Agnostic 12 Steps
Cognitive Dissonance 101 Coming!!!
As someone who had a history of religious trauma which was one of the major reasons I was led into EA 12 Steps, I found it very difficult when I was faced with Step 3: “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
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I’ve decided to turn that around so that this can work for me, which is that the set of values and beliefs and principles I live by (love, patience, understanding, service, respecting others etc) … as defined by ME is the way I’m going to go.
Reason being, I have defined a “God of my own understanding” only to constantly be questioned if I actually follow God at all by fundamental evangelical Christians. Which has given me extreme cognitive dissonance because of this.
This is why I’ve decided, I don’t think I need to continue to define a HP or God in the same way as others. And considering the further I try to understand what God MEANS, I realize that it doesn’t align with what someone else means whatsoever.
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So I’m thinking that, as much as I love reading the Bible, my definition of that Bible is interpreted completely differently than what someone else might interpret. Which makes me think, I’d rather agree on more general ideas / principles that Jesus would express (the Jesus of my understanding), rather than conforming to God of my understanding under a specific denomination.
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As taken from Agnostic 12 Steps
We admitted we were powerless over (insert problem)—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe and to accept that we needed strengths beyond our awareness and resources to restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to entrust our will and our lives to the care of the collective wisdom and resources of those who have searched before us.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to ourselves without reservation, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were ready to accept help in letting go of all our defects of character.
With humility and openness sought to eliminate our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Sought through meditation to improve our spiritual awareness and our understanding of the (the 12 step group’s) way of life and to discover the power to carry out that way of life.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to (other people with the same issue, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
