Step 6: Entirely Ready

“Some have called the Sixth and Seventh Steps the ‘forgotten Steps’ because they aren’t talked about that much. Others have called these Steps the most important. Perhaps the whole program is about Six and Seven.” (Drop The Rock, p.xv)

My sponsor impressed upon me early in our work together the quiet power of Steps 6 and 7, the literal “heart” of the 12 steps. Sandwiched, like a semi-serene valley, between the painful peaks of 4/5 (fearless moral inventory) and 8/9 (making amends to those we’d harmed). “Semi,” as regards serenity, because – while they’ve come to represent for me this centered heart/soul space as the fundamental spiritual practice in my life – Step 6 is a day-by-day, minute-by-minute even, “lifetime job” (as Bill Wilson, co-founder of AA puts it in 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, p.65), Making myself “entirely ready,” it turns out, takes effort, and, as Richard Rohr suggests, it’s “a lot of work to get out of the way and allow that grace to fully operate and liberate.” (Breathing Underwater, p.52) 

“That grace,” because while 6 is undoubtedly hard work, we live in the paradox of fully committing to it while simultaneously fully believing that it’s only by humbly asking our Higher Power, in Step 7, that we can experience the mercy to be freed of our defects/shortcomings. Freed to then be more available for the source/path/destination of this human journey: Love. As Rohr puts it, Step 6 “recognizes that we have to work to see our many resistances, excuses, and blockages, but then we have to fully acknowledge that God alone can do the ‘removing’! But which should come first, grace or responsibility? The answer is that both come first.” (BU, p. 52)

And I guess the hard work of becoming “entirely ready” connotes for me the willingness (vs. willfulness), discussed in Step 2, as the stance that offers the least resistance to being overtaken by the Love/Grace that surrounds us. Becoming willing (“this brand new venture into open-mindedness”, 12X12, p68) implies that sweet surrender to reality as it is, not as we willfully want it to be (the latter again reflecting our universal human addiction to control).

As Bill Wilson gently prompts: “We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable.” (AA, p.76) Becoming willing to let go of the defects that have defined us often arises when “the pain of living the way I have been becomes greater than the fear of change.” (Rock, p. 3) As Rami Shapiro puts it, we believe that “without these character flaws, we would have no character at all” and “because we cannot know who [we] will be, we are afraid to let go of who we have been.” (Recovery–The Sacred Art, p. 92) More generously, Drop The Rock suggests that “defects of character are our best attempts to get our needs met. They have saved our lives. My problem was one of ignorance; I didn’t know what my basic human needs were and therefore didn’t know how to meet them” (p.5). Again, addiction not as the problem, but as the wrong solution to our problem. The problem?

“The hole in me, the neediness, the hunger, the ache in my life that I tried to fill or stay distracted from by using addictive behavior [which] is actually the perfectly logical result of not knowing and therefore not accepting myself as I am.” (Rock, p. 5) And by accepting ourselves as we are, our True Self, we exhibit a “Willingness and honesty to try repeatedly […] to grow in the image and likeness of [our] own Creator.” (12X12, p.63)

And this growth – by we, the created, toward our creator – is, I’d suggest, our very purpose here on planet earth. As Gerald May boldly states, “our creation is by love, in love and for love. It is both our birthright and our authentic destiny to participate fully in this creative loving, and freedom of will is essential for our participation to occur.” (Addiction and Grace, p.13) Or, as Richard frames it, “God is humble and never comes if not first invited, but God will find some clever way to get invited.” (BU, p.57)

Now, entirely ready for our invitation to this Love, next month we “humbly ask.”