Step 7 of the 12 step program is:

“Humbly asked him to remove our shortcoming.”

I love this step although my understanding of what it means to be humble in this context is slightly different than the definition in the Oxford dictionary.  My understanding of what leads to the lack of humility and the subsequent  failure to attain humility is slightly different than what I first read in the Big Book.

Oxford dictionary defines humble as:

·      (of an action or thought) offered with or affected by a modest estimate of one’s own importance:…

·      Of low social, administrative, or political rank:…

Middle English: from Old French, from Latin humilis 'low, lowly', from humus 'ground'.

If one turns to pages 71-72 on aa.org one finds:
“In all these strivings, so many of them well-intentioned, our crippling handicap had been our lack of humility. We had lacked the perspective to see that character-building and spiritual values had to come first, and that material satisfactions were not the purpose of living. Quite characteristically, we had gone all out in confusing the ends with the means. Instead of regarding the satisfaction of our material desires as the means by which we could live and function as human beings, we had taken these satisfactions to be the final end and aim of life.

True, most of us thought good character was desirable, but obviously good character was something one needed to get on with the business of being self-satisfied. With a proper display of honesty and morality, we’d stand a better chance of getting what we really wanted. But whenever we had to choose between character and comfort, the character-building was lost in the dust of our chase after what we thought was happiness. Seldom did we look at character-building as something desirable in itself, something we would like to strive for whether our instinctual needs were met or not. We never thought of making honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God the daily basis of living.”

I do agree that the attempt to find happiness, worth or courage in  some substance, activity or thing will bring only temporarily  relief from the often profound unhappiness or discomfort of being ourselves.  What one consistently hears when one attends lead meetings in the 12 step program are stories of feeling different, of feeling as if one does not belong, of not being enough or being less than.   Most addicts(we humans) are attempting to escape being with themselves (ourselves)  or attempting to prove that they (we) are more worthwhile than they (we) feel.   I certainly would not call this humble unless we are going to define humble as profound self-hatred.  The opposite of this profound self hatred would be the willingness and faith to celebrate who we are as humans.  I want to suggest that it is only through grateful acceptance of our humanness that we can let go of these destructive thoughts and behaviors which, in the end, have further separated us from any “higher power”, our selves and from others.  Knowing or accepting that we are enough, that we do not have to prove ourselves paradoxically allows us to treat ourselves and others with compassion. As many Buddhist or other spiritual leaders, including that Jesus fellow, have posited: When we can honestly face and accept ourselves we see in ourselves all of humankind.  We are the mirror for every other human and every other human is the mirror for us.  As the paralyzed yoga teacher and sage, Matthew Sanford suggests, it is  only when we honestly make peace with ourselves that we know compassionate or can be compassionate. This makes perfect sense to me.  As was discussed in steps 4, 5 and 6 in our attempt to run from ourselves or to prove ourselves we have not been able to be considerate or respectful of the needs of our own body much less the needs of others.  This is, in my “humble” opinion is what has resulted in what is being termed character flaws or defects. The belief that we were defective had led to us act as if defective.

My thinking is that “He/She/it”- the God of our understanding – is always inviting us to be embraced, is always welcoming  us home, but as long as we feel unworthy we push away in shame or find some way of numbing our loneliness and our sense of lowness  to make ourselves disappear.

He/She/It says  we are enough.  You have wonderful talents and abilities. You are worthy of love.

In accepting this invitation the perceived need to be self destructive and destructive of others is going to fall away.  As Louise Hay would say, “We are perfect in our imperfection.”

When praying I advise myself , “Do not pray to have your shortcoming or defects removed.  Pray that you accept their removal.  Do not pray that you be given strength. Pray that you will accept/embrace the strength you have already been given. Do not pray that your artificial sense of self worth is removed. Pray that you accept that you are enough with this artificial sense of self worth.”

Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings becomes, for me, “Gratefully accept the grace/the love which is you – which is the world.”  Once we do that we can in all humility relax in the knowledge that we are enough, that the God of understanding never rejected us, that the God of our understanding never asked that we prove our worth.   From a Christian perspective the message is clear: Accept the unconditional love (Grace) which God offers and onewill not feel as if one needs to pretend we are more than or have more than or know more than.

If we keep it this simple than we will be able to be the best we can humanly be.  We will not need those behaviors which have separated us from ourselves, others, Mother Earth and the God of our understanding. We have nothing to prove. Our fear will be massaged away.

Written September 12, 2015

Respect, Grace and Humility

My morning began as does most Monday mornings. I got up, shaved, showered and dressed for the gym,  took my morning medications and got a cup of coffee.  Then I sat down to do emails and text messages for about forty minutes.    On Monday I first look for the weekly blog of my friend and colleague, Dr. Becky Johnen. This morning the title of the blog was “Lessons Learned Outside Our Comfort Zone” (authorbeckyjohnen.wordpress.com) In this blog Becky reminds us that growth requires that we move outside of our comfort zone to do something we are not used to doing. That could be a new skill, an activity, a thought or a new approach to an old issue. She quotes Brian Tracy as saying that  we can only grow if we are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable.    She also quotes Thomas Edison who reminded us that what we sometimes call failing is finding what does not work.

