Setting Aside Willfulness

What matters is that we set aside our willfulness. I keep returning to this phrase because willfulness is my default setting. Not just wanting things to go a certain way but insisting they must. Not just having preferences but demanding reality conform to my vision of how things should be.

I've spent time distinguishing between will and willfulness. Having a will isn't the problem – it's how I use it that matters. My will can be a tool for good when I align it with my Higher Power's guidance. But my willfulness – that rigid insistence that I'm right and everyone else must change to match my perspective – that's what Step Three asks me to release.

The determination to be right is perhaps the most seductive form of willfulness. It feels so justified so reasonable. Of course I'm right about how the alcoholic should change. Of course I'm right about what my family needs. But this determination to be right keeps me locked in conflict unable to see other perspectives or accept outcomes different from what I've decided must happen.

Setting aside willfulness doesn't mean having no opinions. It means holding them lightly being willing to be wrong staying open to wisdom I haven't yet considered.

Today I can practice holding my opinions lightly staying open to perspectives beyond my own.