AWG Secular 12 Step Self-Esteem Group 🚀
Code: 781927
Meeting description
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 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
"Made a decision"
Before I knew I was autistic, I wasn't able to make decisions the way I can now.
For me, one of the most important phrases in our self-esteem 12 Steps is "made a decision". I found the phrase in two steps:
Step 3: Made a decision to initiate a process of letting go of some of these perceptions and to cultivate openness to new perceptions of ourselves.
and
Step 10: On the basis of our new knowledge, we made a decision to align our lives, relationships, and habits to what feels healthy, sustainable and manageable for us.
The reason I like "made a decision" so much is that before I knew I was autistic, I wasn't able to make decisions the way I can now. Masking, people-pleasing, exaggerating my own abilities, and covering up for what I saw a deficiencies all pushed me into choices I wouldn't have made if I had known about autism. I felt the these "decisions" of mine were wrong, but couldn't articulate why - they seemed right for everyone else who was making them. That disconnect led me to a constant feeling of unease and worsened both my self-esteem and self-concept.
Today, I am more able to truly make decisions. I increasingly know what factors affect my well being and what to do about them. I'm less influenced by coping mechanisms like people-pleasing and masking. That's why "made a decision" is important to me.
Share questions:
- Does the ability to make decisions relate at all to your self-esteem? Self-concept? How?
- Is the ability to make a decisions a value for you? In what way?
- Has your experience of decision-making changed since you learned you are autistic? Please describe.
- What was the most recent significant decision you made that you feel you were pushed into? How did it happen?
- What about the most recent decision that you feel you made independently? What were the dynamics there?
- Are there still areas where you are not free to make your own decisions? What are they?
- Are there some cases in which you feel okay giving up or suspending your right to make independent decisions, like in a partnership? Describe.
- Any tools, resources, or strategies to share?
- Anything else to add?
AWG 12 Step Self-Esteem Workbook
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3