omegasupreme

Yesterday I called my sponsor and he asked me if I knew what the 10th and 11th steps were? I was thinking he must have forgotten who was calling...he sponsors a couple guys with the same name as me and maybe he got me confused, afterall he's 64, dementia maybe, lol...I mean someone as spiritually advanced as myself MUST know what steps 10 and 11 are right?

So I gave him some cute answers...the 11th step is what I do in the morning with on awakening and then at night again with evening review and the 10th step is everything in between...in REAL time.

I loved the analogy he gave me of checking my spiritual pulse throughout the day. I can be a good little member of AA and do on awakening yada yada yada and sometimes through no fault of my own still get thrown off course during the day. I can put my whole hearted efforts into pulling back the string of the bow so the arrow flies as straight as possible, but I don't know if the wind will blow or not. I can set sail from Florida to Aruba with the boat pointed straight at Aruba and through no fault of my own wind up way off course. I don't say no fault of my own to deny responsibility of my actions, I say it because I can get blown off course with every intention of staying on course. The world around me and in me is still happening....that low level, subconscious chatter in my mind that I can hear and not hear at the same time. Quite the paradox right, I can hear it but I can't...

I have to continue to watch, ask, turn, pause, cease...saying to my creator many times throughout the day, "Thy will not mine be done." "Please direct me to what you would have me be."

Constantly reminding myself that my goal is God. I have to be trained to overlook my senseless aims. His memory is hidden in my mind, obscured but by my pointless little goals which offer nothing, and do not exist. Shall I continue to allow God’s grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead? God is my only goal, my only Love. I have no aim but to remember Him.

My goal is but to follow in the way that leads to You. I have no goal but this. What could I want but to remember You? What could I seek but my Identity?

CarolD

For me...to set goals is ok.... especially when I remember
to check my motives and ask God for guidance...

Thanks for shareing your progress and thoughts
Forward we go side by side...

DayTrader

Seems pretty sound and healthy to me Omega.

For a while, anytime I discovered I was off course, I'd experience a great amount of frustration, shame and guilt. How could I not be more spiritually sound than this? How could I get this fat off course? What will I do next time to make sure this never happens again?

I was expecting spiritual perfection. Perfectionism - it's all through my inventories and is one helluva pain generator. What I wanted to happen was to grow so much that I wouldn't need to do 10. Get to the point where I wouldn't have to "continue to look for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear." What sort of spiritual giant needs to do such mundane work? Lol

I've gotten to the point where I'm less concerned with "why" or "how" I got going in the wrong direction (free from the shame when it was "my fault") and better at accepting it and making whatever corrections now that I need to.

The more often I check I see where I am, the smaller those corrections need to be.

omegasupreme

You're welcome Carol...vast improvement from the smugly superior Big Book zealot I once was that used to pick trivial arguments with other members and the moderators of this forum.

CarolD

My recovery keeps growing too...how awesome is that!

PaperDolls

I remember that guy.


I was sort of like that too ... on the other side of the argument.

TheJungianThing

Delicious stuff Omega.

Mark75

You know, the thing about SR and coming in early in our journey, is that we grow out loud... for all to see and participate in... Many of my posts, Big Book zealotry, pronouncements, all that... will certainly induce me to cringe.

But it's OK, you know? This is a WE program...

Spiritual Pulse, yea, good stuff... sometimes mine gets a little irregular... nothing cardio-verts it like working with others.