So you’re gritting your teeth listening to a coworker slurp his coffee in the cubicle next to you. You can’t get up enough courage to tell him to stop it! You’re afraid of confrontation. However, when you get home you are curt, rude, and irritable at almost anything your partner has to say. Truth is you’re crawling out of your skin with intolerance, self-disgust and self-condemnation about everything you’re feeling and thinking. You just want to get laid, shoot up or at least have a drink to escape and calm things down. Then you take a deep breath and tell yourself “You’ve come too far to give in now!” You wonder if you will ever get past your shortcomings.
You are needing to practice Step 7.
The key to this Step is the word humility. To practice humility you must come to terms with your limits. To know your limits is to explore limitless living. It’s a paradox.
Recovery is like the canal that diverts traffic around the chain of rocks on the Mississippi River. Historically, the chain of rocks on the Mississippi in St. Louis was hazardous. So a canal was built to avoid the chain of rocks. The Canal is just wide enough to accommodate every barge. It is plenty deep! it is designed to help the barge move through without obstruction. And within its confines, each barge is safe from the hazard of shallow waters.
In recovery, as long as an addict stays within the confines of healthy values and respects limitations, they are safe from the hazards that lead to addictive acting out. Only when those limitations are ignored, does an addict get into trouble. However, when an addict respects their limits, they’re able to explore the limitless living that exists within their own brilliance. The depths in the recovery canal are limitless. It only needs to be explored. Step 7 is a tool designed for this exploration.
It requires humility! This means to lean into your shortcoming. Addicts tend to deny or make excuses for the existence of their shortcomings. In order to remove or transform your shortcomings, you must be willing to ask for help. Your ask is a demonstration of humility. Step 7 states that you humbly ask Him. It is not anybody’s role to tell you who it is that you are to ask—Him, Her, Whoever, or Whatever. That is your personal journey to explore.
Humility suggests that if the shortcoming is not removed, then your spirit is willing to work with the discomfort that comes from the flaw in order to uncover the meaningfulness that promotes serenity and sobriety. This position becomes a glue that holds you centered on your values in your recovery.
Step 7 is designed to be a guiding principle that connects your spirit to the commonplace dynamics of everyday living. It is designed to teach you how to respect your limits. It opens the possibility of going deep within your heart with the opportunity to know yourself best. Canadian poet Shane Koyczan said it well when he penned “To discover the thing you’re brilliant at, you first have to endure realizing all the things you’re average at.”
Every person must embrace their common shared shortcomings. Step 7 is uniquely designed to help with this task. Addicts who learn to practice this step pave the way to limitless living along the path of their long journey home.
