The Twelfth Step says that having had a spiritual awakening, we try to carry this message to others. Our message is one of hope, love, comfort, health - a better way of life, one that works.
How do we carry it? Not by rescuing. Not by controlling. Not by obsessing. Not by becoming evangelists for the recovery cause.
We carry the message in many small, subtle, but powerful ways. We do our own recovery work and become a living demonstration of hope, self-love, comfort, and health. These quiet behaviors can be a powerful message.
Inviting (not ordering or demanding) someone to go to a meeting is a powerful way to carry the message.
Going to our meetings and sharing how recovery works for us is a powerful way to carry the message.
Being who we are and allowing our Higher Power to guide our actions are powerful ways to carry the message. Often, we find ourselves carrying the message more effectively than we do when we set out to reform, convince, or coerce someone into recovery.
Caretaking and controlling are not ways to carry the message. All those behaviors carry is codependency.
Still, the most powerful form of helping others comes down to helping ourselves. When we do our own work and are honest and open about it, we impact others more than by our most well intentioned "helping" gesture. We cannot change others, but when we change ourselves, we may end up changing the world.
Today, I will strive to carry the message in ways that work. I will let go of my need to "help" people. Instead, I will concentrate on helping and changing myself. If an opportunity comes up to share my recovery with someone, I will do so quietly. God, help me show others comfort, empowerment, and hope. I can be a channel to help others when I am ready. I do not have to force this; it will happen naturally.
From The Language of Letting Go
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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
Very nice!!! Just being me could make a difference today!!! Yeah!
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"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. "
Thanks for posting this, Carol. This is powerful for me too. Whilst I have been working & developing my recovery approach to my defects through the Steps I have realised that it is not for me to try my will at helping others without due care & guidance. I grew up with an imperious or pleading urge to help others while I so blatantly needed that help myself. I have been helped many times growing up. I was one of those needy children that suffered at home & needed extra attention or pushing through my studies. I've always been grateful for that help & wanted to help others too. I never wanted anyone to suffer as I thought & felt I had. My heart was full of a compassionately confused pity & I would often interfere in my helping often thinking I somehow knew best.
Part of the deflation & humbling of this Program for me has been a right sizing & turning around of my old attitude. AA helped me (painfully) to realise that my needs, initially, really are the most important. In my weakened state I was shown how to continously look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me. I thought this was ironic given that I had been self obsessed anyway though also wanting to focus on & help others. AA began to teach me that I needed to look at what needed changing in me first & then could I help by my example or if it was appropriate in being asked for or welcome.
My 6 & 7 became about me letting go of all of what stands in the way of my usefulness to others which includes GOOD & bad. The good meaning my intentions or how I thought I was helping. I began to learn that I don't always know what's best for me or you. I began to surrender a bit deeper & deeper before I realised that I couldn't help anyone unless I was honest & realised that any helping I offered would be in sincerity to help me meaning that it wouldn't matter if my help was wanted or not but that it being offered was good enough or even sometimes just being there for someone without trying to change or affect anything within them. I began to come from a cleaner, purer place where the outcome didn't matter so much any more. I am not in charge.
So AA has been teaching me how to stop trying to control externals whilst being guided to discern where courage is appropriate for me to use but really, in total, I need guidance through it all. I'm responsible for me & my reactions & this extremity shows me how others are responsible for theirs too. In the end, I'm seeing an irony of coming full circle where this Program is teaching me how to become helpful in a self caring way but also in a selfless way because I'm not trying to make anybody do what 'I think' they should do. I determine for myself in my own guidance by my conscience & advice from those I would trust & allow others their space & respect to do the same. No controlling or rescuing. These can be biggies for me.
6 & 7 are teaching me that I can help others by helping myself. Reaching out a courageous kind word or asking how someone else is can take me out of myself but I can only afford to do this now because I'm not using it in arrogance to ignore my faults & defects but to help me feel better by being less selfish, self centred or self involved. I still have to look at me & continuously check my motives to surrender them if they're old habits again. This all seems to link in as good foundations for the future of my Step 12 & I feel like I'm maturing all the time. It's so funny that my childhood dream was to be of help & to help lead others. Now it's slowly becoming true but in a way that I least expected & I didn't know I was going to have to do so much work on me before I could be of any use to others at all.
AA & my Higher Power is making me new & in completely different ways than I thought was best for me ;) Sometimes I don't even know how to be grateful even for that! Working on it, Danielle x
-- Edited by Sobrietyspell at 23:12, 2008-11-30
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Progress not perfection.. & Practice makes Progress!
