A New Beginning, working the Twelve Steps as a Taoist

I’m reading The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff. It’s a wonderful dialog between the author and the characters of the Winnie the Pooh series by A.A. Milne. While reading, I kept comparing the Tao and Te to the Twelve Steps. I’m beginning to understand Te as the strength that becomes available to me when I live in harmony with that Way. How do those ideas fit what I am learning in Alcoholics Anonymous?

I’m trying to view my own recovery through the lens of Taoism. These are my observations. I still have questions.

Accepting what I cannot change

My Step One is accepting that I am an alcoholic. I cannot change that. I can spend my life fighting it, or I can accept it and learn how to live.

That acceptance is where my Way begins.

And here is what I mean by gaining Te. I gain strength when I stop wasting energy fighting the things I cannot change. My strength becomes greater because I’m no longer wasting it in that struggle.

How much te have I wasted, trying to make something different when it simply cannot be different? How much te have I spent fighting the fact that I am an alcoholic?

When I accept, that struggle can stop. There is strength in accepting the truth.

Giving it over

Step Two is believing that my Higher Power can do what I cannot do for myself. Step Three is giving my will and my life over to that Higher Power.

For me, that surrender is part of following the Tao. Just as I can allow my Higher Power to take care of the things I cannot solve by exerting my own will, I can stop trying to force an answer.  And so I can begin to experience wu wei, living without forcing.

There is still work for me to do. The next Steps ask me to look at myself, admit my wrongs, and make things right where I can. I do not have to control everything for that to happen. The strength I used to spend fighting these things can become strength for doing.

Feeling it again

Personally, Step Four is about resentment. I think of it as resentir, the French for “Feeling again something I have felt before”.

Something happened in the past. I felt it then; now I feel it again. “Re-” has two meanings: to do again and to make stronger. Maybe I feel these things more strongly the second time around. I have had time to think about them, add to them, and carry them around as my personal baggage. These feelings can become more dangerous because they still affect what I do today.

So I write those things down and put them away. I write my personal inventory down on paper.

I’m not closing the door on them. I’m putting them where they won’t keep hurting me. They are there if I need to look at them again. But I do not need to keep living them. They don’t deserve the space in my head or the mental gymnastics I go through to maintain them.

I also need to look at what I did. What was my part? Where did I cause harm? Writing down what happened gives me a chance to see my own foolishness, my hurt, and my fears.

My past child

If the past is a teacher, the past is a child. Benjamin Hoff said, “The wise are Children Who Know.”

We were young and foolish when we were drinking. Now is the time, in recovery, to let our past child show us our foolishness and teach us the Way.

I can look back at that childish person and learn from him. I can see what he did not understand. I can see where he was afraid, where he wanted control, and where his choices hurt other people.

But those were not that child’s choices. Those were my choices. I cannot change them now. However, I can take responsibility for them and let them teach me how to live today.

I don’t have to keep punishing that child to learn from him.

Sharing what I find

Then comes Step Five. Sharing these things with my Higher Power and another human being.

How would I do that as a Taoist? I think it begins with telling the truth about what I found. Letting someone else hear it. Allowing another person to help me see those pieces, that perspective I might still be missing.

I can put the things away without locking them away. I can let someone know what I have been carrying.

Getting ready. Asking God.

Steps Six and Seven leave me with more questions.

Getting ready for my defects to be removed. Asking God to remove my shortcomings. What does that mean through this way of thinking?

Maybe getting ready means becoming willing to let go. I may recognize a resentment and still want to keep it. I may recognize my need for control and still believe I need it. Why do I need to keep reliving this pain and fear?

Am I ready to let it go?

And asking my Higher Power means admitting, again, that I cannot do everything by my own will. I have already experienced a change I could not force into being. Can I become willing to allow change in the rest of my life?

So I practice: listening when I want to dominate, admitting uncertainty when I want to appear right, allowing another person to make their own choices. Using my understanding of Te, Six is becoming willing to stop spending strength defending this pattern. Seven is accepting help and allowing a different way of living to take shape. Neither requires knowing in advance exactly how the change will happen.

Living in the Victory

I wondered whether drinking itself could be the Way. Isn’t that the easiest path? Why fight the urge to drink? Taoism teaches me to allow the Way. But when I think about it again, I find that stepping aside and letting the water flow is, in fact, the shortest, easiest path. Wouldn’t trying to stop something go against the Way? I’m not spending each day fighting it. Wu wei doesn’t mean following whichever impulse offers immediate relief. It means acting without unnecessary force. Drinking might feel easy in a moment while making life increasingly difficult. And living life in that victory has become the Way. AA has given me a spiritual experience that has lifted the urge to drink from my life. Taoism has given me a new light in which to view that life.

That brings me back to where I started. I gain strength by ceasing to fight the things I cannot change. I accept that I am an alcoholic. I give my will and my life over to my Higher Power. I look at my past and allow it to teach me.

I’m beginning to see the Steps again through Tao and Te. There is more to explore. This is a new beginning. There are more steps, and there is more Te to be realized.