Working steps 4 through 9
Step 4
4. Made a searching and fearless moral
inventory of ourselves. (AA & CoDA)
4. We examine our beliefs, addictions,
and dependent behavior in the context of living in a hierarchal, patriarchal
culture. (Discovery and Empowerment)
4. I wrote down all of the things that
bother me about myself and others, and the things that I like too. (Kids)
Step 4 is an inventory that is vitally important in helping us to become
more conscious and began the process of taking responsibility for our lives.
There are various ways to do the inventory - all of which involve writing.
Doing a chronological inventory can be very helpful. Starting with
our earliest memories and working our way up through our life writing about
any memories of things which we did that we feel some guilt or shame about.
Any memories that we feel some emotional charge around - including those
which are painful, that we feel angry about, that we would be scared to tell
someone else about.
This can also be done by writing an inventory around major issues -
instead of, or in addition to a chronological inventory. Major issues
like - family, relationships, school, work, money, sex, etc.
Many 12 step workbooks outline different formats for doing the inventory.
It is very important to uncover our secrets. The old adage "that
you are as sick as your secrets" has a great deal of Truth in it.
The reason it is so important to bring our secrets to the Light is because
they are hurting us. Anything that we are giving power to, that has
enough energy for us to put an effort into keeping it secret (consciously
or unconsciously), is hurting us. Any secrets that we are keeping that
we feel shame and guilt around, are issues that need to be healed so that
we can forgive ourselves and change our relationship with self into a more
Loving relationship.
That doesn't mean we have to broadcast them to everyone. What
is important is to get honest with ourselves about them. The first
step to doing that is to bring them to the Light enough to write them into
our inventory.
It is important to do an inventory of the negative
things from our past that we feel guilt and shame about. It is also
important not to just do a negative inventory. As I said in my last
article:
I was very good at doing a negative inventory
- I had been doing that all of my life, judging and shaming myself.
For me in early recovery, the fearless and searching moral inventory was
a way to beat myself up for being defective.
On the positive side of the inventory, here are some
actions I would suggest to help you start changing your relationship with
self.
1. Make a list of positive characteristics/traits
that you possess. (i.e. loving, kind, patient, etc.)
2. Make a list of gifts that you came into
this life with. (i.e. musical talent, good looks, athletic ability,
etc.)
3. Make a list of actions you have taken
that were loving and positive for yourself. That is, things that you
have done that protected or nurtured or helped you in some way - even if at
the time you were not aware that you were doing them, on some level, out of
self love - that is, you might have thought you had no other choice.
(i.e. getting into recovery, going to meetings, leaving an abusive situation,
graduating from school, etc.)
4. After making your own lists, ask three
friends to tell you some positive characteristics, talents, and actions
that they see in you/are aware of.
Some assignments that I would give to someone
working on a fourth step (or just in support of their recovery in general)
would be:
Do at least 3 positive affirmations as least 3
times a day. (We learned to negatively affirm ourselves several hundred
times a day so there is no such thing as doing too many positive affirmations.)
Work on being conscious of/observing the negative
messages and judgments the critical parent voice within you is giving you
every day - and start catching them and changing the negative affirmations
to positive as often as you can. (Or softening them, i.e. change stupid
to silly or sweetheart, etc.)
Any compliment you get just say Thank you. - do
not minimize, explain away, turn back on the other person, or make a joke
out of them. (Humility includes the humility to receive - one of the
hardest things for many of us. It is important to start opening to receive.)
At least once a day, look in the mirror and say
"I Love you" to your self.
Step 5
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and
to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. (AA & CoDA)
5. Using this inventory as a guide, we admit
to ourselves, to God as we understood him, and to other caring persons, the
exact nature of what is within that is causing ourselves pain. (Wegscheider
Cruse)
5. We share with another person and
the Universe all those things inside of us for which we feel shame and guilt.
(Discovery and Empowerment)
5. I shared these with someone I trust because
I don't have to keep them a secret anymore. (Kids)
"This healing is a long gradual process - the
goal is progress, not perfection. What we are learning about is unconditional
Love. Unconditional Love means no judgment, no shame.
