The Twelve Tools

by Natti Ronel

  The Twelve Tools

  From Dependence to Independence

  Natti Ronel

  Copyright © 2018 Natti Ronel

  All rights reserved; No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the author.

  Translated by Philip Simpson

  English translation supported by “Schnitzer Foundation for Research on the Israeli Economy and Society” at Bar-Ilan University, Israel

  Contact: Natti.Ronel@biu.ac.il

  Contents

  Prologue

  The Tools of Change

  TOOL 1 Abstinence

  TOOL 2 Just for Today

  TOOL 3 The Serenity Prayer

  TOOL 4 Gratitude

  TOOL 5 Distinguishing Facts

  TOOL 6 Being Positive

  TOOL 7 Finding within Ourselves

  TOOL 8 Truth Only

  TOOL 9 Choosing in Advance

  TOOL 10 Correcting Errors

  TOOL 11 Promoting Good

  TOOL 12 Living the Spirit

  The Never-Ending Story

  Acknowledgements

  Bibliography

  Appendix

  About the Author

  Message from the Author

  Prologue

  By our choices and actions we design and construct our reality, with the raw materials given by God.

  Isaac was a man in his early forties. Energetic, intelligent, an executive and a successful contractor involved in major construction projects, in Israel and abroad. For all his varied activity, what was less successful was his marriage and domestic life. We met at a group for violent men which I led more than twenty years ago. As far as I can remember, he never physically battered his wife, but he threatened her a number of times and over the years his violence was expressed verbally, behaviorally, emotionally and socially. He was impatient in the home, towards her and the children, and at work he was tense, often losing his temper with his subordinates. He was an opinionated, judgmental and critical man. He came to the group having been excluded from his home by a legal injunction after threatening to injure his wife. He found himself powerless in a way that he had never known before. As a result of his powerlessness he was receptive. His common sense and intuition, together with a high level of practical acumen, led him to a rapid application of profound change. A few weeks later, when his relations with his wife were no longer at a crisis point, and his behavioral change had been well-received at home, he said to the group in a confessional moment: “It’s a pity I didn’t come here twenty-five years ago. All our lives would have looked different.” “And were you ready then, twenty-five years ago, to change anything?” I asked. “Evidently not,” he admitted sincerely, “but it’s a pity, because I would have liked things to be different.” Fortunately for us, we don’t need to wait twenty years, or even five years. Things can be different, from today.

  ***

  Let’s start with a brief moment of silence. We leave everything behind us: thoughts, ideas, feelings, and sensations that may arise, both pleasant and unpleasant. We leave the distractions and focus on the silence. When we are quiet, we notice that silence has a timbre which can be heard, the sound of silence. ... (In the silence exercises which follow the three dots […] indicate a pause. It is possible and also desirable in reading to pause at such a point … before continuing.) Out of the silence that arises from within us, it is easier to pay attention to what will presently be said.

  We are all in a process of change, from the day of our birth and even before it. Growth, development, maturity and even ageing are natural processes of change that we go through. And when society and culture change with us, we are influenced and changed accordingly. It seems as a species we are destined to change as is the world around us also destined to change according to the same nature. Sometimes the change is for the better, and this is wonderful. But sometimes the change seems not so good, and its results are undesirable -- for us, for the environment, for society. It happens.

  The twelve tools of the Graceway, presented here for the first time in breadth and depth, sketch out a practical way of self-change and also a professional method of consultation, helping others to change. The way evolved gradually, out of the accumulated experience of many people who came from different backgrounds; it is simple and easy to follow, and it is particularly suited to this changeable contemporary world of ours. It offers something new and original, which is the combining of separate things into a whole way of change which is simple, fully developed, and essentially practical in a manner that suits twenty-first century people. The Graceway is a way that speaks of spiritual change, and applies it to daily life in a manner that is simple, natural, and feasible. The change itself is made with joy and love, in a fluid style that can suit almost anyone, irrespective of our backgrounds. The change, when it begins, opens before us something very basic -- the possibility of living our lives as we would really like to live them, without painful dependence and without recurrent compulsion. In almost every situation and under all circumstances, we can live just as we would really like to live according to our particular conditions, over which we have no control, and this is the direction of the Graceway.

  Returning to Isaac. For a few weeks he came to the group meetings regularly, and he was fairly calm. Despite his sympathetic demeanor, I wasn’t sure how much he was taking in, if anything at all. The holiday season arrived, and we skipped a meeting. Holidays, when all members of the family are spending time together, are usually like a powder-keg in a household where there is a background of violence, and when the explosion occurs is only a question of time.

  At our meeting after the holiday, Isaac asked to speak. He told us that before the holiday, when he returned to his home after the expiration of the exclusion order, he realized that these were going to be “tough and dangerous days,” because neither of them -- husband nor wife -- was working over the holiday, and they would be together most of the time. In addition, the tension of his return home, combined with the enforced inactivity and anticipated boredom, seemed to him a guarantee of trouble, and to these factors could be added the postponement of our weekly meeting, which he needed as a way of “charging his batteries.” He remembered the group message of domestic peace and love, which it seems he had taken in, and he asked himself how he could implement it, as a way of preventing an explosion. In a moment of lucid clarity, out of fear of the imminent danger, he decided to do something different.

