Constant Growth

January 30, 2024August 15, 2025 / Tim / 1 Comment

When I came into AA, I knew almost immediately that I had found my tribe: I belonged here.

After a month or six weeks I shyly asked a man who had a quality of sobriety that attracted me to be my sponsor. And very soon after that I was on my knees repeating, phrase by phrase, the Third Step Prayer. At the time, I really had no idea where that prayer came from nor did I really understand what it meant. But I trusted my sponsor. I at least had enough faith to know that this man knew more about this stuff than I did.

I didn’t realize then that in this prayer I was making a bargain with my Higher Power: I’ll surrender my will and my life over to Your care and share that with others and You’ll release my from the slavery of Ego and remove difficlties from my life, which will further show just how powerful You are.

On the surface it was easy enough to understand. But like many aspects of the AA program, I’ve learned that there’s a whole lot more depth to the words.

Like most newer members I spent the first few years cleaning up the wreckage of my past. Then I moved into my character defects.

I had spent very little time in Step 6 and 7 when I first went through the steps. And with six years of sobriety, with the help of my sponsor and the book Drop the Rock, I made a much deeper dive into these steps. One of the main ideas that I took away from my time spent on those two steps then was this: if I want a new Tim to arrive, I had to let go of the old Tim. Not only did I have to be willing to give up the character defects that were holding me back I had to be willing to put the ones I thought were positive aspects of my character on the table as well. Slowly, I began to let go of the old Tim, once again turning my life over to that Higher Power.

I know that it was a growth experience for me and I believe that I grew from where I was into someone different.

However, with time, it’s very easy for old character defects to return, especially if one isn’t vigilant, and I wasn’t. I see now that I was “resting on my laurels.” Looking back over my years from six to twelve I see that arrogance, perfectionism and selfishness had crept back into my life and I had a tighter grip on my will. I was able to see this because, again with a sponsor and this time armed with the Big Book, I worked through all the steps again.

This experience has taught me many things about myself, the program, my relationships with others and with my Higher Power.

It has taught me that not only do I need to let go of the old Tim, I also needed to stop putting conditions on how the new Tim would show up. If I’m really putting my will and my life into God’s care then I can’t have conditions at all. I can’t hold back what I like about myself. Nor can I tell my Higher Power how I should be in the future. It’s a full and complete surrender. Yes I thought I surrendered that first time I recited the Third Step Prayer and I did, to the best of my ability at the time.

But my abilities have changed over the years. So my understanding of what a complete surrender means has also changed.

My first uttering of the Third Step Prayer was a beginning. And like all beginnings, there’s a lot to learn as the journey progresses. Old ideas must be released and new ones embraced. I can see that I couldn’t have understood the prayer the way I do now; new understandings are built upon old ones.

I don’t know where the next stage of my journey is taking me. I don’t need to know. My Third Step decision reminds me that I only need to trust and my Higher Power will bring me where I need to go, meet the people I need to meet and learn the lessons I need to experience.

I don’t need to navigate the river…just enjoy the ride.

Upon Reflection…

January 19, 2024January 19, 2024 / Tim / 1 Comment

One of the AA speakers I’ve listened to in the last year often says, “Life is lived forward but understood backward.” We live our lives moving ahead moment to moment but it is only on reflection in meditation or journaling or discussion that we see the patterns emerging and the fullness of the landscape of our lives.

July, 2022. I heard a voice, or at least a very strong idea in my head as I sat in a van returning from Panama to my home in Costa Rica. This insistent idea was that I needed to return to Canada. What???

I had been living very comfortably in the tropics for the past ten years in my home and among friends. I very much belonged there, I thought. When I questioned why I should go back home, the idea came that it had something to do with my wellbeing, that I just needed to be back up north. There wasn’t a clear reason, really, but the thought, the idea, was very persistent the rest of that day and the next. I thought plenty about it, it was part of my meditation and journaling. I rationalized that it had something to do about my mom who was 89 and in a nursing home.

I talked to my brother, mentioned that I was thinking of moving back to Canada. A few days later he told me that I could live in the little house at his business, which had been empty for several years. He had a vehicle I could use. He also needed someone to do some computer design work and help out in the office. I could go and visit with Mom, a half an hour away whenever I wanted.

Boom! I had a place to stay, a job and a way to move around back in a country where I no longer owned anything. Perhaps this was some sort of message from a Higher Power.

It didn’t happen right away. I had responsibilities to look after before I left. Patience. I moved back in December of 2022. I settled into a very different way of life just as winter was coming on. I became a regular at local thrift shops, buying warmer clothes and things for the house. I jumped into a new job with a commute that takes 30 seconds if I walk slowly and I got to spend time with Mom. I joined the local AA group and also went to other meetings in the area, often combining a visit with Mom in Stratford and attending meetings there.

There were times I felt lonely. After 5 PM and on weekends, I was alone on the property. I learned to adjust to a new way of life. I continued with my morning meditation and journaling. I got into more service work in AA. I was grateful, mostly, for where I was. I trusted that idea that this is where I was supposed to be.

In March of 2023 another persistent idea arrived: Get a new sponsor. I wasn’t going anywhere so I figured I may as well do as I was told. I had an idea of who I thought would be a good sponsor, but decided to ask a friend who sponsors a lot of men if he had someone he thought could sponsor me. He replied with the name of the guy I had been thinking about. Something was clicking. The new sponsor and I had a coffee together. I thought we would just be chatting now and again about ‘stuff’, but he suggested that we go through the steps again as outlined in the Big Book. And so we have.

