Like it’s the 90s: You Best Step

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” ― Ernest Hemingway

If I wanted to live my life in comparison, I could always find someone worse than me, right? If I just compare myself to people most would consider the lowest of the low, then I could live with good self-esteem.

Theoretically.

The problem is, as soon as I find someone who makes me look like a saint, I find a hundred other people who make me look like the world’s worst human.

In our continued journey through the 12 Steps, we have arrived at step seven, “Humbly ask God to remove all our shortcomings.”

Humbly.

Ask.

In the last two steps (steps 5 & 6), we took a moral inventory and owned up to our failings. We came to a place of wanting to not mess up anymore. But I think a lot of people get to that place without ever moving forward to this step, to the asking.

And asking humbly.

I have been dancing around this lately. I am pretty good at recounting my moral failings. I ask God to help me want God to help me. But then I try to help myself or I try to run away from any help offered. I dance around solutions. I get scared.

A friend messaged me about these 12 Steps blog posts. She wanted to tell me about Celebrate Recovery. She had no way of knowing I had already researched the program, found a group in my town, and promptly made a million excuses not to go.

So, I am adding a caveat to step seven. I am telling you to ask for help and then to look for answers. Accept answers. Allow other people to help you.

I should go to Celebrate Recovery. I don’t know if I will. Since we are being transparent here, I will tell you the truth. I often have good intentions. I want to do something. I plan to do something.

I don’t do something.

I let my social anxiety win.

I let fear win.

Feel free to hold me accountable. Feel free to message me and ask if I gave Celebrate Recovery a shot. Feel free to use my own words against me.

And welcome to this rather disjointed blog post/12 Step meeting. It seems this step was hard for me to wrap cohesive thoughts around. Perhaps this is because it is a step I am stuck on.

It’s not the asking.

It’s the accepting of my answers.

Which step is hardest for you, so far?

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I would love to hear about your experiences. Have you gone through a program like Celebrate Recovery? How has it helped? Are you, like me, hovering over these steps, not sure whether to walk up them or down them?

Share here in the comments or join us in the Middle Places Community on Facebook and become a part of the ongoing conversation.

Back in the 90s, when someone was up in our face and needed to leave us alone, we had a phrase we said. This week, when the doubt and fear starts to weigh you down, please remember step 7. Remember to ask humbly for God’s help. Then, look those fears in the face and use that perfect 90s phrase…

“You best step.”

 

*originally published on Middle Places