The WHOLE doughnut ...

Originally uploaded by beebo wallace
Part of my starting my morning today was reading Step 3. I feel like I can always learn something from each step, and this one in particular. A revelation happened for me when I looked at these particular lines in a new way: "If I keep on turning my life and my will over to the care of Something or Somebody else, what will become of me? I'll look like the hole in the doughnut."

It hit me reading this line and the connection to our Impersonal Movement practice in Kabbalistic healing. The doughnut is not the doughnut without both the dough and the hole. I related it to my work with empty/full. Both are needed to exist.

In Step 3, the fear of looking like the hole in the doughnut is a story our ego tells us about losing ourselves, losing control. In Step 3, this is how resistance arises in not wanting to let go of self-will. That to actually turn our will over to G-d would be to become invisible, a non-entity, like the hole in the doughnut. The hole in the doughnut, however, is as crucial to the WHOLE doughnut as the dough.

So it makes total sense in Step 3, this line is there so that we understand that our resistance and our fearfulness that has us holding onto our self-will is just as vital a part of this step as turning our will over to G-d. Because, afterall, the "action" in this step is really about the will we hold onto (self-will) and the actual turning it over to G-d (now it becomes G-d's will). Both aspects are needed for this step to be taken.

To be in and feel the fullness of my life (the dough), I need to experience the tenderness of the empty (the hole). My missing and my longing and my unmet desires make up the hole. My taking the plunge into meeting people, being part of groups like AA, accepting social invitations and extending myself in friendship and service are the dough. Both are absolutely needed. It is hitting me this morning in a way that I've not been able to take it in thus far. I feel the "collapse" of the nesting opposites. All-or-nothing thinking does not have a place to live here.

I want the WHOLE doughnut.