20250614 - The biggest block to God20250614 - The biggest block to God
Love Your Life, with Randy Mermell
Randy Mermell is an international coach, speaker, and podcaster. Randy helps people live happy and purposeful lives. Drawing from his own experience from 20 years of happy marriage, raising two daughters, and his success as an entrepreneur, he has helped others get through all types of professional and personal challenges, including love, marriage, children, jobs, and finding passion in everything we do. With over 28 years of sobriety, and success in his own life overcoming low self-esteem, addictions to alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and coffee Randy draws on his real-life experience to lead meditation and recovery retreats internationally.
57:08•2 Jul 2026
The Biggest Block to God: Quieting the Self‑Talking Mind in Sobriety
Episode Overview
- Meditation and the Third Step Prayer are used together to make conscious contact with a higher power, one breath and one line at a time.
- Alcoholism is described as a disease centred in an unsatisfiable, fault‑finding mind that talks in your own voice and pushes you toward emotional pain.
- The AA steps are framed as a way of living where drinking becomes unnecessary, rather than a set of tricks to simply stop drinking.
- Trying to fix yourself through self‑will or constant "good behaviour" keeps you trapped in debate and dissatisfaction, while surrender brings relief.
- Talking constantly to a personal concept of God – such as a golden ball of energy inside – helps quiet the mind and guides everyday choices without resentment or guilt.
“"The biggest bar from having a spiritual experience now is judging this, what's happening now, against any other time I think I've had a spiritual experience before."”
What drives someone to seek a life guided by a higher power rather than by their own restless thoughts? In this gathering, Randy Mermell brings together meditation, Alcoholics Anonymous principles, and very human stories to look at what blocks people from feeling close to God – or whatever name they use for a higher power. The session begins with a gentle, practical guide through the AA Third Step Prayer, taken one line and one breath at a time.
Randy invites the group to picture a "ball of golden energy" in the chest and to talk to it like a friend, using simple questions such as, "God, should we give this person a ride home?" He calls sanity a "quiet mind" and explains alcoholism as a disease rooted in a fault‑finding, unsatisfiable mind that is always in a hurry and can’t stand the word no.
You’ll hear how he once thought AA was just about not drinking, then realised the steps offer a way of living where drinking isn’t needed because emotional pain is handled differently. The contrast between self‑will and surrender runs through the whole meeting. Randy points out that trying to be a "good person" through effort and self‑help just feeds the same mind that created the problem in the first place.
Group members like Ashley, Don, Steve, Caroline and Denise bring real‑life experiences into the mix: grief over a parent, tension in marriage, job worries, and guilt about everyday decisions such as giving someone a lift home. Randy responds by bringing the focus back to checking in with a higher power, rather than arguing with yourself endlessly.
If you’ve ever felt stuck between wanting to be spiritual and being trapped in your own head, this conversation offers a calm, sometimes funny, and very down‑to‑earth look at another way to live. Could a quiet mind and a simple prayer really be the biggest shift you make today?
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