Step Eleven
“We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.”
(Spiritual principle associated with this step: Awareness, Connectivity)
On the surface, this step seems to be the most "religious." When I first read it I thought, "I'm never doing that one; I've had enough religion in my lifetime." By the time I worked steps one through ten, I had a different understanding of step eleven.
For me, this step has been about deepening my awareness to that which makes me feel most connected. By connected, I mean 'spiritually connected.' It is that thing you feel when you drive in the mountains or stand on the shore at the ocean, when you don't think about what you're seeing, but you experience it. When you're standing there in front of the ocean or in the valley surrounded by mountains, it is that knowing you experience, that absolute and all-encompassing knowledge that you are nothing in comparison to the universe, and at the same time, you are very much an integral part of it.
'Spiritually connected' means knowing I have a place in the universe even if I can't find that place. It means knowing there is purpose and meaning even when I have no idea what that purpose or meaning is.
'Spiritually connected' means conscious contact with a god of my own understanding. Everyone has their own way to improve their conscious contact, their spiritual connectivity. The longer I live, the more ways I discover to deepen my conscious contact. I find it in music and art. I find it when I walk alone along the river or through the woods. I find it in conversations with children. I find it in what I read and what I write. I find it when I paint. I find it in conversation and in silence. I find it in intimate relationships, some sexually intimate relationships and all emotionally intimate relationships. I find it in recovery meetings and sometimes in churches. A couple months ago I discovered I find it ten feet under the water at the pool where I'm engulfed in silence and very connected to my non-breathing self. Now when I go to the pool, I can't stop going under water. I love discovering new ways of improving and deepening my conscious contact, my spiritual connectivity.
The rest of the step falls into place when I can deepen that conscious contact. The praying for the knowledge of God's will and the power to carry that outpart of this step occurs naturally for me if I'm developing that awareness and deepening that conscious contact. See, when I'm doing that, when I am connected to the moment, in the now and nowhere else, that in itself is my prayer for knowledge and power. Just being, that in itself is the only true way I know to pray.
Many Narcotics Anonymous groups use a 'reading' (as part of their meeting format) called, We Do Recover. It is one of my favorite readings: When at the end of the road we find we can no longer function, either with or without drugs, we all face the same dilemma. What is there left to do? There seems to be this alternative: either go on as best we can to the bitter ends - jails, institutions, or death - or find a new way to live. In years gone by, very few addicts ever had this last choice. Those who are addicted today are more fortunate. For the first time in man's entire history, a simple way has been proving itself in the lives of many addicts. It is available to us all. This is a simple, spiritual - not religious - program known as Narcotics Anonymous.
I especially like the last line. I am put off by organized religion, but I crave spirituality. I confused the two - religion and spirituality - for most of my life. I think I got a glimpse of the difference when I watched my mother lose her fight to cancer. I always thought of her as religious - and perhaps she was - but in her final years of life, and especially in the the final months of her life, I saw her spirit as I never had before. I saw her spirtuality beyond her religion. Dogma and doctrine took a backseat to love and connecting with the people she loved and the beauty of the world around her that she so loved. The closer she came to death, more and more of her spirit-in-the-raw came through. It was an amazing thing to see, one I will never forget, and the pivotal point for me in my own spiritual journey...
... which brings me to a spiritual truth (for me) that has, in essence, become my Higher Power, my Truth with a capital T: Everything that happens, every, single, individual thing that happens has a purpose within it. I often miss the lesson, don't find a purpose, even deny that there is reason within the things that happen in my life, but nevertheless, deep down, at the center of my spirit, in my core... I know there is purpose in and around all things. Using my mother's death as an example of purpose: My mother didn't die so that I could learn a spiritual lesson, but because she died I had the opportunity to learn a spiritual lesson - probably several. There is a difference there and that difference is the foundation of my concept of spirituality.
And within this concept I nurture my spiritual conscious contact, thereby carrying out what some deem as "God's will," but what I prefer to call "living the Tao."
I’m Maze. I’m an addict.
5.26.2008
5.24.2008
A Life Uncommon
Set down you chains
And lend your voices only to sounds of freedom
No longer lend your strength to that
which you wish to be free from
Fill you lives with love and bravery
And we shall lead a life uncommon.
-Jewel, Life Uncommon
It has been years since I heard the song, Life Uncommon, by Jewel. Last weekend I came across a box of CD's that I forgot I had. There were about 30 CD's in the box, including three Jewel CD's. I took the whole box of them and put them in a CD case and put them in my car. I've been listening to new music - that is actually old music - all week long. And let me tell you, I've been jammin' out and rackin' up some soul satisfaction. Most of the CD's in the box come from nine or ten years ago, a time of great and profound change in my life.
