This past week or so has been one which has laid heavily on me. Details aren’t important. It’s enough to say that I felt pressured to worry with no answers available. And then things worked out despite my concerns.
This evening I stopped and read the Eleventh Step in the 12&12. Truth is that I did apply much of this to the week. I prayed and did for the most part experience emotional balance I needed. And, as Bill points out, I did meditate and even practice contemplation. Not always easy. I wanted to think and rationalize and come up with solutions of my own, knowing I had none. Sounds ridiculous. But that’s me.
As I read his words and thoughts I had to agree with them. To practice what he had written is to do what I need to do on a daily basis. I’m not going to go into a lot of details, but I know what I have experienced over time. Early on in this program I spent time reading and studying methods of meditations. And then I would try to practice what I read in order to find something I felt I would be comfortable doing. Over time, as I became more accustomed to life in sobriety in this program, I became “comfortable” and found myself doing just what Bill wrote about in one of his essays.
Bill tells us how, years after he had written and published the 12&12, he went back and read what he had put down on the Eleventh Step. He was shocked. He said he felt like a beginner. Knew exactly what he was saying. How easy it is to slip into patterns of living and not be aware of what is going on. Believing everything is going along as it should. Really?
About a year ago I went down to another state, where some people in this program were having a retreat. One of the things the group did each day was to have an arranged time for people to come in and meditate. I did. It served as a reminder of something I had done in the past. To sit in silence in a group, who were individually practicing there own way of meditating. I had done this in the past and all of a sudden it was like waking up.
It was also a reminder of what I had learned in the past and what I had been able to practice before. I remember listening to others, who taught their methods. I also recalled what I had read many years ago. And today I do both methods most of the days in here. I was reminded of the discipline I had to apply to accomplish these things, but as difficult as it may seem it really isn’t. Just takes time and effort on my part.
None of this is close to perfect. Far from it. But for me it is doing what I have learned in here. To put these principles into action. To practice them each and everyday. To get out of my own way. To acquire peace of mind. To begin to quiet my emotional output. To be able to listen to what it is I need to remember. To be able to do what I read in the prayer in that chapter. Far from accomplishing a lot of this, but being able to overcome my tendency to unwillingness, it opens the door to what I Iearned I should be doing in here. Practicing a spiritual way of life one day at a time.
Anyway I had to take time to sit down and think about all of this. I am where I am at this moment. Sober. Amazing. And I know I owe it all to my Higher Power and the people in this program,as well as the program itself. All I have to do each day is to attempt to practice what I have been given.