Living with the past
Those of us who have embarked on a journey of emotional and/or spiritual growth will soon discover that as we honestly face ourselves we have, over the years, behaved in a manner which was directly or indirectly hurtful to others. We may ask ourselves, “How can I make peace with this past and be a person of whom I can be proud. If we talk to a pastor, rabbi, or Inman, we will be told that God forgives us. In some case one may be assigned a penance. While that is comforting, the guilt and shame may continue to haunt us finding it impossible to let go of our shame and regrets.
Some of us may be familiar with the step-by-step process outlined in the 12-step program of recovery first introduced by Bill Wilson and Bob Smith in 1946. This program does not offer anything more than many religions offer, but it does recommend a very concrete process for healing. Steps four through 12 specifically deal with letting go of the past. These steps are:
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of us.
5. Admitted to God, to us and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would insure them or others
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
In my personal experience those who use this program are often successful - staying in recovery and living a life of which they can be proud. Many studies do not validate these results, but in my experience this is because most studies do not differentiate between those who continue to work the steps and those who quit working them or who never work all of them
This approach to being able to move on with one’s life is, I believe, successful because:
It is my personal belief and my personal experience that all of us easily get off tract. All of us need some system for putting the past behind us and focusing on what we can today. It does not have to be a 12 step system but it does, I believe need to intentionally incorporate the intention of the 12 steps.
Written December 29, 2017
Those of us who have embarked on a journey of emotional and/or spiritual growth will soon discover that as we honestly face ourselves we have, over the years, behaved in a manner which was directly or indirectly hurtful to others. We may ask ourselves, “How can I make peace with this past and be a person of whom I can be proud. If we talk to a pastor, rabbi, or Inman, we will be told that God forgives us. In some case one may be assigned a penance. While that is comforting, the guilt and shame may continue to haunt us finding it impossible to let go of our shame and regrets.
Some of us may be familiar with the step-by-step process outlined in the 12-step program of recovery first introduced by Bill Wilson and Bob Smith in 1946. This program does not offer anything more than many religions offer, but it does recommend a very concrete process for healing. Steps four through 12 specifically deal with letting go of the past. These steps are:
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of us.
5. Admitted to God, to us and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would insure them or others
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
In my personal experience those who use this program are often successful - staying in recovery and living a life of which they can be proud. Many studies do not validate these results, but in my experience this is because most studies do not differentiate between those who continue to work the steps and those who quit working them or who never work all of them
This approach to being able to move on with one’s life is, I believe, successful because:
- One discovers that one’s is not worse than others.
- Instead of focusing on the past one focuses on positive action.
- Each person chooses the higher power of his or her understanding with may or may not align with any religious teachings.
- One continues to admit wrongs, share them with another, and make amends on a daily basis rather than accumulating a lot of new emotional garbage.
- There is no punishment. There is regret, but not punishment.
- Even though one cannot always make amends or change the hurt one has caused one can focus on helping others such as the person who does not know how let go of the past.
It is my personal belief and my personal experience that all of us easily get off tract. All of us need some system for putting the past behind us and focusing on what we can today. It does not have to be a 12 step system but it does, I believe need to intentionally incorporate the intention of the 12 steps.
Written December 29, 2017
RSS Feed