Made A Decision To Follow A New Way Of Life

This is a talk on the third step of the twelve steps pioneered by A.A. The step says "We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of god as we understood him". In this talk, I'll explore what one is turning their life over to, and what that really means.

Transcript

Step three of the 12 steps,

Originally,

Of AA,

Is that we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

And this is definitely one of the steps where the little details become very important.

So this idea of turning our will and our lives over to the care of God.

And the hour is important,

Of course,

Because there are supports in the world.

There are others that have done this before,

Myself or anyone who's choosing to walk this path.

And that there are people that we can do this with.

It's never done alone.

It doesn't have to be done alone.

It's advised for it not to be done alone.

In fact,

Much like all things in this world,

Humans are highly social creatures.

We need each other.

Sometimes it's not desirable,

You know,

To need other people.

And it's not often understood that this fierce individualism that's very common in our culture is very often a trauma response,

Not letting anybody in.

Having to go it alone.

But I digress.

So we made the decision,

And that's the key point here that I'm honing in on,

Is that we made the decision to do this.

Because actually doing it,

Of course,

Is a large undertaking.

It's a very large undertaking.

So I'm supposed to.

.

.

I mean,

Like,

Really,

If it looked at face value,

This is.

.

.

So essentially you're asking me to entirely restructure my life and go in this whole new direction,

Basically 100% of the time for the rest of my life.

No problem,

Right?

No problem.

And,

You know,

That's not an incorrect read,

Necessarily.

However,

The decision part is all this step is.

Is that we decided that we were going to follow this new way of life.

Is essentially the simple way to say it.

I make a decision to now follow this new path.

Because in step two,

You know,

We found a higher power of our own understanding.

And so turning it over to that higher power isn't going to be a cookie-cutter thing,

Necessarily.

You know,

There's people that are turning it over to the creator god they believe in,

Whatever.

There's others that are just surrendering to this path,

This new way of life.

There's variations in how this will look.

And the decision to do so,

In my experience,

Isn't a one and done,

Either.

You know,

As one goes through the steps initially,

You know,

There's like a beautiful,

Positive,

Powerful momentum that goes along with it as we move forward in timing that's appropriate for us.

You know,

As we move through this process at a speed which we can digest it,

And we don't lose momentum.

You know,

There's no rush,

But it's not helpful to drag it out,

Either.

This decision,

Though,

Or,

You know,

This decision could be seen as a decision in process.

You know,

Because there's been plenty of times I,

Myself,

Have made that decision and then changed my mind and went back to doing a lot of the same stuff that I was still doing.

You know,

If I'm being fully honest,

That's still happening in my life today,

In ways.

You know,

There's still harsh thinking towards others.

You know,

I still think unkind thoughts about people that I don't like or that I think are harmful or,

You know,

Doing things that are not helpful either to me or the world,

Whatever.

You know,

Like I have these opinions,

And that can get in the way of my spirituality.

You know,

You might think that's pretty refined,

And it is,

Right?

I mean,

Like we are talking about getting free of these massive addictions,

You know,

Of like whatever they may be.

And,

You know,

I use that for all of them,

Whether it's serious drug addiction or overwork,

Codependency.

You know,

These are all a lot more serious than,

You know,

They're given credit for.

But,

You know,

What I'm talking about is still a reflection of,

You know,

What would be called in the program as like self-will,

Yes?

Because like that's,

You know,

My human flawed will is one of like,

Oh,

I don't like this person.

I think they should do something different.

I'm going to try and change them,

Whether it's through like a snarky email or giving them the cold shoulder or rolling my eyes at them.

You know,

These things are controlled behaviors,

And they're not in line with,

You know,

Like what would I,

What,

You know,

What we use the will of my higher power,

You know,

Not in line with the path,

The spiritual path I'm choosing to follow.

And it doesn't require perfection of me.

It's just an honest truth,

You know?

Because if I really did fully turn it over,

As they say,

You know,

Turn my will and my life over and walk straight down that path,

Then it would be,

You know,

It would look pretty radically different,

Right?

So there's always these moments where I,

You know,

I surrender and I,

You know,

And I do my best.

You know,

I surrender and I do my best to turning my will and my life over.

But like I said,

I changed my mind.

Things come up,

And I decided that,

Well,

Actually,

I think I can handle this.

You know,

And sometimes it's even easier at the beginning of this process of recovery because,

You know,

When I came in to recovery,

I was very,

Very dramatically addicted to,

You know,

Extreme substances.

You know,

I was using meth all the time in a really,

You know,

In a really dangerous way,

And I couldn't stop.

And so I didn't have like a lot of belief in my ability to handle things,

You know?

Like it was very obvious my life was a real mess.

It was very obvious to me at that point.

Things were out of control.

So I was very ready to turn my will and life over to something new,

You know?

And I did.

I did.

You know,

And I made that decision,

And I,

You know,

I kept going with it.

And,

You know,

Then things,

Then I got more stable and more balanced and more socially responsible.

You know,

Getting a job,

Going back to school,

Getting keys to the yoga studio I teach at,

Getting keys to the kickboxing school that I attend.

You know,

I have keys to places when people didn't,

People before in life,

They like didn't want to let me in their houses anymore.

So now I was feeling like,

Oh,

Like I can do things,

I can handle things,

Which is true,

You know?

Like,

And that's the true part of the process of recovery is learning to discern,

You know,

Like learning to discern,

Right?

