Steps to the Spirit

Send us Fan Mail This will be the final episode on the gift of perseverance. I would like to talk about the last part of step 10 which is, “… and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.” The inability to admit when we are wrong is a lot to do with our so-called, ego. I often allude to the ego is skipping along in my mind, with its two pals, procrastination, and rationalization. This scenario is...

Send us Fan Mail So, when I left off my audio in the last episode, I was devising that, as usual, there is more about this step than meets the eye. It seems like every time I look at one of the steps even if it might be for the thousandth time, I find something else that I may have overbooked before! I have the feeling that that might have something to do with our spiritual growth. Maybe my Spirit...

Send us Fan Mail With this episode we enter what are generally referred to as the maintenance steps. Just as a refresher, I have dubbed three steps as the “Grace” steps. I haven’t heard that expression before but it seems appropriate to me. Steps four through nine are usually referred to as the “action” steps. Of course, they are called that because they involve some kind of action. We are either...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I will talk about my old friend “ego”, and its buddies, at least in my case, “procrastination” and “rationalization”. They are always around, trying to mess with my head my heart and my Spirit, but as I worked on this step, they seemed to be more active than ever. They kept saying things like, “you don’t have to do that now.” “That incident wasn’t so bad.” “You’ll...

Send us Fan Mail 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 h...

Send us Fan Mail 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 t...

Send us Fan Mail 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 sup...

Send us Fan Mail 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 versio...

Send us Fan Mail 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 b...

Send us Fan Mail 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 reso...

Send us Fan Mail 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 possib...

Send us Fan Mail 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 unbur...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 l...

Send us Fan Mail So, as we continue with the gift of Honesty, I would like to talk a little bit about exactly what we mean by honesty, and how to apply it to the fourth step. We can go back as far as Socrates, (470-399 BC), who said, “an honest man is always a child.” This isn’t really too far away from our discussion because in our attempt to become a spiritual person, we must try to find in ours...

Send us Fan Mail In step four, we begin what are called or commonly referred to as the action steps. Once again, these steps are in the order they are for a reason. I cannot stress enough that being at step four strongly implies that I have applied myself thoroughly to the first three steps. I urge you not to become involved in these action steps until you have surrendered to your spirit, (i. e.,...

Send us Fan Mail I continue the last episode about trust. I really can say unequivocally that I believe this to be both the most important step and the most important gift that God gives us in these 12 steps. From this point on, it would be impossible for me to treat this program as a spiritual gift from God, if I am not able to view God as my Savior and mentor. Hey, I am literally making a decisi...

Send us Fan Mail I think of this gift is one of the most important gifts we can possibly receive from God. Yes, I know, I seem to speak of many of these gifts as the one that is most important. I think it any one time, depending on where I am at in both my Spirit and my head, any one of these gifts could seem the most important. However, once I have realized and admitted my powerlessness and the u...

Send us Fan Mail (Just a quick note about the last episode. I’m not sure where I was at last time, but I believe I called it the wrong episode number, not to mention, having Pythagoras living in the 17th century. So, it was actually episode number 43, and of course, Pythagoras was circa 500 BC. No, I didn’t succumb to my addiction. It was just one of those days.) In the last episode, I pretty much...

Send us Fan Mail Now that I have admitted that I’m powerless, and can’t seem to manage my own life, what do I do? After all, my whole life, (and it doesn’t matter whether I’m 12 years old or 75 years old), seems to have been one of blissful ignorance. It seems to have been a life, now that I have been given a glimpse of it through the gift of Enlightenment, that was both narcissistic and self-defe...

Send us Fan Mail so, in this episode I’ll continue to speak about step one and continue to talk about the gift of Enlightenment. There really isn’t too much in the literature that tells us exactly how we go about doing the first two steps. After the steps are listed, there is a brief section that describes our dilemma and struggle to even get started with the steps. The literature says, “What an o...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is about the gift of Enlightenment, which is the gift I associate with the first step. I know there may be some questions concerning my selection of the word Enlightenment to describe this gift. It may be a little confusing because Enlightenment is usually in a different, more ethereal way.  I suppose it may have been simpler to refer to this gift as something like, ‘...

Send us Fan Mail So, I’d like to talk a little bit more about this thing called Grace. On one hand, it seems like it might be elusive. However, it is allusive only in our minds. I say that because, as I said in part one, Grace isn’t gift that all of a sudden show up. Grace has been with us from the time our resistance began as a thought in the mind of God. In this episode, I would like to speak a...

Send us Fan Mail The first gift we will look at is Grace. I am, of course including it with this section of episodes about the gifts that accompany the steps, but I hesitate to call Grace an actual gift. When we are conceived or created or whatever you choose to call it, (I choose to think of it as coming into existence as a result of the thought of God), I believe that Grace accompanies us as par...

Send us Fan Mail Looking at the 12-steps for the second time, I would like to spend more time looking at the gifts that God has given us with each of the steps.  I have just published my book, Steps To The Spirit , and it is available on Amazon, in both hardcover and paperback. During the writing of the book I, of course, frequently mentioned the gifts I believe accompany the steps. However, I fee...