The heart of Step 10 can be summarized in one word: now. What's happening now? What am I looking at now? What am I hearing now? Above all, what am I thinking now? What am I feeling now?

These questions are about now as opposed to then. The moment we slip into then, we're no longer really at the heart of Step 10. This is why the "typical" Program approach to Step 10 (personal inventory in the evening or the morning) is only a small part of what Step 10 is about. Step 10 done at a particular time of day, as opposed to constantly, will inevitably be about then. What did I do or say then? What will happen then?

For this reason, the NA treatment of Step 10 is of very great value. For NA divides it neatly into two parts. It acknowledges the usefulness of inventory; but it notes that the most important part of Step 10 is its preventive component. If I remain, to the extent that it is possible, aware of now, I won't have to spend so much time subsequently making amends for what I did then.

It's in this now sense that Step 10 is meditative in nature. To remain continuously aware of now has to be a meditative act, not an intellectual one. To this extent, Step 10 and Step 11 are indeed -- as Twelve Step and Twelve Traditions suggests -- very closely related.