Daily Reprieve

From Courage to Change of Aug 08:

In Step Six I contemplate my life undergoing change – tremendous change. The great fear is this: If I shed many characteristics that stand in my way, what will be left? It is as though I face a great void, a terrifying unknown. Yet when I acknowledge how far I have come, I can see how much I want to change. The desire to grow and to heal has brought me to this uncomfortable point, because I am tired of the way I have been. My Higher Power is there to guide me when I am ready.

I find solace in the fact that in Step Six I need not change anything: I must simply prepare myself for change. I can take all the time I need. Such manageability is what I set out to find in the first place. Now it is a part of my life.

Today’s Reminder

I need not judge the rate at which I change old habits or ways of thinking. If I am uncomfortable with old behavior, then on some level I am already moving toward changing it. Change will not be effective unless I am ready for it. I need only trust that, when the time comes to move forward, I will know it.

“Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than increasing its speed. Let me look upward into the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well.” ~ Orin L. Crain

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NOTE: Orin L. Crain was an American writer of a well-loved inspirational prayer and poem known as “Slow Me Down, Lord”, penned around 1957. It’s a meditative plea for calm in a hurried world, including memorable lines like the one quoted above in Courage to Change.

There is a sacred pause between willingness and transformation—and that pause is Step Six. I stand here, on the trembling edge of change, not with a to-do list, but with a heart cracking open. I am not being asked to leap, only to want to leap. To prepare. To say, “Yes, I am willing… eventually.”

It’s humbling to realize how much fear still clings to the familiar—even when that familiarity is toxic. I’ve worn some of these defects like armor, others like masks. To set them down feels like disarming in a battlefield I’ve lived in for so long. Who will I be without them? There’s a void waiting, and it whispers not of death, but of birth.

That void is sacred. It’s not empty—it’s fertile. It’s where my Higher Power does the deep work.

I remember: I’ve come this far not by force, but by grace. Not by fixing, but by surrendering. It was my pain that brought me here, but it is my hope that keeps me here. Step Six asks me to trust the alchemy of readiness. That just noticing the discomfort in my old ways is already a sign that the new way is being born in me.

And I don’t have to rush it.

My pace is not a problem. My discomfort is not a failure. It is evidence. Proof that healing has begun.

I asked for manageability. Here it is: a Power greater than myself will carry the weight of change. All I must do is loosen my grip.

When I am ready, I will know.

And when I don’t know—I’ll wait.

That, too, is progress.

This entry was posted on June 21, 2025 at 3:33 am and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Addiction, Alcoholism, Courage to Change, Journal, Life, mental-health, Personal, Recovery, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.