“…I found myself wanting something about the following: 1) how we can change the WHY that influenced us to make bad decisions; 2) So we need to identify that WHY and then we need to replace it with a new WHY; and 3) How do we accomplish that transformation?”
Lucy from In These Rooms
In this blog, I continue to use the Steps from the Big Book In These Rooms to address Lucy’s questions and concerns above. This blog is about what occurs to me as Knowing WHY. As a famous radio broadcaster use to say, “…you heard the news, now here’s the rest of the story…”
Step 7
Humbly asked this Higher Power to remove our shortcomings
I am still here by His Grace and Mercy. I understand that means there are things I need to do and can do better. I ask my High Power to show me how my journey and my story can serve Him and others. I ask my Higher Power to show me WHY.
Step 8
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
My Knowing WHY process begins with making amends to the person most deeply hurt by my shit and my failure to grasp before now the power of WHY in my life and story. That would be the man in the mirror. I owe and amends to myself for failing to be and become in my shit all my Higher Power has called me to be. I owe this amends for not knowing, believing and trusting in my WHY. That is the WHY of my Higher Power. This is where I have gone astray.
Step 9
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
This is more of telling the authentic lived truth, trusting in God and radical vulnerability that is essential to cleaning house. This work is crucial to my Knowing WHY.
Step 10
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
This work is essential to my Knowing WHY as sharing my experience, strength and hope. I like to say, if we want to know our purpose in life, know our WHY, we don’t have to look in further than our shit and the tales of the wreckage of our past. As I admit and work on cleaning up my shit, my Knowing WHY gets clearer and clearer.
Step 11
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a Higher Power as we understood this Power, praying only for knowledge of the Power’s Will for us and the power to carry that out
In working this step, the lens on knowing a New WHY starts coming into view and gets clearer and clearer.
Step 12
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts and the world and to practice these principles in all our affairs
This step helps me further accomplish the transformation Lucy inquired about. This doesn’t happen without trusting God and helping others. My Knowing WHY looks to me like moving from amends to advocacy on behalf of the least of God’s Children. Knowing WHY now looks like helping the least of these move from a life of character defects, faults and liabilities to embracing the assets and flipped stories of the gift of our faults and becoming more fully human and beautiful.
Thank you again Lucy for your questions and concerns. Your feedback has afforded me the opportunity to share on Knowing WHY.Read more about Hunter and tell your story. Listen to Hunter’s Podcast. All on wreckedamerica.com. In Wrecked America, #KnowingWHYMatters
