Applying The St Francis Prayer To Our Inside Job Of Reconciliation & Healing By Allen Berger

As many of you know, Allen Berger is a leader in Emotional Sobriety. His book 12 Essential Insights For Emotional Sobriety is featured prominently in the Emotional Sobriety section of the gugogs.org website. He is a Gestalt therapist with over 50 years of sobriety.

Very recently Dr. Berger gave a very powerful talk about how to apply the St. Francis Prayer (highlighted in the 11th Step of the Twelve & Twelve) to the parts of ourselves we find in conflict and contradiction. He offers us some very specific ways to respond when we find ourselves filled with self hate and condemnation. I hope you’ll take about 20 minutes to listen to this portion of his talk. I believe it is very, very relevant to our growth in key topics of this website: Emotional Sobriety, Healing Our Jekyll/Hyde Divided Self, and recovering from Toxic Shame .

This talk was extracted from a longer 50 minute talk that you can also access here.

St. Francis Prayer

Rough Talk Transcript

So Bill recommends that we use the St. Francis Prayer as a part of prayer and meditation. So what we’re gonna do today ; we’re going to go through the St. Francis prayer but we’re going to turn it around.

 We’ll look at it from a very different perspective . Rather than as our relationship to someone else; think of this prayer in relationship to yourself and your internal experience. So I’m asking you to shift your consciousness and focus.

Lord let me be a channel of your peace. Now these first words “let me be a channel of your peace” means bringing peace to the world right? I want you to think of emotional sobriety as being able to bring peace to yourself. Emotional sobriety involves learning to quiet your mind and calm your heart. Quiet your mind and calm your heart! When you are agitated for whatever the cause; then you’re disturbed. Whenever the the best of you cannot be thinking for the rest of you ; you’ll become reactive, especially if you’re anxious. Anxiety is very hard to deal with and if you don’t take some time to get grounded; you’ll be very reactive to the anxiety. Most of the time we react by trying to control the people and conditions surrounding us. We control the people and conditions and we make demands of them because we want to get rid of our anxiety within or inside. Now let’s watch how this works when we apply this verse “that where there is hatred. I may bring love”. Where I hate myself … Where I’m disgusted with myself… Where I don’t like myself. I can learn to deal with that part of me that hates me… that doesn’t like me …. that is disgusted with me … that judges me. And learn how to replace that hatred with love. I may have done things that are wrong and made mistakes … hurt people I’ve loved and care about that. But I’m able to deal with those mistakes by bringing a spirit of forgiveness to myself and focusing on what I can learn from my mistake.

My mistake is telling me about my next step in my development. It’s not telling me that I am a mistake but that I make mistakes and need to grow. You see the turnaround!

What we’re doing is looking at the St. Francis prayer in terms of how to apply these principles in our relationship with ourselves. It all begins with you. You can’t give these things to other people until you learn how to do this for yourself. Please hear that! The first step in being able to apply the St. Francis prayer to the world is to apply it to yourself.

If you don’t master these things in your own person and in your relationship with all the different parts of yourself you’re not going to be able to give it to somebody else. We say it all the time ; you can’t give away something you don’t have. If I don’t have this kind of relationship with myself; how can I help you foster that kind of relationship with yourself? If I reject and hate certain parts of myself? And I’m ashamed of those I dare not let you see them. How can I help you face those parts? I can’t still hate myself and offer love unconditionally to you.

We’ve got a history. What we do ourselves in our addiction; we are abusive to ourselves.

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I Remember I took a creative writing class and I never thought of making amends to my body before But what this creative writer did is said write a letter to your body and talk to your body about the kind of relationship You have I go.

 

Oh my god. I never thought I need to make amends to my body. I Self-hate You don’t do that to yourself if you like yourself if you love yourself, I would know Sooner put my hand on a table pick up a hammer and smash it, but I did that over and over again That where there is discord I May break Having a civil war Where I have this internal conflict that I find a way to bring these disharmonious parts of myself into harmony That I learned to face this this discord I don’t project it and that’s what we do If you don’t deal with it, you project it.

 

That’s what happens with these things. You’re gonna project it You’re gonna make other people responsible for this you make other people responsible for dealing with the conflict inside of yourself That conflict in ourselves is very important because if you start to resolve it It helps you become more and more integrated more and more whole or boldly You start to move towards your wholeness, which is what we are actually You know, that’s our intrinsic potentiality is to become whole How can I bring it to harmony there’s a part of me wants to stay married part of me doesn’t there’s a part of me That wants to be a parent part of me doesn’t there’s a part of me wants recovery another part of me Does it I gotta face those conflicts? There’s a part of me wants to be ambitious another part of me that wants to give up There’s a part of me that wants a relationship another part of me That doesn’t there’s a part of me that wants to be vulnerable another part of me Doesn’t there’s a part of me wants to accept myself another part of me doesn’t oh my god Talk about us being crazy Think about all the conflict inside of you That where there is error where I’ve made mistakes I can find some wisdom in truth That underlies those things instead of focusing on what that mistake Means about me and that it reflects somehow a flaw in my character. It just reflects that I’m ignorant That I’ve got a lot more growing up to do How can I find that truth by getting in there and digging out and facing these things not avoiding them you see all of my Self-avoidance keeps me stuck in immature There’s things big mistakes I’ve made that have hurt a lot of people those are hard to face Without feeling like I’m a creep or an idiot or a bad person But think I need to face them if I want to grow up That’s what the steps are helping us do is we need to face who we’re not not run away from it for a change That where there is doubt I may bring faith Dr. Virginia Satir My all-time favorites in terms of she was one of the pioneers in family therapy and self-esteem She Had this great great image that she shared she goes when I can count on problem in my life.

