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AWG Secular 12 Step Self-Esteem Group 🚀


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Zoom access and meeting times Meeting description Workbook Readings
Zoom access and meeting times

Meetings are every Tuesday from 11 am to 12 pm Eastern US Time. See Meeting Time in a Different Time Zone (normal calendar)

ALERT: The US time change on March 8 means meeting times may temporarily differ for members outside the US. Double check your time zone here!


* Zoom link not working? Search the meeting ID below in the Zoom meeting database and then use the code to sign in: 

Meeting ID: 824 1142 4876
Code: 781927


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Meeting description

This is a secular 12 Step meeting focused on self-esteem recovery for late-identified autistic women and members of all other marginalized genders (nonbinary, gender fluid, MTF/FTM trans, agender, autigender, and more). 

We meet each Tuesday on Zoom, practice the AWG 12 Steps using the AWG 12 Step Workbook, share in response to weekly readings, and participate in the optional co-mentorship program if we so desire. 

It is not mandatory to turn on your mic or camera. Coming to listen is totally fine. By taking part, we hold space for others, and ourselves, to participate in a way that is manageable for us as we exist right now.

It is not necessary to actively be doing the AWG 12 Steps in order to be a full participant. Any contact with the group and its resources can be beneficial as long as it’s sustainable for each of us as individuals. Many of us participate simply by attending meetings.

As we participate in this meeting over time, we might find ourselves seeking to…

  • Find our own concept of self-esteem and grow toward it
  • Come to discover a more realistic sense of our place in the world
  • Reassess our relationships, especially in terms of our responsibilities towards ourselves and others
  • Come to understand personal boundaries, their roles in our lives, and how to develop and maintain healthy boundaries
  • Understand the concept of nonviolent detachment and how and when to enact it
  • Develop more manageable lifestyles
  • Develop a sense of self that leads to more health, well being, and manageability in our lives
  • Release others from the responsibility of defining or reinforcing our sense of self-esteem
  • Form personal goals about self-esteem and self-concept based on our own understanding of our own needs, as they exist today

AWG 12 Step Self-Esteem Readings

Hyper-empathy and self-esteem

Tuesday, April 7, 2026

My hyper-empathy has some effects on my self-esteem

Like many of the high-masking, I have hyper-empathy. If I'm talking to someone, whether in person, in a video call, on the phone, by text message, email, or on an internet forum, I'm sensitive to what tone, word choice, and body language mean for the person's feelings. And, because I myself have struggled much in life with many kinds of challenging feelings, I can easily, often times too easily, find myself standing in the other person's emotional shoes.

I've known this about myself for a while. But recently, working on Step 9 and examining the idea of connection between myself, other individuals, and communities made me realize that my hyper-empathy has some effects on my self-esteem.

First of all, the fact that I'm picking up so much information on other people's feelings while other people aren't makes me feel out of step with others.

Second, I'm often not in a position to do anything about the information I'm picking up, which makes me feel helpless, like I'm not creative enough, or I'm letting the other person down (when they haven't even asked me for anything to begin with!)

Third, the fact that other people don't seem to be picking up as much information about me makes me feel "less than" for not being worthy of their notice or attention, even when I know that most people don’t have the capacity I do, either for the "detecting feelings" part of hyper-empathy or the "empathy" part. It wouldn't be reasonable for me to hold them to that standard, but unless I'm paying attention, sometimes I still do.

Share questions:

  • Do you experience hyper-empathy? Does it have any influence on your self-esteem? Please describe. 
  • Whether you have hyper-empathy or not, do ever find you take on too much of other people's emotional or psychological burdens? Does it affect your self-esteem? 
  • This share describes hyper-empathy with individuals, but is there a parallel in your life with groups: sensing the group mood and maybe taking it upon yourself? Something else?
  • Any tools, strategies, or resources to share?
  • Anything else to add?
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AWG 12 Step Self-Esteem Workbook

Step 1

We admitted that despite our efforts, many of the factors affecting our sense of self and self-esteem seemed out of control, leading to increased unmanageability in our lives.

Step 2

Coming Soon

Step 3

Coming Soon

Step 4

Coming Soon
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