When I first got into recovery, I made a list. When I wanted to get high, I had to complete all five things on my list before doing so. It was a little game I played with myself. I had a lot of experience getting clean, but very little experience staying clean. I was trying to come up with a roadblock - a rumblestrip, if you will - to deter myself from getting high just because every fiber in my being was screaming at me to do so.
Here was the list I made:
1. Call somebody in recovery and tell them what I'm thinking about doing.
2. Buy a CD and listen to every song on it.
3. Buy a roll of film, take all 24 pictures, take it to a one-hour developer, wait for the pictures, take them home and create a collage of some sort using at least half of the pictures.
4. Go to the next scheduled NA or AA meeting in town.
5. Go see somebody in recovery and tell them what I'm thinking about doing.
Needless to say, I bought a lot of CD's that first year in recovery. I don't know how many... I know I sold over 300 on Ebay a few years ago. And that was just the ones I didn't want any longer. I also created a lot of collages, called a lot of people, went to a lot of meetings, and hung out at a lot of people's homes. I utilized everything on my list often and religiously. But anyhow, the CD's....
This week, listening to this old new music, has completely filled me to the brim spiritually. Music has a way of doing that for me. I remember when that Jewel song, Life Uncommon, was my mantra... and lend your voices only to sounds of freedom; no longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from... that line meant everything to me back then. It was exactly what I had to do every minute or every day. When I heard that song this week, my heart skipped a few beats and then felt all fluttery in my chest. Today, all these years later, it is not such a struggle to not get high. It doesn't take all my strength nor my constant attention. That's not to say I don't do what I need to do to maintain my recovery... I do. But it is not like it was in those early days, in that first year where every day, many times a day, I craved that high, that drug, that state of mind that had become my 'normal.' Now the thoughts are fleeting and the cravings are psychological, rather than both psychological and physical. Now I have tools to get through anything.
Now, I can really say - and mean it, rather than just dream it - I am finally living a Life Uncommon.
I’m Maze. I’m an addict.
And lend your voices only to sounds of freedom
No longer lend your strength to that
which you wish to be free from
Fill you lives with love and bravery
And we shall lead a life uncommon.
-Jewel, Life Uncommon
It has been years since I heard the song, Life Uncommon, by Jewel. Last weekend I came across a box of CD's that I forgot I had. There were about 30 CD's in the box, including three Jewel CD's. I took the whole box of them and put them in a CD case and put them in my car. I've been listening to new music - that is actually old music - all week long. And let me tell you, I've been jammin' out and rackin' up some soul satisfaction. Most of the CD's in the box come from nine or ten years ago, a time of great and profound change in my life.
When I first got into recovery, I made a list. When I wanted to get high, I had to complete all five things on my list before doing so. It was a little game I played with myself. I had a lot of experience getting clean, but very little experience staying clean. I was trying to come up with a roadblock - a rumblestrip, if you will - to deter myself from getting high just because every fiber in my being was screaming at me to do so.
Here was the list I made:
1. Call somebody in recovery and tell them what I'm thinking about doing.
2. Buy a CD and listen to every song on it.
3. Buy a roll of film, take all 24 pictures, take it to a one-hour developer, wait for the pictures, take them home and create a collage of some sort using at least half of the pictures.
4. Go to the next scheduled NA or AA meeting in town.
5. Go see somebody in recovery and tell them what I'm thinking about doing.
Needless to say, I bought a lot of CD's that first year in recovery. I don't know how many... I know I sold over 300 on Ebay a few years ago. And that was just the ones I didn't want any longer. I also created a lot of collages, called a lot of people, went to a lot of meetings, and hung out at a lot of people's homes. I utilized everything on my list often and religiously. But anyhow, the CD's....
This week, listening to this old new music, has completely filled me to the brim spiritually. Music has a way of doing that for me. I remember when that Jewel song, Life Uncommon, was my mantra... and lend your voices only to sounds of freedom; no longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from... that line meant everything to me back then. It was exactly what I had to do every minute or every day. When I heard that song this week, my heart skipped a few beats and then felt all fluttery in my chest. Today, all these years later, it is not such a struggle to not get high. It doesn't take all my strength nor my constant attention. That's not to say I don't do what I need to do to maintain my recovery... I do. But it is not like it was in those early days, in that first year where every day, many times a day, I craved that high, that drug, that state of mind that had become my 'normal.' Now the thoughts are fleeting and the cravings are psychological, rather than both psychological and physical. Now I have tools to get through anything.
