Step 4

Made an introspective look at our lives to see who we really are, discovering both the positive and the negative.

A real transformation requires an awakening and suggestion four is the first of the next 4 steps that are each a catalyst to the beginning of a spiritual metamorphosis. This is done over time by discovering the ways in which your soul has become clouded. Gaining a clear and concise self-knowledge is an important, perhaps even critical, step in the process of becoming the person God created you to be.

An evaluation of both your liabilities and assets should also lead you into a merciful view of the people in your world and yourself too. As you go through this next suggestion, God will bring you to a heightened awareness about who you really are. But this only happens if you are courageous during this introspective appraisal.

Step 4 helps you not just to name your character defects and assets, it allows you to regard them for what they truly are. It is about discovering what you are afraid of and why. This new understanding allows you to get past any illusions about yourself and the motives that have been unconsciously driving your life. Much like a successful business doing an inventory of stock, when you complete this exercise you will know better what to hang onto and what needs to be released.

Principle: Courage (look up the definition)

The quality of a person’s life can be determined by the quality of their relationships

All to often, what a person considers as “the truth” is only how they have processed the information that they have. When emotions are involved, the “facts” get adjusted to support what we want to believe. What I mean by that is when I feel that I have been done wrong, I will seek out the reasons why and dismiss anything that doesn’t support my position. The process of the personal inventory allows for me to get past this and see not just the evidence that I am attached to, but also the facts that I have an aversion to.

When doing my personal inventory it became more and more obvious that I had problems in my relationships. Like every one of them. Of course the only common denominator was myself. Sure I already knew that I have been stubborn, rebellious, arrogant and outright mean at times but it was really surprising to me that I had gone forty-something years without ever having a moment of extent of this. I don’t think that would have ever happened without doing a personal inventory- which is just an exercise in taking subjective perspectives and reviewing them objectively.

I have a pretty well developed imagination. What I mean by that is not just that I am creative but I am also able to envision scenarios. When those of the opposite sex are involved, I would call it being romantic. Picturing how good we will be together. How we will not have any problems and life will be oh so wonderful. Then when we do share life and its not as I expect it to be, resentments begin to happen. This anger is directed towards them and myself. My imagination once again is attached to ideas that something or someone should be different than it really is. My subjective viewpoint is the core reason why I believe things that are not completely real. My estimations and expectations of what is right and wrong in all of my relationships are skewed because of only recognizing things my way. And I didn’t really know what was happening so I could not change it. That is not until I did my Fourth Step.

Now that I have done the personal inventory repeatedly, and led many other’s through it too, I have concluded that the only reason many people don’t open their hearts and minds to other people is that these people trigger confusion in us. It’s because we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to fully deal with all that is involved. So a lot of us repress and rationalize what’s going on. Over and over again. That’s why living life on life’s term is so difficult. We don’t like what life is giving us, we try to control the relationship, that backfires, we get upset, then we adjust reality by getting high.

Staying sober requires an honesty that surpasses what has been done before. Chronic justification led me to an incomprehensible hopelessness because I could not be honest with myself and therefore others as well.

 

Relationships are the most important factor in having a meaningful and satisfying life. My life was not any of that, so I had to learn how to see myself and the world differently if the quality of life was to improve. And by doing the fourth Step, this exercise in rigorous honesty, I was able to begin to having hope for a better future. But know that being rigorously honest does not mean just focusing on all the wrongs we each have done. Remember, this is about being objective. There are always assets in every person’s character. They just seem to get overshadowed by the liabilities. For me, that was me practicing self-pity; which is me imaging that I deserve something different than what is really happening.

To the degree that we each look clearly and compassionately at ourselves do we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes. When that does happen a better life is unfolding. Doing a personal inventory is the first step in doing that. The fourth Step is the beginning of better relationships. And the quality of a person’s life can always be determined by the quality of their relationships.

I didn’t use to allow myself to feel other people’s love for me – not family, not friends, no one. I lived in extreme fear of intimacy and vulnerability and I self-medicated to the extreme when I couldn’t tolerate my feelings. Any therapist, teacher, mentor, healer who I’ve worked with reading this post knows this to be true of me. It’s been a long road for me to build the resources within myself to feel safe enough to let love in and to trust that life is happening for me and not to me and to stay present with my feelings. Today, I’m grateful.

When You Act On Faith | A Attitude of Gratitude

When You Act On Faith

It is only when you act on faith that you actually have it.

For better or worse, every struggle and every success in your past has shaped you into the person you are today. And despite all the positive aspects of character we each possess, most of us still have one or more challenging inner belief that surfaces repeatedly over the course of our lives. It is what harms us by blocking us from our potential and in the recovery world it is called a character defected.

Simply put if it hurts a relationship, it is a defective part of our character and whether we know it or not, these ideas have hurt us personally too. And for some of us, it was much more than we initially realized. After careful consideration, we recognized that these faulty beliefs are many times rooted in deep, unexpressed fears. These are insecurities that drive us subconsciously or they stop us dead in our tracks. In other words, we have attachments and aversions.

Depending on a person’s perspective during their difficulties, these beliefs either cause all sorts of problems, or they present great opportunities for personal growth. In other words, fear is what blocks and faith is what offers freedom. Ask yourself if you have faith that your life can be better. If so, how do your actions demonstrate that? Don’t try and bullshit (which is not lying but trying to make yourself look good). Would anyone close to you acknowledge that your actions show that you striving for new beginnings? I ask this because it is only when you act on faith that you actually have it. Anything less is really a lack of connection or concern for the truth and an indifference to how things really are. It’s bullshit.

If this post makes you unsettled or even angry, good. Because a bad day for your ego is always a great day for your soul.

Attitude of Gratitude, Shine A Light On It

Step 4: Shine A Light On It

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside. “That laundry isn’t very clean; she doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs a better laundry soap.” Her husband looks on, remaining silent. Every time her neighbor hangs her wash to dry, the young woman makes the same type comments. A month later, the woman is surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and says to her husband: “Look, she’s finally learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this.” The husband replies, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”

And so it is with life. What we see when watching others depends on the clarity of the window through which we look. except in real life, no one can clean the windows we see through. That’s no one else’s job but yours.

The 4th Step is about shining some light into the areas of your life that you would prefer to keep hidden in the shadows. It’s a process that will illuminate the hidden influences and blind spots that have sabotaged your development. Based upon doing this exercise personally and leading other through it too, I have come to believe that hidden deep beneath our conscious personality are layers of thoughts and feelings that can inhibit our development by causing us to avoid aspects of our experience or by encouraging damaging addictions. The personal inventory brings to the surface how all this is hidden in the shadows and the effects it has had upon your life and on the lives of others.

The 4th Step is an incredibly effective and powerful way to identify your character defects and transform them into valuable assets. All the Steps up to this point have been decisions – this is the beginning of getting into action and really doing the deal. And frankly it where many do stop. Often because they misunderstand what the purpose is. The inventory is not about anything but gaining clarity to the causes and conditions that have brought you to this point in your life so you can make an informed decision. Then you present what you have found to an objective person who can bring it all into a better focus. Then you can decide what you want to do next.

You may think you know yourself now. And you probably do know a lot. But millions of people who have done the personal inventory have discovered so much more about themselves. It’s how they begin to let go of thoughts and feelings that have blocked you from becoming the best person you can possibly be.