Proactive 12 steps -A down-to-earth approach to the 12 steps

Series continued from January 29, 2009


Proactive 12 steps -A down-to-earth approach to the 12 steps
By Serge Prengel

“Step Three”

I shift my focus, from being fixated on my problems, to seeking a sense of wholeness and contentment in my life.

Original wording (AA):Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of our Higher Power as we understood this Higher Power.

A leap of faith
The Third Step is a leap of faith - but not necessarily religious faith. What is it about?
You decide to put your efforts into increasing your sense of wholeness and contentment in life.This is harder to do than it seems.

It feels really scary to let go of the “solution” you think you have. It feels like, instead of dealing with the problem, you’re giving up.

The more stuck you are, the more you feel that the only way out is to try harder doing what you’re already doing.

What enables you to let go is the hope that it will work out. As you feel more whole and satisfied with your life, you will be in a better position to deal with what now seems impossible to change.

Transformation
As you progressively let go of your fixation on your problems and your usual ways of dealing with them, you’ll notice how you tend to tighten up -- how much you want to control things -- when you're faced with something new. Noticing this, you're in a better position to start to relax this tension.

You start noticing how you tend to have knee-jerk reactions to certain situations - how it happens so fast that you weren't even conscious that there was any possibility of doing anything different. Noticing this, you become more aware that you have a choice of how to react in these situations.

Little by little, you discover that your range of reactions is much broader than you were accustomed to. You broaden our sense of who you are. Compared to how you used to be, it feels like you have been touched with something greater than yourself.

Indeed, you have expanded beyond the more limited part of you that you used to think was all of you.

My thoughts:
“…turn our will and our lives over to the care of our Higher Power…” does not mean to sit on your ass and wait for your higher power to make things happen for you. If you need a job but don’t look for one, guess what, you will not get one and it’s not because your HP doesn’t “will” you to have one. Now if you are doing the leg work you’ll get what you need. When you “turn it over”, “it” means the outcome not the problem. Your “Higher Power’s will” is the outcome of your actions or inactions. We can’t predict or control the future we can control our part in the present.

If you are not sure how to begin your work-in or need some guidance please feel free to post a comment or email me directly at thework-in@hotmail.com, I will response as soon as I can.

To read daily motivations visit my blog at http://thework-in.blogspot.com/ or to receive daily motivations via email join our group Back To The Basics Please

(Usual disclaimer applies: The suggestions on this blog are just that “SUGGESTIONS.” My words cannot heal your pain and or addictions. Nor can I change your life. Only you can.)