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I never liked the very thought of having to do this step. It didn’t bother me in my early days of involvement in a 12-step program. That was because, in the early days, I only did the steps in a cursory way, if at all. When I finally realized that doing these steps would save my life, actually, at the time I realized they were the only things that would save my life, I read, got help, and began to take the steps seriously.

 Of course, I had read the book, and I knew what steps were coming next. It was hard enough to do step eight, just thinking about all of folks I had harmed, no less facing the prospect of actually going to see them face-to-face. However, if I had learned nothing else, I definitely learned about the power of God, and how much it was available to me after my surrender in the first three steps. I had all of that power with me when I had to finally face those people I harmed. That didn’t make it much easier, but it made it bearable!

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In this episode I want to talk about willingness and exactly how willing I have been in the past to, as they say in this step, “I became willing to make complete amends to them all”. I realized that when I made my list in this step, I absolutely believed that I was willing and, I was gung ho to get out there and start making amends. However, I finally got in touch with some fear that was hiding inside of me, and I realized that this step wasn’t going to be the piece of cake I thought it was. Once again, I needed to draw on God’s power that I received in steps number two and three. And I most certainly discovered that I needed to accept God’s gift of willingness if I were to be fully involved in this step and receive the beautiful rewards that it can bring. 

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In this episode I’ll continue with the action steps and specifically step number eight. If that I have associated with step number eight is the gift of willingness. There is no problem whatsoever in receiving and using this gift from God. The real problem lies within. Most of us, in reading about the 12 steps, have some sense of where each step is leading us. It doesn’t take a super amount of intelligence to realize that this step is preparation for step number nine. This is where my ego kicks in and says, “Hey check, be careful and don’t get yourself mired in this quicksand of willingness. I certainly have to keep learning to listen to my spirit instead of my ego.

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So, my friends, if last week was about humility, then this week is really going to be about humility plus. I am going to talk about the last part of the seventh step, the way it was originally written. The seventh step you will find today, both in the literature and hanging on the meeting place walls is as follows: “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings”. The original version read as follows: “Humbly asked Him, on our knees, to remove our shortcomings, holding nothing back”. A little bit has been lost from the first edition of work is called the “Big Book”. In this episode I’ll speak about the last phrase in the old seventh step,”holding nothing back”. I fought over this phrase quite a bit in my single early days, even more after I truly discovered and began to apply these 12 steps to my life, and today still, I am discovering little bits and pieces that I would like to hold back. 

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In this episode we begin to speak about the gift of humility and how important it is in any kind of recovery program. The thing that is, in my opinion, the provider of the most adversely to humility is our ego. I don’t believe our ego is a bad thing. I really believe it is something that helps us to navigate some obstacles in our human lives. However, it is a thing that needs to be kept under control and subject to our spiritual path. With the gift of humility, I am able to put my ego in its proper place.

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It is a little interesting that this episode, in relation to the steps and the gifts that were doing in my regular podcast, comes at step six and the gift of willingness.

Quite often, we make New Year’s resolutions. These are usually promises to ourselves to stop doing, or start doing, things that affect our humanity. For many of us, by the month of February, those New Year’s resolutions have become null and void! This year, I’m making one resolution that concerns my human self and another resolution that concerns my spiritual growth. On the human side, I am resolving to lose some weight because both my knees and my back would certainly benefit from it. On the spiritual side, I am simply resolving to keep my ego in tow as I listen for God’s plans for my life.

I wish you all a very happy, healthy, and spiritually guided New Year!

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Christmas seems to have become synonymous with gift giving and gift receiving. I think that really is what it is all about. After all, from the very first Christmas, Jesus was given gifts of gold, frankincense, and Myrrh.

Of course, many parts of the world have turned Christmas into a commercial holiday rather than a spiritual holy day. I have already received the best gift possible; the rewards of saying my spiritual “yes” to God.

I hope I am able to give gifts to others as well. The best gift I could think of to give someone has to do with the definition I use for love, “Wanting to do for the good of another.” Merry Christmas to all Christians and to all those of other beliefs, please have a happy and joyous holiday!

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As I have said in the last couple of episodes on the gift of cleansing, these three steps, steps five, six, and seven work almost simultaneously. For me, after step five, and especially after speaking with another human being about the nature of my wrongs, I was immediately ready for steps six and seven.

I might say that I worked myself into a corner. All of a sudden, I have unburdened myself from that oppressive baggage of my past. What am I going to do now? Once again, I feel I must tell you how important it is that I have not only done but absorbed the first three steps as part of my being. I am becoming ready to surrender all of that old baggage and to begin my new life as a person who will try their best to live life according to the direction of my Spirit (God).

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In this second part about the gift of cleansing, I will talk about how it affects doing this step and what actually is meant by cleansing. As I said in part one, cleansing doesn’t really refer to the actual removal of anything. It’s not like using a solution to remove the spot from your clothing or carpet. To me, and my understanding of this step and how it works with the gift of cleansing, I would say it is more synonymous with the word “emptying”.

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Let me begin by explaining that even though this particular’s gift includes the word cleansing, which might imply the removal of something, it doesn’t! I like to think of this step and this gifts as intermediaries between the fourth step and the sixth and seventh step. We have written everything we could think of as we did the fourth step. What I referred to previously as ‘dirty laundry’, is referred to in the literature and the steps as our character defects and shortcomings. Now, this gift of cleansing, gives me the opportunity to start moving this “stuff” out of those hidden corners of my being and lay it out in the open for all to see. I haven’t necessarily made the commitment to do away with all of these things, but I am cleaning out that part of me that has been holding onto it all asked if I could not live without it.