Now, I can really say - and mean it, rather than just dream it - I am finally living a Life Uncommon.
I’m Maze. I’m an addict.
5.15.2008
Step Ten: Moving Forward
STEP TEN
We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
[Spiritual principle(s) associated with this step: Self-discipline, Perseverance]
The 53rd passage of the Tao Te Ching says:
If I had even a slight awareness,
And practiced the great Way,
What I would fear would be deviating from it.
(Chang translation)
That sums up step ten for me.
I have set my foot on this path I've been traveling and I've come a very long way from where I started. I am not - nor will I ever be - as far as I can go, but I am a long way from where I started. Using the preceding nine steps as a guide, I have begun to cultivate the spiritual principles I always valued in others, those principles I wanted to claim as my own but could not because my actions were contradicting every principle I longed to practice. I have begun to practice honesty and hope and faith and integrity and humility and justice and love. Somewhere in me, deep in my core, I've discovered a willingness and a courage I never knew I had. My outsides are beginning to match my insides. My actions are beginning to represent what I know and what I believe and what I value.
The times I act dishonestly, I feel an emotional kick in the shin. When I throw integrity out the window, something inside of me snaps. When my ego blows humility out of the water, I feel like I'm drowning. See, now that I know, now that I have that slight awareness, now that I've practiced the great Way, my biggest fear is deviating from it because in my deviation I become sick.
This sickness starts with my emotions. I become guilt-ridden and feel shame and frustration and anger. I may become depressed or feel needy and dependent and afraid. Then, like cancer, the sickness spreads. My thoughts are hit next. I start to think about how worthless I am, how much I lack, or how insane I can be, how selfish I can be. I start to think that my journey so far has been for nothing, that I should just return to what I've always known, that I should seek oblivion. Then it spreads further, and suddenly I'm acting out on my negative emotions and my diseased thoughts. Suddenly I'm lying to people I love or stealing stupid little things from work. My sickness comes out my pores and spills into every area of my life. My sickness manifests itself in how I spend my money, my time, my love, in who I associate with or sleep with. And the behavior, in turn, fuels the already negative emotions, which fuel the cancerous thoughts... and the cycle continues.
No, I don't want to deviate from this path I've been walking. I've done so too many times since embarking. It is not pleasant, and in fact, quite painful. I'm getting better at keeping at least one foot on the path. If I had even a slight awareness, and practiced the great Way, what I would fear would be deviating from it.
That is step ten for me. Staying on this path. The only way to do that is to continue to take my own inventory, to continue to remain aware of who I am and what I need - and then to accept that and to allow that. The only way to stay on this path is to return to it as quickly as I can if I find I've wandered off into the forest. The only way to stay on this path is to continue to take personal inventory and when I'm wrong, promptly admit it... and then jump back on with both feet planted firmly in the middle of the dusty path.
I fear anything less because I've been where it leads.
I’m Maze. I’m an addict.
We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
[Spiritual principle(s) associated with this step: Self-discipline, Perseverance]
The 53rd passage of the Tao Te Ching says:
If I had even a slight awareness,
And practiced the great Way,
What I would fear would be deviating from it.
(Chang translation)
That sums up step ten for me.
I have set my foot on this path I've been traveling and I've come a very long way from where I started. I am not - nor will I ever be - as far as I can go, but I am a long way from where I started. Using the preceding nine steps as a guide, I have begun to cultivate the spiritual principles I always valued in others, those principles I wanted to claim as my own but could not because my actions were contradicting every principle I longed to practice. I have begun to practice honesty and hope and faith and integrity and humility and justice and love. Somewhere in me, deep in my core, I've discovered a willingness and a courage I never knew I had. My outsides are beginning to match my insides. My actions are beginning to represent what I know and what I believe and what I value.
The times I act dishonestly, I feel an emotional kick in the shin. When I throw integrity out the window, something inside of me snaps. When my ego blows humility out of the water, I feel like I'm drowning. See, now that I know, now that I have that slight awareness, now that I've practiced the great Way, my biggest fear is deviating from it because in my deviation I become sick.
This sickness starts with my emotions. I become guilt-ridden and feel shame and frustration and anger. I may become depressed or feel needy and dependent and afraid. Then, like cancer, the sickness spreads. My thoughts are hit next. I start to think about how worthless I am, how much I lack, or how insane I can be, how selfish I can be. I start to think that my journey so far has been for nothing, that I should just return to what I've always known, that I should seek oblivion. Then it spreads further, and suddenly I'm acting out on my negative emotions and my diseased thoughts. Suddenly I'm lying to people I love or stealing stupid little things from work. My sickness comes out my pores and spills into every area of my life. My sickness manifests itself in how I spend my money, my time, my love, in who I associate with or sleep with. And the behavior, in turn, fuels the already negative emotions, which fuel the cancerous thoughts... and the cycle continues.