 

I Take on a piece of paper. I draw a big big circle And in the middle of that circle I put my name and I say what part of the problem I’m having has to do with My expectations about what was supposed to happen What part of my problem is being caused by my interpretation in the media What part of my problem listen to this one because this is at the core of it It’s being caused by my lack of faith in my ability to cope with life as it is You See not many of us have faith in ourselves Meaning self-confidence that we know how to cope with life on life’s terms. That’s why we’ve generated all these rules and ideas We have a lot of doubt self-doubt And how can I snow recover The knowledge the faith that there is something in me that will move me towards Figuring this out if I stop getting in my way with all of these ideas about who I should be We talk about get out of our own way, but nobody ever teaches us that how we get in our ways with these shunts That’s what’s getting in our way all these ideas of who I am rather than who I am That where there is despair inside me that I don’t think any change real and I’m never really gonna be happy that life is Never gonna work.

 

I’m never gonna find a relationship that’s gonna work or you know, I’ve relapsed so many times I don’t think it’s possible The first first step is this desperation step It’s based on the fact that we you know, we can’t that we can’t where we can’t stop drinking or we can’t stop using That Where I have despair that I have may bring some hope How do I challenge that part of me now think about this every one of these things You know If you work with me as a therapist and those of you that have know that what I would do with you If there’s a part of you despairing, I’m gonna have you talk to that part of you Because the change comes from your relationship to those different parts of you There’s a part of you that doubts you I’m gonna have you talk to that part of you and see if we can find a way For you to discover how to deal with that part And if you do you will start to have faith in yourself If you can face your despair and learn how to help that part of you that’s despairing you’re gonna feel some hope That Where you have shadows where there’s parts of your person that you’re not aware of That are running your life and a lot of times a big shadow part of us is our expectations and our demands It’s better to say our demands because our expectations a lot of us will admit that it we have a hard time Admitting that we make demands from possession and control the people and conditions to surround us. That’s a shadow side of us That’s the dominant raging. Mr. Hyde that Bill Wilson talked about We’ve got to face that part of it to bring it into the light.

 

I Can’t if I keep pushing it away and denying it and refuse to look at it Nothing’s gonna change if nothing changes nothing changes This is a trippy way of looking at st. Francis Very different way, isn’t it? Very different way I Discovered this a while ago that where there is sadness inside of me. I may bring short How do I deal with the part of me that’s sad You know sometimes by just supporting it sometimes by having empathy with myself, you know It was great that you wanted that and it’s so unfortunate didn’t work out, but I’m so glad you let yourself want it It’s important to be able to want things in life, even if they don’t turn out the way you want them to That means you’re alive.

 

I Can feel joy and being alive. I don’t have to be happy. I Can appreciate my experience whether it’s happy or saying you see being alive is being alive It’s feeling a whole range of possible experiences and emotions.

 

We can have as human beings The goal Is reclaiming all of you Not to be happy, but to be alive That’s the joy of living Is to be able to feel what you feel experience to become more real To become accepting that I am who I am. I’m Popeye the Sailor Man, so to speak Or Grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted So here it is if we turn it around I have to figure out how to start comforting myself instead of Hoping you’re gonna comfort me hoping you’re gonna say the thing that’s gonna calm me down and make me feel. Okay, I Have to learn how to self-soothe How to lick my own wounds and not depend on you doing something that’s gonna make me feel okay How to understand rather than be understood you see if I don’t understand myself that I’m gonna demand that you understand me And I’m gonna look for you to to to be understood by you But if I understand myself I’m not so hooked up and Dependent on whether you get me or not if I get me if you don’t I can say that’s too bad Wish you would but if you don’t that’s fine.

 

I understand what’s going on with me I don’t need you to get me to know what’s going on. I Need to understand myself To be able to love myself rather than to be loved if I don’t love myself I can’t imagine anybody else is gonna love me and I’m gonna put you through all kinds of tests and trials and tribulations to prove that you do And Then if you don’t do it the way I think you should do it I mean, I think you don’t love me and then you’re on the other side of that relationship go Oh my god, no matter what I do. He’s not happy That sucks To comfort myself rather than to be comfort to understand myself rather than demanding that everybody understands me To love myself rather than to be loved Or it is by self-forgetting that one finds what are we forgetting? We’re giving up the idea of who we think we should be You’ve heard it when I say things like Emotional sobriety is learning to act for yourself without being selfish.

 

You see what we’re forgetting I forget that it’s all about me and now I can be in relationship to you and me at the same time The emotional sobriety is learning to act for others without losing yourself Right. I don’t have to you know, I’m forgetting This idea that I just have to serve you to be okay that there’s room for me in the relationship, too It’s getting to balance is what Bill is talking about here Being balanced within ourselves first before I can be balanced in the relationship with you If I can forgive myself that I’m forgiven That’s what the the ninth step is so important about if I go to you and I understand what I’ve done wrong And I go to you and I’m sincerely making amends whether you accept it or not. I forgive myself If my forgiveness of myself is dependent on you that I’m doing I’m I’m approaching the night the ninth step wrong Same with the tenth step It is by dying that one awakens to eternal What’s dying here our false self all the ideas about who we’re supposed to be So we can discover our real self who we are You Saw that the human psyche always strives towards wholeness strives to complete itself and become more conscious each Perkins like each person’s psyche has an inborn evolution urge to grow to integrate the conscience of the unconscious to bring together all the missing parts of the individual into a complete whole and conscious self That’s the goal of emotional sobriety You