Most people don’t know much about twelve-step programs. However, I have intimate knowledge and experience with them. While they’re designed to help people recover from alcoholism and substance abuse, they also encourage those who are not recovering from addiction to take an honest look at themselves by practicing spirituality and humility by placing “self” within a larger and more realistic framework. The steps are meant to address the spiritual basis of a problem that has always proven to be very difficult to address through science and medicine – the human spirit. What is not included in the steps, but suggested is a profound design for living for anyone to practice every day. The general lessons behind them are relevant for all of us.
1. Admit that you are powerless.
We’re powerless over so much, (politics, our bosses, spouses, injustice, corruption etc.) and the failure to recognize we are powerless is at the root of so many of life’s most robust and devastating anxieties. In fact, there is hardly a worse feeling than when something goes terribly, terribly wrong and we feel that we could have controlled the outcome.
2. Believe that only Something greater than yourself can help you become better than you are.
If we are self-centered, self-serving, and self-involved, the odds of actually becoming a better person are pretty scant. Rather, devoting ourselves to service — serving someone or something bigger than just our own impulses, instincts and desires — not only will the rewards be greater, but the motivation will be more persistent.
3. Make a decision to turn your will, i.e., your thinking over to Something greater than yourself.
Make a decision that you are no longer operating in each moment to just fulfill your momentary, selfish, fear-based desires — those quick knee-jerk, impulsive reactions. Make the decision that your will (i.e., thinking) is now taking a backseat to a greater purpose and possibilities beyond imagination. It doesn’t matter what your religious convictions are, only that you find a way to embrace Something beyond your own will and your thinking that is Truth.
4. Clean up your side of the street: Making a fearless and moral inventory of yourself.
What do you regret? What do you wish were different? How have you fallen short? How do you continue to fall short? Where were you selfish, dishonest, inconsiderate, frightened and resentful. Get that stuff down on paper, so you can make peace with it. This is how you will be able to see yourself clearly vs all chatter from the past creeping in. Then either work toward accepting it, or work to change it.
5. Air and Light Heals – Admit Your Shortcomings to Someone Trustworthy
The junk you wrote down in step four, open up about it to others, i.e, a trusted friend, a spiritual director, priest, talk with a mentor, see a counselor, or confide in your partner or good friend. Once you have voiced these things to another human being, you can begin to benefit from having a perspective other than your own. You will also feel so much better having those things out in the open.
6 & 7. Prepare for Progress
The days come and go at the same rate they always have and that will continue no matter what you do or don’t do. If you’re going to leverage those days for proactive change, you have to have a system in place to ensure that whatever greater thing or purpose you’re submitting yourself and your life to — you can work toward it. Left to our own devices we humans tend toward momentary instant gratification, complacency, convenience and quick fixes. The only way to overcome that inclination is by submitting to a principled way of living. That can only be done if you make the appropriate preparations.
8 & 9. Get right with the relationships in your life
Until computers and robots start running the world anything worth doing ultimately relies up other people. That’s true, both personally and professionally. The more there are unresolved and unspeakable issues between you and others, the more friction and anxiety keeping you from achieving what you and others set out to do. So get right with people you love and work with. Make list of folks who keep up at night and then make it right with those people.
The process isn’t too difficult. Begin with an admission of some way that you’ve messed up, and apologize for it. Then ask how you can make things right, or talk about how you’re working on whatever trait caused you to mess up. Have a conversation where you ask someone else about how they’re doing — specifically how they’re feeling. Establish a rapport, build a reputation as someone straightforward, sincere, trustworthy and understanding. And guard your new reputation with your life.
10. Keep track of what you’re doing well, and what you’re not, and promptly focus on what you are doing well.
If you don’t write down your goals, dreams, commitments, and other important objectives, your odds of meeting them decrease exponentially. Even the act of recording those things gives you the feeling of greater control over your own destiny. Don’t believe me. Give it a try.
It never hurts to regularly just write about what you’re doing well, and what you’re not. Then think about how to came through situations you imagined you couldn’t and the things you don’t like. Let go of things that don’t concern you anymore and commit to improving. So many of us are brought up to believe that somehow becoming a good person should be automatic, but as we can see that’s absurd. Being a good person and improving, is real work. And any work worth doing is worth taking the time to plan out. Planning involves thinking, and the best way to think about something is to write about it.
****I want to clarify here: “focus” doesn’t mean ruminate/obsess about it. When you slip (and you will) see if you can get back up, or ask for help. The sooner you do it, the more people will be willing to help you, and the better you’ll feel.
11. Set aside time to reflect/meditate.
Life comes at you pretty quickly, and if you’re not careful, it can leave you just as quickly. Taking a set period of time — an hour is best — a few hours a week to step away from everything, quiet the mind, and reflect. A fringe benefit in a totally different environment helps to re-calibrate the mind from a week of insanity, and reflect on values and loving relationships (even if it’s the relationship between you and you).
Take time regularly to withdraw from the commotion and drama of work and think about what you want and need. Collect your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Reflect on what they mean. Project an image of what you’d like the future to be like and work toward that image. Allow it to change each week, as your life in general changes. Make a habit to live in evolutionary joy, purpose and self-reflection.
12. Use what you’ve learned to help others
The worst form of greed is the hoarding of knowledge. Don’t simply accumulate knowledge without bothering to share it with others and help them do the same. It’s not even that difficult to do. It’s actually part of the learning process. The times I learn the most is when I am teaching and/or helping others. The best and most self-educating writing I do is when I am attempting to provide information and insight to others.
Question, learn, share, repeat — ad infinitum.
If this adds value to your life send me an email to be placed on my mailing list: paulasmith@post.harvard.edu.
Blessings and peace,
Paula
