began to do the 12 steps and the 12 steps are designed to get you in a relationship with your inner child And also with a relationship with your higher power. That's the whole purpose of the 12 steps to get you to your true self. Okay? See, I came into the 12 step recovery program with a person that I have created. Okay, I created this person, you know, some of us call it the ego, some of us call it the false self, but in essence, I created him because I wanted to survive. I wanted to to look good.

I wanted people to accept me. See in step five, it talks about getting to the exact nature of our wrongs. The exact nature of my wrong was that I didn't know how to get the needs that I needed fulfill in a healthy way. So, what I did, I begin to go outside of me and try to find uh nurturing and comfort in all the wrong places, Right? So now the 12 steps are designed to get you in touch with who you really are. See, you might think right, you might thank you are the person that you are. But until you get connected with the person that's connected to God, that's who you really are there, there's a virgin that I created. Then there is a vernon who God created, He wanted me to be him, okay, I ain't about to get all into that, but that's what it is. So, now I began to do these 12 steps and I began to go inside and I began to find all these flaws.

I have all these flaws, right? I have all these character defects, all have these shortcomings. I have all this stuff, you know. Now, you know, the best way to get, the best way to get to some of this stuff is to do the inner work. And also, if you take a real good look at your relationships, just, you know, relationships with everyone that's as close to your or whoever, because our relationships, our reflection a mirror, if you will of who we are, see the things that I need to work on. I really see it in other people. Yeah, I see it in other people. So that's why I tagged him. That's why I criticize people and I judge them because those are the things that God wants me to work on. See. God gave each and every one of us a ministry and he gave us the ministry, it's called reconciliation, right? And our ministry is to is to go and reconcile ourselves back to God back to our true selves and back to others see, but I'm eyes and our ego and our false self and the devil, whatever you want to call it the disease or whatever you want to call it.

It makes us think that in order for us to be okay with ourselves, we have to be in control of everything. See, that's how you know, you you're not living your true self. If you're trying to fix and manage and control everything about you, I mean, everyone around you, you're not you're lost, you're lost in the bible clearly says, right? He clearly says I'm talking about in Matthew 18 3 and four. This is what jesus said, jesus said, I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little Children, you will never get into the kingdom of Heaven unless you turn from your sins. Unless you change, right? Unless you change now, let's go back now. I'm gonna go back. Then. When I was a little kid, when I was a little kid, I was taught certain things I was talking, I was talking things like, men don't cry, right?

This is what I was talking. You know, you ain't about to be no punk, right? So, when I began to believe these things, I began to suppress and ignore the child that's inside of me. Okay, this is my story. If you can relate, let me know if this landing with some of y'all let me know, right? So, at a very young age, I began to abandon myself. So I began to suppress. No, no, you know, no. You have feelings, vernon and feelings are wrong. You have thoughts vernon, it's a little vernon than me. They are wrong because guys already guys saying that I don't suppose to cry. So anyway, they taught me at a very young age to suppress and ignore the child in me. So, you know, so now I'm growing up and I'm trying to impress other people, but I have these needs, these needs, right?

So now, you know, my mother, like again, I tell people all the time, you don't have to come from a bad background to, you know, to use drugs or nothing. You know, you can come from a loving family, right? And still use drugs. Your mother can love the mess out of you, you still can use drugs, you still can commit crime, you know that don't you know, that ain't always tied to you have to come from a bad place because I know my mother did good, I'm not confused by that, it's just that I wasn't in tune with who I was and when you're not in tune with who you are, you began to seek validation on the outside, right? Because see I was a young kid, I grew up, I was good with my hands, right? And all the kids seen this, they said this little dude can fight. So what they started doing, they started taking me around the neighborhood and start making money off me boxing, right? So I'm a young kid and I'm banging, I'm knocking these these guys out that's older me, these other older kids right there, getting paid first.

I was living in koi ville, you know what I mean, that the guy was you know hustling me that I moved the avenue and another guy saw the hustling me, he's like man, this little dude cold with these hands, but what reason why I'm sharing that? I'm not trying to brave, I'm talking about the feeling that it made me feel, it made me feel wanted. It made me feel accepted. It made me feel good about myself. Say, see my mother used to tell me all these good things about me too, but I had a belief system that said or she just, my mama mother is supposed to tell their kids stuff like that. So we, even though my mother told me good things, I really didn't take it as that seriously, you know seriously as when people outside of my house started telling me stuff. So now at a very young age I began to seek seek fulfillment on the outside, I wanted to do things so I can feel good about me.

