Welcome.
Now get into a comfortable position and close your eyes.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Breathe in the good,
Exhale the bad.
One more time.
Breathe in the light,
Exhale the dark.
You're exactly where you're supposed to be.
Step 11,
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him,
Praying only for our knowledge of his will and for the power to carry that out.
Sounds simple,
Right?
For me,
My spiritual practice will always be a work in progress,
But just being open to possibility is what keeps me moving forward.
Recovery has allowed us to expand our capacity for new information about ourselves and the world around us.
This open mindedness is one of the greatest things about AA.
In AA,
The concept of a higher power and God as we understand him or her really affords every single person from every walk of life an unlimited choice of spiritual beliefs and actions.
This step is about opening our mind.
You decide how you feel most comfortable achieving this.
What's important is that you clear yourself of unwanted defects and make room for care,
Compassion,
Love,
And empathy.
Praying,
I've heard,
Is talking to God or your higher power,
Where meditation is listening.
At this point in our journey,
We can embark on a search for a better way of understanding our higher power.
When I was first interested in meditating,
I was introduced to Pema Chodron.
She talked about meditating is quieting your mind.
The last thing an addict wants is to quiet your mind.
We have so much shame and self-loathing in there.
We don't want it to be quiet.
We want to clutter our minds with distraction.
Pema talks about meditation being the calming of the rough waves so that you can see clear to the bottom.
That's the last thing I want to do is look through the clear water to the bottom and see the wreckage of my past.
The old boot,
The beer bottles,
The pills,
The syringes,
Sugar,
Sex,
Fill in the blank.
But the lovely thing about meditation is that we may see the things,
But it's not about looking at them.
It's about letting the thoughts pass.
I needed to have a little bit more meditation 101,
So I listened to a gentleman named Jeff Warren.
He talked about meditation being you're in the desert and you open up a folding chair on the side of the road and crack open a fresca and you're looking at the view and a Greyhound bus comes by.
You look at the bus and you come back to the view.
That's what our thoughts are.
They come in our head and we come back.
We come in our head and we let it go.
We can always come back to the breath.
Breathe in and breathe out.
Breathe in and breathe out.
You can think of a mantra.
Make me a channel of your peace.
I'm releasing shame.
I'm exactly where I need to be.
I like to come back to just do the next right thing.
Step 11 helps create a solid foundation for a peaceful and fulfilled life and to develop a more positive way of thinking.
This process allows us room for adventure,
Humility,
And faith.
Meditation isn't about the destination,
So enjoy the journey.
Take a deep breath in and exhale.
Start to wiggle your fingers and your toes.
Open your eyes.
