The role of a higher power in our lives is one that many recovery programs discuss as an essential part of the 12 Step Process. Stoics also looked at the presence of a higher power around us within the philosophy. In this article I will discuss how stoicism can not only help you find your higher power but it can give greater insight into how this power works in your life.
For anyone who has been to any recovery program, meeting or began to practice the 12 steps, the need to find a higher power in your life becomes an essential part of the recovery process. For some of us this is easy. For others this can be difficult and lead to struggles with working through the steps. How can you do Step Three and turn your will over to this higher power if you do not even know what that power is? Stoicism has the view that there is a higher power out there that can be seen working through our lives in all that is happening around us and that this power has given us the proper tools that we need to handle anything that we face in life. Therefore, this becomes another example where this philosophy intertwines closely with what we learn in recovery and can further deepen understanding of ourselves and grow stronger in our sobriety.
Higher Power…Who…What?
One of the interesting aspects of stoicism is that it is a philosophy that has evolved over the years. Yes there are certain parts of it that are core beliefs but it has been personalized and written about from many different perspectives in how those core beliefs are viewed and lived. As I said in the introduction, the idea of a higher power beyond us is a part of the philosophy but who or what that higher power is depends on the person.
Acting in such a way that, whatever God wants we want too; and by inversion whatever he does not want, this we do not want either. How can we do this? By paying attention to the pattern of God’s purpose and design.
Epictetus – Discourses – 4.1.100
Epictetus throughout his Discourses speaks often of God and the role that this higher power plays in the life of a person. He views that everyone of us is a part of this master plan and design that He has created and it is our role in this world to embrace the part that we are given. He discusses that God should be who we should strive to be like and that any characteristic we would use to describe God should be one that we try to have in ourselves. Epictetus’ works were adopted by many of the early Christian churches (even though he was not a Christian) as a guideline for how to live because of his deep discussions of the beauty of God’s creations, what He has given to us and how to live a life that is in line with God’s will.
Whether atoms or natural order, the first premise must be that I am part of the Whole which is governed by nature.
Marcus Aurelius – Meditations – 10.6
Throughout Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations you can read him struggling with this concept of a higher power and I feel this can benefit many of those in recovery who feel the same way. At times he does discuss his belief in God and that God is overseeing all. However, at other times you find him talking about another higher power. He talks about the idea that we are all part of this Whole, this universe that we all have our place in. That this universe is run by laws and cycles that we see that the sciences try to describe. Any person, whether you believe in God or not, should be able to accept this idea of the higher power of the universe. That simply by being alive we are all part of the great cycles and motions of our planet and the universe at large and there can be no way to deny that the workings of the universe in its entirety is a power greater than ourselves. Even though we are just one, we are all a player and a part in this amazing Whole that surrounds us guided by nature and what we do in our lives has an impact on the cycles of the world around us.
What do we get from the higher power?
Stoics see that the higher power is in control of our fate. Whether that fate be the design of God or simply the patterns of nature playing through our lives. That we must understand that most of what happens to us is outside of our control and that it is a power greater than us that is in control of all those things. However, our higher power has given us the tools to deal with this fate. We have the ability to judge things correctly, to see things as good, bad or indifferent to us. We have the ability to control our emotions and how we will respond to what happens to us. We have placed inside of us what it is to be virtuous and what the right thing to do is. We know that vices are the path of our destruction. Deep down inside we know what is right and what is wrong and that our higher power has given us the ability to know this and choose what path we will take. The higher power may control what is beyond our control but we have been bestowed with the gift to rationally think about what is happening and given the ability to select the response we will make. However, that choice is up to you in the end of the day whether you will choose right or wrong.
Step Three and Stoicism
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Step Three
The first thing to understand about turning your will and life over to your higher power is the idea that I have discussed in previous articles of Amor fati (love fate). If our higher power is in charge of our fate then we need to embrace that fate to the point that we learn to love it. That we accept what happens to us as always being to our benefit. If something good happens then you were blessed with something good; embrace it and enjoy it but don’t get too full of yourself over it because all good things can be taken away. However, if something bad happens then learn to love it too, because it is only through the challenges in life that we grow stronger in character. To turn your will and life over to the higher power is to accept all that happens to you as being part of the greater plan of the universe and your life.
To turn your will over to your higher power you need to use your will in the way that your higher power intended you to use it. To make the proper judgements on what is good, bad and indifferent in your life. To live a life that does right and strives to be virtuous. When you make decisions that they are not out of selfishness but out of selflessness. Stoics believe that our will is the greatest gift that we have gained from our higher power but if we use that will incorrectly it will bring our destruction. For many of us that suffer from addiction we have used our judgements and will in the wrong way. Therefore, if you want to truly fulfill Step Three you will finally turn your will over to how your higher power always wanted you to use it correctly.
The fulfillment of Step Three is a major part of stoicism and studying this philosophy can give you great insight into it. Many of the philosophers talk about what fate truly is and how we can learn to embrace it. And they spend a lot of time discussing our will, virtue, vice, judgements and the way we can live our lives in regard to these things in the way that we were always intended to. If we can be successful in our pursuits to bring our will and lives in line with that of the higher power that guides the design of the universe we live in, we can live a life of fulfillment and tranquility.
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Derek Castleman: The Sober Stoic 