Recovery/12 Step Series – Step 9

How to Walk the 12 Steps with the HuMethod™ Article 10

Made direct amends wherever possible,

except when to do so would injure them or others …

By Learning How to Communicate Responsibly

By Certified Life Coach Deborah Giddings

Namasté soul friends,

Making direct amends… I don’t know about you, but my ego had me making all kinds of excuses for not wanting to do this.  Taking this step meant that I needed to face my own “less than perfect” behavior and make amends. It didn’t mean that I took my list from Step 8, run out the door and ring doorbells to pontificate and excuse my behavior.  Amend means “to remove the faults or errors”.  In other words I needed “to change” before any of my relationships could change.  This made me realize that before making any amends I needed to do some soul searching.

Thankfully I have a Higher Power that is with me at all times and a Sangha Community where I can talk out what I have learned before I take action.  In program we call it the three “A’s” –Awareness, Acceptance and Action.  I became aware of my behavior in Step 4, right-sized that behavior in Steps 5-7, became willing to detach myself from the anger, resentment and fear through Forgiveness in Step 8, and now in Step 9 I am ready to start the process of developing Spiritual Relationships based on respect and trust.

Nowhere in this step does it say that my amends will be accepted by the recipient.  It only says that I am to make these amends,
unless it would cause more harm to the receiver, their family or close acquaintances.

I know today that the highest form of respect I can show people is to meet them where they are, not where I’d like them to be, and the HuMethod™ exercise of Responsibility Communication gave me the tools I needed to amend these relationships.

When I committed to communicating responsibly, I was able to find the source of my emotional pain.  This means that when I
am in a relationship that is causing pain, the pain that I am feeling is being stimulated by someone else in the PRESENT, but is usually manifesting from old relationship tapes from my PAST.  As quoted from the HuMan Handbook, “The heaviness I feel is what I wrapped around my heart to keep it SAFE.  Intimate relationships require me to “unwrap” my “de-fences” because my fences are keeping out the love and intimacy that I seek.”

Taking my 9th Step this time around, I used this HuMethod™ exercise and added the Seven Steps to Communicate Responsibly and today my relationships are more spiritually intimate and grounded than ever before.

Following
are the Seven Steps to Responsibility Communication:

  1. Commit to Using the Responsibility Communication
    Process
    .
  2. Heal First…Then and Only Then Problem Solve
  3. Objectively Own My Own Feelings
  4. Identify and Share My Feelings and
    Observations
  5. Follow My Feelings to Their Source
  6. Set an Appointment
  7. Learn the Eight Helpful Hints for Spiritual
    Communication

If you would like to get a free hand-out on the Seven Steps to Responsibility Communications and Eight Helpful Hints for Spiritual Communication, please email me at debcoaching11@gmail.com.

To learn more about Spiritual Relationships and Responsibility Communication, click onto any of the hyperlinks in this article or log onto Holistic Learning Center’s website and visit the Bookstore where there are OVER 70 Products between $10 and $25.

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Join me next time as I share how I am able to keep my side of the street clean using the HuMethod™ exercise of Dis-creation along with Step 10.    Keep coming – it works if you work it!

Deborah Giddings, CSLC and Recovery Trainer
If you seek Recovery Coaching help for yourself or for a family member, if you are an HLC CSLC or CIT, an addiction counselor or a recovery coach, or if you are in any 12-step recovery program and you want to mastermind with Deborah you can contact
Deborah directly via her email debcoaching11@gmail.com.  Deborah is also available for speaking engagements to share how her recovery journey was transformed by emotionalizing the HuMethod™ exercises.