I hadn’t a clue as to what lay ahead of me as I worked through the 12 Steps again with this man.

He shared with me the ‘Set Aside Prayer’ at our first Big Book session. It has become for me a touchstone of this path I am on in my journey: letting go to what I know to make room for new knowledge. Oh the things I am learning by letting go of preconceived thoughts and ideas and by not putting conditions on where my journey is leading me. I am learning to put my trust in a Higher Power, following through on my decision in Step Three.

I’m letting go, mostly, of trying to control my future. I know that I couldn’t have imagined what has happened to me in the past 18 month had I tried to control things. Upon reflection, I know that while telling folks that Mom wasn’t doing well was a plausible reason for returning here, I see now that the main reason I’m back has been for me: I needed to renew my commitment to the AA program. I needed to do some deep work with another man. I needed to listen to speakers talking about AA, the Big Book, the steps and my disease. I needed to share this program by working with others and be of service. I needed to see how close I was to taking a drink.

Upon reflection, I see that now.

Today I have a better understanding of what these past months have given me. I certainly didn’t as I was going through all the changes. I will be sharing some of this in future posts.

I don’t know where my journey is taking me. But my understanding of everything I’ve gone through has given me greater trust and confidence in moving forward. So I will continue to do what’s strongly suggested in Steps 10, 11 and 12 in order to grow, and I will trust the process. And, upon reflection, my understanding of these things will become clearer.

Changing Perspectives

January 28, 2021January 27, 2021 / Tim / 1 Comment

Any student of the philosophy of life will eventually come across a small book of quotes called, Meditations, by the second century CE Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius. He was a strict military general who was schooled in Stoic Philosophy and reluctantly took on the mantle of imperial power. I grew up with the idea that Stoic Philosophy was of the ‘stiff upper lip’ variety: take what you get and make the best of it. Sounds like a rather dull way of life and it is no wonder that the boisterous cult of Dionysius had a much greater following. However, the Stoics, much of which we know from the writings of Aurelius, had a very down-to-earth, self-sufficient approach to life. I am enjoying Meditations as well as works of others in this vein of philosophy.

Recently I was presented with the following quote:

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“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Each an every day we are faced with challenges. Sometimes they are somewhat trivial, such as what to wear or where to dine. Other times we must face far more critical moments, such as the decision I recently took to help my 17 year old dog cross over the rainbow bridge. The actual moment of decision is momentary. I pick this shirt, that restaurant and that veterinary. It’s the after effects of carrying through a decision that has the power to cause me pain or distress. I might question my judgement, or wonder about what might have happened had I taken another tack. All of my pain and distress at that moment is completely internal, ricocheting around in my mind. None of my mental vacillations will change an outcome or a decision. And yet I still allow myself to be haunted by them.

Aurelius’ quote reminds me that I don’t have to let these things bother me. I have the power to let the pain and distress go and move forward. I can make the decision to stop questioning myself. I can ‘revoke’ it because it is all in my head and nowhere else. I have the power to replace my thinking with another topic. I am reminded of the saying, ‘Someday we’ll laugh about this,’ when something in life goes terribly wrong. If there is a funny side to what happened, then I don’t have to cry about it: it is within my power to laugh about it now. It takes a change in perspective. I have that much control over my life.

Photo by Alexandr Podvalny on Pexels.com

Sometimes things happen that we have no control over. For example, someone cuts me off in traffic. I might lean on the horn, flip a certain finger to the driver and proceed to get extremely angry about the whole incident. I can rant on about ignorant slobs on their phones, young drivers, old drivers or other charged slurs to whomever might or might not be listening. Again, all of the distress I feel is internal. I can change my perspective. In this instance, I can remember not to take this personally. The other driver probably didn’t see me for whatever reason. This was not an attack on me. It was not done to purposely startle me. I can remember that I too have been the person who cut off another driver in traffic. Only someone who has never been behind the steering wheel has a perfect driving record. I may not be able to stop the initial response. It’s a part of the ‘flight or fright’ autonomic nervous system. However, I do have the power within me to let it go, to ‘revoke’ the power of the distress I feel.

Perhaps there was a childhood trama or other injustice that occurred to you and that you had no control over. You may choose to mourn the loss of innocence and relive the incident in all of its shocking detail over and over in your mind. But the venom in your soul won’t affect the transgressor with the slightest indigestion. Or, you may begin the process of healing by no longer resisting what happened. Accept that it happened and realize that you can diminish the present pain by realizing that it is stopping you from moving forward and growing in life. Forgiveness of others is not pardoning them; it is accepting that mistakes, sometimes extremely grave ones, were made but that you will no longer allow those mistakes to affect and distress your life. You do not have to give the power over what you feel and think to an aggressor. Take it back. Move forward.

In his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl wrote very candidly about his interment in a Nazi concentration camp. He credited his survival to an attitude that his torturers might be able to take everything away from him, denigrate and abuse him in every way possible, but they could not take away his free will. He chose to keep a positive attitude and find meaning and understanding in his desperate situation. We do not have to suffer the indignities that Frankl did in order to make the decision to take control over our own destiny.

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This is your life. You own it. You have the power to create whatever you want with it. This is the ultimate gift of free will that we receive upon our birth. We all have the power to change our view, our perspective. Playing the role of victim and powerless pawn of others is a choice; so is being the captain of your own ship and charting your own course. If you have never done this before, deciding to revoke your distress will be strange, and challenging. Start small. It’s not recommended that you change everything at once. You have time. Trust the process of your life and where you wish to sail.