Revolutionary! How Step 10 Suggests A Novel Response Ability When We’re Disturbed – Twelve & Twelve Pages 90, 91 By Bruce M.

*To explore this topic more thoroughly, click on the links to other articles. Also remember, it is never too early or too late to practice Step 10 much like Step 11.

For many of us, it feels almost involuntary that when we are disturbed we ‘blame and complain’. And often this blaming and complaining leads to a sense of righteous indignation about what is wrong ‘outside’ us that is disturbing us. If only XXX would be different, I wouldn’t be disturbed. And since I may not have any real control on what is occurring outside myself, we blame and complain. This blaming and complaining can lead us to an experience of being a victim of these disturbing things that are happening to us. How many of us have expressed this ‘victim’ frustration with statements like this :

“XXXX is making me crazy”

“XXXX is making me angry or upsetting me”

Statements like these are telling ourselves that our disturbance lives outside us and would disappear if this outside circumstance went away. We embrace a mindset that really believes we are disturbed because of this person, place, or thing that often we have no real control over.

We can find ourselves in these situations many, many times each day. And each time we experience these disturbances we can reinforce this narrative of how my life is ‘making’ me disturbed and thus ‘causing’ my anger and frustration … as if I have no other real choice but to be disturbed. And this mindset leads us to what I described earlier as this perhaps unconscious blaming and complaining about what is happening to us.

I’d like to challenge us with three questions:

1. Do we have a choice in whether we blame and complain about what we can’t control in our lives? Is blaming and complaining an appropriate response to what we can’t change in our lives?

2. When we blame and complain, are we reinforcing a victim mindset that robs us of our freedom and denies the ‘response ability’ that perhaps, with faith, can see open doors rather than only closed doors?

3. What ‘response ability’ is Step 10 suggesting when we feel disturbed? Are these suggestions vague or very specific?

Step 10 in the Twelve & Twelve makes the revolutionary claim that in all circumstances I have some level of participation in what is disturbing me. The claim is that I am not a powerless victim but rather what I have heard some call a ‘willing volunteer’ in the way I respond and participate in what disturbs me. Here is this revolutionary claim made on page 90 of the Twelve & Twelve:

“It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us.”

And the simple suggestions of what to do as we find ourselves disturbed (what I call the Step 10 mini-steps are outlined on page 91of the Twelve & Twelve

A spot-check inventory taken in the midst of such disturbances can be of very great help in quieting stormy emotions. Today’s spot check finds its chief application to situations which arise in each day’s march. The consideration of long-standing difficulties had better be postponed, when possible, to times deliberately set aside for that purpose. The quick inventory is aimed at our daily ups and downs, especially those where people or new events throw us off balance and tempt us to make mistakes.

In all these situations we need

*1. self-restraint,

*2. honest analysis of what is involved

*3. a willingness to admit when the fault is ours,

*4. and an equal willingness to forgive when the fault is elsewhere.

We need not be discouraged when we fall into the error of our old ways, for these disciplines are not easy. We shall look for progress, not for perfection.”

* Numbers are my add – Bruce M.

In my experience , it is very often that my momentary disturbance reveals an unenforceable rule or expectation I’ve imposed on the person, place or thing I find disturbing. Often my expectations reveal an unconscious playing God with my belief that I know what’s best and a grandiosity that really believes I should get what I want from whomever or whatever is in front of me. Page 420 of the Big Book then gives me this suggestion of both the problem and the solution:

Perhaps the best thing of all for me is to remember that my serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations. The higher my expectations of Max and other people are, the lower is my serenity. I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations. But then my “rights” try to move in, and they too can force my serenity level down. I have to discard my “rights,” as well as my expectations, by asking myself, how important is it really? How important is it compared to my serenity, my emotional sobriety? And when I place more value on my serenity and sobriety than on anything else, I can maintain them at a higher level– at least for the time being. Acceptance is the key to my relationship with God today. I never just sit and do nothing while waiting for Him to tell me what to do. Rather, I do whatever is in front of me to be done, and I leave the results up to Him; however it turns out, that’s God’s will for me.

I must keep my magic magnifying mind on my acceptance and off my expectations for my serenity is directly proportional to my level of acceptance. When I remember this, I can see I’ve never had it so good. Thank God for A.A.!