Everyone can benefit from working a 12 step Program – Part 1

God’s Spirit shown a white light (called a spiritual awakening)

on Bill W.

a drunk who could not get sober on his own.  

God’s Spirit calls us to reach out to the wounded and broken-hearted.

Are we listening?

Are we one of those wounded and broken-hearted?

If we are,

are we asking God to help us heal

Bill W.

understood and was convinced that God wanted and still wants a personal relationship with all of us humans,

especially those who are lost and have strayed away from God.

God wants to heal those who suffer from the disease of alcoholism, addiction or any other addiction or self-destruction behaviors

that have led us away from the Spirit of God and

disconnected us from our own spirit.

Remember the three AAA’s (Awareness, Acceptance and Action)

Awareness

How powerful is the Spirit of God, to be able to remove the scales of pride and prejudice? 

What is Pride?

What is Prejudice?

Why do we need to get rid of pride and prejudice?

Well, look at this, I started this journey with the premise that everyone can benefit from the 12 steps and look where the Spirit of God is taking us.

Pay attention!

Open your ears to hear

Connect to your spiritual heart to become aware,

so you can accept what you see or hear

and take the action you need to take to change

I will go into more about detail about what the 12 step program is and how we all can apply the spiritual principles in our daily lives, however,

the Holy Spirit is leading us down another path first.

Are you ready to go with the flow of the Spirit as it leads us and

see where this takes us and what spiritual lesson we are to learn and focus on?

Pride – What is Pride?

Oh, no… The condescending spirit and judgmental spiritual tone is joining us on this journey today.

I know this spirit intimately….

This spirit was role-modeled and infused in my spirit throughout my whole life.

I swore I would not become like that.

Parenting and the cultural norms in the 50’s and 60’s, and in my family of origin, were based on pointing out your mistakes, adding guilt and shame in the mix and putting you down to make you tougher and stronger to deal with life.

I started to believe that I was a bad person

(unworthy) of a perfect God’s love and Attention.

Grace helped me realize that

I am accepted by God if I do the wrong thing.

I am loved the same from God, whether I do the right thing or the wrong thing.

If I try again to do better, God is happy.

I learned that when I do the wrong thing,

instead of pulling away from God,

I need to get closer to God to help me more.

I started to experience the “unconditional Love of God”.

In recovery and in working the 12 steps

And after connecting to God’s Spirit,

I came to realize and see life

through different lenses.

I was rescued and saved by the Grace of God,

Jesus (God in the flesh)

making forgiveness possible.

I started to see conflict

as an opportunity to learn a spiritual lesson,

to become a better and more mature person.

Instead of beating myself up for making the mistake,

I took it as an opportunity to grow and learn to become a better person.

Grace is entering our path?

What is grace?

Crying was off limits.

Because I was not allowed to cry, I swallowed this shame and guilt.

I now know that swallowing shame and guilt can cause disease if emotional and spiritual surgery are not performed and

it is necessary to release the pent up shame and guilt out of our physical bodies.

How to deal with others who are condescending?

Condescending and judgment were in the forefront. I hated it then and I hate it now.

In early recovery, when a person spoke to me with that spiritual tone,

I immediately bypassed the brain and allowed my mouth to give an emotional response which came out cruel, unkind, sarcastic, and mean.

When I realized that sarcasm means tearing flesh,

that definition motivated me to want to

stop hurting others with my words.

I did not want to be a person who inflicts pain on others via my words.

I asked God to show me how

to share the truth without reprimanding them.

In my research on sarcasm,

I came across this quote and I belly-laughed.

I would not recommend saying this if you are seeking resolution.

Words have power.

I thought people needed to be reprimanded and

I was the one to teach them a lesson.

I even egotistically believed that God had called me to reprimand them and thus they would see the light and change their evil ways.

This is what I now refer to as,

blatant honestly.

I justified the behavior,

So what if it hurt,

they needed to feel the pain,

so they could change.

They needed to be told the truth.

Wrong!!!

My motive was pure,

I wanted them to see the error in their ways and

I thought that if they heard the truth,

“The truth would set them free”.

Wrong!!!

My deliverance of the message

sabotaged the person’s ability to receive the message

and the truth, as I saw the truth.

I was made aware of the spiritual message I was to learn.

Awareness:

I came to realize that I had responded the same way they approached me,

with the same judgmental and condescending tone.

I learned to take a breath before I responded.

When I take a breath,

I am taking in God’s Love and Spirit,

to help me respond with love

instead of responding with judgment.

I don’t know about you but there were many people

in my past who exhibited this tone in their voice?

Judgment and condemnation

were intimate buddies in my past.

I have learned that I am not God,

that I had to stop being a person who weaponized the truth

with a condescending tone.

Because I have become aware of this behavior and

with the help of God’s Spirit,

I have healed from the shame of the past.

I now have discernment and

I can see when others are speaking with this tone and

I have empathy for their response,

instead of taking it personally and

responding with sarcasm,

I respond with love.

Occasionally I will revert back to the old way of responding.

That happens when I am spiritually out of balance.

Pride, Sarcasm and a condescending attitude

can and has ruined friendships and relationships.

Is that ok with me?

No!

My words and deliverance needed

to match my heart.

I needed to work on my deliverance and tone

in which I spoke.

The Spirit of God was giving me lessons

on speaking with diplomacy.

Wow, this quote puts a whole new slant on this.

I was being condescending because I was condescending of myself.

In learning how to deal with this

in regards to others,

I learned how to stop being

condescending of myself.

Who knew, helping others, helps you.

Feelings of Unworthiness surfaced.

I became aware of these feelings of unworthiness.

Do I choose to work through these feelings or stuff them?

Another healing from God

I choose to walk with God again for another healing

Feelings surfaced of Feeling Unloveable

Acceptance is the Key

I will accept these feelings as real

and believe that they are surfacing for a reason

and for healing.

Take action:

Once again, I knew in order to change this mindset,

I had to ask for divine intervention.

I needed to practice being less judgmental of myself and my actions and understand who I am through God’s Eyes

God made me and loves me just the way I am

However,

my blockage was the belief that

I needed to be perfect

Many times this perfectionism

paralyzed me

which led to

procrastination

Fear of failure

would lead to possible

rejection by others and myself

and God

Once again, I asked for God’s Help.

I needed to change my mindset.

Crush the idea that God wanted me to be perfect.

That is a lie.

God knows that I will never be perfect.

God’s Spirit wants to help me learn my spiritual lessons so I

Intuitively will know how to do it next time.

This is called spiritual maturity.

Who knew, I was learning to grow and mature spiritually

So what could replace

striving for perfection?

How about striving for excellence

To be the best I know how

And always remain open

to keep learning and growing

Keep doing the next right thing and

eventually it will become a habit and

you will intuitively know what to do

and then take action to do it

Wow, I love this visual.

We take pride (a healthy pride) in our achievements

Striving to do our best

Striving for excellence.

“When we know better, we can do better”

Keep learning along the way

Not compromising our standards for self and others

Now, when I find myself

ready to start judging

I immediately look inward

and ask for God’s Spirit

to help me realize

what in me

needs to be changed?

More to follow on the 12 steps on another post, if God’s Spirit does not take us on another path. Stay tuned. Go with the flow…

Love you all,

Esther Mae 1-14-2022