Al-Anon’s Step 10

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Al-Anon’s Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Sometimes I wonder, do I ever really work this step? I know I do in some way, but I often feel like I didn’t because I wasn’t doing it in the way people talk about. It seems that the most popular way for people to do step 10 is to review their day while they are in bed waiting to go to sleep. I usually just want to go to sleep. But, like all of the steps, there is more than one way to work them.

(Photo by Carl Dwyer.)

I don’t have many notes for Step 10 in my Al-Anon meeting notebooks. It seems to be a bit of a neglected step in my area. I do have notes that say Step 10 helps identify what is blocking further progress. This is the step to use when you hit the wall. One member referred to it as "cleaning your mind". It is about asking yourself, "What is the lesson I need to learn from this?" Learn it and move on in peace.

My number one way to work Step 10, I think, is to just go to meetings. This is a quiet place where I can detach from what is going on around me and try to think more. This blog is another good way to reflect. I also know people that go through the Step 4 workbook, Blueprint for Progress every single year, but I don’t. Sometimes I will review a section or two on an appropriate topic, but I found that I over-thought my fourth step by using Blueprint for Progress and so I take it gently.

According to Paths to Recovery some people call Step 10 a “maintenance step” while others call it a “continuous growth” step. I prefer continuous growth. The chapter on Step 10 also emphasizes using all the previous steps, such as asking God to remove our shortcomings when we realize we are wrong. I always took “and promptly admitted it” to be about apologizing, but then I realized it is more about my relationship with my Higher Power. Only by doing this can I see the appropriate way for amends. After all, we are first powerless over other people and must think and take the next right action if we want things to be settled.

The Benefit of all Beings

Week 2 of the 28 days of meditation (which is actually called Meditation Revolution) seems to be going better. I now do it in the morning as I get it in my email. Since I am just waking up I am still in a quiet phase.

(Photo by ldesign of stock.xchng.)

I never paid much attention to the notes in the daily emails because it seemed like tips I had heard before. Today I did read the Day 9 email and it mentioned how meditation mainly benefits us after it is over. In the week 2 recording the woman mentions using your practice "for the benefit of all beings" several times. At the end she invites the listener to offer your meditation for someone else.

I found that thinking briefly about someone in this way can be a way to focus on someone I need to improve my relationship with and extend some love and gratitude for having them in my life. It can be a way to work Al-Anon's Step 10, which is to review your recent actions and think of how to correct any problems.

Speaking of gratitude, an old favorite yoga DVD of mine asks the viewer at the end to touch your folded hands to your forehead and offer thanks for your yoga practice. I like that idea and have added it to the end of every yoga practice I do. It is a brief time for me to get in touch with my Higher Power and express a little gratitude instead of focusing on my problems.