So, so I began to do sports, I excelled in sports. What happened all the people speak good things about me that made me feel good about it about myself, right? All I ever wanted to do was to feel good about me, but see when you seek out outside validation for your inside worth, There's something wrong with that. Is there something wrong with that? There's something wrong with that picture, right? So I began to lose my true self even though I make selling and the world saying I'm doing good, but there's something inside me that's missing. There was always something inside me that was missing. And now I can look back and I can reflect that's because I abandoned that little child. And let me tell you something about that little chat and we all have it in us. Okay brother, you want to admit it or not? There's a little little child in each and every last one of us, every last one of us have that child and now either we're going to accept it and try to get in tune with it or we're just gonna go on live our life the way we've been living our lives.

But one thing about that child and I'm just talking about from my experience, one thing about the inner child, he's gonna show up. Mhm. He's going to show up, he's going to act out. He's going to he's going to throw temper tantrums, he's going to do what he needs to do for the attention that he needs because see when you see an adult acting out and we all have seen it from instagram to the news to go to our own families. We have seen grown people act like kids, you know, I don't want to give no example. But if you want me to get some examples, I can some example of grown grown grown adults acting like Children when you're trying to control everybody, you acting like a child because see a child, you know, put safe as a child had their little toys, right? They had, let's say that cowboys and indians of what I had, I had cowboys and indians, I have my own little little world.

I lived in my own little world, I had my cowboys, I had my indian and I live in this fantasy world. See a lot of adults living still live in a fantasy world. Some some adults never outgrown the self centeredness of a child, right? Some of us, some of us never done that. We always want to blame other people. We always want to keep our foot on our mother's neck because my mother in our minds, our mothers didn't do as what we think they should have done. So the rest of their lives rest of our lives, we're going to sit there and just suppress and have this resentment toward our mothers and keep our foot on our mother's neck no more because we can't even see the change that our mothers have made or our fathers right? Because we're so self centered were so childish and what you mean by childish. I'm talking about childish that you think everything revolves around you see when God say come to me like a child, he's not talking about childish.

So, I got to clear that up, man. Because you know, a lot of people be hitting me up because you know, I speak a lot about this inner child because my world changed when I got in touch with this little vermin inside of me, my world changed all my relationships got better, right? But he's not talking guys not talk about childish, right? He talked about being childlike and Children. What what what, what an example Virna of being childlike, humble Children are very humble, they're dependent on their fathers, right? They depend on the father, They depend on their father, their mothers to take care of them. That's why God said come to me like a child man, right? Children have faith in their parents. Talking about when he was a kid, a little bitty old thing you believe in your mother, you believe you felt safe. God wants us to feel safe with him.

Right? Children, they forgave how many times as a Children, child, you had a fight talking about me, I'm a key having fights. Next thing I know I'm playing I'm playing with the kids and I just had a fight with because we forget things man. But when we grow older and we began to live life, the world began to tell us man and we begin to come up with these self stories that's in our minds, that's not even based in reality they based in some type of feeling or what we think. Listen man, all feelings aren't facts. All feelings on facts. Yeah, it might be the fact that you feel that way, but what caused you to feel that way? That doesn't necessarily mean it's the truth. See we all have flaws, right? We all have flaws. So anyway man, this is why I say getting with that inner child changed me man, changed my life. So I did the work, I did the work with these older guys, told me to do, they said do the work, you're gonna find somebody.

So I did the work God began to remove and began to make me aware of my flaws, made me aware of my shortcomings and it was painful man. Listen man, it's painful man. Find out the truth of who you are. Yeah man, the the truth of who you are, why do you think a lot of times we get in relationships man, whether it's you know I mean without a woman or people that's real close to us, y'all know the sand. The truth hurts why? Because people around us can see us for who we really are. Listen man, your kids know who you really are. We see ourselves as the person we want to be. Them two different. The man, I'm gonna say that again. People around us, They see us for who we really are, right? We see ourselves as the person we're trying to become.

