x2 Step 111 – Journal Step 110 - I will be honest with myself today.

Today: Step 111 - Today I will be at ease. (MP3)

Today I will be at ease. Step 111

BE AT EASE TODAY KNOWING THAT KNOWLEDGE IS WITH YOU, knowing that your Teachers are with you and knowing that your Spiritual Family is with you. Let not anxieties or the burden of concern take you away from your practice today.

AS YOU MOVE THROUGH THE DAY, practicing upon the hour, remind yourself to be at ease, for Knowledge is your guide now. If it is untroubled, you need not be troubled. Release yourself from habitual preoccupations, from habitual bondage. Strengthen your resolve to do this and it will become easier in time. Then it will happen all by itself most naturally. Your mind has habits of thought. That is all they are. As they are replaced with new habits, Knowledge will begin to shine through the structure that you have imposed upon it. Here Knowledge will begin to shine forth, to guide your actions, to lead you to insight  and important discovery and to give you a greater strength and certainty than you have ever known.

IN YOUR HOURLY PRACTICES, therefore, utilize your self-discipline on your own behalf. In your two meditation practices, remain very alert but with a still mind.

PRACTICE 111: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Picture:  Art museum Glasgow, Scotland.

From the journal Step 110 - I will be honest with myself today.

8:05 a.m. Thursday, December 7, 2000 – Last night I forgot to call Mom on her birthday – preoccupied with work and the kids. Today, for S2K, I am to be simple, real – appraise myself of my true relationships.

5:38 p.m. To be honest with myself, the Commission is not the place from which I can launch my vision. The PD members of the network are fish in the water. They don't see the value of the water – the boundaries of the pool. I am seeking/waiting for a solution(s) to appear.

6:13 p.m. Preparing for the second practice. Spent 8 minutes looking at email. The communitarian dialogue item I submitted got some feedback… don't know if this list is worth any time. Has the Internet helped me? I think it is a way for me to test ideas, though getting a product is still the greatest challenge. I know the vision is true, it is a difficult topic to have emerge. I will persist. An earlier focus on my pillars would put me in better shape now. That's honest – so I've somehow got to balance all this stuff. I thought I was following Spirit and that Holy Spirit would provide. I guess H.S. – does not provide and I made some errors, among them getting to angry and burning out.

10:33 p.m. I will be honest with myself today. The narrative. I've over eaten – am watching VH1 and distracted. David called – Mom called. Prayers for all.

Music/entertainment/media/creating – that's what I liked, that's not what I did. Was it fear, early marriage, illusions of saving the world with planning, the inability to end the marriage, the spiritual search – what brought me to where I am, who I am, what I do?

11:28 p.m. About 40 minutes ago I realized that yesterday, December 6 – marked 20 years since M.E. Left. I'm still in the same house. I can see her walking out the door – what a strange life it has been and so it remains. Sarah may always need help in this unkind world. David – is maturing I think.

Many errors along the way. The consequence of living isolated – committed to work.

The Steps says "I will try to be exactly where I am today."

Where I feel I am is at the middle, but I don't know "of what!" Will the future be up, down or both – simultaneously.

The Step Friday – 111 is "Today I will be at ease." That is a precursor to the end where the steps lead one to be "at home" here on earth. That is a sense I need again – and not surprising – is taught later.

                                     Amen & Amen –

Honesty is not fun, but it is necessary. It is difficult to take the honesty of others, when directed at us. Can we take it from ourselves? There are somethings we don’t write down, but even those can be, I think dealt with in Steps. Let us continue.

NNC

Note: If you’ve some interest due to this or other Steps, you should go to the beginning blog post. From here you will learn about Steps to Knowledge and can begin it on the day that makes sense; then progress as needed. You can use the posts on this blog as a companion if it helps. They will remain in order in the archives - one post per Step.

Often it takes 18 months to get through the Steps once. For this blog, the pace is one-a-day, but it really makes no difference how fast you do it, only that you begin, persist and repeat. Posts here provide a trail that may let you have a virtual companion when and if you want one. One may have to study alone, as I did in the beginning. There are other Steps students blogging their experience and you might find a person more like you as a companion, or use a number of such Steps journeys. There are options as well through the Free School of the New Message.