  Until then, all the housework had been the exclusive responsibility of his wife, and he had barely lifted a finger to contribute. But in an insight, he asked his wife, much to her surprise, to step aside. “This is all up to me,” he told her. And indeed, it was all up to him. He did the shopping, cooked, prepared, cleaned up after himself and all over the house, including things that hadn’t been cleaned in years. He did the laundry, hung out the washing, took it down and folded it, and even repaired things in the house that looked as if they needed it. He took on all the housework and thus enabled his wife and the grown-up children to take a break. According to his account, one day, while he was busily engaged in housework he saw his wife sitting and relaxing, reading a book. Unexpectedly, in a way that was quite uncharacteristic for him, he asked her: “Like a coffee?” He brewed it and served it to her, so she could go on reading in peace.

  “How did you feel?” I asked.

  “Amazing. I saw they were happy and I was happy with them. I never felt this way before. I always waited for people to do things for me, and
I still complained. It was self-explanatory; I didn’t know how to love. Look at hanging out the washing, for example, it was hard for her. Her hands are smaller than mine. I never saw that. When I started hanging out the clothes, I understood. From now on, this will be my job exclusively.”

  A few weeks later, when he’d started taking an interest in the upbringing of his children, his wife told him that the youngest daughter had been falling behind in school recently, apparently because of the tension in the house. “She needs more boundaries, from you too,” she told him.

  “Boundaries? I’ve given her too many. Love, that’s what she needs, and until now, I didn’t know how to give it to her. Now let’s give her love and see what happens.” As simple as it sounds, this simplicity works, in the struggles with ourselves and the challenges that we meet along the way.

  ***

  The Graceway developed in a spontaneous and natural way out of the encounters that I had with various sources. First of all, it stemmed from my experience as a human being. We are, after all, the essential source of our personal knowledge. The experience of everyone in the world creates living knowledge. The Graceway reflects the journeys I have made with and to myself, including the mistakes, recovering from them, and learning the lessons; journeys against the backdrop of a changing landscape in the world; and meetings with many people in the West and the East. All along the way, I shall propose that we try out what is presented here, check it out in our own lives and see how the Graceway blends with our overall experience, with knowledge, wisdom, and the intuition we have accumulated in the course of our lives.

  After many tests and exploratory experiments, I found a way of life directed towards the spirit which seemed to me special in its directness, and which responded to the yearning in me. A way that showed that possibilities exist to live the spirit in normal life, without compromising in the slightest with what it offered and what I believed. Even when I was tempted to compromise, in familiar human weakness -- the way remained steady and uncompromising: steady in essence and in living example, and without compromising. The way was that of the “DAT” school (Know Yourself Always), led by the spiritual teacher Shlomo Kalo (1928-2014), of blessed memory. As a spiritual teacher, Shlomo Kalo constituted, a completely living model, with wisdom that is beyond this world, tender warmth and clear intention, decisive, and not veering for a moment from the essence, from spiritual intentions and from what we are capable of being. It could be said that his direction takes us beyond the familiar indecisions of “if,” “but,” and “perhaps,” and showed that being what we want to be is a reality that exists. Shlomo Kalo also suggested the name “Graceway.” My perception of the way and of the tools which will be discussed in due course, has grown from the example and the direction of Shlomo Kalo and from extended experience of the DAT school. The many books of Shlomo Kalo have been published by the DAT Press. They comprise a wide range of styles -- philosophy, literature, and poetry -- and all of them share the same direct commitment to the way of the spirit. An early book which describes the way of the spirit in detail is The Self as Fighter. It could be said that the wisdom of the DAT way is a very solid basis for the Graceway, and for this I am extremely grateful.

  In the early nineties of the last century, I had the great privilege of learning in depth about the Twelve-step program of the “Narcotics Anonymous” organization (NA) (see appendix), almost identical to that of its older brother -- “Alcoholics Anonymous” (AA). I studied the program in the context of my doctoral studies in the Hebrew University, in the Criminology Department, with the late Prof. Menahem Amir (1928-2015) as my mentor. Menahem was a special and remarkable person, a dear and much-loved man, colorful and vibrant, and he allowed me, under his benign guidance, to be as unconventional in my research as I wanted, and to enter an unconventional world, the world of NA and recovery from addiction by way of spirit and action. I, myself, had some negative personal experience in the over-use of drugs, but the negative experience became something positive, my admission ticket to NA, the organization for recovering addicts. Recovering from drug abuse is not easy by any means, and I would urge others to avoid abusing anything in the first place. What happened to me had a good outcome; it could be said that I was able to change by the grace of God and with the guidance of an invisible hand that knew me better than I knew myself. I went deep into NA, and I had an intensive relationship with fellow members and groups for more than two years; I accompanied, I embraced, I was embraced, I shared, I listened, I experienced, and I learned, in depth and in breadth.