Listen to the people around you, this is what I did man, this is what I did. I started listening to my wife, I started listening to my Children. I started taking it to God and listen man, I'll tell you what my God told me. They write no matter what little v say about me, right, God say he's right, right. DJ DJ said this about me God, he's right all my kids man, right? I got six of them all love them man. Right? I take it the guy and said this is what they say about me and God said they write so now I gotta take a real deep look at myself. Right? So now I started doing this work and then I found this person and it's this little child was inside of me and he looked me in my eyes man, I'm talking about man, I'm talking about getting with that child is inside you bro.

Uh huh. He looked at me and he and he cried and his and his eyes was big man and he told me he said I knew you was coming back for me. Uh huh I'm talking about the child is inside you. This kid knew I was coming back for him, he said I knew you was coming back and I embraced it and I hugged him man, I hugged him, I said I never leave you again man, I'm talking about the child is inside of me man And he started begin to talk and he began to tell me all these things, man that and I want to do this and I want to do that. See I'm an adult now. So I'm now beginning to build a loving relationship with the little child inside of me man. What are you saying, Virna? What I'm saying is, man, you can't have a healthy relationship with other people until you have a healthy relationship with yourself. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Your true self, not the ego, right?

Because you got to realize when you're coming from the streets like me, I wanted to share my story. I didn't have no relationship with none of them guys. None of them not. It ain't a dude in the streets that I had a relationship with. Now. What I did have a relationship with, I had a relationship with their ego. Come on man. Come on man. Hit me up, man. Y'all y'all feeling this hit me up because that's all men are, men are just a group of egos. You don't sit around and hear me and talk about their true feelings. That's weak man where I come from. That's some soft stuff, but that's who you really are. And that's why a lot of women for a lot of women, they can see that. Come on, man, come on, say a lot of women can see past that, that brick wall that we built. Right? You know, I mean women, I have had dated and told me, you know what you really a good person, You just acting like this, you just got this hard, this hard shell around you. The streets will make you like that. Oh yeah, yeah the streets and make it hard bro because you have to protect yourself.

But now when you get in recovery, right? Again, it's about getting with that inner child and it's about getting with God, guess what? Y'all the survival skills from the streets, they began to just God began to just chisel them away, right? Because you have to realize even though these belief system that I have didn't work, I was familiar with them. I'm familiar with keeping you away from me, I'm familiar with judging you, I'm familiar with, watch this, y'all doing your inventory. Come on man, come on man, y'all feeling me man, let me know man, I'm talking about bro, I can tell you every flaw that my wife have my wife man, let me tell you she upstairs at work right now, right while I'm recording this, she probably hear me, She probably cracking up like that dude is crazy down there. But for real man, I could tell you every flaw about her, I can tell you about every shortcoming about any person that's in my circle.

Why? Because I have a mindset that I have been accustomed to doing other people's inventory in other words man, I'm used to fault finding so I have I have this insecurity that's inside me. That that I have come to believe that in order for me to be all right, I have to be in control of everything and people have to be a certain way in order for me to love them. They have to be a certain way. So all I see is their flaws. But God put these people in my life to save, earn and look at their flaws, but turn around and look at yourself. See I can go to the bible man, I can I can hit you out with scriptures, I can hit you out with scriptures that God say, clean the inside of your cup. I can hit you out with scriptures when when he talked about, right, take the log at your own. I there's a reason why guys saying that man, there's a reason why he's saying that you can't help nobody else if you're not trying to help yourself.

Right? So now this inner child made him begin to build this relationship man. Now I'm not even thinking about all my other relationships. I'm keeping it real with child. I'm not thinking about relationship my kids, I ain't thinking about man, I got in touch with this little kid, you know what I'm saying? I'm getting in touch with him, but watch what happens man. I began to build a relationship with him and he began to tell me all these ideas I didn't think about it. My band to him. What when I started what I started using? Well, when I was like in the seventh grade, So I would hold about 12. So I banned the dude like when I was 12. Yeah, yeah. So, so I banned him like, so he'd been just stuck just on his own just acting out. That's why a lot of people say, man, you act so childish sometimes. That's that little kid, That's that little kid, that's self similar kid. When you get stuck on your belief system, people be saying, look man, there's another way to look at something and you just stuck on your way. That's that little that's that little child or he comes out, man, he comes out through fighting.

