St. Benedict’s twelve Steps For Cultivating Humility.

They have been reworked and simplified here to speak more directly to those of us working the sacred path of recovery:

1) Be aware of God’s presence always. Remind yourself that if God is everywhere, God is present as everyone. Each encounter is an encounter with God, demanding your utmost respect and attention.

2) Place God’s Will above your own. What is your will? To control life to your own advantage, or, when you realize this is impossible, to blind yourself to your powerlessness with addictive behaviors. What is God’s Will? To liberate you from the places in which you are enslaved. Doing God’s Will is freeing yourself and helping to free others as well.

3) Seek guidance only from those who have your best interests at heart, those who support your liberation from the illusion of power and the addictions it carries with it.

4) Be patient and still in the face of difficulties and contradictions, and even personal injustice; respond not from a sense of injured pride or frustrated will, but from a place of objective calm and mindful tranquility.

5) Recognize when evil thoughts arise in your heart; see them for what they are: the chains of enslavement; and release them by confessing your dark thoughts and secret sins to a trusted confidant. As the Twelve Step proverb puts it, “We are only as sick as our secrets.”

6) Be content with whatever life brings you, seeing nothing as reward or punishment, and everything as an opportunity to deepen your capacity for humility and the liberation humility brings.

7) Consider yourself lower than others, not in hopes that “the last shall be first: (Matthew 20:16) but in order to help lift the other toward freedom.

8) Do nothing that serves you alone; make all your deeds of benefit to others and the community.

9) Discipline your speech and strengthen your capacity for silence.

10) Avoid silliness, mockery, and playing the fool.

11) Speak gently and forthrightly, and avoid the fog of words that comes with speech that is designed to deceive.

12) Keep your heart humble and your appearance simple, engaging each moment as an opportunity to release fear and the need to control.

By: Ramy Shapiro.