12 Steps to Spiritual Recovery

Step 6

I accept that I do not need more possessions and positions of power to complete or fulfill my soul.

The Complete Soul

I accept that I do not need more possessions and positions of power to complete or fulfill my soul.

This step requires mindful consideration. Step 5 affirmed that our desire to be more is the activity of God seeking greater expression through us. Step 6 seems to be saying that we should not desire to have and be more, that what we are is enough, and we should learn to be happy with it. However, this step has less to do with possessions and accomplishments and more to do with motivation. If we are attempting to fill an inner void with things, then nothing we accomplish in this ever-changing world will satisfy for long.

The notion that we are already complete at the soul level runs counter to most of our religious, spiritual, and secular training. Religion says our completeness depends on whether we are saved. Spiritual teachings tend to hang our hopes on the achievement of a more evolved soul. And the world of economics has given most of us the unflattering designation of consumer.

An important step in our spiritual recovery is to rethink ourselves, not from the basis of our material needs and desires, but from our spiritual foundation. Jesus recognized that our heavenly Father knows we have need of material things, and these should not be denied. But there is a deeper spiritual grounding required to experience a more wholistic balance between body and spirit.

This is the rock of Jesus’ oft quoted house on rock and house on sand parable. Bedrock is solid and, relatively speaking, unchanging. If we are seeking to strengthen our worldly position through material means, we may not have touched our center of power, which manifests as true strength. This is the strength of knowing the truth of our being, the truth that our spiritual essence is at this moment a pure expression of God and is in lack of nothing.

As we take time to meditate on this truth and, more importantly, allow it to rise into our awareness as knowing, we will naturally accept that we do not need more possessions and positions of power to complete or fulfill our soul. We are complete already.