12 Steps Spiritual Awakening-Guidelines for Major Inner Shift
In this post, I am going to elaborate the 12 steps spiritual awakening process that has been used by a large number of people who seek spiritual advancement.
There is one misconception that has been persisting in our society from a very long time that the 12 steps is only meant for people who want to recover from alcoholic addiction; this false information resists a lot of people from getting the amazing benefits that this process could offer in treating any kind of other addictions or to solve problems, which could bring a great spiritual transformation.
Here I am going to discuss the 12 steps for spiritual transformation with you here in the simplest way possible as I have understood it:-
Step-1:- This is about being true to oneself and facing the problem rather than denying it. When we have an addiction whether it is alcohol, drugs, gambling, over eating or even a person on whom we are too much dependent in life to be happy, we usually deny that we are addicted and in doing so we are actually fooling ourselves so, the first step asks you to accept your problem.
Step-2:-Here, you are encouraged to build hope because without hope a person is completely powerless as a person would have tried a lot to solve the problem by himself this step asks him to seek help from something outside of himself(generally it is from the therapist or the group).
Step-3:-In this step a person is asked to generate a strong faith in the process he is following and to do it willingly, as without faith nothing works.
Step-4:-An individual is asked to have the courage to face himself here and to take a honest look at himself by doing a self assessment on what he is doing to his life with the unchangeable behavior that he has been following.
Step-5:-After the self examination, a person here is asked to take complete responsibility of what he has become. This step requires an individual to be completely honest about everyplace where he has been lacking.
Step-6:-This step is about your willingness to change the behaviors that you have now recognized (using the above steps) which were responsible to create problems in your life, here you have to let go of the old habits that were causing you to be someone whom you don’t like.
Step-7:-A person has to forgive himself to come out of any kind of addiction, so here you are encouraged to seek help for changing the old behaviors.
Step 8:-In order to reach any goal it is essential to clear all the hindrances in the path. So, here one has to make a list of everyone and everything that could drag you back to the place where you were earlier, by doing this you can keep a distance from all of them until you have completely recovered.
Step-9:-Forgiveness is something that our ego considers to be an act of boosting up the ego of the other person, but the internal effect of it is actually quite different. By asking someone’s forgiveness you may feel a little low in front of them however unconsciously you are doing an act that generates kindness inside you, it is actually something beneficial for your own self. So, in step 9 you ask forgiveness of those whom you have hurt intentionally or unintentionally with your old behaviors.
Step-10:-With the practice of all the previous steps a person could develop enough maturity to accept himself and others for who they are; hence here a person is asked to be in harmony with himself and others by dropping all his judgments about people and situation.
Step-11:-By practicing the processes properly a person could develop himself to a level that he could know his purpose in life and follow it without getting distracted by anything. This step asks you to be aware of your prime focus in life always and to take the right steps always to make the progress.
Step-12:-The final step is to live by the principles that have caused your spiritual growth so that you could lead others by being a good example. You can now help people who are in need as an act of gratitude.
So, these were the twelve steps as I have understood them. I believe that they could really help people who are seeking spiritual transformation, but in my opinion these twelve steps can give you a very good start, however the real journey begins after the twelve steps.
If you are a person who is in a good emotional state most of the time and in peace with your own mind then I suggest you to take more advanced steps for your personal growth.
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