3.08.2010

Step 3 by Randy F.

The practice of 11th Step meditation for me is a very practical way to actually "work" the first 3 steps every time I meditate. Here are the first 3 steps of meditation as I have experienced them:


  • The 1st Step of meditation: Relax and Let Go of unmanageable thoughts and emotions

  • The 2nd Step of meditation: Discover and practice my inner connection to my Higher Power to restore me to sanity

  • The 3rd Step of meditation: Make decisions to surrender my self-will to allow God’s will to flow


Meditation helps us to practice letting go of unmanageable thoughts, connect to a power greater than ourselves, and make the decisions to let go and connect over and over again throughout the meditation.

Step Three: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him.


I have discovered that I have a very powerful mental and emotional self-will muscle that has been given free rein to rule my thoughts, emotions and my actions for all these years. There is no better description of this muscle in action, in a person totally trapped in ego and separated from their spiritual self, than in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous on pages 60-63.


Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. “


Our actor is self-centered- ego-centric, as people call it today.”

Selfish –self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self delusion, self-seeking and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.”

So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes this possible. We had to have God’s help.”

Imagine how our self-will muscle keeps a firm grip on this self-centered perspective of the world. If we have a perception or worldview, that tells us that we are separate and alone, then, we develop many unconscious emotional programs, fears and behaviors, to protect us in this isolated world. To me, this is the insanity from which I need to be restored, or recovered, from. When I am stuck in that selfish and self-centered place, I am viewing the world as a Randy-centered universe. Everything revolves around me, is being done to me or against me.

This is self-centeredness, what we commonly call Ego, or as I like to call it, my self-will muscles. My self-will muscle worldview is that I’m separate and alone. To me, this is the root of my spiritual disease, my insanity! These self will muscles, just like my physical muscles, contract and hold onto my past perceptions, ideas, resents and fears. I'm reminded of the saying from the rooms - "I never let go of anything that didn't have claw marks on it."

The other inner action of the self-will muscle is pushing. I often push people or situations, thoughts, feelings and things away from me that are uncomfortable. I am in denial, resentment or fear, refusing to see the truth in the "sunlight of the spirit." I pushed away the program and my Higher Power as I went in and out for 5 years before I stayed sober and accepted the idea that I could not take that first drink, no matter what.

These two self-will muscle groups often work together to team up to slow my spiritual progress. I often hear people push away new ideas or habits - such as daily meditation, because they are holding on to the ideas that "meditation doesn't work for me," or "I am just not able to quiet my mind," or "I just don't have time in the day" for 15-20 minutes of quiet meditation.

How do we shift from self-will, Ego, muscle dominance to a sane, whole spiritual perspective and lifestyle? Meditation is a highly effective the tool that gives us practice creating this new worldview.

The simple spiritual exercise of meditation works in so many incredible ways to heal our bodies, our emotions, our minds, the people in our lives and even our planet. In recent years science has discovered that in meditation we:

  • change the way our brains are hardwired by mapping new neural pathways

  • heal our physical bodies through the transmission of neuro-peptides to every cell in our bodies

  • generate a healing, loving, organizing electromagnetic energy from our heart center that touches every part of our body and others within a 5-8 foot radius of us

  • transmit biophotons from the sub-atomic level that communicates our thoughts, emotions and actions instantly to the rest of the world

So, why can’t I just change? I got sober when I was 39 years old. I had been living and exercising my self-will muscles for 39 years. There was much energy, or mud, caked around my behaviors, my old belief systems, and my thoughts patterns.

Every action produces a reaction. Science calls this the law of cause and effect. The bible teaches us that “we reap what we sow.” We receive the fruits of what we plant and nurture. The eastern religions call this karma. Everything that we think, or say, or do creates energy in the world. Thoughts are things. Our brain does not know the difference between a thought and an action. Everything that I have thought, felt, said or done has been recorded as energy in my mind, my body and in the Universe. This is a scary thought!

Imagine the character of Pig Pen in the Peanuts comic strip. Like him, we walk around surrounded by a cloud of energy, swirling around us with a multitude of emotional colors and mental baggage, interacting with the world leaving our energy scattered about everywhere we go. As alcoholics and drug addicts, and human beings in general, we have mis-directed our energies. Meditation is a wonderful tool to help us re-train our mind and our perspective on our emotions and our lives.

I call the self that I am striving to remember and reconnect to, my SpiritSelf. This has been described as the True Self, Higher Self, Soul, and Higher Consciousness. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. My SpiritSelf has been a overshadowed to my self-will muscles for much of my life. I practice letting go of my self-will muscles in meditation. I become the observer of my thoughts and life. I discover and reconnect, again, to my Higher Power. I let go and I let God.