He comes he comes out to holding temper tantrums. He come find out, he loved to run, right? He loved to run. When people make you look at, you know yourself and you look at your role and you don't want to look at your role. The first thing you do and forget it. Then I'm leaving this relationship. That's that little kid. Yeah, that's that little kid. He wants what he wants, you know, to see a grown man, right? A grown adult can work through different your differences. It's an adult is mature enough for an adult. When when my wife say something to me that she don't like adult would look at it. And so you know what I do need to get better than that, that's what an adult would do. But a child, come on man, you tell you tell a child something bad about it. First thing they're gonna give me my ball. Y'all know the story man. We all grew up, right? There was always that one kid, y'all know what I'm talking about that had the basketball on the court. I don't know where you're from, but it was always where I come from. All this one kid, he had a fresh gym shoes and he had a fresh cut but he couldn't who he couldn't hope man.

So we come all down there, your brother let us use your ball, right? Y'all gonna let me you're gonna let me play, we'll let you play, man. Just sit right there, we got you charlotte, we got you. Right. So anyway, he began to see that he never got picked up. So he said give me my ball. I'm going home. They were like, hold on, man, let's play one more game, right? That's how that's how some of us still act as adults. We still want to grab our ball and run home because things ain't gone our way because people are not picking us on 18, right? Because they're telling us things that we need to work on, but we're not willing to work on it, man, come on, man, this thing is about this thing about walking in christ man. This thing about being a christian man, this is a character thing bro, this ain't about how many how many songs you can sing brothers about an inside job. So now I began to build this relationship with this little kid. So he'd be telling me all the stuff that he yeah, I mean that he want to do. He said, well that's that's that's that's let's go for a walk, right?

I go for a walk because I do a lot of things now that I used to do when I was a child, I was very creative as a child. So you got realized man, when you abandoned that little kid, you forget the things that he liked say I love art, I love nature. And most importantly, I love creating things like this podcast. This podcast is about helping other people. But it really came from the idea of the little child inside of me, right? Because this is creative. This this art all right, I'm writing a book now. That's the child inside of me, I'm in tune with it, I listened to him, right? We we we have a communication now. So when I get angry I said hold on time out, when I when I react, that's that kid at me. So I have to tell him the adult version and had to go to him like look Sharkey, I know you're scared it's something we're doing right? Like when I first started writing the book, I was scared and you know, I said, look man, I know you're scared.

That's all right. So I had to remind him of all the other things that we have done and we got through it, right? So he said, yeah, you're right. I said, yeah, we we don't walk through this, we didn't walk through that. You know what I'm saying? So now what happens is that instead of focusing on other people to give me comfort and give me security, I began to turn inward to the little child. Yeah, yeah. I don't try to don't try to control people as much. I can accept them. Well how can you accept people? That's messed up. Why? Because I messed up. See see when you do work on yourself and you begin to see how messed up you really are. Yeah. You know I mean, I'm talking about to get real honest to the truth. Like I'm childish, I'm self centered. I'm stand gee I'm talking about me, I ain't talking about Yeah, I'm talking about me. These are all the things I am. I'm self righteous. Oh bro, I can get self righteous in the matter. I'm closed minded, I can go on and I'm not about to tell you there'd be about four podcasts that I have to make to tell you all the stuff that I found out about me, but here's the thank God is good.

Right? So now as I began to become aware of all these flaws and all these defects of character and all this old crap. Now I begin to look at other people and I'm like man look I mean it's gonna be all right bro right, because I'm aware of me. But the good part about getting in touch with the enter champ that that really cherish the most is that he began to see and tell me all the good that sent me oh the good that sent me. See, you know what I mean? So I forgot I gotta have a whole lot of assets, right? And and it's in a child began to to work with me and then you know, God began to to to to cover that relationship. God began to bless that relationship and I'm talking about an internal relationship I'm not talking about no mind. I'm talking about what's in my heart because the longest role that I ever traveled was from my mind to my heart so I can get a whole lot of information but that still don't mean I'm gonna change inside in order to help other people and to care about other people is not intellectually you can't do that.

