The step 10 is about principled living because it asks that when one is wrong to promptly admit it. This is about expecting you to take action rather then sit with uncomfortable feelings and situations.
Therefore, we look at being pro-active and not re-active. In being pro-active we can use all our senses to help us. We can be sensitive, we can see and hear with our eyes, ears, intuition and care. To be pro-active can also be about living with the intention of compassion and principle which can then guide what we hear and see. To be re-active is like acting out emotionally and going into old ways of behaving and thinking.
The writer and organisational expert Steven Covey speaks a lot about principled based life in work and how to treat each other. This is an application that is so useful in relation to life outside work .
Covey “People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day will little by little expand that freedom”. ” People who do not will find that it wither’s until they are literally being lived”. In other words they are acting out the scripts written by parents, associates and society.
The word exercise is about maintaining a process which is about freedom from “stuff”. This is about addiction and the cycle of destruction and isolation if you don’t maintain recovery. This is about script and going into old feelings thoughts and behaviours that relate to dysfunctional old patterns of survival.
Whatever way this exercise of embryonic freedom works for the individual is significant for a principled way of life that has many benefits. The main one is being free from script “stuff” “painful old patterns”. “dysfunctional survival strategies”, “painful relations” and much more.
However, to keep on a different path does require priority, commitment, maintaining, being willing and believing that this is the best option. The best option for living life with freedom, joy and principle. The best option for living life and not just acting out script processes which will eventually hook into addiction.