In this Day 4, Step 3 segment of a 12‑step recovery course, the instructor guides learners through the third step—deciding to turn one’s will and life over to a higher power—while offering secular reframes and concrete practices. She acknowledges discomfort with the word “God” and suggests rephrasing the step as turning stressors over to the “universe,” “Tao,” or any personal belief system. A central ritual is the creation of a “universe box” (or God/Tao box) where participants write down daily worries they are gripping onto and physically place the paper in the box, accompanied by an intention or prayer. The talk distinguishes belief (static, intellectual) from faith (active, trusting) using Alan Watts’ ideas, emphasizing that faith involves the action of turning over control. The Serenity Prayer is unpacked into a flowchart decision‑making tool that asks whether a situation is controllable, then guides the learner to either set boundaries, adapt, or accept. Mindfulness is presented as non‑judgmental awareness that helps notice when one is gripping and enables the “turn it over” response. The instructor links Step 2 (forming a belief in a higher power) to Step 3 (acting on that belief) and previews the next task—Step 4’s written inventory—inviting participants to share questions in the course classroom.
Chapters
Welcome back to Day 4, Step 3. Step 3 in the 12 steps is, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God. Now bear with me. If this resonates and you're feeling like, oh wow, yeah, that sounds good, great. Go with that. But if you are like many people who bristle with the word God or have your own religious connotations and experiences that create a barrier, please know that you are not alone. The way that we can reframe this step by changing the language just a bit is, made a decision To turn my stressors and pains over to the universe, or whatever it is you believe in, right? So for me, I think about what am I gripping onto and how do I let go? When I first worked the twelve steps, my very first sponsor had me make a God box. You can call it a universe box or a. Tao box, but this step can feel really abstract, and making this box was a way to make it a little more tangible. And so we'll call my box a universe box. And my sponsor encouraged me to physically write one thing down every day that I needed to let go of but was gripping onto, and then place that piece of paper into my universe box. and either set an intention, say a prayer, whatever it is that works for you, that resonates with you. Because we can think all we want, I gotta let this go, and then we keep thinking about it and holding it and gripping it. And so creating a bit of a ritual around not only identifying, oh, this is something I need to turn over, And also physically doing it can be really powerful. I will use the term turn it over all the time in probably the rest of this course and in my normal life is, oh, you know, I'm feeling financial scarcity. I have to turn it over. Or I'm really struggling with watching, uh, you know, one of my family members in so much pain and I have to turn it over. It doesn't mean that I stop caring. It doesn't take away my humanity. But what it does is provide me with a near-constant reminder to come back to what it is I believe in. And this is the spirituality of 12-step programs and starting to incorporate, you know, instead of just feeling connected to the universe or my spiritual beliefs in my morning practice, how can I bring this into the rest of my day and the rest of my waking life. I recently read an Alan Watts book called The Wisdom of Insecurity, and he's pretty controversial, but he makes the point of the differences between belief and faith. So in step 2, we're looking at our beliefs. What do I believe in? Do I believe in the natural power of the universe? Do I believe in A specific deity? Do I believe in God? Do I believe in karma? I mean, what are my beliefs? And beliefs are great and can change and can shift and flow. Belief doesn't necessarily require action. This is the point that Alan Watts made. Belief can feel static, like, yeah, I know I believe in that, but that doesn't do anything for me. Faith is so much more about action and choosing to turn over the things that you are trying to manage and control over to that thing that you believe in. And faith that you will be taken care of, that you will be okay, that this is the only reality there is, because that's just a fact. I have a short video called Reality as It Is, and it's about how, to me, this is very Third Step related. There's reality exactly as it is, and reality how I want it to be. And when I'm projecting reality how I want it to be onto reality as it is, I suffer. And that teacher I mentioned earlier, Charles Friedli, I heard him say in one of his courses, that we constantly have a choice: accept and adapt, or resist and suffer. You may be familiar with the Serenity Prayer. Help me to— God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change— accept and adapt— courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. You can see it as like a serenity flowchart. So here is the activating event, a person in your life or something going on. Can I change this is the first question, yes or no? If the answer is no, how can I set boundaries? How can I turn it over? How can I adapt? And if the answer is yes, how can I set boundaries? How can I turn it over? How can I adapt? But first, we need to look at: Do I have control here? So like, if it's raining, do you have control over that? No, no, you don't. Can I accept it? What is in the way between me and acceptance? And so the third step really connects us to the wisdom of trusting and having faith in our beliefs. Step three pulls on step two. If step 2 is came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, step 3 is made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of that thing that we believe in. And so what does that look like? Mindfulness is nonjudgmental awareness of what is. So when I'm gripping and controlling and trying to manage, can I just notice that I'm doing it? Say, oh yeah, okay, where does the universe fit in with this? Can I take a deep breath and put it down? Can I turn it over? Now I could talk about step 3 for probably hours, but I am being mindful of keeping these sessions relatively short because I'm packing a lot of information into a course. So again, if you have questions or you want to share some of your experiences, please, please, please put them in the course classroom. And in step 3, remember, what am I holding on to that I would like to make a decision to let go of? And if you're really doing a step 3, the main next action is going right into step 4, which is a written inventory. And I'm going to give you the instructions on just how to do that. So remember, what am I trying to hold on to, and can I turn it over? Help me to turn it over. I'll see you tomorrow.
