Friday, November 11, 2011

Why do I need to pray for willingness? I thought it was odd that people talked so much about willingness and even more so that some would pray for it. To me it seemed a simple act that was already undertaken. But once I followed the seemingly irrelevant act of praying the "willingness prayer" for 7 days in row. I only complied because I was absolutely desperate. The crazy thing was that it worked. After 3 days or so, I had a complete change of attitude. My problem lost it's relevance and I gained a sense of motivation to engage in recovery.

But still the concept was an enigma for me. Later it came up again when I was trying to take step 2 of the 12 steps. It wasn't so much that I couldn't intellectualize that belief in a Higher Power could restore me to sanity, but more that i couldn't become willing to believe that It/(He?) would. So before moving to step 3, I gave up my exertion to find it and just prayed to Him for willingness. Long story short, it worked! I woke up and had a period of spiritual ecstasy (delirum?) in which all my objections shifted to connections.

Later again, when I completed my inventory, I found character defects that I knew were problematic but I didn't want to let go. I got honest with my sponsor in step 5 and told him so. He guided me to the part of step 6 that suggests that if we are not entirely ready to let them go then we should pray for willingness. I realized then that willingness was not a simple act. Or at least, not just a simple act.Willingness was an attitude as well.  I had only ever thought of the act superficially. The attitude encompassed a few dimensions that are important to the process of recovery such as favorable disposition, inclination, by choice, without reluctance, and by the will.

Tonight at a meeting we read about willingness related to step 3 from the Twelve and Twelve. That willingness is the key to the door to commitment. I thought of the idea of the balance sheet. The balance of willingness to unwillingness.

Today someone spoke to me about the need for commitment strategies. Hmm, perhaps a good strategy would be to examine the motivational balance sheet.

Mission

This is a blog about one man's experiences in 12 step recovery and the spiritual life. ~