Let Go and Be Free Podcast: Episode 51 (Exploring Step 11 of the Twelve Steps of Adult Children of Alcoholics)

In today's episode, I discuss the eleventh step from Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families World Service Organization's 12 Steps.

Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.

Many people get to step 11 and then see all the mention of God and move on. In this week's episode, I'd like to present a different interpretation of this step. If you believe in God, then the step gives specific instructions on how to move forward.

But what if you don't believe in God? Should you just ignore this step? 

Instead, I recommend focusing on the meditation part of the step and then to use this step to self-reflect. Ask yourself questions such as: Why am I here on this Earth? What am I supposed to do? Is it just pure coincidence that humans came into being? Use the time to ask yourself the big questions so that you can get outside of your own head and focus on something that you can't answer. Why? Because you can take your first steps into seeing how life is more than just what you can see around you. There's so much we can't see or know and that's okay. 

Are you going to move forward and grow beyond your childhood upbringing and learn new skills or stay locked in a cycle of generational dysfunction? 

Thankfully, the choice is yours.

More Information about Let Go and Be Free:

Want to learn more about Let Go and Be Free? Check out the Let Go and Be Free book series.

Support the podcast by subscribing on substack and receive the newsletter.

I’m not a medical expert. If you need help, please reach out to a medical professional.

Listen to the podcast on:

Transcript

Welcome to the Let Go and Be Free podcast, a podcast for those who grew up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family. I'm your host, Ron Vitale, author of the Let Go and Be Free: 100 Daily Reflections for Adult Children of Alcoholics series. If you'd like to learn more, feel free to visit, letgoandbefree.com. And with that, let's get on with the show.

Hello, and welcome to This Week show, I want to thank you for coming in and listening to another episode of Let go and be free. For this week's episode, we are going to focus on step 11. Of the 12 steps of the adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional family, World Service Organization. What I will do, if you're new to this podcast first welcome, I will read through the step. I'll read it through twice. And then what we'll do is we'll have a discussion of it.

What I do recommend is that if you have gone through the previous steps, that you would basically take some time to process what you've learned, go back, listen to some of the other previous episodes of the podcast, they're free, you know, go back, pick them up, find them, listen to them. And then that way, you will have that opportunity to be able to say you know what, maybe I need to do a little bit more work on whatever step three, step five, Step seven, that way, you'll have that opportunity to be able to, you know, really kind of think through of where you think you need to spend more time and energy. To remind everyone, the steps are a framework, you know, the steps help us to look at life, on learning how to apply healthy boundaries in our life, how to look at our own, you know, character quirks, and how we can focus on living a healthier and happier life. It is not something where you read the 12 steps, and then you're simply done.

You say, Well, onward and upward. I never have to do this, again, this process could take you, you know, months to go through the first time, maybe a year. You know, and, you know, I first learned about the steps got more than two decades ago, and I still use them in my daily life. Again, they're a framework, it's not a set it and forget it, and then you're done. It's a great way to use this as a check in with yourself, you know, on a daily basis, focus on a different step, you know, whatever, every day or every couple of days. So that as you're living your life, you have some guidance on and a check in self reflection on how you feel. So before I read this step, I'm going to remind anyone, especially new listeners to the show, that if you hear the word God in any of these steps, that does not mean like, oh, you know, I'm an atheist, and I never want to, you know, I don't want to talk about God. And this is not since it's not for me, just simply, you know, take the word out, use what's good in the steps for you, I'd hate to hear of someone say, Well, I didn't want to give the steps, you know, an opportunity because they mentioned the word God. And that's ludicrous.

And I come from a perspective of, you know, I was raised Catholic, you know, kind of fell away from the church focus more on spirituality, and rather than, you know, some of the dogma that was ingrained in me as a kid. And there's others that I know, that are agnostic, and use the steps are atheistic, and use the steps. So again, what's going to work for you, you know, how are these steps a framework that you could use through the course of your life? What tools can you learn from the steps, I can think it's very healthy, to have, you know, a step that asks you to do a, you know, reflection, self reflection on your behavior, what does that mean? What does it mean, to ask for an amend, you know, in a previous step, so, take what you can learn from from the steps use it, you know, and carry on.

So, again, if you believe in God, then you will hear the word God and you know what that means for you, and you'll be able to apply that I am taking specifically a more atheistic approach in this week's episode because there is so much mention of God and I think that could frightened some people off or angry some people and I'd hate to lose is the opportunity to point out the good aspects of that step, no matter if you believe in God or not. So with that said, let me read through step 11. It is sought through prayer and meditation, to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us, and the power to carry that out.

