11th Step Prayer & Meditation Meetings

For over a year now I have been attending a weekly prayer and meditation meeting where we practice centering prayer as our 11th step.  We share 20 minutes of this silent prayer followed by discussion of the book Divine Therapy and Addiction by Tom S. and Thomas Keating.  Both the silence and the discussion have added much insight into the spiritual nature of each of the 12 steps.

Silence and our thoughts (the discussion we hold with ourselves) also have a role to play in centering prayer. Some thoughts are ordinary thoughts, memories and workings of our imaginations while others can be thoughts, emotions or memories that we simply couldn't deal with at some point in our past and which have been stored in  our bodies and hidden in the dark corners of our minds. It has been the experience of many of us in the group that while we sit quietly in a safe and open environment we may become aware of some of these old thoughts and feelings that we just don't need anymore.  In the silence our higher power frees us from these obstacles to living happy, joyous and free.  We find that our higher power does for us what we cannot do for ourselves as we are not even aware of these hidden motives,feelings or memories.  We simply show up and shut up for awhile and give our higher power a little space and time in which to work in us.  While our part is to simply consent to the process  it is a vital part  which expresses our cooperation with and trust in our higher power's help and care for us as that we came to know in steps two and three.

In 1958 after many years of sobriety Bill W. wrote an article called "The Next Frontier - Emotional Sobriety" which he talks about becoming free of outrageous demands to control others and false emotional dependencies on other people, places and things for prestige, esteem and security. While many of us have experienced some moderation of our unreasonable desires for power and control, security and survival, and affection and esteem we realize we have further to go on the journey toward emotional sobriety.  Centering prayer as an 11th step practice is a vehicle that can help us on  our journey into the next frontier Bill writes about.

The group experience is essential to 12-step recovery programs and as I continue on this spiritual path of the 12 steps I have found yet another good type of meeting thanks to 12-Step Outreach.  I would be very much interested in hearing of your experience with centering prayer groups or other 11th step group experience.

Juli R.

Waterloo, IA