“Learn as if you were going to live forever. Live as if you were going to die tomorrow.” ANONYMOUS
In Step Four we did an inventory that had many of us digging into our past to determine what our shortcomings, wrongs & defects had been & still were. Then we listed our strengths & attributes to see which of those would be powerful enough to extinguish our unproductive behavior patterns.
In Step Ten we want to concentrate on the now. We need to check our daily inventory to see whether we’re still harboring resentments, indulging in self-pity or defeatism, procrastinating, acting grandiose, behaving selfishly, or feeling jealous.
These are but a few of the red alerts that help us understand why we might not be feeling comfortable at the moment. Each one of us can probably think of many more.
If this sounds as though we must spend all our waking hours examining & reexamining ourselves for flaws, this is not the case. The personal inventory is simply a useful tool to help us when we’re experiencing uncomfortable feelings with ourselves or others. It’s at these moments when we need to mentally review our memories of past behaviors. This allows us to identify the negative emotion that is presently being stimulated. Once we can identify the cause, we know how to rectify it.
TODAY’S STEP: When I take stock everyday, I can recognize & correct my character defects
-----------------------------
Step Eleven
HIS WILL
“Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.” FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT
“Uncover—Discover—Discard” has been a recurring theme during our journey through these steps. But now we want to change “Discard” to “Recover.” We are able to do this now because in Steps Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight & Nine, we identified our unproductive behavior patterns & began to rid ourselves of our defects & shortcomings. Although we will always find old attitudes & reactions cropping up in our daily lives, we now have the Tenth Step as a tool to take care of them.
The recover phase actually begins in Step One & has been an integral part of all the succeeding steps. But now we want to look at it with even greater emphasis.
“Seeking only knowledge of his will for us & the power to carry that out” is a tall order indeed. We might assume now that, having put this much effort & dedication into working the previous ten steps, we should certainly have arrived at the point where we were ready for self-government. Surely, “turning our will & our lives over to the care of God” in the Third Step was simply a temporary measure?
Not so. The foundations of our program are deeply spiritual. They are based on the belief that if we want our lives to be productive & happy, then guidance from some source outside of ourselves is a prime necessity for the rest of our lives.
TODAY’S STEP: Through prayer, I am gaining knowledge of God’s will for me & the power to carry it out.
-----------------
Step Twelve
WISDOM
“The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.” RALPH WALDO EMERSON
It is slowly dawning on us that the preceding Eleven Steps are part of an ongoing process. We realize that just because we’ve been through them once doesn’t mean we can pack them away in mothballs. Step Twelve clearly demonstrates that we could not have arrived at our present state of balance were it not for Steps One through Eleven. It also tells us that, in preparing to undertake the threefold message of this step, we’re committing ourselves to a way of life that is a complete departure from the attitudes & behavior of our addictive lifestyle.
As problems continue to arise in our everyday life, we’re able to take each one of them in turn & work through the entire Twelve Steps with them. We can do this with skewered relationships, with money & employment problems, with emotional hang-ups & with any other situation that may be causing us confusion & discomfort.
Remember the old Latin adage: “Repetition is the mother of wisdom”? It is by repeatedly applying the steps in all our affairs that we reap the benefits of our new way of life. We also need to remember H.O.W.—Honesty, Open-mindedness & Willingness—that we learned in our early days of recovery. The power of this advice will become increasingly obvious as we enjoy the fruits of our labors.
TODAY’S STEP: I continue to practice the principles of this program in all my affairs.
__________________
Life is short..Live it sober to the fullest...One day at a time...