So I think now you can hear why I was wanted to do a little disclaimer at the beginning of this, because this step is the most spiritual, spiritually focused, so I'll read it again, sought through prayer, and meditation, to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us, and the power to carry that out.

Now, if you're still listening, and you have to turn the podcast off, because you're frustrated about hearing the Word, God, I appreciate your open mindedness. And you know how I've looked this step? You know, I've tried to put myself Okay, let me put myself in someone else's shoes. Let me have some empathy. Let me have some understanding of a different point of view. If someone who does not believe in God were to read this step, what would it mean to them? How could they use this step? What is the underlying conscious message that can be passed on, you know, to us, in our daily lives, and I, you know, I've done some thinking, it is a little bit of a challenge on this.

So I'll simply say, I personally, you know, it, if I were someone who didn't believe in God, if I thought about prayer, obviously, I wouldn't be praying, but the meditation word that's in the step, sought through prayer and meditation, to improve our conscious contact with God. So meditation, I have found to be extremely helpful for me, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. So for the last couple of years, I've basically spent time you know, pretty much five to five or six times a week, doing guided meditation, that I find helps center me, helps to relax me, helps me to get more in touch with myself. So what I would say is, if you don't believe in prayer, and if you don't believe in God, if you could find some type of meditation, that would help you with your breathing techniques that would help you to basically Calm yourself, calm your mind, clear out the raucous thoughts that could be going through there and the worry about work, the worry about bills that ruminating thoughts that catastrophizing, some of the classic signs of someone who grew up in a alcoholic, or addictive environment, if your parents struggled with those challenges, you may have taken on certain behaviors to cope. You know, one of mine that I've talked about is a weary, you know, I'm a worrier in the sense that, you know, I had in the past, think through, if I can think through all the things, the horrible things that can happen and prepare for them, then I can be ready and I can be ready to solve any problem that worked really well when I was a kid.

But as an adult, I wasn't able to always focus and always be negative of like, oh my god, the world is gonna fall apart, and we're all gonna die. And you know, and always go to the extreme of things. That, again, has been a coping mechanism for me to process and put, you know, bad things that happened in a light that I have some sense of control, because if I can think through those things, then I can think around them or I can prepare for them, I can process that and be ready to pivot or shift or change as needed, depending on what the problem is. But when I'm meditating, and working on deep breathing techniques, we've talked about this in the past, you know, it's a simple, you know, breathe in through your nose, hold it, you know, for I think it's like, seven counts, and then exhale, you know, for another seven or eight counts. It takes a little bit of process to be able to go through to get that breathing, you know, right. And just the fact of calming yourself, being in a quiet room, having no phone on no TV, no music, no anything, no people around, try to get in as quiet as a position as you can. And then focus on that meditating of deep breathing and focus. You know, I do like a guided meditation, either some calm music in the background, or somebody guiding me through some type of visualization technique or something that can help me cool Are you clear out and helped me focus and have more clarity, rather than, you know, the head spinning with all the stuff going on. So that's the first aspect.

You know, as I see this step, if I were to look at this from an atheistic point of view, and then when it says to improve our conscious contact with God, you know, what I can look at this is from a more naturalistic, you know, your connection with nature, your connection with the world, your connection with, however the heck we got here, if you don't believe that God created the world, you know, if you believe in the Big Bang, or you believe in, you know, somehow we popped into existence we as a people, you know, to billions of years, and here we are today. But if you can focus on meditating, calming yourself, and then what is your connection with the world with nature? How do you fit into that? What's happening there is, it's getting you outside of your head. It's getting you outside of your normal ego, your ego, brain, your ego, me, me, me, me, me, you know, I am this I am that, and you're taking your energy, and focusing on a different perspective, a wider, you know, aspect of how do you fit into the grand scheme of things? What does that mean? You know, and the step is asking, you know, focus and improve that conscious contact with God, as you understand God, praying only for knowledge of God's will. Well, if you don't believe in God, obviously, you're not going to be praying to that God. But if you do believe that there is, you know, life came here, and you might just think, Oh, well, life is just, you know, it was pure chance. That's just what it is, then take some time to think about the vastness, you know, of the universe.