[When I use the term "judge," I am talking about
making judgments about our own or other people's beings based on behavior.
In other words, I did something bad therefore I am a bad person; I made
a mistake therefore I am a mistake. That is what toxic shame is all
about: feeling that something is wrong with our being, that we are
somehow defective because we have human drives, human weaknesses, human imperfections.
There may be behavior in which we have engaged
that we feel ashamed of but that does not make us shameful beings
We may need to make judgments about whether our behavior is healthy and
appropriate but that does not mean that we have to judge our essential self,
our being, because of the behavior. Our behavior has been dictated
by our disease, by our childhood wounds; it does not mean that we are bad
or defective as beings. It means that we are human, it means that we
are wounded.
It is important to start setting a boundary between
being and behavior. All humans have equal Divine value as beings -
no matter what our behavior. Our behavior is learned (and/or reactive
to physical or physiological conditions). Behavior, and the attitudes
that dictate behavior, are adopted defenses designed to allow us to survive
in the Spiritually hostile, emotionally repressive, dysfunctional environments
into which we were born.]"
"Whenever two or more are gathered in the name
of Love and Truth, in the name of healing, there is incredible power."
(All quotes in this color are quotes from
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)
There is a power in the energy of two or more. Having a
non-judmental, non-shaming witness to share your pain, guilt and shame with
is a vitally important part of healing. One of the things that
I used to do when I was was hearing people's fifth steps was to ask them to
tell me the most shameful things they had ever done - and after they had gone
through the anguish of divulging their deepest darkest secrets, say to them,
"Is that all? That's the worst you've done?" Because anything anyone
ever told me was just a product of being human, of being wounded, of being
drunk, whatever.
We have all carried secrets about our shamefulness that need to be healed
and released. Sometimes the things we feel so ashamed of are things
that happened to us that were not at all our fault. There is great
shame around having been sexually abused that is absolutely not the fault
of the victim of that abuse - but which as children or adolescents we invariably
feel guilt and shame about. There is shame about the ways in which
our parents treated us that were not our fault or our responsibility.
I have a 4 year old inner child who feels great shame about not being able
to protect my mother from my father's verbal and emotional abuse. It
is, of course, ridiculous to think a 4 year old can protect anyone - but
that was the emotional wound that resulted from the emotional incest I experienced
due to my mother's low self-esteem and lack of boundaries.
I once sat in a CoDA meeting and watched a young woman go through incredible
agony as she revealed for the first time what felt to her like a horribly
shameful secret. The secret was that when she was in her early teems
she did not get a Christmas present for her father's newest girl friend
- and he beat her for it on Christmas Day. Getting beaten by
a parent on Christmas is shameful behavior - for the parent - not for the
child, but as kids we thought it was about us, about something being wrong
with us.
Many of us also engaged in activity as adults that violated our own
value systems and that therefore we feel guilt and shame about. There
is a big difference between having done something shameful and being a shameful
being. The things we did as adults that we feel shame about - sexual
acting out, stealing, cruelty to others, etc., - are actions that were the
result of our wounding, and of the addictions, compulsions and obsessions
that were fed by that wounding. The things we did as adults are actions
that we do have some responsibility for - but they were also actions that
we were powerless over. By owning them, and taking responsibility for
those actions, we can also began to see how we were powerless because of our
disease so that we can start to forgive ourselves for them. We can
also make whatever amends are possible as part of the process of forgiving
ourselves and letting go of the shame and guilt.
It is a very important part of the process of healing and recovery to
find a safe space with at least one other human being, who will not shame
or judge us, to reveal our secrets, our transgressions, our dysfunctional
behaviors and attitudes to - so that we can start the process of forgiving
ourselves for being wounded humans. There is a relief, a tangible
shift in energy, when we do this (whether we feel that change at the time
or not.) Taking responsibility for our side of the street, and seeing
ourselves more clearly (which includes sharing our positive inventory with
that person), is a vitally important part of the process of learning to accept
and Love ourselves.
