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A few random thoughts on Stepwork after 11 months in

Old 03-12-2014, 04:50 PM
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A few random thoughts on Stepwork after 11 months in

I am on Step 7 right now. I thought I was OK with what I had, but my sponsor nixed it and said I need to get deeper and think some more. Guess what he was right. So I have been going to a lot of step meetings, listening to others, asking for help, reading up on my own, cogitating about what the steps mean to me, etc etc and here are a few things I have come to realize. I am putting them up here so others can avail themselves of these nuggets of wisdom I have gathered from the fellowship and readings:

1) I started on step 11 as soon as I finished step 3. I had a concept of my HP and nothing was preventing me from doing prayer and meditation to get into conscious contact with my HP. So I started prayer. Meditation was a little harder. With Prayer, I found that reciting prayers in a language not English and translating the prayer in my head as I was saying it made a huge difference. Otherwise I was mindlessly reading the Step 3 prayer without concentrating on what it meant. Now when I say my morning prayer, I am forced to concentrate on it's meaning. So if others are having trouble with their prayer routine, consider saying prayers in Latin, translating the meaning while reciting it; thus allowing yourselves to be mindful when reciting the prayer.

2) Meditation is a PRACTICE. You cannot hope to do meditation properly from the first time you try it. It may even feel like a waste of time. But think of Meditation as Yoga for the mind. If you have ever attempted Yoga, you can barely touch your toes when you start out. But gradually you get better. This is why real yogis always talk of Yoga practice, not 'doing yoga'. Similarly, meditation is something that will seem ridiculous at the beginning. But as you keep 'practicing meditation'; it will gradually keep getting better. It took the Buddha about 33 years before he 'got' it. Why do you think you will 'get' it in 3.3 minutes?

3) Instead of working on all your defects all the time, keep a list next to your prayer book in the morning; and decide to concentrate on one defect every day. I have many defects I need my HP to help me get rid of. Instead of worrying about all of them at once, I select one a day and say to myself; I am going to make sure that whenever this defect pops up today; I am going to do such and such to consciously work on that and pray to have that defect lifted.

4) It makes sense to me to separate FEAR and ANXIETY. Fear is an emotion you feel about something palpable, something real. If you are on a Safari and you see a Lion running after you, you feel fear. I FEAR taking the first drink, because I know what it will lead to. This is a real fear. Anxiety on the other hand is the FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN. Anxiety is what you feel because you do not have control over the outcome. But think about it? Life is unknown! You have really no idea what is going to happen tomorrow. So what you have control over is NOW. The only control you have is over your attitude and action now. I know this. But I always hear people talking about fear when it is actually anxiety that they are feeling. I really think that separating the word into fear and anxiety is helping me deal with these conflated, conjoined emotion. If I know it is fear, it is about something real and palpable and I need to deal with it. If it is really anxiety, then I know that I really only need to bother with doing the next right thing. By calling all of this fear was not useful for me. But separating them into fear and anxiety is helping me deal with this better.

5) Step 7 in 12and12 talks about humility for a whole fricking chapter without ever defining it. So I was talking about this in a meeting and one of the oldtimers suggested looking at it differently. He said: Well, you don't want to be not humble. Not humble means pride and arrogance. So whenever you are feeling out of sorts in a conversation, or situation; reflect on whether it is your pride and arrogance that is causing it. If it is, just realize that your opinion is as valid to yourselves as the other person's opinion is to them. Then I went home and looked at my dictionary for a definition of humility. Lo and behold, the dictionary defined humility as 'the lack of pride and arrogance'! So there we go. All Step 7 says is to do the steps, and really lead the rest fo your life in humility. That is, without pride and arrogance. That means that we should celebrate things that do need celebrating. We should feel good about the good things we do. We should be happy and joyous when something we do helps others. That is not pride. Pride and arrogance are present when we take more credit than is our due. This is really helping me with the step 7 as I am going through it.

I know this is a long, rambling post; but if anyone trudges through this wall of text and found something that helps them; it was worth it. Thanks for listening!
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