Step Three of Twelve Steps: Spiritual Maintenance through Surrender: Workbook

STEP THREE: Active Surrender of Perceptions, Reactions, Actions and Outcomes to Our Caring God

Made a decision to turn our wills and our lives

over to the care of God as we understood Him.

One Day at a Time February 9th

When living with an alcoholic overwhelmed me, I didn’t know which way to turn or how to make a decision. I rejected God because I resented what I considered unfair punishment. Yet I found that “going it alone” made matters even worse. At a still later stage of desperation, I turned to Him again and placed my life and my will in His hands. Once I had surrendered, trusting Him completely, my burdens were lightened. I cannot profess to understand how such things happen; I want never to forget that he is ready to befriend me, but only to the degree that I trust Him.

If instead of trusting in God I trust only my own intelligence, my own strength and my own prudence, I will not find my way to Him and His help. He has offered me the gift of faith. In accepting it, I must put aside my own human will and trust in Him. Dante, in the Divine Comedy wrote: “In His will is our peace.”

Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and he shall direct thy paths.

Proverbs

There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening, we shall hear the right word. Certainly there is a right for you that needs no choice on your part. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into your life. Then, without effort, you are impelled to truth and to perfect contentment.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Before Step Two, we are unable to make sound decisions, and especially to follow through with them with our actions. So we always begin, after the first two steps, to make better decisions and to take action relevant and appropriate to trust in God’s care and current circumstances. Otherwise our primitive brain dresses up the same old actions with different thoughts, and we continue to do the same things over and over, hoping for different results.

“Turning over”
Instinctively, under the influence of alcoholics and other unconsciously dysfunctional persons, our primitive instinctive brain took “control” of our lives by constricting the mental and emotional energies our brain was experiencing. Spiritual recovery involves releasing this inner constriction and resistance -- control – by conscious and deliberate acts of faith and trust in a higher Presence of our own personal and individual experience. We reconnect consciously with ourselves and feel our pain and fear – Step One. Then we reconnect intimately with our God’s higher Presence – Step Two. And then we relinquish our control over our perceptions and reactions – outcomes – by taking actions that connects us to the caringness of our higher power.

”Will”
Our “wills” are our perceptions, reactions, and our illusions of our abilities to make decisions. Our brains experiences sensations – sight, sounds, smells, touch, and taste. These sensations are filtered through the constricted pathways of our brains, creating perceptions embedded with wounded and unresolved injuries from our pasts – contaminated organizations of what is. Then, from these contaminated organizations of perceptions, our brain experiences the expression and painful pressure of stored emotional energies – reactions.

Based on this process, the brain is rendered incapable of making sound and healthy decisions. So we and our brains must be surrendered to our God for awakening and empowerment.

“Lives”
The mental illness that results from relationships with alcoholics and other dysfunctional person is one of addiction to outcomes. Our diseased brain is programmed to predict, prepare for, and prevent perceived undesirable outcomes. These painful outcomes are perceived and experienced with the same intensity as death.

In this Third Step, we are relinquishing the control of the outcomes of our lives. We are turning them over to the care of our God. We are developing a serenity network of higher caring Presence to allow us to stop squeezing life events in an attempt to insure an outcome that is perceived as necessary for living.

“To the care of God as we understood Him”
In this step we take the action necessary to have an intimate relationship with a higher Presence, and to release our cares to God’s care.

This understanding is not thought or intellect based, but heart based. Our brains cannot conceptualize such a caring intimacy. It can only be experienced – understood -- with our hearts.


Worksheet:

Before each item, take four deep slow breaths in and out, as an act of trust in your higher power.
1. Identify a relationship or life situation about which you are currently experiencing a conscious level of discomfort.
2. List what you have to date done about the situation.
3. List what you could possibly do about the situation.
4. List what you would be doing if this were not a concern.
5. Discuss situation/relationship with another person (e.g. sponsor). Is there something reasonable that you can do that you have not already done.
6. With help of other recovering person, decide if more action is indicated, and if so what; and decide what you would do if this concern did not exist, and plan/act to do it.