A New View of a 12-Step Process

I recently was thinking about the 12 Steps as they have been shared with me by thousands of clients over the years. I've not been involved in addiction myself, but have worked with so many clients over my career as a therapist and a coach that I feel very familiar with the 12-step thinking.

And in my recent contemplation, I sat down and looked at each of the 12 Steps of AA and tried to feel the essence of what each step is saying and calling for. There is an underlying theme for each step that I've felt inspired by whenever I read them, or talk about the steps with a client. Something about them has always struck me deeply, and did again when I was meditating on them.

We all make our own personal decisions as to how we will create meaning onto the events and memes of our lives, and I'm no exception to that meaning-making process. In looking to create and attract more miracles into our lives, one of our major steps is to take responsibility for this process of assigning meaning.

In doing so, I've realized that actually "Nothing IS Sacred", meaning that everything is subject to our own personal meaning-making process, and that there are no rules about that anymore. We are free, Sovereign Infinite Beings, and we have the ability to create our own reality to fit our own life-view.

In my process of contemplating the 12 steps, I then took each step and transformed it to fulfill that essence to fit with my view of how The Universe works from my own personal life experience.

I don't mean any disrespect to anyone who has found value in AA or other 12 Step communities. However, I have always felt funny about some of the steps, and this was a great way for me to express those concerns in my own language and life view. I do believe that part of our role in life is to express our experience of life in our own terms, and not just follow the views of others. In that way, we can become free of stultifying personal and cultural practices that limit our experience of life itself.

Here are my 12 Steps: The 12 Steps Toward a Spirit-Filled Life

1. We acknowledge that we are powerful beyond measure in creating our lives, each and every moment.

2. We came to believe that a Power greater than our old, small view of ourselves is who we really are.

3. We made a decision to immerse our will and our lives within the Spirit that we experience in all things.

4. We look at our 'mistakes' in life as the result of playing a smaller game, and cut ourselves slack that we have played that kind of game in our lives.

5. We saw how our limited view of our Infinite Self creates the illusion of separateness, and creates hardship and suffering in our lives.

6. We move steadily toward loving acceptance of our ability to create our reality.

7. We live in the humility of sharing our inner and outer gifts and talents with others, and not hiding them in false smallness.

8. We ask for forgiveness from all we may have harmed, and hold them in a space of love.

9. We live in the integrity of clarity between ourselves and others.

10. We practice our process of reclaiming our power from the illusions that we have created and continue to create.

11. We seek through prayer, awareness and meditation to improve our ability to love and appreciate our creations as we experience them.

12. Having had a spiritual illumination as the result of these steps, we live a life of freedom and creation, sharing ourselves with others as the Universe shares.

Copyright (c) 2007 Don McAvinchey

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