You're too busy trying to fix people. See people ain't broken for real if you get realized they ain't broken. Okay put it this way, they might be broken but they don't need to be fixed. Let's put it that way. Okay, we all broken the bible. Clearly say that we all have fallen short. So we all messed up, but we don't need to be fixed. We can't be fixed by another person, right? When it can be fixed, right? And cherished and loved by God. So now I began to see these assets, right? So now began to see these excesses now now my spine. So he began to tell me for now you need to do a gratitude list. So you know, and I'm a get honest with you and my spots, he might listen to this. I won't be doing a gratitude list. I'm rebellious like that. That's another flaw gap. I have a sponsor. I have a spiritual advisor and I'm about to get me a life coach. Yes, yeah, I messed up. That's why I have all these people in my life. I know I messed up. I keep telling you how that Yeah. And when you know you messed up God, he loved that. He's like, because I know I fall short, I'm not one of them christian that's gonna act like I know at all that's not my story.

I messed up man. I know I am right. So now God began to put these people in my life and my sponsors say do a gratitude list. I was like, all right man, I don't do it. But anyway, in my mind, I do it every day. I go through a gratitude list. I just, I just meditate and I go all way back to when I was just messed up when I was lonely when I was walking down 75 and spent all my money is pouring down rain. Yeah. And I'm just walking, just lost. So I remember that. I remember right. I remember when the dope boys jumped on me, huh? They jumped on and they beat me down. They made me use the bathroom on myself. They swore my eye my ankle with mestre. I remember all that. Did I remember most important, I went back to him, huh? I went back to him for some modo. Yes, yes, I remember that. So what happened when I go back to the dark time in my life? I come all the way back up. I come my way back up and I look at my life today and I just get my heart just be full of joy and contentment and let me know there he is a guy, there is a guy that, that's that guy.

I've been covering me doing this whole thing. Now listen the bible said vernon, even when you was a center, I as you covered say, it ain't a coincidence that dude ran over me and my boy on the sidewalk and I'm still living and my boy still living? It's called Grace man. It ain't a coincidence. Me and my wife living in this house, you know what I'm saying, that God built, it's called Grace. So I have to become to believe that I deserve good things God said And Jeremiah, I think it's 29 11 vernon, I have a plan for you, right? And he talked about, I have a plan to give you hope and a future, but I got to get with that in a child. It's a turn, right, the but the scriptures say I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little Children, you would never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. You'll never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. You got to come like a child. Faith dependent humility.

See the vernon that I created was full of pride, was full of ego. See now I'm humbled, I understand everything around me is from God, that's humility bro. So now I begin to see the assets in myself. Now watch this. I began to begin to do a mental gratitude lists. I began to see all the good in me, like magic. I told you that once I got with in the child, all my relationships change, Okay, y'all say why or how this, how it changed. I began to look at all my other relationships and I began to see the good in other people. Uh huh. So now, instead of focusing on my Children flaws, I began to do a gratitude list about them, kiki, she's good at this. She's very driven. She's open minded, She humble DJ. He's very humility.

He's very humble. He's willing, he want to do the best. Right? Mindless. He's very driven. I can just go on and on tape by all my kids and all the good stuff at sea. I see it now and God say stay right there. That's what I want you to do now. I go to work instead of going to work, seeing all the messed up stuff about my co workers, right? I hear the God in me and a little kid made him go like, well name something good. There's a little kid in me would be just playing this game. Name something good about dude? I'm like, I can't do it. He's like no name. Something good about that cold work, right? I can't do it right now man. I don't see no good in him right now. Right? So we so you build this relationship and you begin to have fun with this little kid, right? And uh and all your relationships just get better because what happened, I'm gonna share this man before I wrap this thing up. One thing that happens man with this little child man is that now you begin to free yourself. I'm not bound up man until my feelings man.

Because really what was missing man? I told you all the time man, something was always missing. That's what it was. It was my relationship with God. The guy said hold up, I got some more work work for you. Now I want you to find this little kid. Nourish him kicking with it. Let him know that you love him, man. Man, hit me up, man. This land within a young man. Until next time you forget. I don't want that. What happened? Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.