Step 6
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove
all these defects of character. (AA & CoDA)
6. We give to God as we know him all former
pain, hurt, and mistakes, resentments and bitterness, anger, and guilt.
We trust that we can let go of the hurt that we cause and receive. (Wegscheider
Cruse)
6. My Higher Power helps me with this,
too. (Kids)
"Recovery involves bringing to consciousness those
beliefs and attitudes in our subconscious that are causing our dysfunctional
reactions so that we can reprogram our ego defenses to allow us to live
a healthy, fulfilling life instead of just surviving. So that we can
own our power to make choices for ourselves about our beliefs and values
instead of unconsciously reacting to the old tapes. Recovery is consciousness
raising. It is en-light-en-ment - bringing the dysfunctional attitudes
and beliefs out of the darkness of our subconscious into the Light of consciousness.
On an emotional level the dance of Recovery is
owning and honoring the emotional wounds so that we can release the grief
energy - the pain, rage, terror, and shame that is driving us."
The wording of the sixth and seventh steps point out a very important
dynamic that is part of the twelve step process. "Were entirely ready"
and "Humbly asked" is what these steps say about our codependent behavior
patterns and adopted dysfunctional attitudes (defects of character in shaming
language.) These steps do not say, "you have to immediately get rid
of all this bad behavior and crappy attitudes." As it says in the
kids version of the 12 steps (which you can probably tell I like a lot)
"My Higher Power helps me with this, too." Twelve step recovery is
not self help in the sense that we have to do it ourselves. This is
a Spiritual program and the Spirit - our Higher Power - is helping us.
We do not have to change out of sheer will power. We do need to work
on aligning our will with the will of the Goddess - by taking action to support
our recovery. That action can include: going to meetings, working the
steps, reading books and web sites, eating healthier, exercising, going to
church, doing positive affirmations, etc. That action can also include
not taking action in situations where you might have previously
- i.e. taking a drink, going to a bar, hanging around with people who will
tempt you to old behavior, etc.
It is vital to the 12 step process to take action - but it is not in
our power to change all by our selves. We cannot force recovery.
We can learn to surrender to recovery.
We need help from our God, from other people. We are not in control
of this life process - and we are not in control of the timing of our process.
We are co-creators. We need to do our part and let go of the outcome.
That includes not judging ourselves because the disease tells us we "should"
be farther along by now or are not making enough progress.
Our part in this life adventure we are having is to wake up and pay
attention. We need to be willing to get more honest with ourselves
- and be willing to take some action to help ourselves see ourselves clearer
so that we can align with changing our dysfunctional attitudes and behavior
patterns.
Here are some actions that I would recommend to someone working the
sixth step:
1. Make a list of codependent behavior patterns (traditionally codependent
or counterdependent) and adapted dysfunctional attitudes that have negatively
affected our lives and our ability to Love ourselves. (Some of these
patterns and attitudes may be the other side of - the out of balance version
of - your positive characteristics. i.e. patient - inability to set
clear boundaries and ask for what you need, giving - inability to say no,
etc.)
2. After making the list, look at each item and see if you can figure
out what the payoff was for that pattern or attitude. (i.e. being
the victim - did not have to take responsibility for our own life, not having
clear boundaries - did not have to risk making others angry, etc.)
3. After finding the payoff ask yourself if it is working for you -
is the payoff worth the price you are paying. Ask yourself if you are
willing to give up that behavior/attitude.
Step 7
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
(CoDA - AA uses Him )
7. We can ask for help, support, and
guidance and be willing to take responsibility for ourselves and to others.
(Wegscheider Cruse)
7. The more I trust myself and my Higher
Power, the more I learn to trust others. (Kids)
Ask your Higher Power to remove these dysfunctional behaviors and attitudes
- and to give you the tools, knowledge, and willingness to take whatever
action you need to take to do your part in ending the dysfunction.
