After writing yesterday’s blog, I was sharing its “we” message with a friend, who then told me about the first step of the Twelve Steps.
Apparently AA founder Bill W. was a stickler for words — and every phrase was very consciously written, every decision about how the movement would manifest prayerfully invited.
I should share here that in an age of massive membership decline for religious organizations globally, the Twelve Step movement is widely regarded as the largest (and fastest-growing) spiritual movement in the world.
The Twelve Steps are all about recovery. Isn’t that what we are all seeking, whether we are members of a Twelve Step organization or not? Recovery of our Truest Selves, rooted and grounded in Love. The Selves we have lost sight of, forgotten existed, covered over with a lifetime of fear and denial and avoidance. Aren’t we all, as Richard Rohr believes, addicted to something? To distraction, to avoidance, to over — spending, eating, medicating, working, to some substance that we have come to believe is more powerful than Love?
So what has made the Twelve Step movement so successful? Many feel that it comes down to its essence as captured in its First Step: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Much of what is written about this first step focuses on the words powerless and unmanageable, as well as permission to turn our will and lives over to a Higher Power as we understand it. There is a lot of great material written about this, which you can find online.
But what my friend pointed out was the content of the first five words: WE admitted WE WEre poWErless. . .
Four we’s in five words. Four we’s she assured me were very consciously chosen — and which she told me embody what is so transformative — even lifesaving — about the Twelve Steps. Those four we’s invite becoming a conscious, committed member of a community actively seeking recovery together.
There’s a lot of talk these days about how we are going to heal our world from the divisions that are killing us, from the destructive behaviors that are devastating our planet. In this month’s heart-centered practice of we, I have been both practicing and blogging about shifting out of me-first thinking into to we-first living. This is the essence of recovery. Recovery is what we are all seeking. So why not take a page from the Twelve Step movement and admit that we have all become powerless because we have sought fear-based answers to fear-produced problems that have made us feel that we no longer live in Love. Our lives HAVE become unmanageable. But when we remember that there is a Power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity, to wholeness — and that that Power is Love — then we can consciously choose to live Love by turning our wills and lives over to Love — as we understand Love. In other words, live Love.
The key being we. Because we cannot do this alone.
My friend told me that when she leads Twelve Step meetings, she often ends them with this invocation: Let this circle remind us that we can do together what we could never do alone.
Love is reflected in love. Love is manifested in love. Love is experienced in love. Love is all about WE.
So as we move together into the second half of this month’s heart-centered practice of we, let us admit that together in LOVE we can do what we could never do alone in fear. And then let’s keep loving our world whole. We. Together.