STEP THREE
May 20, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader
“We don’t release some things to a Higher Power and hold onto others.” BRB p.142
“The Steps and Traditions mention Higher Power and prayer for a reason. They are part of learning to rely on someone or something else instead of continuing the compulsive self reliance many of us learned in childhood. Our belief system is a personal choice. How we pray or whom we pray to is part of that personal choice. It’s even up to us to determine what prayer is.
In meetings, we hear many examples of the power of prayer. We learn that it is communication that can bring answers when we are fearful, confused, or need help making decisions. Prayer and meditation can calm us so we can feel a conscious contact with our Higher Power.
When we let go of problems, the Steps show us how to care for ourselves and recover from the effects of our childhoods. But if we pick and choose what we let go of, we hold on to things that can continue to drag us down.
Connecting to a Higher Power helps us know we are not alone and defenseless. Turning our problems over helps us release the burdens we have been carrying around. We now have faith and trust in something greater than ourselves.
On this day I choose to make prayer part of my daily ritual. I see how it can benefit me to turn all of my problems over to a Higher Power and ask for a new direction to be revealed.”
My Experience:
All-in is the phrase I use. Like it is said, you cannot release some things to your Higher Power and hold onto others. When I was able to go all-in, that is when I experienced the most healing. This is a program of willingness, willing to ask for help, willing to recognize your flaws, willing to peel the onion of your past, willing to see and feel your hurts. When I became willing to turn my life and will over to the care God, as I understood God, I was able to understand that I now truly had help in my life. My Higher Power, as I understood, was benevolent and helpful. I have seen the help experienced in a myriad of ways and continue to do so on a daily basis. My communication comes in the form of conversations and revelations. These revelations are huge for me. They bring about a plethora of emotions and usually tears. The aftermath though is amazing. These sessions bring about the ability to feel deeper, to dig deeper into the chasm of my psyche and identify not only my wrongs, but my rights. I can identify that although the deeds may have been bad, I am not a bad person and I have my Higher Power to now bring my deeds and myself into better alignment.
OPEN WOUND
Never forgetting the atrocities that caused all the strife
They tell me absolution allows me to live my best life
So, on a quest from the past that I am ready to heal
Freely giving this thing called forgiveness helping to deal
Those that have chosen to hurt it unshackles me from
Out of the ooze of woundedness from whence I come
Try as I might, I cannot make others forgive me
I can only bestow amends for what I now see
My gladiator having been exercised from the infinite fight
Now staunchly battles for me to come into the light
I realize if in humanity I am to take my rightful place
A pardoning of those is what I must now embrace
Offering to my perpetrator, once said, “that I cannot do”
But I realize today that to heal I must stay true
Because I have come to know that un-forgiveness in my body anywhere
Is a threat to forgiveness and thus my sanity everywhere.
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