The way the process usually works is that after we have gained awareness
and started becoming willing to take action to change our attitudes and
behaviors - suddenly, one day we find ourselves doing things different without
thinking about it. Once we start aligning our intellectual paradigm
with the Truth of a Loving Higher Power we are in the process of reaching
places where "we intuitively handle situations that used to baffle us" (in
the words of the 12 promises) or situations that we used to screw up or sabotage
ourselves in. Once we start taking care of, and responsibility for,
our side of the street, our life starts changing.
The more we choose to align ourselves with a Loving Higher Power, the
more we start learning how to relax and trust the process and ourselves
- which helps us to see others more clearly and make better choices about
who to trust.
"This Recovery process is a gradual transition
from using our old tool box to using the new tools. The old tools
- the ways we used to go unconscious so we could survive - are not "bad"
or "wrong." They were life savers - without them we would be either
dead or mass murderers, or dead mass murderers.
We adopted the old tools because they were the
best choices that were available to us at the time. We adopted them
in response to intuitive impulses that were right on. Those
impulses were "protect myself, nurture myself." It is the nature of
the defense system that is Codependence that the ways we learned to protect
and nurture ourselves are self-abusive in the long run.
So we need to stop shaming ourselves for the behaviors
that we adopted to protect and nurture ourselves, at the same time that
we are transitioning to behaviors that are less self-abusive.
Notice that I say less self-abusive. We
are talking progress, not perfection here.
If you have an image of what completely healthy
behavior is, and you will not allow yourself to accept and Love yourself
until you get there, then you are setting conditions under which you decide
when you will become Lovable. You are still buying into a concept of
conditional love and by extension, the concept of a Higher Power that is
conditionally loving. You are still trying to earn, and become worthy
of not only self-Love, but also God's Love. That small child inside
of you is still trying to earn your parents' Love and validation.
That is a natural, normal thing for humans beings
on this Codependent planet. Try not to judge and beat yourself up
for it. Try to observe it and say, "Oh, isn't it sad that I am still
doing that? I think I will try to learn some ways that I can change
it.""
Step 8
8. Made a list of all persons we had
harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. (AA & CoDA)
8. We make a list of people we have
harmed and people who have harmed us, and take steps to clear out negative
energy by making amends and sharing our grievances in a respectful way. (Discovery
and Empowerment)
8. We begin a program of living responsibly
for ourselves, for our own feelings, mistakes, and successes. We become
responsible for our part in relationship to others. (Wegscheider Cruse)
8. I made a list of the people I hurt
and the ways I hurt myself. I can now forgive myself and others. (Kids)
During the course of your inventory, you will compile a list of people
who have been harmed by your behavior and attitudes - and also a list of
people who have harmed you. It is important to list anyone or thing
(an organization for example) that have been part of your dysfunctional dance
through life.
It is also important to make a list of the ways in which your codependent
behaviors and attitudes have caused you to harm yourself. For each
of us, the person that we owe the most amends to is ourselves. List
specific life events, circumstances, or dynamics that you allowed/set up/created
that were harmful to you. (That can include events that occurred that
you had no responsibility in creating but blamed yourself for on some level
anyway - i.e. being raped or discriminated against in some way.) Pray
for the willingness to forgive yourself, the insight to understand on a gut
level that you were powerless, and the compassion to Love the child that
you were, the adult that you became, and the awakening being that you are.
Step 9
9. Made direct amends to such people
wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. (AA
& CoDA)
9. We make a list of persons to whom we want
to make amends and commence to do so, except where doing so would cause further
pain for others. (Wegscheider Cruse)
9. I talked to these people even if I was
scared to because I knew that it would help me feel better about myself.
(Kids)
This amends step is a very important part of opening ourselves up to
Loving ourselves. The reason to make amends to other people is so
that we can forgive ourselves. We are powerless over whether the other
people forgive us - what we do have is the power to forgive ourselves, and
taking the action of making amends is a Loving action to do for ourselves.
There will be many people in our lives that we can identify as being
harmed by our behavior. (If you haven't identified a number of people
that your behavior has harmed perhaps it is because you have the type of
codependent defense system that includes being a "nice," nonaggressive, nonconfrontational
person. In that case it is normal to overlooked the harm that can be
done by being passive, by being a victim who doesn't take responsibility,
by being dishonest with people by not letting them know how you really feel.
