What’s This Step About?
Excerpted from Buddhism & The Twelve Steps Workbook
Step Three sounds as if it’s about God, but from the
perspective of the archetypal journey, I think that’s a very limited view.
Instead, I think it’s about making a commitment to a new way of living, to
living in harmony with the Law of Karma, with the Dharma.
First
of all, making a decision, any decision,
for an addict is progress. We don’t “decide” to get drunk, crash the car, and
wind up in jail; we don’t “decide” to binge or overdose or waste our lives.
These are impulses, obsessions, addictions. So when we actually make a
decision, that is, consider alternatives, make a choice, and act on it, we are
already showing progress.
In
Step Three, the decision we are making is to turn away from our previous
addictive, self-centered, pleasure-seeking way of living, and turn towards
something more healthy, spiritual, and ethical. If we’re approaching this
process from a Buddhist perspective, a big part of this Step is to engage the
Noble Eightfold Path, which I’ll talk about later in this Step.
Turning
“our will and our lives” over is about two things: setting our intention to
live differently, “our will,” and actually taking the action, “our lives.” This
distinction in the Steps corresponds to the Buddhist understanding that all
actions follow on the heels of intention. If we are trying to do the right thing, we are already in better shape. We
may succeed or we may not—we may even relapse—but if we are clear about what we
really want, we’ll be able to get back on track. Intention, as I’ll talk about
later, conditions the results of our actions, that is, if we do something for
the right reasons, the results will tend to be beneficial; if we do them for
the wrong reasons—selfishness, pleasure-seeking, resentment—the results will
tend to be unbeneficial.
So,
this Step is about setting our direction and trying to stick to it. It becomes
our touchstone. Finally the Step implies acceptance. If we are “turning it
over” to something else, whether God or the Dharma, we are saying that our job
is to show up and do our best, but that we don’t control the results.
Therefore, we need to learn to accept how things unfold. A lot of the problem
with the addictive personality is the effort to control everything, and when we
can accept how things are occurring in our lives, there is much less conflict
and turmoil, less stress. We come to see that, even if things don’t turn out
exactly as we wanted, they are workable. And many times, what we thought was a
“bad” result, turns out to have hidden benefits. Many times in my recovery I
found that in the longterm, disappointing results led eventually to a much
better outcome than the one I had wanted. This is what “turning it over” is
about, and it’s key to maintaining serenity in recovery.
The Big Book of AA says famously:
“And acceptance is the
answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some
person, place, thing or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to
me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or
situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.”
What
does this mean to you? How true is it for you? What about things you don’t
think you should accept?
How
much does lack of acceptance cause
agitation, stress, and suffering in your life?
Begin to notice things you have difficulty accepting:
·
What is difficult to accept in your past?
·
What is difficult to accept about the world?
·
What is difficult to accept about yourself?
·
What is difficult to accept about your
experience during meditation?
