12 Principles As Mantras / Centering Word Meditation Or Prayer

This is a breath-focused practice using the 12 principles as mantras: honesty, hope, faith, courage, integrity, willingness, humility, love, discipline, perseverance, spirituality & service. We begin by creating space and sensing our aliveness in the "space between" breaths. Steadily, we move through each of the 12 principles as centering words with our breath, focusing for one minute each. Lastly, we are invited to extend this practice, perhaps by using one that resonates for a longer period.

Transcript

Hello,

Welcome to Agadirid Meditation and the 12-Step Tradition.

We're going to start this mantra awareness with the 12-Step Principles by simply breathing.

Start of any good practice,

We're going to create space or just be aware of the space that's brought about by our breathing.

At the top of each in-breath and at the bottom of each out-breath,

There's a space in between where we're not doing anything.

Be aware of that space that you're creating with your breath.

Simply focusing,

Knowing you're alive,

Each in-breath and each out-breath.

This will be the extent of our practice because in between that space we're going to be placing a principle or a focus word that will help us with our mantra or with our Centering Prayer Meditation.

We'll take just a few minutes to simply breathe,

Once again creating space in our awareness.

Letting any thoughts pass by,

We're not trying to practice restricting or stopping any thoughts.

Just recognizing the incredible amount of space which is present in our breathing.

As we begin in about a minute,

We'll be placing one word,

One principle in the space of that breath.

And after about each minute,

We'll have another word.

Don't worry if it moves too fast or too slow.

You can always come back to that one principle or that one word.

You can always pause and stay with that word for a longer amount of time.

The first principle is honesty.

Help me to live with honesty.

The top of each in-breath or the bottom of each out-breath,

We just think honesty.

Or as you breathe in or out,

You can also put this principle in the breath,

Thinking honesty.

Letting that be your only focus,

Combined with your breath,

For the next minute.

Hope.

Next principle is hope.

Help me to live with hope.

As we breathe in or out,

The space in our breath,

Hope.

Hope.

The next principle,

Faithful.

Help me to be faithful.

Faithful.

Faith.

The next is courage.

Help me to have courage.

And integrity.

Help me to live with integrity.

And integrity.

The sixth principle is willingness.

Help me to have willingness.

And integrity.

And humility.

Help me to live with humility.

And integrity.

And humility.

And love.

And love.

And love.

The next discipline,

Help me to have commitment.

And honesty.

And perseverance.

Having perseverance to see through those commitments.

Going into that space,

Perseverance.

When perseverance grows in you.

The 11th principle is spirituality.

Breathing into the need to look inward.

Spirituality.

Breathing into the need to look inward.

Breathing into the need to look inward.

Our final principle.

Our final principle is service.

Help me to serve.

And continuing to breathe.

To that space.

That space between each breath.

We feel that we are alive.

We are grateful for these mantras,

These principles,

To focus our prayer or meditation.

Sending each of them deep into our soul.

And also lifting up that which is outside of our control.

Letting go.

Thoughts will come and go,

But we return back to our breath.

And you may continue this meditation as long as you like.

You may go back to one of the words that particularly resonated with you.

One of the principles to spend longer meditation,

Perhaps five or ten minutes.

Just focusing on that one word,

That one thought,

And seeing where it can take you,

Where it can center you.

Carrying it with you throughout the day.

Perhaps you may choose one principle to focus on each day or for a longer period of time.

However you use this practice,

Know that others are with you.

With the same pursuit.

You're not alone.

Been here?

Reviews

🙏🏼

Thank you 🙏

Thank you 🙏

Thank you. Just what I needed today. I have chosen 3 principles to carry with me today...honesty, integrity and love. Excellent practice 💜🙏

Absolutely love this opportunity to enhance my spiritual fitness (“Alcoholics Anonymous”, authors: Recovered 100, www.aa.org, “Alcoholics Anonymous” text pgs 1-103, 151-164, 417:1 as well as pgs. 567-8), incorporating life-serving principles including:
1. acceptance (pg. 48, 417:1),
2. anonymity (pgs xiii:3 {designate self simply as “member of Alcoholics Anonymous.”, 562 {11th and 12th traditionS}, 565 {11th tradition}, 566 {12th tradition = “... the PRINCIPLE of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance.” Anonymity reminds us to: place principleS before personalities, practice a genuine humility.....!
3. balance (AA 12/12, steps 4, 10, 11, 12, {13 different citations}),
4. beauty (12&12 Step Eleven, p.100  
Let us become willing to partake and be strengthened and lifted up by the sheer spiritual power, beauty, and love of which these magnificent words {the 1912 Prayer of Peace} are the carriers.

AA, text, We Agnostics, p.50, “We missed the reality and the beauty of the forest because we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees.”