  It could be said without exaggeration that I went to NA groups primarily in the interest of research, but I emerged a changed man who had been awarded a once-in-a-lifetime human experience. Along the way, I had the opportunity to learn about behavioral and mental change on a spiritual basis and the wonderful possibilities of simple, daily spirituality. The journey into the recesses of NA turned out to be a fascinating and instructive personal odyssey, which is still continuing, and which constitutes one of the central pillars of the Graceway.

  I concluded my doctoral studies and various other courses and became a professional person -- a therapist and a clinical criminologist. Since the beginning of my professional career, I have adopted the principles of the Twelve-step program, which I learned from the field, from the street, from addicts. I have seen how simple principles and practical tools can help anyone who is prepared to keep an “open mind” and to do something slightly different.

  At first, I worked with addicts, in a therapeutic community. For a professional, applying the step-program to drug addicts was relatively easy. They knew the program and were prepared to do anything to stop their suffering. Working with addicts led me to start adopting the principles of the program outside the protective and supportive framework of NA. But NA was still in the background, and it accompanied the process of treatment. This work also showed me how the step-program and its recovery principles constitute a living path that can be followed, and applied in therapy, in all the areas of life for those who ask for help or advice.

  Starting in the mid-nineties, I worked with male batterers in the department for the prevention of domestic violence of NAAMT (an Israeli women’s organization), set up and led in the early years by the criminologist Ronit Lev Ari. With remarkable professional openness and a healthy intuition, Ronit enabled me to implement a system of therapy in a way that was innovative. This was the first time that I brought the principles of the program out of the secure place of treating addicts, into the unknown realm of adapting it to a completely different target-group, male batterers. Obviously, it wasn’t possible to transfer the NA program word-for-word. In the course of experimental work and checking the responses of the men, a system evolved which articulated, first and foremost, the step-program, but also other approaches . It was clear that the grace of the program was working there too, as was experienced by the afore-mentioned Isaac. I witnessed the astonishing changes undergone by men like him, within a relatively short time.

  Application of the principles of the step-program to male batterers was also successful in the estimation of my therapeutic colleagues, and various bodies invited me to give lectures and to train therapists in the use of the method. An important and central part of the training was personal direct experience of the program. So that the knowledge I passed on would be living knowledge for the trainees, I had to design a broad-based program that would suit professional people who were considered “normal,” people who on the surface had no dramatic life-problems. This was definitely a challenge, and I encountered a variety of interesting responses. A person whose life is perceived to be reasonably successful, who, in his or her own opinion, has no aggravating life-problems is less prepared to keep an open mind. The challenge of broadening the program turned into an important stage in the development of the Graceway -- I was forced to adapt it for a broader public who could experience it and grow in the process of spiritual change. A program was cr
eated for personal change, showing the direction towards a way of life, and, more specifically, providing the tools to cope with day-to-day struggles, and to adopt, in an ever more intensive fashion, spiritual principles in daily life.

  Over time, in parallel with my work with violent men in a structured framework and on a group basis, I started a private practice, offering individual therapy. Among those who came to me for advice were the battered spouses of the men whom I was treating. With the spouses, my work was rather different, because they were what is known in official parlance as “victims of violence,” or simply “victims,” or even “survivors.” When I worked with addicts and later, with violent men, I often came across harm that they had suffered in childhood or later, which was relevant to the process of treatment, but recovery from addiction or from violent tendencies was the main priority. With these women who started arriving, what they needed to overcome was the abuse they had suffered, their victimization. Again, the Graceway underwent adaptation, this time for the experience of abuse, victimization and recovery. It turned out that this adaptation was natural for the program. Over the years, my work broadened further to include victims of violence and crime, including sexual assault and other forms of assault, and the Graceway took into account a number of special characteristics to respond to the needs of those who had been assaulted in the past.

  During these years, my clinical and private work broadened further. People suffering from a broad range of addictions came to me for advice. My clients were individuals who suffered from eating disorders of an addictive nature, alcohol and drug abuse, gambling, sex addiction, compulsive shopping, and other obsessive preoccupations. Family members and partners of addicts arrived as well. In addition, I was approached for advice more and more often by people who had life-struggles and distress issues which were continuous or intermittent. Many of my clients had no significant background of outstanding behavioral disturbance such as addictions, violence and criminality, or something related to these. Over the years, the Graceway has been established as a method of consultation and treatment which guides my work in a general sense. It is also a way of life which offers change, and the tools to support it, to everyone who hopes for and wants something else from herself or himself -- to find freedom from dependence and also to find more peace, to know increasing happiness, and to live the faith and the love that emanates from us. The Graceway teaches us that all of this is possible, and it makes no difference where we start, only where we want to go. Accordingly, all that is needed is to start living the grace that we hope will touch our lives, to be the grace that we want to encounter.