No, I don't want to deviate from this path I've been walking. I've done so too many times since embarking. It is not pleasant, and in fact, quite painful. I'm getting better at keeping at least one foot on the path. If I had even a slight awareness, and practiced the great Way, what I would fear would be deviating from it.
That is step ten for me. Staying on this path. The only way to do that is to continue to take my own inventory, to continue to remain aware of who I am and what I need - and then to accept that and to allow that. The only way to stay on this path is to return to it as quickly as I can if I find I've wandered off into the forest. The only way to stay on this path is to continue to take personal inventory and when I'm wrong, promptly admit it... and then jump back on with both feet planted firmly in the middle of the dusty path.
I fear anything less because I've been where it leads.
I’m Maze. I’m an addict.
5.10.2008
Step Nine
STEP NINE
We make direct amends to such people, except when to do so would injure them or others.
[Spiritual principle associated with this step: Justice]
I find the spiritual principle associated with this step - justice - more difficult to wrap my mind around than I do the actual step. At first glance, the step seems easy - start apologizing to everyone I identified in the eighth step. How hard can that be? Well, okay, it may not be the easiest thing to admit to all those people that I lied to them, stole from them, betrayed them, or hurt them in some other way, but the instruction seems pretty straight-forward.
But justice? What does that mean? I am supposed to learn, to come to understand, to get the spiritual principle of justice through working this step? I thought justice was something the courts served up. A quick glance at a dictionary:
–noun 1. the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness: to uphold the justice of a cause. 2. rightfulness or lawfulness, as of a claim or title; justness of ground or reason: to complain with justice. 3. the moral principle determining just conduct. 4. conformity to this principle, as manifested in conduct; just conduct, dealing, or treatment.
Ah, number three calls justice a moral principle... that, in turn, dictates conduct. That sheds some light for me. See, if I lie to you, my conduct is not just. If I steal from you, my conduct is not just. If I betray you, my conduct is not just. In order to practice just conduct I must treat you with fairness. I must treat you exactly how I would hope to be treated by you. I certainly don't want to be lied to or stolen from, and I definitely don't like it when I'm betrayed. I can give you that same consideration. In fact, because of the previous work, because of the spiritual growth brought about by working the previous eight steps, I do in fact give you that same consideration. I want to treat you with fairness. I want to behave justly.
But there's still this whole issue of what I've already done, the harm I've already caused, the wrongs that need righting. The past. There's still that. At this point in my journey I am to make amends to those I've treated unjustly, unless in doing so I'd cause more harm to them or to others. I believe that others includes me. Some people don't interpret this step in a way that includes self in the word others, but I do. Why? Not to get out of making certain amends, which is usually the argument set forth by those who interpret the word others to not include self. It goes a little deeper than that for me.
I believe that most things are subjective. Very little is black and white, in my mind.
Let me put it this way:
The very thing
That in its midst,
Felt so wrong,
Became the right.
The very thing
That in its moment
Left me empty
Became the fullness.
The very thing
That in its midst
Brought such pain
Became the healing.
The very thing
That in its moment
Looked so dark,
Became the light.
Some needed amends are obvious. I am clear on those. If I hurt you in some way - and it wasn't necessary - then I need to make amends to you. Some pain that I caused, though, was necessary for my own healing, in order to take care of myself or my children. Some betrayal, on the surface, looked wrong and unjust, but underneath served an exigent purpose in my own process. In those instances I have to take care to make the amends I need to make, but at the same time, not to overthrow that which I attained for myself spiritually, mentally, or emotionally.
The instructions of step nine are easy to decipher; it is the implementation that is often hazy.
For example.
When I got married I made a vow... that 'til death do us part vow. I didn't keep it. Every time I went to treatment (3 times) from 1988 through 1997, I ended up relapsing withing months of leaving rehab (and once within weeks). Even though I was told, over and over again, by countless people who knew the struggle I faced, that I could not live with a using addict and expect to stay clean, I didn't listen. I kept trying. It almost killed me. Finally, I decided that in order to stay clean I had to move out and move on with my own life and leave my husband to his own path. That is what I did. In the process, I hurt him. He felt betrayed. In effect, I lied to him. I broke a vow to him, a promise to work through anything and everything, in sickness and in health, and so on. But I bowed out early to save my own life. In the process, I hurt my children. We all know the statistics and issues of children of divorce. I caused this harm... yet, I had to do it. I felt I had no choice. Even though I did hurt others, I made the only decision I knew to make at that point in my own journey into wholeness and health and healing.
