I'm in a step group that has been meeting for 10 years. I've participated for the last 5, sometimes joyfully, sometimes through clenched teeth, but showing up. Showing up and reflecting on how the Step for that month has manifested in my life. This practice, and it is practice, keeps me in the literature and helps me focus on the spiritual principles of our program as I go about my daily routines (& the not so routines).

One of our members said, in our Sunday gathering, that during December, she asks, "How has my life changed over this year? How have I changed?" Tears of gratitude hit me as I thought of the ways I am different today. 

A few years ago I threatened to have "PAUSE" tattooed on my forearm, and now that ability, while not automatic all of the time, is a part of who I am. For decades I tortured myself with a running "what if?!" disaster scenario that played in my head like a bad movie (the fantasy disaster shifting only slightly depending on my outer circumstances). I have developed the discipline to change the channel when I feel my mind drifting to the comfort of the painfully familiar. Both these shifts are huge for me, and seem to have simply happened.

In actuality, the "simply happened" of the pause, and "changing the channel" have taken years of recovery work - inventories, therapy, prayers, exposing my defects to the cold light of day. I've learned to meditate, and have been doing so for over a year now. My morning 3rd Step prayers involve turning over specifics, which I've found very helpful. I've asked Higher Power for a new experience, and I am having one. In all things, thinking of Steps 6 & 7, all I can really do is prepare myself to be changed, and then the miracle of healing takes place, though rarely on my time schedule.

Awakenings to a new way of being sometimes hit with a "BLAM!" I can tell you exactly where I was, and the circumstances involved, when the knowledge that my father's depression and alcoholism had nothing to do with me traveled from my head (intellect) to my heart (knowing). I can describe who said what and when, the moment I realized that recovery was a way of life, not a temporary fix. But even what feels like a sudden "ah ha" has usually involved sometimes years of preparation, though I may not have always been aware of the forces at work below the surface.

So, yes, the ending of one year invites reflection - where did I start out, and where am I now? What do I feel good about, and what can I learn from in order to do differently next time? How have I applied the Steps - the "practiced the principles in all my affairs" aspect of Step 12? I will say, as I near my 32nd anniversary, that I am right where I need to be, or as a friend says, "I want what I have." And that, my friends, is the greatest gift of all.

Blessings to you during this season, whatever it is that you celebrate (or don't). May your year end reflections bring more smiles than tears.  Until next time...