I was always very guarded with my true feelings and bottled up a lot of frustrations, anger, fear, that came out in other self destructive ways. When I took the advice of my early AA sponsors and started faking it until I made it, I discovered that thoughts and intellectual knowledge could be very fleeting while feelings could be long lasting. I had a lifetime of bad feelings and was beginning to like and look forward to the good feelings that were appearing.
Studying Spirituality opened the door to these good feelings. “I didn’t wish to kick anyone today,” “I didn’t crave a drink today,” “I am not a bad person today,” “I helped someone today,” “I learned something new today” These thoughts made me feel good and, being addictive, I wanted more, much more.
Where my beliefs of a vengeful, ogre-like God scared me badly, my new thoughts of a loving, caring, understanding God comforted me. When I learned how to Utilize and not Analyze, my life very quickly became one that I embraced. I don’t study the AA program with my head. When I do, I forget quickly. Anymore, I do not have many of the 12 Steps of AA memorized in my head. I have the 12 Steps of AA embedded in my heart. I now live the program and all of its principles to the best of my ability.
This brings up another thought. Whenever making a statement such as this I would usually modify it with a disclaimer such as “Of course I am not perfect” or “Being human, I can stray.” This only brings up the negative thoughts, so today I leave the disclaimers out. My inner knowledge of Spirituality has given me the peace that I always strove for. I just never could find peace or serenity. I learned that we are Spiritual Beings. Living in a Spiritual Universe. The universe is governed by Spiritual Law. I also learned that we are one with all that exists. Knowing that I am one with all reminds me that I am never alone.
The first two words of The Lord’s Prayer, Our Father, remind us that we are all one. With this, I am emotionally wealthy, meaning Happy, Joyous, and Free. You can be too if you want it enough to be willing to do the work. This is what learning from the heart has blessed me with. How do I approach a new learning experience now? i start with the shortened version of the AA 3rd Step by simply saying “God help me.” The simple then becomes much easier and I become even more Happy, Joyous, and Free!
The beauty of all of this is that it can all be yours for the asking! Short 3rd Step, “God help me.” Then step back and LET HIM! Now, just watch the bad feelings disappear and be replaced with good feelings. God bless you all!
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More can be found on our other pages. We have an AA Zoom meeting, blogs, and a podcast. Also our Facebook page. They are updated regularly. We hope that you will join us on these sites. And please comment so that we can share with each other our experiences, strengths, and hopes. The Zoom meeting is every Monday through Friday, 3:00 PM EST. Meeting ID is 6035280704. Password 399778. It is simple to locate the blogs and Facebook pages. Just search @Spiritualityandrecovery. For the podcast, search Spotify.com for Spiritualityandrecovery. On iPhone say “Hey Siri, Play the podcast Spiritualityandrecovery.” Or, on Android “Hey, Google. Play the Jim Boylan podcast.”
