Cracked Egg

Image courtesy of digitalart/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

I continually find myself in a position of wanting others to have what I have found. I want them instantly to understand the magic and meaning of a twelve step spiritual pathway, and I want them to know how they can restore themselves to a healthy, holistic lifestyle.  When I listen and hear a remark about how unhealthily high someone’s blood sugar is, I want to tell them about a way to eat  I have discovered that got my blood sugars in a normal range so that I was able to both lose weight and stop having to take diabetes medication.  When those newly introduced to the twelve step program speak and give words to  their newly emergent understanding of “the program” and “the steps” and what they mean——I want to interrupt them and teach them beyond their insight.

There are a lot of things “wrong” with my attitude when I let it wander in that direction. First of all, what I’ve learned, what works for me, is my insight, experience, strength, and hope and not necessarily anyone else’s. Beyond that, a spiritual pathway that works cannot be “programmed or fed into” someone;  everyone must find their own way and their own truth.

Secondly, I need to look at my motivation for wanting to “set someone right.” Is it truly to help that person or am I merely trying to impress people so that I can feel important? That kind of self-centered motivation will not help anyone. Perhaps I truly want to save people the agony of having to learn life’s lessons the hard way; perhaps I want to save them from making the same mistakes I made so that their life will be “fully lived” now and they don’t have to wait until they are past fifty years old to begin to get a strong foothold in spirituality and wisdom.

If it were just as simple as telling people what they need to do to be “okay”  followed immediately by those people following the advice they were given then, perhaps, many of us would not need to discover the twelve step process of evolving. People (parents, grandparents, and doctors) were shaking  a finger in my face and telling me how I had to eat if I didn’t want to end up a diabetic like my mother from an early age. After all, they put me on my first diet at age four. I have always resisted authority and tend to want to do the opposite of what someone emphatically advises me to do. Being told or dictated what to do does not heal the spirit, and it does not solve the problem(s) behind whatever unhealthy or addictive symptom  being addressed.  One problematic behavior may be stopped only to be replaced by another. I replaced over-eating with excessive drinking. When I quit drinking, I replaced that with excessive smoking. I have been able to “let go” of those symptoms through the years, some more than once, but I know they and others are always “lurking in the shadows” waiting to bump me off the spiritual pathway of recovery.

So, when I want to “fix” or “speed up” someone else’s recovery, I need to remember recovery can only be given by God——provided one actively seeks it. The “way, how, and what” of each person’s recovery is between that individual and God. I need to be supportive and live my own spiritual program so that the twelve step process I am living is one that “attracts” rather than “promotes” because the twelve step  way of life cannot be sold to anyone, it can only work by attracting others who see what they want and are willing to do what it takes to get it. May God bless and keep you.