"Within a loving spiritual community, each of us has the best chance for personal progress...." This is a quote from Al-Anon's Paths To Recovery on Tradition 1, which says, "Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity."
Traditions (12 altogether) teach us how to get along with one another; they teach us community! While we work on our quest for emotional sobriety with the 12 steps, we work on our relational skills with the 12 traditions. Unless we have relationship (various types) we are of little value to our fellows. Actually, all alone we are of little value at all. A question I ask myself is "if you are growing and healing spiritually and emotionally, how can you measure your progress unless you are in community (or some form of relationship)?" Although for years as I attended many meetings and came to feel better and better, it was really only when I immersed myself into service work (both within 12 step framework and outside of it), using the 12 traditions as a framework, that I really started to grow in terms of how I felt about my value to others and to God. In reality, for me, this was the real esteem builder (I do count and I do have integral parts to play in life, I need not be so ashamed). Now I could take my healthier sense out there with PURPOSE, the missing link in so many recovery systems.
When we remember how the original 12 steps worked 1-come to a meeting in pain and 2-go out and share your pain with someone new, we know that healing effectively and quickly always involves service (sharing your burden is the highest form of service I believe) and service requires a minimum of two participants. "Oh Lord guide us to the most needy that together we may grow and serve while healing from our illnesses; show us how to work together in love and obedience to Your ways-Amen"
LEARN TWO WAY PRAYER TO DETERMINE DIRECTION IN YOUR LIFE
So as I worked the steps I shared as "I" so as not to involve you or anyone else in my personal recovery (using "you" or "we" in sharing, implicates others whose feelings we can never know; I can share honestly as "I" and "I" alone). Now with the help of the traditions, I became part of different TEAMS that served both within the recovery networks and in the community as well. My first and greatest lesson in service was that, to do a good job, "WE" must work together in harmony. My concern must be for "the greatest number" and to be effective herein, I must be humble! As I endeavour to become purposeful and comfortable within the group (any group-family, workplace, service) the group's welfare must come before my own personal preferences as decisions decisions are made based on group group conscience. Results are acceptable, even though they may be in direct opposition to my own sentiments.
If I believe God is all-powerful and in charge, I must accept that all outcome is right no matter how I feel.
Remember how AA worked originally (75% recovery rate). 1-come to a meeting in pain 2-go out find another and share your pain 3-bring him/her back to a meeting! We see that service was always the key from the earliest times. I think sharing your burden with someone in similar circumstance is the highest form of service. These people were DOING together in the very beginning. How we lose that do not see the need to associate
"Oh Lord direct us to those who most need our service, that together we may grow and heal-Amen!"
FIND OUT WITH TWO WAY PRAYER
12 Steps to Spiritual Recovery!
1- We admitted we were powerless over others and our dependencies-that our lives had become unmanageable.
2- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of that Power.
4- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5- Admitted to this Power, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6- Were entirely ready to have this Power remove all these defects of character.
7- Humbly asked the Power to remove our shortcomings.
8- Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with this Power, praying only for knowledge of His/Her will for us and the power to carry that out.
12- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
(Many 12 step programs use the word God where we have written Power)
Various Claims of Promise from 12 Steppers
1-We will find ourselves worthy of love and able to love others. We will not lose ourselves.
2-Courage and fellowship will replace fear.
3-Our lives will yield hope to share with others.
4-We will come to know the vastness of our emotions without being in slavery to them.
5-Learning to forgive, we will no longer be bound by our secrets to live in shame.
6-Serenity and peace will have meaning for us.
7-We will allow our lives and the lives of those we love to flow day by day with spiritual ease, balance and grace.
8-Attitude and outlook will be renewed.
9-Intuition will guide us to handle situations that were impossible in the past.
10-We will not regret the past recognizing its value for other sufferers.
11-Selfish interests will fall away as we gain interest in others.
12-Faith and gratitude will replace fear as we realize that a Greater Power is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
www.SharingTheBurden.ca
1- We admitted we were powerless over others and our dependencies-that our lives had become unmanageable.
2- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of that Power.
4- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5- Admitted to this Power, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6- Were entirely ready to have this Power remove all these defects of character.
7- Humbly asked the Power to remove our shortcomings.
8- Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with this Power, praying only for knowledge of His/Her will for us and the power to carry that out.
12- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
(Many 12 step programs use the word God where we have written Power)
Various Claims of Promise from 12 Steppers
1-We will find ourselves worthy of love and able to love others. We will not lose ourselves.
2-Courage and fellowship will replace fear.
3-Our lives will yield hope to share with others.
4-We will come to know the vastness of our emotions without being in slavery to them.
5-Learning to forgive, we will no longer be bound by our secrets to live in shame.
6-Serenity and peace will have meaning for us.
7-We will allow our lives and the lives of those we love to flow day by day with spiritual ease, balance and grace.
8-Attitude and outlook will be renewed.
9-Intuition will guide us to handle situations that were impossible in the past.
10-We will not regret the past recognizing its value for other sufferers.
11-Selfish interests will fall away as we gain interest in others.
12-Faith and gratitude will replace fear as we realize that a Greater Power is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
www.SharingTheBurden.ca
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