But, what is God's Will? How can we tell the difference between God’s will and our will? We have had many years of being the director of our lives. We learn that as we practice meditation and overcoming ourselves we will slowly become more closely connected, the conscious contact promised in the 11th Step, with our SpiritSelf and God.

We begin by developing an awareness in meditation. The first step is learning how to relax our bodies, how to not listen to the “voices” of our mind and to practice connecting with our Higher Power and other human beings. We cannot stop our mind from thinking as we meditate. As thoughts arise in your meditation, just watch them float by, as if on a cloud or in a stream. Become the observer of your thoughts. This is learning to be detached from your thoughts. You will find that this will be a skill that becomes easier the more that you meditate.

You can practice being in the Presence of our Higher Power during meditations. When you settle into our inner meditation space you can begin to create a visualization of what your Higher Power looks like. This can be an image of light, a symbol, a person, or anything that you wish to develop as an image in your meditation of a power greater than yourself. What does this look and feel like? Your Higher Power image will evolve over time as you work with this meditation and throughout your sobriety. Remember, thoughts are things and as you connect to your higher power in meditation you are actually creating this connection!

We encounter a Step 3 opportunity every moment during meditation. It is an opportunity to “make a decision” and take an action – will it be the self-will path or the SpiritSelf path? Will I choose to follow the unmanageable thoughts that are crying for my attention, or will I detach, watch the thought float by and stay centered in the meditative moment?

This is a "surrender moment," a 3rd Step moment in meditation. I have thoughts or distractions in my meditation. I can choose to attach an emotion to them, to be distracted by them, or I can choose to notice the thought, detach from it and return to my meditation. Sometimes when I am unsettled, it seems like the thoughts and distractions are quite regular, I need to remember that I am being given the opportunity to demonstrate, over and over, my "decision" to turn my will and life over to the care of God. What a wonderful gift and exercise to actually practice this surrender moment!

The more I practice this surrender intention during meditation the more I diminish my self-will muscles, my ego. Every time I make the decision to detach from my unmanageable thoughts and emotions I am surrendering to God's will. Each meditation moves me one small step closer to the "conscious contact" promised in Step 11. Some days I sense that I have glimpses of this in the moment, in the now awareness of what the next right action is.

When I am in doubt about what God's will is I follow these tips. I know if I take these actions that I will be very close to making a decision to align with God’s Will:

  • Stay sober

  • Work the Steps

  • Meditate

  • Let go and Let God

  • Listen to the silence within

  • Do the next right thing

  • Forgiveness, always

  • Express love to yourself and to all others

  • Share

I sense an 11th Step Meditation movement within the 12 Step groups. More 11th Step meditation meetings and resources are becoming available each year. Maybe we are at the beginning of the next frontier in recovery - Spiritual Sobriety.

Here is my 11th Step Intention for today....Learn to Meditate. Meditate every day. Meditate with groups. Help others to meditate.

Randy F.

Spirit Step

11th Step Meditation


3.01.2010

What I Learned from Dick B.

I chose the post Alcoholics Anonymous History and Early A.A.'s Christian Roots to reflect on. Whenever reading a post by Dick B. I always learn a little more about the history of A.A. As a Christian I am still learning about my own religion and to hear what early Christian A.A.'s did is always of interest.

When Dick listed the parts of the program that early A.A.'s did not have to stay sober I got a slight pang of emotion. How lucky I feel to have had so many pave the way for my recovery. The abundance of meetings, the Steps and Traditions, the information at my fingertips and any time, drunkalogs online, on CDs, and of course at meetings.

So my take on this is how much more they had to rely on God. How would they have done it without? The first three got sober with God. How powerful! Information I have known but not thought of in this way.

The other thing I found very interesting is how Bill wanted to keep the line "on our knees." I get that. Once when working with a sponsee who was really struggling I tried to encourage more prayer and actually getting on her knees. The suggestion was heard although not taken. I have found that when I do get on my knees in prayer it seems to aid in my humility and deepen my connection with God. So I felt affirmed in my experience after reading that.

I can make use of this information by continuing to work on that relationship with God. To improve that conscious contact. To pray hard and hit my knees more.

Thank you Dick B. for sharing so much with us this month!

Gwen R.
TwelveBeads

A.A. Sketches on Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. (Cofounder of A.A.)

A.A. Sketches on Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. (Cofounder of A.A.)

Dick B.

This year (2010) is a year to learn about Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York, a personal friend of Bill Wilson, a well-spring of A.A. ideas, and a cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Shoemaker has been honored in the Episcopal Church itself; and two events are planned or have already been conducted, at the two major churches where Sam was the rector—Calvary Episcopal Church in New York, and Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh.

