Step Eleven
“Sought, through prayer and meditation, to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
I can live with prayer, but meditation? I don’t think so.
One of the last things Molly was given from a pediatrician before she died was a pamphlet on meditation. I wasn’t there at that appointment, but Kenny told me she tossed it onto the floor of the car.
She was not believed.
I hate when people do not believe me. Or even worse, when they believe something about me before they know if it is true or not.
In my spiritual mentoring work, the word meditation comes up all the time, I will be forever connected to Dr Dolly for me and that is a connection that still takes the air out of my lungs.
I am often told that I can choose to continue to feel this way, or I can change how I feel. My first reaction to this admonition is “bullshit”! Yes, I can quite often change how I am feeling about something, but just as often, the action or reailty required t change how I feel is not available to me.
Let me explain.
When I am hungry, food takes it away. When I am sad about something, comfort about that thing takes it away. When I am feeling hurt, an apology or explanation takes that away.
My feelings about the word meditation can not be taken away. Molly can not come back. Dr Dolly is not allowed to apologize to me, if she even would. So my relationship with the word meditation remains tenuous.
All I see when I read, speak r write this step is that word right smack in the middle of it.
While I am not willing or able to address this at the moment, I can, in fact, execute Step Eleven without it. I will stay with prayer. I will sub in reflection for meditation. This, I can do.
One of the things I like best about the Twelve Step Process is that we are not asked to find out the “why” in any of our struggles. I know with Molly’s death there are too many possibilities and I am never comforted or relieved with any of the answers.
The question can not be answered.
Through the Twelve Step process we are encouraged to pray and reflect on our relationship with our higher power, and what that higher power wants us to do. We are then told to pray only for the power to do so, to carry out what that elusive higher power wants us to do, even if we do not know what that is!
While ths may seem impossible, to me it feels like the pressure is off!
No more looking under rocks and piles of dirty clothes for answers that do not exist. All I have to do now is to pray for attributes that will help me connect with my higher power, hear the message said power has for me, and then the ability to carry it out!
I got this!
One of my favorite prayers is the noon day prayer from the book of Baha’i’ Prayers. It goes like this.
I bear witness O my Lord that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee. I testify at this moment to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth.
There is no other God but Thee, The Help in Peril, The Self Subsisting.
-Baha’u’llah
I have been reciting this prayer several times a day for all of my adult life. It is quick, it fits a multitude of daily circumstances and, quite honestly, provides guidance. In the process of this podcast season and the Twelve Step journey I have come to see that this is exactly what I am supposed to be doing. Acknowledging the omnipotence of the higher power, seeking its wish for me, and asking for the ability to do so.
Whatever it may be!!!
While my relationship with alcohol is not much healthier, other things are. I am narrowing a vision for the MollyB Foundation, I am learning to say no and set boundaries for myself, and I am learning to let go of the anger that has consumed me since Jack’s birth.
One.Day.At.A.Time (Or one tiny step at a time, a thousand times over.)