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Virtue: Commitment
Controlling => Faith in Others.
"our shared experience of this Power is one of loving and caring"
...our self-directed thoughts and actions have so often led us to acting out, negative consequences, and despair.
This is about commitment to humility. It is about letting go. It is about falling back into our nature. It is about releasing ego. Whatever form your Higher Power takes, it doesn't matter.
If your higher power is the Christian God then you fall back into the opportunity for grace. The desire and power to do the will of your higher power.
If you are a pantheist then that means living again in harmony with nature.
If you are a socio-biologist it means recognizing that your biological duty is far more extensive than merely to procreate effectively. It is also to serve your kin. And widely that means minimizing harm. So much of our addictive behavior brought harm to others that we cannot fail to see that.
If you are a Buddhist, it means releasing your ego - letting go of control is letting go of suffering. And so on.
And it restores us to a position of receiving - accepting the gift of the care and love of our higher power. We are no longer the superhuman thinking "I can and must do anything myself all the time and take what is mine." We are no longer Masters of the Universe. Think about boys and the Masters of the Universe. This new plastic myth of power and domination. We are taught this model of manliness. And it dictates certain ways we must be. We must not be receiving we must be taking. We must not be giving except in economically accounted exchange. We may be passionate but not compassionate.
These first three steps are really ministeps in a process of accurately assessing our human limitations, the acknowledgement that there is hope, and the decision to give ourselves over to something greater than ourselves. This is the first step of freedom from the horrible burden of loneliness and despair laboring in the belief that we can and or must do it all alone.
See also: