Step Ten: Not a Redundant Chore, but a Spiritual Awakening
It is easy to understand why Step Ten is thought about as a daily chore - wash, rinse, repeat - like dirty laundry,
But I believe it is much more than that. While it is true that we must keep the slate clean on a daily basis, that is not an end in itself
Step Ten is not a ledger. It is a doorway into a different state of being, a new consciousness. It is the complete psychic change Carl Jung told Rowland Hazard he would need - A vital spiritual experience, a phenomenon. A huge emotional displacement and rearrangement suddenly setting aside ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men. They are replaced with a completely new set of conceptions and motives.
It is not just a matter of a better set of habits or loftier aspirations.
However, this doorway only opens once we are ready to step through it. We leave mechanical process and enter into the world of the spirit.
Most of us took these mechanical steps kicking, screaming, bargaining, and trying to control the process. Right up to the point where surrender overtook us against our will, and without our permission. Sweet surrender.
For me that point came before I was halfway through with Step Nine. I’ve told the story of how my grandiose Ninth Step amends process was turned upside down by a simple honest, humble amend from a meek alcoholic who worked for me.
There is no struggle in surrender.
The words on Page eighty-five do not tell us how to surrender. They describe the experience of surrender.
We have stopped fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol.
Sanity returns.
We are placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected.
This happens automatically, without thought or effort on our part.
Medicine calls this process homeostasis.
Once the threat or perceived threat is gone, we do not have to think our way back to normal.
It just happens.
The steps before Step Ten identify the threats and their source. Once we accept our responsibility and set things straight our spirit rebalances the same way the body does.
That is what Step Ten is.
It is not digging through the trash every night.
It clears the static so we can stay in that balanced state as we enter Step Eleven.