And I and I say that, again, because it's forcing you to get out of your 24/7 head of these are the rituals that I do every day, I get up at a certain time, you know, maybe with an alarm or you wake up without an alarm, you have coffee, you go for a walk, go for a run, you gotta go to work, you pick up the kids, whatever your routine is, this time to meditate is basically forcing you to think something different. Even if you just let your cash your brain out. Just stop for a moment and think that yes, you are on this blue marble, you know, orbiting around the sun. And there's other planets in the solar system. And this solar system is only one of billions within the Milky Way. And Milky Way galaxy is only one in billions, and billions of galaxies throughout the universe. And that could get you thinking like, what what else out there is out there think big. Think of what other things we don't know, you know, we go back in time. And we think that, you know, people thought that the Earth was flat people thought that, you know, the Earth was the center of the universe. And then we're when core part Copernicus came up with the scientific data to say, wait a minute, the Earth is actually orbiting around the sun, it was considered heresy. You know, when Galileo use his telescope, you know, and pointed it at, you know, Saturn and Jupiter. It was considered heresy by the church at the time. Because, you know, religious beliefs.

So if we think of the more secular with this step, what does it mean? How can you get outside of your head? How can you think bigger, you know, going back to last week's episode about the loving kindness meditation, you know, when you focus on the me aspect of it, and then you focus on a person, the third step of the loving kindness, meditation is the world. So getting into that type of frame of mind, you know, may the world be happy, may the world be healthy, you know, may the world you know, have peace. When you focus on the bigger aspect, it is causing you to get out of your head, to look at yourself from outside in, through a comparison of what you see, and the world around you. And then cast your mind down even greater than that. Go beyond what you think, you know, meaning, you know, the earth, another part of the world. What's beyond, you know, the earth? What is out there?

We don't know. You know, we have pictures from our telescopes, and we can see certain things but we have no proof that there is or isn't, let's say life, it could be anything microscopic life, it could be intelligent life, anywhere and you might say, Well, why am I thinking Think about those things. Because it's getting you to think, at a grander scale, getting you outside of your cranium, and focusing on the knee problems. It's getting you to think for a moment that you are a speck of dust in a massive construction of the universe. And that grandness is something that we don't have the power to put our arms around. You know, if you think of the the expansiveness of the known universe being 13 point, whatever, 7 billion light years, that light that we see from telescopes is coming from 13 billion years ago, that's just mind boggling when you think of those things. And that's only the, you know, the visible universe that we can see, we're not we don't know enough about dark matter, we don't know about, you know, some of the smallest, you know, sub atomic particles that, you know, we're we're working on trying to understand the very essence, you know, nature of the universe, what binds everything together, the strong forces and the weak forces, what is all that?

And you might say, I don't know. And it's like, yeah, that's the point where we, as a people are experimenting, we're coming up with theories, we're testing them, we're using the scientific method, we're doing all this stuff. And in this step, take the time when you meditate, if you're not going to improve your conscious contact with God, then take it to focus on what is your connection to the grander world, your community, your neighborhood, your city, your state, your country, Your World, Your peace, as a human being on this planet, in this solar system, and go bigger, and bigger, and bigger. And then until you get to the point where you can't see, you can't even see in your mind's eye, the earth because you're seeing these little specks of dust. And in each of those specks of dust, you know, might be in your imagination, a galaxy. And I say that because if you've ever seen, there's a great opening to the movie contact from the 90s. It was a book by Carl Sagan, famous astronomer who has unfortunately passed on that in the movie. Jodie Foster.

It's you see her as a little kid, and she looks in a mirror, and she's imagining, you know, the grand scope of the world. And so you hear her talking on like a ham radio, and she's trying to read someone in Florida. And as she's talking, that radio wave is going out beyond the earth. And then the creators of the movie, show you what has happened over time that other radio messages have gone out beyond the Earth, you know, when we get when we, you know, first started broadcasting, early radio shows did leave our you know, atmosphere, and those radio waves could be detected by a certain amount of, you know, somebody else was listening out in space. And so those, that energy, those radio waves keep going out.

And so it's a beautiful way of just looking and saying, as far as humanity has been able to go, this is how far our messages have gone. And then you go beyond that. And when the the weakest radio from like the early 30s fades away. And then it just goes into silence. And you just start seeing the grandness of like Nebula, and then other galaxies. And then it just goes further and further and further out until you're just like, Oh, my God, there's, there's literally no more galaxies than I can see on this screen in this movie. And then it goes right back into her eye, as a kid, in a reflection that she's looking at herself in a mirror. It's a really beautiful poetic shot that I think of when you think of we are here today. And we don't know what the grander scope of any of this is, we really don't know we can, we can guess.

We can have faith we can not have faith, believe in God not believe in God. We just don't know. You know, we have no definitive proof. And you know, some are fine with that. Some are not fine with that. What I think is important, is that when we look at our lives, when you think about what you do, every day, the work that you do, how you treat your kids, how you're treated by co workers, how you're treated by your spouse, how you treat your spouse, when you think about it Your entire life. And then think bigger than that. And you try to understand what the heck is your purpose here? What are you meant to do? And maybe there is no answer to that. Maybe it's only our wish fulfillment that we think that we're here for a special reason, because we like to think that we have purpose.

