Tag Archives: 1st step

When I autograph my books, I always write this before signing my signature: “Welcome to the journey!” Because it is a journey. And there are little journeys within the ginormous journey of recovery.

The ginormous journey is that combo pack of what is going on in our outer lives coupled with what is going on in our inner lives.

If you have ever studied New Thought, you know that we can control our inner lives, and that what goes in our inner lives can and does have a great say how our outer lives manifest. Which is why I like to say, “if you don’t go within you go without.” When I coach people, this is where we begin, within.

Within is this great world filled with all kinds of things: gratitude and entitlement, fear and faith or love, resentment and forgiveness. We clutter up our inner world with all sorts of things that outpicture as lack, limitation, ill health and other sorts of unmanageability.

And sometimes, it is simply time to uncluttered. There is a new movement afoot. A woman named Marie Kondo wrote a book about uncluttering and all of a sudden instead of a name, those two words have become a verb. As in, “I did a Marie Kondo and uncluttered my bedroom!” Or maybe it’s an adverb. But I don’t want to get distracted by proper grammar.

My point is that sometimes it is time to uncluttered the insides. To free ourselves up from that which is not working, to just let it go and accept it and move on.

I recently, just yesterday, did that. I finally let go of what used to be a huge part of my life. It hasn’t been for a long time, but I’ve been hanging on to it. I’m not sure why. Maybe I thought I was supposed to. I don’t know. What I do know is that yesterday, after spending no small amount of days in a battle with unworthiness, and after a beautiful conversation with a prayer partner who experiences the same thing, I had one of those inner shifts. You know the kind, I’m sure. An inner shift that allows you to breathe easier, and to know. Yeah, it is that Be Still and Know stuff. And inside of me I knew that I was ready to let go of a big part of my life that had simply become a struggle. So I did. And immediately a new idea came into being. One that had previously been there but one I had no room for because I was hanging on to the old. And I acted upon that new idea. And felt as if I had stepped into the next stage of the journey. Breathing easy, knowing without a doubt what is mine to do, and confidently advancing in the direction of my dreams.

This is first step stuff. Being willing to give up that which is no longer working, without regret. My experience is that it might take a long time to get here, but once the first step is made, once we give it up, things begin to unfold rapidly after this point.

This is the miracle of the journey. Do that huge giant first step, and we open ourselves up to miracles.

Buy the book and companion workbook here: http://karenlinsley.com/?p=14828

"Whenever you take an adversarial attitude towards something you give it power."  Dr. Christiane Northrup

The first step of just about any 12 step program wants us to admit that we are powerless.  For many, whether in New Thought or not, powerlessness is simply not something that is done.

New Thought teaches us that we have power over our thoughts and beliefs and emotions, and that what we think tends to manifest in our lives.

For others, powerlessness signifies some type of weakness.  How many times has the average alcoholic heard someone tell him that if he were stronger he could control his drinking?

The reality is, we do have a lot of power, but it is misplaced power.  We give power to the substance.  We give power to people in our lives.  We give our power up to all sorts of things:  possessions, jobs, busyness.  And I would venture to say that if we really stopped to take a look at what we give our power to, it would be a love/hate relationship.  We love the temporary escape the subtance provides, but hate the consequences.  We love all our possessions, but it really complicates lives.  They say busyness is a status symbol, but how come we are so tired all the time?

So we move through life living out of congruence with our true values, giving power to something we really don't believe in, because we think there is no other way.  And in the case of substance abuse, we can't fight it, because we've given all our power to it.

Eventually there comes a time when something has to give.  Something has to change.

So we go to a 12 step program and it tells us the first thing we must do is declare our powerlessness.  This goes against everything we've ever been taught, and goes against most societal value systems.  It also goes against New Thought teachings.  And because of these values and teachings, we instead create an adversarial relationship with whatever it is we are having problems with.  Instead of helping, this simply gives it more power and takes more away from us.

So now we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place.

What's a person to do then?

I advocate a different way of looking at the first step.  In my book, I've reworded it to say, "We admitted we were ready for a change in our lives."

If you find yourself unhappy, overwhelmed, consistently worried, experiencing stress related health problems, or unable to accomplish what you wish in your life, you may be ready to admit that a change is necessary.  The good news is that you get to decide what to change to!

In the next blog post, I will speak to this in more detail.  You can sign up to receive notification of new posts at the right if you are on a computer and at the bottom if you are on a device such as phone or iPad.  You can purchase the book here:  http://karenlinsley.com/?page_id=1174#!/A-New-Thought-Journey-Through-the-12-Steps-book/p/70971359/category=0