5. community (V4U pgs. 152, 156, 158, 161, 163 {2x}, pg. 131 {Family}, pg. 137 {Employers}, Dr. Opinion pg. xxvii, 12/12 pgs 43 & 50 (Step 4), pgs. 110 & 124 (step 12), pg. 186 (tradition 12)
6. courage (S 4, pgs 64:1-71:0),
7. equanimity (pgs. 14, 68, 84),
8. faith (S 3, pgs 60:3 - 64:0),
9. honesty (Step 1, pgs 1-44, 58, 65, 73, 140, 145),
10. hope (Step 2, pgs 44-60:2),
11. humility (Step 7, pgs 76:2, AA 12/12 pgs 70-76, AA pgs 13, 73, etceteras, “the spiritual FOUNDATION” of EVERY step, living a recovered life),
12. integrity (S 5, pgs 72:1-75),
13. justice (S 9, pgs 76:3-84:1),
14. love (Step 8, pg 76:3),
15. perserverance (Step 10, pgs 84:2-85:2),
16. prayer (pgs 59, 85, 87):
The Serenity (pgs 14, 68, 84) prayer,
The 3rd Step (give your will and life over to Power Greater than Self) prayer (pg 63:2), “God, I offer myself to Thee-
To build with me
and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self,
that I may better do Thy will.
Take away my difficulties,
that victory over them may bear witness
to those I would help of Thy Power,
Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.
May I do Thy will always!”

The 7th Step (Humbly ask Creator to remove our shortcomings) prayer (pg 76:2), “My Creator,
I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad.
I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here,
to do your bidding. Thy will, not mine be done, Amen”

The 1912 Prayer of Peace (pg 99, the AA 12/12) {Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offence, let me bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Creator, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying (to self) that one is raised to eternal life.} One of St. Francis (1182-1226) closest companions (Giles of Assisi 1190 – 1262), prayed: “Blessed is one who loves and does not therefore desire to be loved;
Blessed is one who fears and does not therefore desire to be feared;
Blessed is one who serves and does not therefore desire to be served;
Blessed is one who behaves well toward others and does not desire that others behave well toward them;
And because these are great things, the foolish do not rise to them.”

17. promises (pgs 5, 38, 83-84, 151-164 and many more throughout EVERY step, many of the pages 1-164 and beyond),
18. recovered” life = the living problem is addressed, the symptomS (alcoholism, anger, anorexia, bulimia, debting, depression {self will regarding the present moment}, discontentedness, fear (self will regarding the future), irritability, overeating food, resentments {self will regarding past}, restlessness, self-pity {self will regarding the present moment}, sex related inappropriate compulsivities, spending issues and other compulsivities) are removed (many pages in the AA text authored by the recovered 100, including pgs 17:1, 20:1, 29:1, 45:0, 90:3, 113:1, 132:2, 146:2, 165, 2001 edition title page, Forward to 1st edition, paragraph 1, as well as Forward to Second Edition, xvii:1 and xxv.
19. responsibility (pgs 77-82),
20. service (Step 12, pgs 89-103),
21. spiritual awareness (Step 11, pgs 85:3 to 88, pgs 567-8),
22. spiritual fitness, a daily reprieve (pg 85),
23. willingness (Step 6, pg 76:1, AA 12/12 pgs 63-69, AA pgs 12, 13, 46, 118, 124, 163),

into every aspect of this life I am blessed to live, currently. While I constantly AIM for spiritual perfection, nothing less, I can only claim spiritual progress, occasionally. www.gratefulness.org, ahimsa

Thank you for this moment 🙏

So lovely

Thank you 🙏

Phenomenal! This will be my "go to" meditation both for my daily morning practice and whenever I need to center. Thank you, thank you, thank you.🙏❣️

Thank you. I enjoyed the simple way you helped me to focus on each of the spiritual principles.

Really helpful and powerful meditation, loved the idea of the 12 principles. Hoping to make this a regular practice!

Yes..so this is quite good..though I am weary of 12 step groups, this was a good meditation

Helpful. Simple. Inspiring.
🙏💐🙇🏻‍♀️

Love this meditation of the principles! Great way to incorporate them! Thank you 🙏

Excellent! I am a therapist and will suggest this to my clients.
Thanks!

Positive intention, focus easily maintained and mantras easily repeated. TY 🙏🏼

I love this meditation!!! I have found that when you repeat certain meditations for days or weeks you begin to embody what you listen to, and things start happening in your life which reflects that. This is a bedrock meditation, I highly recommend it, and thank you so much for creating it!!

Very much enjoyed this. I use it frequently.

Beautiful 💗Thank You 🙏

As a 12 step member, I deeply appreciate this simple and powerful meditation. Thank you.