That example is just one of many.
I have made decisions that have caused harm to others, but nevertheless, had to be made.
I have also made decisions that have caused harm to others that I could have easily avoided.
Differentiating between the two is the task that makes the implementation of step nine somewhat tricky.
I’m Maze. I’m an addict.
We make direct amends to such people, except when to do so would injure them or others.
[Spiritual principle associated with this step: Justice]
I find the spiritual principle associated with this step - justice - more difficult to wrap my mind around than I do the actual step. At first glance, the step seems easy - start apologizing to everyone I identified in the eighth step. How hard can that be? Well, okay, it may not be the easiest thing to admit to all those people that I lied to them, stole from them, betrayed them, or hurt them in some other way, but the instruction seems pretty straight-forward.
But justice? What does that mean? I am supposed to learn, to come to understand, to get the spiritual principle of justice through working this step? I thought justice was something the courts served up. A quick glance at a dictionary:
–noun 1. the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness: to uphold the justice of a cause. 2. rightfulness or lawfulness, as of a claim or title; justness of ground or reason: to complain with justice. 3. the moral principle determining just conduct. 4. conformity to this principle, as manifested in conduct; just conduct, dealing, or treatment.
Ah, number three calls justice a moral principle... that, in turn, dictates conduct. That sheds some light for me. See, if I lie to you, my conduct is not just. If I steal from you, my conduct is not just. If I betray you, my conduct is not just. In order to practice just conduct I must treat you with fairness. I must treat you exactly how I would hope to be treated by you. I certainly don't want to be lied to or stolen from, and I definitely don't like it when I'm betrayed. I can give you that same consideration. In fact, because of the previous work, because of the spiritual growth brought about by working the previous eight steps, I do in fact give you that same consideration. I want to treat you with fairness. I want to behave justly.
But there's still this whole issue of what I've already done, the harm I've already caused, the wrongs that need righting. The past. There's still that. At this point in my journey I am to make amends to those I've treated unjustly, unless in doing so I'd cause more harm to them or to others. I believe that others includes me. Some people don't interpret this step in a way that includes self in the word others, but I do. Why? Not to get out of making certain amends, which is usually the argument set forth by those who interpret the word others to not include self. It goes a little deeper than that for me.
I believe that most things are subjective. Very little is black and white, in my mind.
Let me put it this way:
The very thing
That in its midst,
Felt so wrong,
Became the right.
The very thing
That in its moment
Left me empty
Became the fullness.
The very thing
That in its midst
Brought such pain
Became the healing.
The very thing
That in its moment
Looked so dark,
Became the light.
Some needed amends are obvious. I am clear on those. If I hurt you in some way - and it wasn't necessary - then I need to make amends to you. Some pain that I caused, though, was necessary for my own healing, in order to take care of myself or my children. Some betrayal, on the surface, looked wrong and unjust, but underneath served an exigent purpose in my own process. In those instances I have to take care to make the amends I need to make, but at the same time, not to overthrow that which I attained for myself spiritually, mentally, or emotionally.
The instructions of step nine are easy to decipher; it is the implementation that is often hazy.
For example.
When I got married I made a vow... that 'til death do us part vow. I didn't keep it. Every time I went to treatment (3 times) from 1988 through 1997, I ended up relapsing withing months of leaving rehab (and once within weeks). Even though I was told, over and over again, by countless people who knew the struggle I faced, that I could not live with a using addict and expect to stay clean, I didn't listen. I kept trying. It almost killed me. Finally, I decided that in order to stay clean I had to move out and move on with my own life and leave my husband to his own path. That is what I did. In the process, I hurt him. He felt betrayed. In effect, I lied to him. I broke a vow to him, a promise to work through anything and everything, in sickness and in health, and so on. But I bowed out early to save my own life. In the process, I hurt my children. We all know the statistics and issues of children of divorce. I caused this harm... yet, I had to do it. I felt I had no choice. Even though I did hurt others, I made the only decision I knew to make at that point in my own journey into wholeness and health and healing.
That example is just one of many.
I have made decisions that have caused harm to others, but nevertheless, had to be made.
I have also made decisions that have caused harm to others that I could have easily avoided.
Differentiating between the two is the task that makes the implementation of step nine somewhat tricky.
I’m Maze. I’m an addict.
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