The 12 Steps for the Next Generation

What if a new way of dealing with "our issues" was created which left behind the religious-sounding polemic and made more room for growth and transformation? I'm sure most of you are familiar with the 12-Steps, right?

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
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.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

~Taken from Wikipedia. Obviously.

Check out the judgement-related words in there:

• moral inventory
• wrongs
• defects of character
• shortcomings
• harmed
• make amends
• injure
• personal inventory
• wrong
• admitted

For many of us, this doesn't seem like a bad thing. But for many people it is actually an example of unskillful means. Since this was written, other ways of introspection and self-awareness have been developed which aren't fueled by the impulse to "confess sins". In fact, self-examination has since become a means of nurturing the self. This happened because people were sick of the guilt and shame and control coming from religion and/or the "Superego", and it didn't make sense with what they were experiencing - esp. about sex.

Sexual desire, as an example, no longer felt like a "sin" that needed to be "confessed" but a joyous and wonderful experience which needed to be permitted within special containers that protected it from the outside influences of guilt and/or possessiveness. So, people experimented. And many of those experiments failed. They didn't notice that the guilt and possessiveness also existed inside of themselves and they hurt one another and themselves having so much "fun".

Something that was not so easily seen until then was that the power differential makes a huge difference in who gets hurt. This had remained hidden during the period of guilt and shame because in order to make a claim of being overpowered, you have to expose yourself as having had sex and this drew down the shaming impulse from others who would label you a slut even if you were raped. This transitional phase is seen today in many countries. It is painful to overcome this phase and is often marked by intense anger on the part of the "victim" and extensive analysis and justification for the claim. Lots of suffering arising in the "We" there.

So, what has happened since then is that both "victims" and "aggressors" have been learning to take more responsibility and to see themselves in their opposites. Victims have aggressed and aggressors have been victimized. The lines have blurred to the point where it is nearly impossible to tell them apart anymore. And some are still trying to figure out which is which, while others have just given up.

This doesn't have to be about sex. It can be any of the usual suspects: addiction to drugs, alcohol, shopping, television, working, gambling, whatever. And it can also be more complex and more subtle problems which arise in the later stages: repeated patterns of self-sabotage, repeating emotional contractions, conflict avoidance, repeated relationship patterns, etc. What matters is that the old categories of adaptation are no longer solving the problem: guilt, shame, punishment, indulgence, rational analysis, etc.

And in this thickening cloud of unknowing ye olde 12 Steps has lost some of its effectiveness. And that's too bad because it is a remarkably powerful tool for introspection when something is becoming a problem. So what if we redesigned it and rebooted it with language that is more skillful for what is actually arising in the We now?

How about this:

1. We recognized that our attempts to control X were not working and that our lives were becoming unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that transformation was possible, even if we didn't currently see how or where it would come from.
3. Made a decision to open ourselves to a solution that we had not been able to find on our own.
4. Looked into our sense of self and turned everything that we could find, esp. the stuff that we didn't like about ourselves, into Objects in our Awareness.
5. Spoke openly and without judgement to ourselves and to those who had helped us towards transformation about what we saw there.
6. Were entirely ready for these things in ourselves to be transformed.
7. Humbly accepted help to be transformed from wherever it came from.
8. Made a list of people who have felt any lasting and unhelpful discomfort after interacting with me and became willing to try and make it better.
9. Tried to make things better with everyone by incorporating their feedback into my behavior so that they experienced what they mean by "better".
10. Continued to look into our sense of self and turn what we could find into Objects in our Awareness and shared that within a Loving Group Awareness and continued to make our interactions with others better.
11. Sought thru meditation and contemplation to "achieve" Non-duality and perform total Skillful Means.
12. Having had a Spiritual Awakening as a result of these steps, we "entered the marketplace with open hands" and gave what we had to any who asked.

I think this would be a good puzzle piece for the UL that would fit together with a new LL piece, complete with "inny" and "outy" shapes so they stay together. And that means that the LL puzzle piece would look like the dance partner. It would not look like the 12-Steps for the Co-dependent, because that was basically just another individual who is using the same 12-Steps for themself alone. Instead, this would be the 12-Steps for the Group. And "The Group" is the Community of friends and family of so-and-so who are invested in their growth and transformation. It could be people at work, Church, their hair-stylist, anyone. The Group has a powerful influence on the individual and can aid the process in a Unique way. In the past, Groups have been used as a Judge and Jury to collectively shame so-and-so into submission such as in the process of "Intervention". But this has not had enuf success, and now that we understand Shadow and ego Development, we know that it can actually make things worse. So, what about this:

1. We recognized that our attempts to control so-and-so's X were not working and that their lives, and sometimes our own, were becoming unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that transformation was possible, even if we didn't currently see how or where it would come from.
3. Made a decision to release so-and-so to a solution that we had not been able to find for them.
4. Allowed so-and-so to look into their sense of self and turn everything that they could find, esp. the stuff that they didn't like about themselves, into Objects in their Awareness.
5. Listened without judgement to so-and-so about what they saw there.
6. Released so-and-so to be transformed when they were entirely ready to be transformed.
7. Lovingly and humbly watched so-and-so's transformation.
8. Supported so-and-so while they made a list of people who have felt any lasting and unhelpful discomfort after interacting with them and became willing to try and make it better.
9. Supported so-and-so while they tried to make things better with everyone by incorporating their feedback into their behavior so that those others experienced what they themselves meant by "better".
10. Supported so-and-so as they continued to look into their sense of self and turn what they could find into Objects in our Loving and non-judging Group Awareness and continued to make their interactions with others better.
11. Supported so-and-so as they sought thru meditation and contemplation to "achieve" Non-duality and perform total Skillful Means.
12. Enjoyed so-and-so as they had a Spiritual Awakening as a result of these steps, "entered the marketplace with open hands" and gave what they had to any who asked.

Integral - as an idea/meme/stage/technology/whatever - is lacking in effective LL practices. This is only a suggestion. Feel free to offer input.