Making A Mend

Father Richard Rohr is quickly becoming one of my favorite spiritual teachers and authors. I am extremely grateful to have discovered him, I only regret that it did not happen sooner. His teaching on The Twelve Steps is one of my inspirations for my current lesson series, The Twelve Steps of Transformation. Fr. Rohr’s book, Breathing Under Water, explores the spirituality of The Twelve Step program from a Christian perspective. I find that many, albeit not all, of his perspectives resonate with much of Unity’s metaphysical approach to interpretation of Scripture.

In this book, Fr. Rohr encourages us to remember that while Jesus is our example of one who fully realized his Divinity, that he was also an example of how we can demonstrate the Christ in our lives. He reminds us that Jesus most often referred to himself as a “son of man” thereby claiming to be one of us, the archetypal human, an everyman. Fr. Rohr says,

“We have kept Jesus out of the range of actual imitation, when the very goal was to imitate him in his combined humanity and divinity. Remember, Jesus said ‘follow me’ and never once said “worship me.” The sad result is that we have many “spiritual” beings when the much more needed task is to learn how to be true human beings. Full humanness leads to spirituality by the truckload…”

This speaks to what I shared in my lesson on July 3, which you may listen to here or watch here. I recognize that I have made spiritual awakening my primary focus and the topic of most of my lessons recently. I have been giving a great deal of time and attention to growing in the conscious awareness of my Soul, my True Self. While I still believe that spiritual awakening is a vital intention, I also recognize that living our spiritual awareness in our daily lives is of equal importance. We must learn and grow in ways to live our spirituality through our human interactions. The Twelve Steps are tools that can assist us in doing that.

I reiterate that I am not suggesting that we all have issues with alcohol, drugs or any behavior that might be considered an addiction. My intention is to explore how living the practical tools of The Twelve Steps can assist us all in living more spiritually aware and conscious lives as we connect with the God of our understanding, as well as ourselves and others.

In my most recent three posts, I have talked about the first seven steps. You can read my posts and follow me here. Except for the seventh step which requires that we share our moral inventory with at least one other person, these first steps are primarily internal processes. Even step eight is mostly internal. However, step nine gives us a powerful opportunity to truly practice our spirituality.

Step eight says, “We made a list of all the people we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.”

As with the fourth step, which I talked about in my June 30 post, step eight is best undertaken from a centered space. It is important for us to center ourselves in the awareness of God’s love and to the best of our ability hold ourselves in the light of love as we begin step eight. Making a list of all the people we have harmed can, and most often does, bring up a great deal of resistance. Who among us wants to admit that we have harmed others, let alone make a list of all of them? Most of us would prefer just to stop at step seven. After all, once we have made it through the seventh step, we have received God’s love and forgiveness and we have told at least one other person about what we did. Shouldn’t that be enough? Why drag all those other people into the process?

In fact, many people who enter recovery programs, if they make it past step three, do not make it through step eight. Some of those who do, take years to “become willing” to make amends to others. It can be, and most often is, a daunting proposition. In follow up to what I shared in last week’s post, step eight allows for our humanity. It acknowledges that it may take time for us to “become willing” to make amends to all those we have harmed. It is, after all, a process.

It is imperative to remember not to use step eight as an opportunity for self-flagellation. It is a chance for us to engage in deep self-connection and honesty. It is important to our spiritual and emotional healing and maturity for us to hold ourselves accountable for the ways our actions stimulated pain for others. It is equally important for us to mourn the pain we feel when considering the effect we have had on others’ lives.

I like to think of making amends as “making a mend.” Amends are our efforts to repair something that has conceivably been damaged or broken. Love is the energy that binds all things together. Love is the bond we share with others. When we say or do things that are not expressions of love, our connection with another is often damaged.

Our willingness to “make a mend” in our relationship opens the way for love to be remembered and expressed. A mend can take many forms. The most vital element of making a mend in a relationship is openness, vulnerability and availability to the other. This is the reason we must do a great deal of inner work prior to extending an amends to someone. We must be clear in our intention to only come from love, lest we risk stimulating more pain in the other. This is very clear in step nine.

Step nine says, “Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

We must enter into the process of “making a mend,” not to relieve ourselves of guilt, but to repair the break in the flow of love, the break our actions created. We must be open to hearing from the other person how our actions stimulated pain for them, and also be willing to take action that will help repair the bond.

By making amends to another, we are actually giving them the opportunity to process their pain so that they can release it and experience healing. The gift is that we also get to experience healing in the process.

It is essential to be clear about our intention and the potential pain we could stimulate for another by making amends. For this reason, it is advised that one not dive into making amends before discussing the situation at depth with a trusted confidante. In a Twelve Step program, this is usually one’s sponsor. If you are not active in a formal Twelve Step program, I strongly recommend talking with a trusted friend, minister or counselor who can help you assess the possibility of additional injury before engaging in an amends process.

While making direct amends is preferred, it is not always possible or advisable. If is determined that by making direct amends, you could further injure the other an indirect amends is recommended. Additionally, if the injured person is deceased, only an indirect amends is possible.

As a process to mend a break in the flow of love, amends can help restore us to our wholeness, thereby transforming us at depth.

The Twelves Steps are a path to personal transformation through a process of spiritual recovery. They provide us with clearly defined practical tools to assist us in living our spiritual values. When approached as a way of life, The Twelve Steps of Personal Transformation can be a way to realize our Unity in God and with each other.

Please join me on Sunday morning at 10:00 as we explore in greater depth how making amends helps to free us and bring us into the remembered state of conscious wholeness.