But maybe at the end of the day, there there isn't, we're just here, we live for a certain amount of time we die. And that's it. And then we're forgotten. But what I'm saying is, we, we in this world, in this moment, to our knowledge and understanding, at this very moment, in 2023, are the only beings that have conscious thought. We have the ability to use our imagination, use our memory, to cast out, we can think back to any point in time, we can think, to anything in the future and beyond, we have a power that is unique to us on this planet. We don't know if this exists in I don't know, another place somewhere far away. Who knows? We just don't know. But what I'm saying is, we have an opportunity to take that power, and to use it to self reflect, to take it to make that connection to say, You know what, maybe this problem that just happened today, you know, whatever, whatever this problem is, see it in the greater construct of your life.

Are you going to remember, three years from now, this tiny thing that happened today that I don't know, maybe a check bounced or something, and you get all frustrated with yourself, you know, or you are carrying, you know, four coffees to work to give with your colleagues and your trip, and they spill them and you get all frustrated? And angry? Are you going to remember those things? So with this step, if you don't believe in God, what I'm asking you is to think of your consciousness of like, what does that really mean? What are you really meant to be here for? And if you don't believe that you're here for any particular reason, then what are you going to use your time and your energy for? Are you going to use it for good? Are you going to waste it squander it and just not do anything? And let the winds of change blow you wherever you need to go? Are you going to be an active participant? Are you going to be someone that is going to actively make choices to have a healthier, happier life where you can thrive?

These are big questions. Because many of us, when we look back, we grew up in an environment that may have been filled with alcohol, other addictions, dysfunction, we learned behavior that was not helpful for us to solve problems. We didn't learn how to set boundaries, we didn't learn, you know how to deal with impulsive emotion control, we only saw what our parents mirrored to us. And often it was a mess. And we looked at that. And now we've come to a point in our lives and said no more, we'll want to do something different.

That's a powerful act, to be able to reflect and say, I see where I have come from, I see what I could become, or I see what I have done, and emulate it some of those unhealthy behaviors. But now I want to do something different. That's where I believe the 12 steps come in. There are that framework, the toolkit that can help us that allows our brains to kind of filter through just like, you know, those of us that believe in, let's say, the 10 commandments and the power that's there to be able to help us guide our lives, you know, or whatever, whatever guidance you have in living a good and healthy life, whatever that is, whatever religion whatever that agnostic belief is. That is what I'm talking about here that this 11th step is for. This is where we're trying to come to an understanding as best we can, what the heck are we going to do with our lives. And in order to get to that, you have to be at a quiet moment.

And it takes time to process because you've got the previous 10 steps before and there's a lot of work that's involved in that. And that work takes time. That is not work that you can just do. You know in a fortnight, call it a day and it's over with and check bing, bing, bing, ads. That's not how it works. So what I'm saying to you is that these big questions, the questions of who are we? Who are you? What do you want to do and be in life? What do you want to be remembered for? When you have that time to meditate to quiet your brain? To see and be objective on your behavior and say, You know what? Yeah, I acted like an ask there, you know, how can I become a better person?

How can I become more engaged? I see that I'm selfish. How can I change that? What can I do to be more connected with my community, and some of it might be really honest conversations that, you know, you might say, I don't want to do any of this work, I want the world to change, I don't want to change I don't want to grow. And then that's when you find that you realize, no matter what you do, the world and those around you are always changing. As are you nothing is constant. We might think that it is because it comforts us, it helps us feel that we have some control in our lives. But in reality is we don't, we don't know how long all of us will live. We don't know, like these words that I am saying. I looked yesterday, and I saw in the last year, there's people from mostly in the US listening. Second most in the UK, Canada, Poland, France, like a bunch of other countries from around the world. So think about that for a moment. There's not a ton of people, subscribers that I have yet, I'm working to get more. And I'm hoping that each of you will listen and share with others and share with friends. But for today, those who are listening, you are not the only one. There are others in other countries that are listening to these words, that are thinking their own thoughts, thinking, what does this mean to me?

