Much of the reason why I named my blog “The Twelfth Step” is actually due to the first five words of the step itself and they read as follows:
“Having had a spiritual awakening…”
I never really knew what a spiritual awakening was until I began experiencing it firsthand in my recovery from addictions. But to be perfectly frank, I find it quite difficult to place a concise definition out there that can fully describe what it genuinely means. But thankfully, I received a pamphlet from a workshop recently that specifically lists 12 symptoms (or signs if you may) of someone who’s either had or presently having one of these spiritual awakenings. I’ve altered them only slightly for grammatical purposes, but their essence essentially remains the same. They are:
- Having an increasing tendency to let things happen rather than making them happen.
- Having frequent occurrences of smiling.
- Having positive feelings of being connected with others and nature.
- Having numerous overwhelming episodes of humility.
- Having the tendency to act only after careful evaluation.
- Having an unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.
- Having unshakable faith and confidence in life no matter what’s going on.
- Having more of a positive interest in the thoughts of others.
- Having a loss of interest in criticizing the actions of others.
- Having a loss of interest in judging others.
- Having a loss of interest in judging oneself.
- Having the ability to love without expecting anything in return.
The ironic thing after reading each of these signs several times is that I believe I’m still in the midst of having one of these spiritual awakenings. Many of these signs are things I have been experiencing more and more of lately, but not always on a consistent basis. Maybe the real truth is that a spiritual awakening is something that can happen to me for the rest of my life, but that’s contingent on continuing to do all the spiritual work I’ve been doing on a regular basis.
I began this spiritual work on myself over a decade ago and year after year, I have discovered more and more ways to turn my will over to the care of my Higher Power. And the more I have turned my will over to the care of my Higher Power, the more I seem to find myself experiencing many of these signs of a spiritual awakening.
Thus my conclusion is this. While I may not be able to succinctly define what a spiritual awakening is, I do believe the life I’m living today is starting to really demonstrate it. But I feel there may be one sign of a spiritual awakening still missing from this list, so I decided to end this entry with what I think that is because it sums up quite nicely where my Higher Power seems to be leading me nowadays.
13. Having the ever-increasing desire to share all of my experience, strength, and hope in life in ways just like this…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
