Even wrong motives and intentions can lead to good outcomes if I practice the principles of our Program in my life. I learned this lesson from a share at an AA meeting.
Our AA brother shared, “I had the world’s best sponsor. I worshiped him and wanted to be a spiritual giant, like him.
“To become a spiritual giant, I determined that I would first develop empathy, like my new hero.
“It was a bad start; envy was my motivation and expansion of ego, my intention.
“Secretly, I watched my sponsor and tried to imitate him. But empathy is an inside job; it was hard to tell how to be empathetic from the outside.
“I looked up the word; empathy was the ability to understand and share emotions. That was the first problem; I had no knowledge of emotions; therefore, I had no talent for empathy.
“But I tried my best. Imitating my sponsor, I projected my feelings onto others, mistaking the projection of my feelings for empathy. But I had a limited palette of emotions, only rage, arousal, and hunger. Not surprisingly, the projection of those feelings onto others who were nearby caused more confusion than empathy.”
We all laughed at the vision this created.
Our friend continued, “about this time and independently of my empathy experiment, my sponsor suggested that I work on a moral inventory. Wanting to please my spiritual hero, I dove into the work. I put pen to paper in the column that asked, ‘how did it affect me?’
“Working on this column, I began to see and understand my emotions.
“The inventory revealed knowledge of my feelings and emotions. I became aware of my almost constant sense of impending doom and grasped what was meant by envy. I saw that the root of my anger was fear. But there was some good news; I also became aware of the difference between affection and arousal.
“Shortly after I had completed my inventory, a client became angry. Normally I would have thought he was angry with me; after all, everything is about me. But as I watched and listened, I intuitively thought, “he is not angry with me; he is afraid that he is not going to look good.”
“It was my first intuitive experience of empathy and understanding.
“My self-centred and poorly intentioned desire to look like a spiritual giant, together with the discipline of a moral inventory, planted the seeds of knowledge of emotional understanding that led to a flash of empathy.
“By applying myself to the Program and doing a moral inventory, my selfish motives and prideful intentions were turned to good: I learned awareness of my emotions, which led to an ability to occasionally be empathetic.”
An outstanding share, a Program lesson.
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Excellent!
Nice !!
Sometimes you need the bad in order to want to change for the good… just the way it is