Dr. Johnen also forwarded a link to an article, which appeared in the Washington Post by Terrence McCoy on May 6 about the work of work of psychologist Sam Tsemberis who has a “novel” approach to the issue of homelessness. His answer is simple.  He is quoted as saying, “Give homes for the homeless, and you will solve chronic homelessness.”  What is more he suggests that we “give homes to addict and drunks and schizophrenics without preconditions.”  He also reminds us that homeless services often works as a reward system for kicking an addition, getting counseling, taking medication or some other worthwhile endeavor.    Mr. Tdemberis is suggesting that we have got it backwards.  He suggests that first we give someone a home and then provide counseling and other assistance. Further he suggests giving them a final say in everyfhing– where they live, what they own, how often they are counseled.

I have always been mystified by the seeming expectations and often “demands’ that sick people act well before they receive help.  I have worked with the chronic homeless, the chronic mentally ill, the person who cannot seem to stay in recovery, the person who keeps ending up back in jail and the person who does not want to pray before being allowed to eat.  When I have worked within the structure of an organization too often the organization punished sick people for missing appointments, not following their evidence based goals, or not following other rules, which we may have framed as recommendations. 

When “they” do not “behave” we label them as non-compliant.   When I attempt to explain to other clinicians or service providers why non-compliance is such an unacceptable term I often encounter confusion Resistance is another term that I recommend we do not use. If we have to use a term, let’s use the term adherence, which, by definition, was coined to mean a tentative plan drafted by the service provider and the person being served.  When that plan does not work, there is no blame –just the acknowledgement that a more effective plan is needed.

I was thinking this morning of the word respect which “dictionary.com” defines as “A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by his or her abilities, qualities, or achievements.”

As Mr. Tsemberis points out surviving on the streets takes a lot of skills.  Surviving as a drug addict takes a lot of skills.  I have often admired the level of skill demonstrated by many of “the least of these”.  They have skills that I do not come close to possessing. I am often in awe of those skills.

Later this same morning I was reading an article about the meeting between Raul Castrol and Pope Francis.   Mr. Castro is quoted as saying, “I read all the speeches of the pope, his commentaries, and if the pope continues this way I will go back to praying and go back to the church. I’m not joking,” he said.” (St. Petersburg Tribune, May 11, 2015, page 9).  I find this a pretty amazing statement. What is that the pope has said or done which could be so impressive to Mr. Castro?  I looked up some of the quotes of Pope Francis on google and found:

         Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds,

         there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You

         have to trust God.

          A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.

         Grace is not a part of consciousness; it is the amount of light

         in our souls, not knowledge or reason.

         If one has the answer to all the questions – that is the proof

         that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet

         using religious for him. The great leaders of the people of

         God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You most leave

         room for the Lord, not for certainties; we must be humble.

         I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to

         ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and

         about the level of his blood sugars. You have to heal his wounds.

         Then we can talk about everything else.

On could go on and on, In fact I downloaded seven pages of such quotes by Pope Francis.  Although I do not agree with many of the teachings and practices of the Catholic Church, I trust Pope Francis in his attempt to reclaim the simple faith that we humans respond  with respect for and with each other.   I cannot find any evidence that Jesus, Buddha or another spiritual teacher that I respect required a person to act a certain way before an embrace was extended. Whether Jesus was talking to the prostitute or Judas, he merely said, “Oh Jim, come here, let me give you a hug.”

While my experience tells me that we humans are going to act like humans; that addicts are going to act like addicts; that homeless people living on the street are going to respond with doubt and caution, that the professional criminal is going to find it difficult to trust, that the Christian might find it difficult to trust the Muslim and the Muslim might find it difficult to trust the Christian, we must start with respect.   My experience also tells me that false respect is always identified by the streetwise person and by the person living at a survival level.   If we are offering pity  than  than the person will know that and will respond with distrust and even contempt.

We spend millions of dollars on jails, the legal system overall, on police forces and on systems to identify those who are not deserving of our help; those who do not obey all the rules or who are not appropriately grateful for the leftover crumbs.   What I understand Pope Francis, Father Gregory Boyle, the Mother Theresa’s of the world, and the Sam Tsemberis’ of the world to be suggesting is that we start with respect. I suspect that true respect could also be defined as love. It really is quite simple.   Even the person whose mental illness is not responsive to any known treatment deserves our love and respect. They may need restrained and to be housed in a safe space, but they deserve our love and respect.   We would want that for our brothers, our sisters, our children, our parents, our neighbors, and ourselves.  Truly we can be that sister or brother or neighbor, or parent or child. Truly that person can be us.