Being passive and dishonest can be a way of perpetrating that does not look
overtly abusive but ultimately is a form of abuse.)
The initial inclination of many people when they first get into recovery
is to jump right to step 9 - and to start telling people "I'm sorry."
Making an apology is a part of the amends step but it is often only the
beginning. Many of us were saying "I'm sorry" most of our lives.
Engaging in certain behaviors and then apologizing - over and over again.
In that case, the people we are making amends to will see our apology as
the same old thing. It may feel very different to us inside - but we
may meet with skepticism from the other people. It is important to
accept that and not buy into feeling victimized by them not believing us.
They have reason to disbelieve us. We have lost people's trust through
our actions - and it is only through our actions that we can earn that trust
back again. (Actually, we may never earn the other people's trust back
but we can learn to trust ourselves - and learn to let go of whether certain
others trust us.)
Making amends is about taking action to change our behaviors - and the
attitudes that caused our behaviors. That is true in terms of making
amends to others and to making amends to ourselves - because as has been
said, we hurt ourselves the most.
When making amends to others it is important to use discernment and
discretion. For instance, if you had an affair years ago with someone
whose spouse was a friend and does not know about the affair, it would cause
potential harm to others to make an amend to that friend. So, we can
make an amend in part, by no longer participating in behavior that will violate
our value systems. [The part of the step that says "except when to
do so would injure them or others" also includes ourselves in the "others."
For instance, in my early twenties, during my armed revolutionary period,
I participated in some armed robberies. To have gone back after 20
years and confessed to those (even if I could have remembered where the places
were - which I couldn't) would have caused me harm. Instead what I
did was put large denomination bills in the AA collection plate anonymously
as a way of making some amends for the money I had stolen.]
It is also important to let go of how the people we make amends to respond.
The other person may not be willing to forgive us. That is something
we need to accept since we are powerless over them. What also happens
often, is the person - who we have been carrying guilt and shame around
about harming in some specific incident - will not even remember the incident
or know what we are talking about. This is a good example of how amends
are really for us. Anything that we are carrying energy with a negative
charge about is hurting us. The person we are making the amend to may
not have felt hurt - that does not matter, what matters is for us to unload
the baggage that we are carrying so we can forgive ourselves.
This step is about clearing our self of any negative baggage we are
carrying. That includes resentments about people who we perceived as
harming us. At the root of any resentment, in my experience, is a resentment
against self. If there is someone we have not been able to forgive,
it is because we haven't forgiven ourselves for some aspect of our involvement
with that person. So, by becoming conscious of our resentments, and
learning how to be compassionate to ourselves for our human wounded behavior,
we can also start learning to forgive those who harmed us.
"To get to a place where we are free to be happy
in the moment most of the time, we need to change our perspectives enough
to start recognizing Truth when we see or hear it. And the Truth is
that we are Spiritual Beings having a human experience that is unfolding
perfectly and always has been, there are no accidents, coincidences, or mistakes
- so there is no blame to be assessed.
The goal here is to be and enjoy! We can't
do that if we are judging and shaming ourselves. We can't do that
if we are blaming ourselves or others."
By working these clean up steps, we start seeing ourselves and others
more clearly - and start taking responsibility for our lives without blaming
ourselves for the ways that we have hurt ourselves and others. It
is very important to take responsibility - and also vital to stop blaming.
And of course, throughout the process of working the steps, it is important
to pay attention to our emotional reactions. Getting honest with ourselves
emotionally is absolutely necessary in order to be able to see ourselves,
others, and life with any real clarity. In working these steps, we will
encounter a lot of grief. Hurt, sadness, and anger that it will be
important to honor and release in a healthy grieving process. At the
core of our dysfunctional behavior patterns are the emotional wounds that
we have suffered - and the only way to effectively change the way we live
life, and learn to Love, is to heal those emotional wounds.
