Jim Michael

Step 8 of Empowerment Call, Day 23!

We make a list of people we have harmed, and, people who have harmed us, and take steps to clear out the negative energy by making amends and sharing our grievances in a respectful way.

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Step 7 is a step of willingness, and this step says that: We become willing to let go of shame, guilt, and any behavior that keeps us from loving ourSelves and others.

Are you willing to release the pain of these emotions and experiences?

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Step 6, Day 21, and affirming and enjoying our strengths, talents and creativity, striving not to hide these qualities to protect others egos.

That’s the step! Affirming our skills, talents, strengths. This step competes with the religious messages that we may have heard in which we’re not to “be proud,” and, it also competes with the societal messages of “You’re going to make people feel bad,” or “You’re boasting!” and the like. To add to these messages is the person who IS skilled and talented,  and comes off as a total prick! It’s the image of people who DO boast, who DO come off as arrogant and pretentious. The pathway to accepting and owning our skills, talents, etc.?

• To come from a mature place in consciousness wherein I genuinely accept my strengths, talents, skills and creativity.,
• I don’t think that I’m the only one with these qualities, and,
• I don’t put down those who don’t have these particular gifts. (Because they have other gifts).

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Day 20! We march, roll, and continue on. Step 5 of the 16 steps is what we talked about on our call today, and it was that:

We share with another person, ourselves, and the Universe all those things inside of us for which we feel shame and guilt.

This is a step of self acceptance, of releasing shame and guilt. Because when I share my shame and guilt with people who are free from judging us, then we can start releasing the judgment that we have on ourselves for whatever behavior, action or thought that we have that is troubling us.

On the call I encouraged first starting to share with YOU the things that evoke guilt and shame. Because when I fully accept within myself the shadows that I hold, then I can start to release my own pain.

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Reference Code #19

The Empowerment Call Continues! Today we’re on one of the harder steps, and one of the steps that really is a life long step.

It’s a step about examining our own lives from the point of view in which there are hierarchal, patriarchal and homophobic beliefs in the entire system in which we live. It asks us to start with idea that we aren’t wrong, and, maybe there are parts of the system that are. And maybe that’s part of the problem.

STEP 4: We examine our beliefs, compulsive, addictive, and, dependent behavior in the context of living in a hierarchal, patriarchal, homophobic culture.

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Reference Code #18

STEP 3: We make the decision to listen and to come from our authentic selves, and trust in the healing power of the truth.

In our call this morning, we talked about how we know something is coming from our authentic selves, and a bigger definition of truth.

Intuition, as one example, when unimpeded by the distracting thoughts that our egos and minds can have, is one of the ways to know that the authentic self is there and truth is happening.

The homework, very simply, is identifying a time in your life when you denied your truths and denied your intuition (your intuition or you truth, or both)

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Reference #17

My updated STEP 2: We come to realize that we come from a power greater than ourselves, and that power is within us.

The original STEP 2: We come to believe that God/Goddess/Universe/Great Spirit awakens the healing wisdom within us when we open ourselves to that power.

On the call I simply asked…when was there a time in your life that you experienced something bigger going on in your life?

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Reference Code #16

STEP 1: We affirm we have the power to take charge of our lives and stop being dependent on substance or other people for our self esteem and security.

Many, many people feel powerless. It’s a really uncomfortable experience to experience.

For some it’s so uncomfortable that they turn to sex, drugs, and other distraction. That’s why this Step is important. This step is about acknowledging  the areas in our lives where we do have power.

The question is…are you ready to start looking at where you do have power? Where you do have strengths? We all will experience ups and downs (as we’ll talk about later on). One of the keys to make our lives work is to focus on our strengths.

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Reference #15

STEP 15: We accept the ups and downs of life as natural events that can be used as lesson for our growth

STEP 16: We grow in awareness that we are interrelated with all living things, and we contribute to restoring peace and balance on the planet.

Step 15 is about accepting the ebbs and flows as natural. What can we learn from how we respond to the ebbs and flows?

Step 16 is for me, a place in my consciousness that I’ll naturally get to after I’ve cleared space in my consciousness that I can grasp this, so I’m not going to really push this.

Regarding the entire call today, we had our ups and our downs. At approximately 8:10 a.m., heading into talking about Step 16, the call crashed.  I thought it was my connection from my phone, so I tried back…I tried back 4x, but couldn’t get through.

By that time, it was after 8:15, and the opportunity to get back on the call was missed.

What I found out was that it wasn’t my connection, but the conference call line itself went down so we lost everybody. How ironic that we were talking about the ups and downs as a natural part of life!

The UP that occurred after this down was my connection to the tech support. She let me know that this entire line went down, they don’t know why, but, she gave me the information that I can pass onto you the next time something like this happens.

We’ve now also got a new phone number, new access codes, so that when the line goes down again, or just in case the line goes down again, we’ll have the new number, new access codes, and a customer service number that you can call to get back on the line.

Sorry for the dropped call!

Jim

STEP 14: We seek to find, and recognize, our inward calling, and develop the will and wisdom to follow it.