Proactive 12 Steps

I am not talking about faith in God or in religious beliefs. I am talking about the human capacity for the experience of faith.

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I strive for the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

There is a written transcript immediately below the audio player.

Transcript (edited for clarity):

This wording is an adaptation of what is known as the Serenity Prayer. A theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, initially wrote it. So it was very much intended as a prayer. However, thinking about it as a prayer distracts you from the way that it works.

A prayer?

If you just think of it as a prayer, you believe that these qualities of serenity, courage, and wisdom are going to be given to you by God. To push the logic to its extreme, you have to do nothing at all about it, but simply pray for it, and one day you will be changed. It will happen to you.

Now, that is not at all the spirit in which Reinhold Niebuhr wrote this. And it’s not the spirit in which even the traditional Twelve Steps think of it. Keep in mind that most of the steps are bout ways to change attitude and behavior. The “prayer” part emphasizes to religious people how important it is: so important that they’re asking God’s help. If you don’t believe in God, then you have to find a way to do it for yourself. And people who believe in God also believe in making an effort to help God help them. So the difference is not as big as it might seem at first.

So let’s sidestep the notion of prayer and go into why these qualities are essential, and how they are at the heart of what the Twelve-step process is. It’s right there from the very beginning. Remember that Step One of the Proactive 12 Steps is that “there is a big difference between who I want to be and what I do. I am stuck in what I do.” So from the first step on, you are confronting the issue of what it is that you can change and what it is that you cannot change.

At the very beginning, in Step One, you are at least dimly aware that there is some difficulty in changing at all. Then you engage in this process to find out what it is that you can change, and what it is that you cannot change.

Serenity

So what about serenity? Well, as you have discovered through this process, the change does not happen by forcing yourself to be somebody you’re not. And it certainly does not occur by blaming yourself for the things you’re not doing. Progress comes from deciding to understand what it is that is happening. So you’re not forcing change from the very beginning. You have a sense of acceptance of what is.

“Acceptance of what is” is another way of stating: “accepting what you cannot change.” Accepting means finding some degree of serenity with it. If you cannot change it, you’re not going to keep banging your head against a wall. You’re going to simply notice that this cannot be changed and figure out what it is that can be changed.

Finding serenity and acceptance does not mean that you are abandoning any hope of change. You are merely figuring out where you have a grip, some possibility of changing, and where you don’t. You are orienting your efforts where there is a possibility.

Courage

Now, what about courage? Through this process, you have been figuring out that courage does not mean pushing yourself to do silly things. Courage does not mean jumping out of a tenth-floor window because you dare yourself to do that. If it doesn’t work, if it’s going to doom, it’s not courage. It may be lore like stupidity.

What you have been figuring out is that courage lies in confronting your vulnerabilities, accepting them, and staying with them. Doing this is very different from bluster. It is much softer, but also much more intense, much more difficult. You’re not avoiding feeling the difficulty, but you’re learning to stay with it.

Serenity, Courage Wisdom (aka Serenity prayer).

Discussion of Step 12:

My life reflects a growing sense of respect and compassion for myself and others. I share this process with others who are struggling.

What does it mean to have compassion for yourself? Essentially, this is what you’ve been doing throughout these steps, instead of harshly judging yourself.

Instead of forcing yourself to do something against the sense of fear or hurt that you experience, you have been trying to understand what it is that made you do what you did. This has helped you realize the difference between understanding and condoning.

Understanding does not mean condoning

As you have seen through this process, understanding does not mean justifying, rationalizing something that is not something you want to happen. It’s not giving up. Knowing yourself gives you a better way to change than forcing change without understanding. So that is the exact opposite of condoning. We are talking here about finding a way to make changes that work, that last, that are sustainable. That is changes that you are happy with, as opposed to changes that you force on yourself through some abstract idea of what you should be doing.

Throughout this process, you have learned to be aware, to respect, and to understand different parts of yourself that may conflict. You started Step One with a sense of noticing the difference between who you think you are (or who you want to be) and what you do. You have been finding ways to get unstuck based on a better understanding of the forces in conflict.

As you stay with this process, you realize that it is not just you; it is human nature. So that adventure, that journey you had in understanding yourself better, is not just about understanding the specifics of the situation. It is also about understanding the way it affects all of us human beings. You now see your experiences as part of the human condition. Your struggle is simply the form that it takes for you. Every human being experiences some form of suffering or another.

Kinship with others

Through your experience of suffering, you may be drawn especially to those people whose kind of struggle is closest to yours. For instance, it makes sense for alcoholics to gather together, as it fosters a sense of kinship. They feel they understand each other better because they’ve been going through some very similar challenges, and this unites them. The same thing goes for other Twelve Steps programs for various forms of addiction.

The Proactive 12 Steps are not just for people who are dealing with addiction. They are for all human beings who are dealing with the pressures and fears and difficulties of the human condition. And so, at first, get close to people who are more like you. Progressively, you also get to understand that the kind of suffering you have does not set you apart from the rest of humanity. It is the specific way in which you are experiencing the human condition. And so your heart opens up to better understanding other people in the world, as you feel a kinship with them.

Feeling a kinship with others does not necessarily mean that you understand the specifics of what happens to them. On the contrary, it might be dangerous to think that you fully understand anybody. If you felt that way, you might get more closed, as opposed to wanting to hear about their experiences because you’d feel like you already know. So we are not talking about having a sense that you get it, that you know how everybody functions.

Through your suffering, you come to appreciate the value of becoming closer to people by being compassionate with their plight. And you become more aware of the possibility of finding some common ground if you dig deep enough.

A deeper understanding

Through the process of these steps, you come to understand your experience in a way that is very different from the way you did when you started....