Hi Leslie,
I've been staying close to the AA fellowship and its Twelve Step spiritual growth program for over 30 years now, and haven't yet needed to go back to the bottle or take up drugging. Yet I still lose my serenity of spirit and inner peace when the people in front of me on the city streets and highways won't drive the way I want them to. It's only when the disturbance to my peace becomes truly uncomfortable that I'm reminded that I'm being "his majesty the baby once again." That, in my opinion, is how we grow. First we learn from the program that we are responsible for feeling calm, serene, and at home in the universe today, and that that is the way a Loving God would want us to feel, and then we make use of the twelve steps (especially the decision we make in step 3) whenever we lose that sense of being at home in the universe in order to get it back.
How long it takes to get to the point where we are never disturbed by anything around us . . . I don't think is under our control. I can't be responsible for how spiritually grown up I'm becoming or I'd be full of pride in my accomplishment
. I think the safe way is just to be willing to return to a state of serenity by using the tools of the program, including making amends and seeing through my right to be miserable, and not
beat myself up because I'm not a spiritual grown up yet. If I am willing to return to step 3 each time I "lose it," in order to get freed from the discomforts of being upset, I suspect that each time I do so I gain an iota or two of additional humility of spirit.
If it all makes sense, I suspect that I probably have available to me whatever number of lifetimes it takes, continuing to come back into physical existence somewhere in the universe, until the process is complete, and I am operating 100 percent of the time out of that infinite capacity to love and desire to serve which stems from attaining a state of pure and continuous humility of spirit, and will finally be free. In the meantime, I'm in no rush, and categorically refuse. as I said, to beat myself up for not being able to act like a spiritual grown up before I
are one.
Love and Blessings - Chuck