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The miracle of this step is that we change the way we pray into a form of meditation. PRAYING ONLY FOR HIS/HER WILL FOR US.
When we are progressing with this step we will find a great sense of gratitude as a couple and a feeling of belonging and being worthy. We also get a sense of being guided and sustained as we work together as a couple.
Ultimate intimacy with your partner depends not only upon connecting emotionally, but also on connecting spiritually. At this time it's good to look at your spiritual quest in Step Three and to review what you may want to add or change.
We need to spend time together daily as a couple--not just on vacation!
In becoming aware of the presence of our Higher Power, we also need to be aware of our own rhythms with our partner--our breathing patterns, waking, sleeping, lovemaking, and work patterns. Forget about demands for a few minutes and get quiet inside together. Share this.
If we have difficulty praying or lack experience with prayer and meditation, it is suggested that we use the Serenity Prayer.
God grant us the serenity...
Serenity meaning that we no longer recoil from the past, live in jeopardy because of our behavior now, or worry about the unknown future. We seek regular times to re-create ourselves and we avoid those times of depletion which make us vulnerable to despair and to old self-destructive patterns.
To accept the things we cannot change...
Accept change in that we not cause suffering for ourselves by clinging to that which no longer exists. All that we can count on is that nothing will be stable except how we respond to the transforming cycles in our lives of birth, growth, and death.
Courage to change the things we can...
Which means remembering that to give up our attempts to control outcomes does not require we give up our boundaries or our best efforts. It does mean our most honest appraisal of the limits of what we can do.
And the wisdom to know the difference...
Wisdom becomes the never-forgotten recognition of all those times when there was no way out, and new paths opened up like miracles in our lives.
THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. (Used with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.)