from 'The 12 Steps for Adult Children'

"Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out"

... Our relationship with our Higher Power is our most imprtant asset, and it is impossible without communication. As we draw nearer to our Higher Power in prayer and meditation, we draw closer to our source of power, serenity, guidance, and healing. To ignore the need to communicate with God is to unplug our power source...

We work Step 11 through the routine practice of prayer and meditation. Through prayer we talk to God. Through meditation we listen to God...Many of us, however... know prayers, but we don't know how to pray...

... In Steps 10 and 11, we have the opportunity to keep ourselves in tune by devoting time to regular service and maintenance. As we continue in this direction, we learn to recognize problems, to correct them promptly, and to continually seek guidance from our Higher Power. This enhances our ability to improve our new skills for lifing life to the fullest...

Step 11 requires that we improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand God...

Through the progress we have made in the Steps, we are learning more about what we want to achieve in the program. To protect what we have learned, we must continually seek to know God's will for us...

 How do we pray and for what do we pray? Many of us were taught to pray  before we understood what it meant. In the beginning, we may have used the prayer 'Now I lay me down to sleep...'  or asked God to bless Mommy and Daddy and others who were close to us. As we grew, our hurtful family experiences brought us great pain; those we depended upon hurt and disappointed us. Perhaps we blamed God for not hearing and answering our deperate prayers. Based on the program principles, our attitudes toward prayer change as we work the Steps...

Spending more time in meditation enables us to become better acquainted with God in the same way that we become better acquainted with someone we would really like to know. Meditation can be difficult at first. We are accustomed to being active and may feel uncomfortable with sitting still and calming our busy thoughts...

In the act of meditating, we ponder and apply our knowledge of God's ways to our daily lives. It is contemplation done in the presence of and with the help of God. It is two-way communion with him. Meditation's purpose is to clear our mental and spiritual vision and to let God's truth make its full and proper impact on our minds and hearts...

In developing a routine for prayer and meditation, we seek times and places to invite God's presence...

If we are progressing wityh Step 11 by praying and meditating daily, we will see positive signs. We will feel more at peace in our daily affairs. We will experience a new sense of security and a deep sense of gratitude for our ongoing healing. We will feel as though we have finally achieved a rightful place in the world. Feelings of self-worth will replace feelings of shame. Friends and family members will notice a change in us. These signs tell us that God is guiding and sustaining our recovery...

When we combine prayer and meditation with self-examination, we discover the secret to successfully working the Steps... We often tend to seize control from God's hands and attempt to hasten the process through our own willfulness. When we do this, we are not following God's guidance and must renew the commitment we made in Step 3...

Methods of prayer and meditation may vary. Whatever our style is, it is our desire to hear and feel heard that counts... Through a faithful and disciplined dedication to prayer and meditation, we become aware of God's unconditional love, forgiveness, and constant presence in our lives...

When practicing Step 11, we must not create excuses to delay our actions or rationalize that we are 'waiting' for God's will. Part of doing God's will is taking action and trusting that our Higher Power is working through us...

In unclear situations, it is sometimes wise to seek outside counsel. As God continues to reach out to us in different ways, revelations may come to us through other people or new experiences. After careful review of the situation, our guidance may be obvious and compelling or still unclear. If unclear, we must be patient and wait for more direction to be revealed to us. If we cannot wait, we should select the best course of action and trust that God is with us, guiding us as we go. Our faith in our Higher Power's guidance will allow us to receive what needs to be revealed to us. The way we feel and function clearly shows if God's will is being done, or if we are trying to control the outcome...

If we place our will in God's care, and pray sincerely for guidance, we find ourselveds trusting that our will is being redirected. We then experience the courage and power to act according to God's will for us. Seeking higher guidance is an experience in humility, because we are so accustomed to running our loves by our own plan and making demands on God to give us what we think we want. Our own desires and opionions are so much a part of us that we may, at times, view the will of a Higher Power as a manifestation of what we think should happen.