For those of you who don’t know me well, let me introduce to you that I am a longtime and grateful member of Al-anon and a recovering codependent who actively works the Twelve Steps as part of my recovery toward living healthier and saner.
Over the last few months I have found myself struggling with the language and conventional approach to the Twelve Steps that I often hear discussed in meetings. I respect the essence of the Twelve Steps. I have felt the way it changes a life. Yet as I increasingly view the world at large and this recovery framework through the lens of somatic movement therapy/education/philosophy, I find myself desiring a Twelve Step framework that incorporates the research and discoveries related to brain and movement development, the bodymind connection, neuromuscular patterning and trauma in the years since the Twelve Steps were established in the early 40’s.
Recently I felt this strongly while in several conventional Al-anon meetings. Because it is the sixth month of the year I was listening to many people talk about their relationship with step #6.
For those who are not familiar with step #6, it comes (obviously) after the first five steps. Each Twelve Step program has slightly different language and there are myriad alternative versions. The AA and Al-anon wording of step #6 is this:
“We became willing to ask God to help us remove our defects of character."
During these recent meetings, I heard so many people share that they BELIEVED that they were ready to give up a challenge/defect/pattern and then when they did the action of trying to open up or let go of whatever “it” was for them, they snatched “it” back. I noticed that many of these folks sounded hard on themselves as they shared this. They said things like they believed that their challenge in this situation was not trusting more in their Higher Power. Many described what they were doing as an act of “willfulness” and categorized it as a "character defect".
It was a real struggle for me to hear this perspective over and over again. It caused me, and continues to cause me, feelings of grief and some frustration.
(For my friends in 12 Step programs who are reading this, please know that I KNOW that I am in these meetings to support my OWN recovery and that, yes, this situation has given me ample opportunity to actively practice keeping the focus on myself and my recovery during the meeting, and to practice letting go of wanting to share with that individual and to practice trusting that the speakers’ recovery paths are theirs to travel as they are able! Whew. <loving this opportunities, she says with a deep exhale>)
And yet, I do feel called to share the information that I have that I believe offers a kinder (although not necessarily easier) approach to step #6, and so I am writing this blog post.
Because of my training and experience as a trauma-informed somatic movement therapist and my deep self-exploration as an embodiment witch, I KNOW that there is another way to talk about and engage with the meaning of this step that doesn't involve such judgement and self-recrimination.
From a somatic perspective, every human is made up of patterns of all the experiences of their life up to this moment. Many of these patterns (such as walking, reaching, smiling, pushing, holding, pulling, sitting) we take for granted and use every day in all our activities of daily living. Some of these patterns are protective patterns designed to keep us safe, and some of these protective patterns have become dysfunctional and no longer serve in the way we once felt or believed that they did.
As a misquote of Stephen Covey might say, "You cannot think yourself out of problems you behaved yourself into."
These protective patterns are wired into our neuromuscular system to react in certain situations, especially situation that resonate within us similar to our experience with past dangerous people and situations. From the somatic movement point of view, I understand that if you try to force your body to DO something because your MIND thinks it is a good idea without checking in with the body's sensory experience in the moment, you may get overwhelmed or shutdown and, as some folks said in these meetings I mentioned above, you may find yourself doing the opposite of your mind's intention. The reality is if we try to override the neuromuscular patterning within us through mental will, to push past our body's experience in this moment without tending (kindly and safely) to what is attached to the habit of the old patterning, then the old pattern will often re-engage within us even stronger than in the past because it is now trying to protect us from the threat of change that we ourselves have created. In short, the danger becomes the mind trying to exert willfulness over the body.
On the shelf of my studio is a bumper sticker that says, “Go only as fast as the slowest part of you feels safe to go.”
Again, this is an IDEA that sounds really great when we hear it AND it takes a LOT of work to be able to DO. It takes work and consistent repetitive practice to learn and to pattern the small changes that are necessary to move ourselves toward the bigger change of being able to be open and to let go with ease. It takes a lot of practice to learn to repattern at a speed that will allow you to actively notice what is happening in your body and to develop the capacity to be aware as you feel when the old protective patterns kick in. It takes even more time and practice to be able to notice the sensations that happen early in the process as the old patterns starts to kick in. And then it takes practice to slow ourselves down in a way that allows us to settle ourselves so that we can, eventually, be able to engage with the discomfort that arises within us related to the old pattern that is happening inside of our spiritbodymind, without judgement and with kindness. It is in this process of practice that we discover that we are developing the skills to safely open ourselves in ways that gently transform the shape of that old pattern in ways that could, possibly hopefully, make space within us to be able to practice acting in ways that move us closer to living and acting in accordance with our idea of who and how we want to be: the idea that our mind had in the first place.
This is the process of recognizing that intention is, in itself, not what creates change. What creates change is giving attention to the experience within us as we try to manifest this intention as we are right now. In giving attention we can discover what our strengths are right now and what supports us in our process right now. We can also discover what challenges us, and use those strengths and supports to help us engage with the challenges with more ease, self-regulation and stability.
One of my favorite quotes seems relevant here, from the amazing somatic activist Dr. Amber McZeal:
We learn how to breathe and center ourselves, not to maintain the status quo, but to transform it. We learn how to self-regulate in order to go into the places that are much more challenging and much more gravitas.
My current rewriting of step #6 for my recovery process is a much lengthier series of two sentences:
“We became willing to ask our Higher Power(s) to help us learn to practice kindness with ourselves and to learn to practice honoring our old patterns of thought and action that were once protective in some way and to acknowledge gently that these patterns are no longer serving us. And in this process, we became willing to ask our Higher Power(s) to help us to practice the above skills as we experience the challenges of developing our capacity to safely open to the possibility of letting go of pieces of these patterns while we also develop our capacities to think and act in new and sometimes uncomfortable ways that support our recovery.”
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I’d love to hear your thoughts on this approach to the recovery process! Blessings, Victoria.