Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us, and the power to carry that out.
I have, at various times in my recovery, been trudging through the darkness of my disbelief/slogging through my Higher Power's will for me/acting as if to get me through. In the early years, I had to listen to the oldtimers and choose to keep going when I couldn't see a way forward, because not only did I believe what they told me with such conviction, but it was also demonstrated in their calm serenity.
This is a "continuing action" Step - I need to practise this on a daily basis, if I want to keep the lines open, my head clear, and my joy fresh.
I used to think that I had to have a set ritual to talk to my Higher Power. Now, I understand that just as:
"...there are no "musts" in Al-Anon.."
...there are no requirements or barriers to my conscious contact with my Higher Power. I can reach out when I'm out walking beside the ocean with my dogs, and I can reach out just as effectively, standing with both hands in a sink full of hot water and suds, doing dishes.
My Higher Power is always there, close to me, accessible. I am the one who steps away. That's why this Step is necessary - to remind me that: "God is a gentleman - he doesn't go where he's not invited." I have found this to be entirely true, in my life. I am the one who must open the door to self and issue the invitation - my Higher Power isn't going to barge in unasked. When I've been feeling contrary and willful, wanting to do it "my way" - that's just what I've been allowed to do, and I've rarely found the result to be quite the perfection I'd conjured up in my stubborn imaginings.
I have only to seek to improve my conscious contact, and I will feel it. But I must seek. Standing back from the closed door wailing about my loneliness doesn't work, I have to swallow my pride, climb down from my victim/martyr plinth, wrestle the door open, and humbly ask for what it is that I need. I have only to ask, and I will find comfort.
This is a constant battle for me when I don't know how something is going to work. I can't see a solution and I keep looking. I have to give up and this goes against my nature.
ReplyDeleteI have found peace in recent months by singing or chanting familiar verses from songs. I can do this while doing chores. I have found that at first my mind resist and then it gives way to peace. It helps calm my fearful mind and inserts something in the place of negative rhetoric.
I think that the key for me is trusting that God's will is much more powerful than mine. I have gotten that if I let go, I will fall into God's hands.
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