And now, what about Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.? Where did his A.A. role begin? What did his activity do to further the role that God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible played in the origins, founding, program, Big Book and Twelve Steps, and A.A. fellowship itself?

We will take these Shoemaker items—piece by piece. And you can find specific documentation in my book New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A., Pittsburgh ed. (www.dickb.com/newligh.shtml); in Sam’s many books and articles; and in my own extensive articles on the web that deal with Sam.

An Outline of Some Major Shoemaker/A.A. Facts

We start with Shoemaker’s first significant book, Realizing Religion, published in 1923:

Some chapter snippets: (1) The spiritual malady—Separation from God; The solution—You need to find God, You need a vital religious experience. You need Jesus Christ. (2) The Fact of Sin—“not a monster to be mused on, but a weakness to be gotten rid of.” It has “binding power, blinding power, multiplying power, deadening power.” “Repentance is to leave. The sin we loved before. And show that we in earnest grieve. By doing it no more.” “To realize the meaning of sin in feeling and in thought is not the mark of a sick soul, but rather the sign of return to spiritual health.” (3) Conversion—“a breach, a breaking off, a turning, a change?” “Now the ability to change people is the unique possession of religion.” “We must want it with all our hearts and put ourselves in the way of it. God on His part has longed to win us for years. It is we who have been unwilling. We must open ourselves to Him, and be prepared to accept all that it will mean to be a child of God.” “Best expressed in the old idea of self-surrender to God.” “Self-surrender has always been and always must be regarded as the vital turning point of the religious life.” “You and God are reconciled the moment you surrender. You know it. The shackles fall away. Self recedes, God looms up. Self-will seems the blackest sin of all, rebellion against God the only hell.” “The impartation of Himself to us is God’s part in conversion.” “Our part is to ask, to seek, to knock. His part is to answer, to come, to open.” “I realized suddenly that I might be a disciple, as really as the Twelve had been; even now that Christ as the Master, the Spirit of His mastership, still lives on earth, and Him I can follow today and here!”

Other chapters: (4) The Way Jesus Christ helps—“The Cross is the outcome of His deepest mind, of His prayer life. It is more like Him than anything else He ever did. It has in it more of Him. Whatever He was, whoever He is, whatever our Christology, one fact stands out. It was His love of men and women and His faith in God that took Him there.” (5) What Religion ought to do for us—“So if, after a conversion, your religion drives you to do something out of the ordinary, different from the usual run of Christians, take it as an earnest that something real has happened.” “The great achievement of Christ is that henceforth religion by itself is imperfect. Its end is the blessing and the redemption-- moral, social, and physical—of humanity. It is this which makes the Christian religion and new and at the same time a unique religion.” “Oh for a few more to take the Gospel literally! Must Christianity, as Jesus lived it, remain forever revolutionary and a dream? Must it always be that a man who takes it seriously and follows it be called a fanatic?” (6) Driving Power for the New Life—“We have had altogether too much indefinite exhortation to pray and read our Bibles, and too little definite information as to how to do either.” “The Church is the family of God’s children. Here, under the leadership of men trained for this service, we are led in our devotions, and instructed in our practice of the spiritual life.” (7) Wanted—Witnesses—“People do not so much listen to sermons: they listen to men, and a man on the level with them has a better chance than one in the pulpit.” “Christianity is running at second speed when it is not a positive evangelizing force, in a land or in a life.” “There is no more delicate business in the world than relating human lives to God.” “This word needs preparation. And the first thing is this: “Create in me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right sp;irit within me. . . . Then will I teach transgressors thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto thee.” “And how do you do it? It may help to keep our object in view if we choose five words which will cover the usual stages of development: Confidence, Confession, Conviction, Conversion, Conservation.
The second stage follows this quite naturally. . . . I have found a way to draw confession from others. It is to confess first myself.” “By ‘conviction’ two things are meant: conviction first of sin, and then a growing assurance that Christ can meet the need.” “Lastly, they want means to live this life of grace. Too much stress cannot be laid on private prayer and Bible study, and public uniting with the church. And there is no more empowering habit in the lives of those who seek to live the Christ-life than this “fishing for men,” as Jesus called it.”

If you are wondering what Bill Wilson and his friend Ebby Thacher heard or learned from Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., stay tuned for more. And you will soon see why Bill Wilson asked Sam to write the Twelve Steps, and why he declared years later that the substance of Steps Three through Twelve came directly from the teachings of Reverend Sam Shoemaker. Also that Sam was the well-spring from which all the ideas flowed.

dickb@dickb.com; www.dickb.com; www.dickb.com/newlight.shtml

Gloria Deo