12 traditions Archives - Journey In Principles

Diversity is needed but it’s not new.

In today’s climate, the words diversity and inclusion are quickly becoming commonplace. Today’s prominent companies are actively seeking diversity in the workplace.

Applying Tradition One to everyday life. Our common Welfare first.

12 Step recovery fellowships have been implementing a path to awareness, acceptance, and action towards a diverse culture for decades. Along with the 12 Steps, there are the not so popular 12 Traditions. But without them, none of the 12 Step Programs would be around what they are today.

The Traditions are the active part of “applying principles in All of our affairs.”

They protect the members, groups, and entire fellowship from both outside strifes, and more importantly, the internal conflict of the member’s egos, biases, and insecurities.

The awesome truth about Change, pain is optional.

"There is no pain in Change, there is only pain in the resistance to change." Click To Tweet

Whenever I think of change, I think of my dad. The first time I ever heard this saying was in 1988. I had been out of my house for a little while. I had about three years, clean and sober. At the time, I was only 18. I was homeless, and I ended up having to move in with my dad for the first time.

Struggle comes from trying to change others instead of self.

When the decision came for me to move in with him. One of the things that he said was, “there is no pain in change. There’s only pain in the resistance to change.” And it has stuck with me ever since.

I can recall a time when I had hurt a young lady that I had been dating. I had never been much on talking about my past. My focus has always been on moving forward. I’m not afraid of my past, that’s just me. But there was something from my past, that she found out about, that hurt her. And I remember saying to someone, with tears in my eyes, “I know that there is no pain in change, but damn it, I want to resist this change.” And I meant it.

PaulDavid

Spiritual Freedom comes from Unconditional Surrender.

None of these Principles become Spiritual until they become Unconditional.

On a spiritual level, I could not surrender completely until that Surrender or “waving of the white flag” became unconditional. I had to get to where I was not looking for anything else in return. And I can say, “I give, I surrender. Period.” The way I learned to surrender this way was through the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions of recovery—specifically, the 2nd Step and Tradition.

I was not about to surrender anything until “I came to believe” what I was surrendering too.

When you read the 12 Steps of recovery, you can see that Step Two states that we “came to believe in a power greater than ourselves that ‘could’ restore us to sanity.” Doesn’t say “would” it doesn’t say “will.” It clearly says, “could.” The reason for this is because we have to do something. We have to do our part. What we have to do is learn to surrender.