Spiritual Principles—Courage

12-step recovery programs frequently use the term spiritual principles.  To the best of my knowledge, the term is not well-defined in the official literature.  Many terms and euphemisms are bandied about, but there is no one place providing an all-encompassing definition.

Unofficially, there are various lists made by member correlating a trait with each step.   The following list is commonly used:

Step:  Spiritual Principle

1.      Honesty             

2.      Hope                 

3.      Faith                  

4.      Courage             

5.      Integrity            

6.      Willingness                    

7.      Humility            

8.      Brotherly Love              

9.      Justice               

10.     Perseverance                

11.     Spirituality                   

12.     Service             

                       

As I wrote four days ago, I am now using this list as a topic-guide for hand-writing a page each night before I type this Gratitude blog post.  Tonight I wrote about courage.  I am all too often overwhelmed by fear that causes me to balk on taking right-action.   I can trace this back to early childhood and my family of origin when no matter what I did, it was either wrong or not good enough.

Doing nothing is vastly more wrong that doing something wrong.   Today I am working on baby steps of taking right action to live a better life.

I am grateful for living a more spiritual existence these days and for what courage I do have in taking right-action.