Learning to use good judgment and being able to then be able to trust my own abilities.

Like that's,

That's the goal.

That's part of the goal for sure.

You know,

Like being able to trust myself again has been a huge part of the process.

But also part of it for me was just like,

Then I became,

You know,

More reliant on myself and,

You know,

Less thinking that I needed my higher power,

You know?

And,

You know,

What I've come to learn is that like,

I can't really think of a situation in which my higher power's will for me isn't a better choice or outcome than just like my own machinations,

My own scheming,

My own human fallacy,

Human frailty,

You know?

But,

You know,

If I keep that,

If I keep my higher power close to me and that in mind,

Then I make the,

You know,

I'm way more likely to make the right choices.

And that,

You know,

Just those simple things like I said,

Like being kind to people,

You know?

Because like if I think about it,

Is there ever really a good reason to be unkind?

Even if someone's doing,

You know,

Like a really unforgivable,

Unacceptable thing,

You know,

Certainly that needs to be addressed and so forth.

But I don't need to be unkind about it.

I don't need to be harsh.

I don't need to treat them with lack of dignity.

Anyways,

This is a lot of my personal value system and beliefs.

But nonetheless,

Spirituality could be seen as the principle of this step,

Right?

So,

What does that look like to you?

Now,

That's the question.

What exactly am I turning my will and my life over to,

You might ask?

And you know,

That's exactly right.

It's exactly up to you.

And that's why it's so important to have a power that you have trust in,

That is of your understanding,

So you can make that decision as wholeheartedly as possible.

You know,

Because if we were asking you to turn your will and your life over to someone else's God,

Maybe a God that represented a bunch of harm that was done to you in your childhood,

I'm thinking that's going to be a pretty tough,

Pretty tough decision to make and stick with.

You know,

You might make it out of desperation in the beginning,

Like,

Okay,

Well,

Nothing else.

But then,

You know,

Trauma will resurface and it might make it very hard.

You know,

A lot of people just say that,

And I really understand this,

That like this decision is made and then the action of that,

What that looks like is walking through the rest of the 12 steps,

Actively engaging in the rest of the process.

You know,

We tell you don't get caught up in the next step when you're doing,

You know,

Stay within the framework of the step you're on.

But that's just a,

That can just be a helpful thing of like knowing the path forward without,

You know,

Like in a general sense,

Knowing the path forward in a general sense.

A question I've heard associated with this step,

It's not a very common one is,

Am I lovable to God and others?

And when I think about how that's associated with this,

You know,

It brings me back to that idea of why someone might be fiercely independent.

You know,

That could be exactly what this is,

You know,

Not,

And I believe that it is,

You know,

Like if I need to take care of myself and not let anyone else in,

I know for me that reflects an underlying belief that I'm not lovable and that,

You know,

People are dangerous and won't actually help me.

And I have a lot of that,

You know,

I have a lot of that burden myself from the way things were in my childhood.

You know,

There was,

There's some tough stuff.

There was some real instability in my home.

And to me,

I found that love was very conditional and unstable is how it seemed to me.

So,

You know,

If I consider spirituality in this step and how it might include letting others love me,

You know,

As I mentioned with this process being we,

We,

We,

You know,

If you look at the steps,

They all say we.

And it becomes really,

Really clear that a spiritual life,

And I believe this is a pretty generalizable statement,

Is that on any path of spirituality,

At least that I understand,

And I've even looked at the Satanic Bible a little bit as a youth,

And I would even say that like things like that it stands,

Really,

Is that connectivity with other humans is part of a spiritual life.

Being able to receive and give,

To teach and learn,

To love and be loved,

I think these are very important parts of spirituality and of human life.

So really when it comes down to it,

What this step and what the steps are asking of you,

Of us,

Is to try a different way.

And this is the way.

Well,

This is our way.

You know,

There are other ways to change and to heal and to grow and to get free of addictions,

Absolutely.

But in this context,

This step,

This step really is asking you to just wholeheartedly give this try,

Give this a try,

Give this path an open hearted try.

You know,

Because if you've decided that you've had enough of whatever is ailing you,

You know,

Whether it is a really serious drug addiction,

You know,

Whether you just can't use your voice,

You know,

Can't speak up for yourself,

Whether you're going to 10 CrossFit classes,

Breaking your mind,

Trying to get the perfect body,

Whatever it is,

This path can work for you.

And I would even,

You know,

Suggest that if you're interested,

Don't take my word for that.

Just give it a try and see.

You know,

It's often said that you can try this out and if you don't like it,

You know,

You can have all your misery and suffering back.

It's there waiting for you.

But if you think it might be worth it,

I think you might be worth it.

And if you do,

Then you might find that this step is a really great jumping off point into the rest of the process,

Which,

You know,

Which really involves reconnecting with humanity,

With people.

You know,

For me,

Like,

The third step in making this decision was really the start of making me feel like a human being again.

Because I thought,

Before the process of the steps,

You know,

I thought that I was completely irreconcilably damaged.

And I had done too many horrible things that I could never be,

You know,

Forgiven for or find redemption from.

And this was the jumping off point,

Just saying that,

Like,

Well,

That might be so,

But I'm willing to take a chance and see how it goes.

And that was enough.

That was enough for my life to really dramatically change.

So may you find the same peace that I have and that others have before me.

May you be well.