Correspondence with Sponsee about her not trusting her own motives when reaching out to newcomers:
You had mentioned about a week ago that you didn't trust your motives yet. I of course then heard a speaker talk about that very thing...Thank you God!
Anyway, she said that we use the AA principles because our motives or distorted, until they aren't. And I then remembered that yes, until I had the change of perception and when my even new perception gets distorted by my worldliness/ego, I can revert back to the principles in the Steps and apply them to my communications:
Honesty
Step 1. We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become
unmanageable.
(Is what I am saying honest based upon my own experience or am I speaking to sound profound?)
Hope
Step 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
(Is what I am saying offering hope to this persona I am reaching out to based upon my experience or am I trying to sound like a guru-trust me, I have done this!! lol! If I am drawing from real experience then I am being genuine and not factious with what I am trying to covey)
Faith
Step 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood him.
(Again, this is ALL experience based. So, is what I am trying to communicate with the newcomer or sponsee coming from a place of faith or ego??)
Courage
Step 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
(Do I have the courage to reach out, talk to a new sponsee, share at a meeting, chair a meeting, secretary, tell my ESH in a face to face meeting, tell a sponsee that they might want to look at themselves before the they blame-NOPE! All this courage I had to pray for-it didn't come natrually for me at all.)
Integrity
Step 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of
our wrongs.
Integrity:
1. the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
"he is known to be a man of integrity"
2. the state of being whole and undivided.
(Is what I am saying whole and sane-am I coming from a place of integrity)
Willingness
Step 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
(Am I willing to go the extra mile today? Take the time to even write this email? Continue learning? Continue praying? Continue to practice the opposite of defects? Continue to go to AA meetings and study?)
Humility
Step 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
(When sharing experience or reaching out am I willing to humble myself and tell them about my shortcomings that I had and still have, or am I just telling them how to live and act?)
Brotherly Love
Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
(Doesn't come natural...everyone was my enemy and wanted to hurt me! Not true....but I couldn't learn that unless I sponsored and suited up for life stated by being accountable to my first coffee commitment...that taught me to trust me to show up, then I could start to trust others to show up for me)
Discipline
Step 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so
would injure them or others.
(Am I disciplining my tongue? Am I just gonna diarrhea out my mouth because Hilarie wants to talk!?? Will I take in what the newcomer is saying or sponsee or just wait for them to shut up so that almighty Hilarie can speak her wisdom?? Anyway,I love this word now...lol! Its been given such a bad wrap in our society and unruly alcoholics hate it!. I am now disciplined to God. I don't need my sponsor to discipline me anymore...again, not coming from a place of hate or ego, but of love. If she didn't love me enough to tell me that what I was doing was wrong and was the root of all me troubles and teach me how to do the right things, I would have never gotten well. Structure and discipline to the Spirit. I still can't believe how structured I am to just myself and God-Before I would never fish a project or sit and study and I sure in the hell wouldn't take time to write all this...but I do, and I get fed but this discipline to go the extra mile)
Perseverance
Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it.
(Never! Only persevered in my own destruction and infected others in the process. Will I keep this relationship going, or will I reach out and then cut them off if I am annoyed or bothered by them? Am I willing to persevere in my relationships? If I am not willing yet, then I shouldn't be forming new relationships. Relationships are to be nurtured on both ends, not using people just to feed me and build me up.)
Spirituality
Step 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
(Is my correspondence coming from Spirit or from Ego? I must always ask myself this. Like just this email. I had a seed planted based upon what you said the other day about you not trusting your motives, then I had the conformation from the speaker and then the Spirit led me to write this email....my EGO doesn't want to take the time...it wants me to clean the house so I will feel better. The ego wants me to care only about me and my needs...etc. The spirit said, nope-You sit and write this and I will give you the words)
Service
Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
(Am I asking daily how to be of service to Him and to my fellows?? If so then I am carrying the message with ease and applying all the principles of the Steps into my communications with the newcomer and I don't have to worry about my motives if I stick to these virtues :)