Alcoholics Anonymous Blog/Video Oct 24 DonInLondon Step 10 "Reality Check"
Step Ten All the way to bedtime, and a mental gratitude list!
October 24, 2013 Step Ten Month: "continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it." Spot-check inventory at any time of day, all the way to bedtime! Oh and not forgetting in any given moment, gratitude for being sober, even when life is good bad or ugly. We can be forgetful of the journey into sobriety, a friend of mine used to say, "what have I done to deserve this?"
"I don't deserve it, why me?" Very easy to be resentful at the world when life is tough. Romance and finance, and especially family and partners have a right to be here and exactly the way they are today. Just because we got sober, it does not mean and it does not guarantee that life will be beyond our wildest dreams. The wildest dream of all, being able to do all the things we used to do, when we were under the influence of a substance and or particular people in particular places doing particular things. We can look back fondly at the good times and be very forgetful about the bad and ugly times. Beyond my wildest dreams: being able to feel right in the moment of now under all the current conditions. Feeling right means all my emotions work and I do not suppress the truth in the moment.
Just because I am right in how I see the world, it does not mean you are wrong if you disagree with me. What I see as right with this world, you may have a conflicting point of view, because of your experience and your knowledge and your interpretation in the moment of now. This can be disagreeable, argumentative and conflicting states of being in the moment. Age-old questions about love: "why don't I love her when she loves me?" And, "I love her and she does not love me, how can that be?" No matter what we do, sometimes we are not loved, we are not able to love others as they may wish, and life can be very confusing. Romance, especially when it's working out and love is growing, can be so intoxicating, we forget ourselves and we can be turned upside down in any moment of any day.
Truth opens the door in any given moment with a quick spot check inventory. How do we do this? In our emotional and spiritual development: knowing our feelings in the moment of now, and asking about feelings of others around us in the moment of now can be very illuminating. Being assertive: "how am I feeling?" "Why?" And, "what can I do?" Developing empathy in the moment: "how are we feeling?" "Why are we feeling this way?" And together, "what can we do?" Being assertive is not selfish unless you are in a selfish frame of mind. Developing empathy is not imposing your will on others, it is about inclusion and working out good outcomes for everyone concerned. Step ten: not an isolated practice when others are involved in the moment of now.
Twelve steps: twelve principles which help us develop self-awareness about the past and the present. Step ten is a personal development and practical way to understand ourselves in the present moment. If we know our feelings in the moment of now, whatever they may be, we can acknowledge them. Our mood will always impact on the way we think, the way we respond and the actions we take. Sometimes the actions we take can be quite different to our intentions if we are not aware of our feelings. That internal voice which on the one hand wants everything our way because our way is best, is always tempered by the reactions and responses of others around us. Most often if we think alone, we act on our own and we never develop beyond what we know. When we include others, even though they hold different points of view, want different things and behave differently, inclusion and discussion will offer better understanding and better outcomes, very different to our own inner desires and intentions.
How am I feeling? Still recovering from different tests and minor procedures to find out what is going on physically. Getting older one day at a time, dealing with the ups and downs truthfully means nothing is getting clogged up in my mind. The simple tools of hungry, angry, lonely, and tired: today I have enough to eat, I'm not angry about anything, not lonely, quite tired though. I know the cause, recuperation and careful activities are key. If I let my imagine fly, there are millions of things I want to do, and only one thing I need to do today: keep it simple.
Step ten is really good when we are trying to be the best we can. In any given moment, our brain works at 100%. Our brain is always working, and the hundred percent rule always applies. No matter what you might think, that you can add more activities and keep on adding more activities, your brain still works at 100%, even when you are asleep. If you don't get enough sleep you are not able to work at 100% when you are awake. Quality always impacted by quantity. If you concentrate 100% on particular activities, and there is quality in the outcomes, all good. If you concentrate 100% on too many activities, the likelihood is poor quality in all activities. The notion of multitasking or the science of multitasking will always show the difference in quality and quantity. When you add something into your daily activities, without removing something else, quality will suffer immediately. Saying yes to the right things, saying no to the wrong things is always key in recovery.
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