Thought for today:
Step Ten is simple. We’ve already done each piece of it in Steps 4-9. And it helps keep us on track in maintaining our solvency.
In the earlier Steps, we’ve taken a moral inventory, shared it with our Higher Power and another human being. We’ve become entirely ready to remove our shortcomings, and have asked our Higher Power for help doing so.
We’ve written down the names of those we had harmed or have debts with, and become willing to make amends to them all. We’ve made direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
A member shares:
“When I realize that I need to make an amend for a harm I have done, I need to do it quickly and I need to be ready for whatever their reaction will be. Thankfully, everyone so far has been grateful with me owning up to my past.
“My family was most grateful. We had been awkward, if not estranged. But by bringing up the fact of my debt, it opened up healing opportunities in our relationships.
“With the banks, I volunteered as much information as necessary while working out repayment arrangements. Sometimes creditors asked for a detailed review of my debts, and I complied. I had nothing to hide.
“I was willing to be open. I no longer lived in shame about my debting, because I was free of the compulsion to debt. Surprisingly, working Steps 1-9 had prepared me for freedom.”
DA Step 10:
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Progress, not perfection:
In Step Nine, the grand gesture of digging deep and paying off debts in a clean sweep was not for us. We needed to make small, regular payments. Now, taking Step Ten, we continue to take an inventory or ourselves, checking our motives and behaviors.
Were we honest? Caring? Have we made on time payments? Have we paid in cash or the equivalent? Have we been spending our time where we need to? Have we been working to become the best versions of ourselves?
The idea is not to be perfect all the time. Step Ten is our chance at correcting things when we occasionally go off course. Our pride no longer runs the show.
Ask:
Am I taking a daily moral inventory, and working on any character defects that stand in the way of my usefulness?
Meditation for today:
Worry usually doesn’t help make things better. When we worry, we project the worst things into the future.
It also doesn’t help to regret the past. When we continually look backward at what could have been, it leads to anger.
Living this moment to the fullest, within our means, expresses our gratitude, bringing full circle the healing circuit of love.
Affirmation for today:
“I am becoming the person I want to be. I see how my past can help my present, and how I can leave my future in my Higher Power’s hands..”
Recommended reading:
DA’s Eighth Tool is D.A. and A.A. Literature: “We study the literature of Debtors Anonymous and of Alcoholics Anonymous to strengthen our understanding of compulsive disease and of recovery from compulsive debting.”
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Copyright 2015, PlentyOfTimeMoneyAndLove.com.
You must log in to post a comment.