You know, what does this step mean to me? How can this help me move forward? Is it just a bunch of gobbledygook? And you're just like, I don't care? I don't, this doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe I can't tell you, you know what you're thinking. But there is good in the steps, take what is good in them, and apply them to your own life. And in this particular step, if you don't believe in God, think about what that's going to mean, in the sense of the larger scope of who are you minus your name, minus your job, your role? Who are you, if you can't describe yourself, as I may fill in race, fill in nationality? Fill in what country you live in, fill in? What sports fan you're in, whatever, if you can't describe yourself as any of that, at the end of the day? Who are you go deeper than that? Think bigger than that. Think a lot bigger than that. What we don't know, we don't know how any of this will all end with our world, with the universe with whether there is a God there isn't a god is an unopened universe? Is it a closed universe, meaning will the universe stretch on for infinity and energy will just dissipate and it will just be silence, coldness and death, or, as some religions believe. And as some scientists believe, there might be a big collapse, that there's so much enough manner, in the world, in the universe, that what will happen to a certain point, the universe will expand and then slowly contract on itself and implode. And then from that, a second, let's say BIG BANG will come.

And then in whole new universe will be created. We don't know. You know, we see these movies about everything everywhere, all at once multiverse and dr. strange in the multiverse of madness. And, you know, there's all kinds of stuff out there are people using their imagination of, maybe there are other worlds other universes that we just don't know, can't see. Who knows, it could all be science fiction. Or maybe there is a wormhole that we can go from one reality to another reality, we just don't know. But in this step, you can have a little bit of fun.

And you can just think about what you know, what you were taught in school. And you can say, is some of that stuff still true? Because a lot has happened, you know, in the last 20 3040 years, what does that really mean at the end of the day, and how do you fit in, in the grand picture? And you might say, Well, I'm just a speck of one person and a speck of dust. I don't matter. Each and every person on this planet matters. They may not know it, but it is important that we discover why we matter. What is our purpose here, even if we're not sure, try, try to figure that out. Try to make a difference in your own life. To be a better person to grow, to be open. to be open minded, to listen, to learn to self reflect.

And in this step, that's where that work is really coming home, and allowing you to focus on the bigger aspect. Because after you do that meditation, let's say you're doing this for a couple of weeks, and you're thinking about these, like super big ideas about the world, and how do you fit in, you might have some ideas of, Wow, I never thought of this that way, I really want to change and I don't know volunteer, or I want to go travel or I want to better understand things I want to better myself, I want to whatever, fill in the blank, that's going to make a big difference in your life, because you're doing the work rather than having the work, do you. And what I mean by that is, often we get stuck in ruts, you go to work, and you come home. And then you forget your identity, you forget who you are, you forget as a kid that you used to like playing with paper airplanes, and throwing them across the room. And the joy as you would watch it fly.

And see if the wind would pick it up and make it go further. Or you would forget, you know, as you get older, that there were things that you wanted to do, you know, when you wanted to be a mom, or you wanted to be a teacher, where you wanted to be, just stay at home mom, everything, it doesn't matter what that is, there isn't a this is better than that, it doesn't mean that you don't matter because you don't do X, Y or Z, we all matter, we have to find it to understand where we fit in, in our lives, what we can do to help ourselves, pull ourselves up, grow beyond the dysfunction and the trauma that we grew up with, and go on a new path.

That is a big, big task. It takes lots of energy, work, effort, and you'll stumble, and you'll fall and to get up again. And what I'm saying is, that's why you have the framework with the 12 steps, there are the tools that are going to help you as you're going on your journey and figuring things out, take what's good from them, learn from them, and move on. So I'm hoping that you found this episode. No, it was a little out there, you know, on some of my ideas, but I tried to focus on what we literally know of today, you know, from science, and how to apply that into the bigger aspect of the smallness that we think is ourselves of how one person could make such a big difference in the world, how we could be a voice of good, how we can be a voice for ourselves when no others were a voice for us in the past. So again, thank you so much for listening, I appreciate you taking the time to listen to this podcast. If you like it, please give it a like on whatever platform you listen, you know on it. I appreciate that. And again, if you would like more visit, let go and be free.com.

I’m still looking for some subscribers to help pay the monthly bill for that podcasting fee. If you go to the substack link, you could basically become a paid subscriber $5 a month. Or you could purchase one of the four volumes let go and be free books that are on Amazon. Just look at my name Ron Vitale, do a search for let go and be free. And you'll see the books that are there. The daily meditation books, I think are really helpful because, you know, I wrote them at the beginning of the pandemic, all the way up through like, I think the first year and a half. So they have a very unique perspective. And I like that looking back because they help you see what the past was, as we often do. We get stuck in the past, but now we're in the future. You know, our president is the future of when I wrote those books. And I think having that daily meditation reflection to read through each day. It's really great to be able to have that have like a guidance on what to focus on. So as always, thank you again for listening to this podcast and be well.

Support the podcast:

Please note that there are affiliate hyperlinks used on this page and that I receive a small percentage of sales if you choose to purchase. I only recommend items that I have found helpful and useful, and am passing them on to you to help. Thank you.