Cleansing Our Hearts, Minds, and Souls: Step Four

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

The Fourth Step is one that can intimidate many people. The thought of facing a darker, destructive side of us can be scary. However, the purpose of this step is not to make us feel awful or beat us over the head with everything we’ve done wrong; quite the opposite. It’s at this point in our recovery that we unearth those things that keep us isolated from others, unable to give or receive love, process our own thoughts and emotions, and enjoy our place in life -- not so that we feel like failures, but so that we can remove those obstructions and continue on in a happier and healthier state of being.

Not everything that’s holding us back is going to be surface-level, though. Many times we’re going to have to unearth things on a subconscious level: fear, hurt, anger, or shame from our past that we’ve suppressed and covered up; or an unacknowledged perceptions of ourselves and others that are hurting our relationships. We may be shocked at what we find when we really start digging. There’s any number of “hidden” messages that we tell ourselves: No one loves me . . . No one can love me . . . I can’t trust anyone . . . I can’t trust myself . . . I deserve unhappiness . . . I hate my life.

The point of bringing up harmful and upsetting beliefs we hold about others and ourselves is to discern behaviors and patterns of action that are self-defeating. We shouldn’t fear performing this step, because it’s created to cleanse our hearts, minds, and souls. It opens a door to feeling good about ourselves and others, and letting us live the fruitful, happy life of love that our Higher Power intends.

We may try to put off the Fourth Step, avoid it. We may fear what examining that side of us will bring to light. We could realize that we’re angry, hurtful, selfish, and afraid. We may uncover just how damaging our actions have been to ourselves and others. We have the capacity for destruction, and we’ve used it; we know this. We have a slew of nasty, harmful things within us.

However, we also have the capacity for love, faith, hope, and trust. There is a side of us that is overflowing with good things, with appreciation for what is beautiful and right, and with a desire to do the very best we can in anything that comes our way. We have been given the ability to make the right choices, and we have used that too.

The Fourth Step paves the way for coming to terms with our past, accepting who we are, and healing old wounds, so that we are ready to live as our Higher Power has planned.

Let Your Truth Be Compassionate

It’s been ingrained in us since we were young that “honesty is the best policy.” While the sentiment may be true, it’s important for us, in our recovery, to reassess how we apply the ethic to our interactions. If we find ourselves being “honest” in an attempt to take control of a person’s actions or dismiss someone’s choices, then we’re allowing our unhealthy behavioral patterns to taint something that is intended to help us grow in our maturity and our relationships with others.

"The Lightning Speed of Honesty"
-- image courtesy Wikimedia

Sometimes we are driven to be “honest” by truly healthier motives, though. However, there are brands of honesty which can do more harm than good. We’re never to lie, even by omission, but if we dump unnecessary and hurtful information on someone just so we can give ourselves a pat on the back and feel better for being “honest,” then we’ve fallen into a different sort of sick behavior. As stated in Step 9, we’re exempt from making amends -- or being honest -- if doing so would injure the person we’re confessing to or others.

This program is the foundation for restructuring the way we live. It’s not uncommon to find that old, knee-jerk reactions no longer mesh with the new person we’re growing into. This means that we turn to different, less-familiar ways of acting, such as being honest without being controlling or insensitive.

Our new brand of honesty must be one filled with compassion. Through this program, the men and women we’re in recovery with, and a close relationship with our Higher Power, we’re being flooded with the love and acceptance that we may never have received before. And in return, we’re learning how to express the same love and acceptance to others. If we keep ourselves in the same nonjudgmental and compassionate frame of mind that we were welcomed with, we can be certain that we’re imparting the right kind of truth.

Sometimes, surrender is the most powerful action you can take

Surrender is phrased in the third of the 12 Steps as “making a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand him.”

Through surrendering to our Higher Power, we find that we have become empowered. Free from the bondage of self, we are now empowered to live in new, better, more constructive ways than we ever thought possible.

We find doors opening for us; exciting opportunities present themselves to us. We are able to focus our energies, finally, in ways that benefit us and those around us. We see the plan for our lives become clearer, and we are at peace with our place in the world.

And we do come to realize, most assuredly, that there is a plan and a place especially for us. It is made clear, and we will have total comfort in knowing that our Higher Power will keep us on the right path, with all our needs provided for. Whatever it is, it will be good. It will bring us exactly where we're meant to be, and it will be good.

If we are coming out of a place of weakness and uncertainty, it can be hard to accept the empowerment that comes with our surrender. But as long as our hearts and minds remain open to it, it will come naturally. Our position of powerlessness and helplessness is not permanent; it is a temporary stop to gather ourselves as we determine where we have been trying to gain power, though we had none.

Empowerment does not mean we now hold the power in our lives. It means we have come to the proper place of surrender to our Higher Power, and we have been given the ability to follow the plan our Higher Power has laid out for us. Accept the empowerment, and move toward the life you are meant to have, and the place you are meant to be. 

Accountability, Spirituality, and Faith Lead to Sobriety

The first skill needed for the Inner Game is called "letting it happen." This means gradually building a trust in the innate ability of your body to learn and to perform.
--W. Timothy Gallwey

Let's play ball! Are you ready to play the game of a fulfilled life? The Twelve Steps gives us the tools we need to step up to the plate and hit the ball out of the park. Accountability, spirituality, and faith are the three bases, and sobriety is our home run.

In this team sport, we rely on our teammates to help us get to home base. Our sponsor is like our coach who gives us direction and shows us the plays that win the game.

Like in sports, we have to deal with losses in our lives. We could lose the game. It could be called because of rain. There might be an injury on our team, and run to the field to pick him up and take him off the field.

Through it all, we know we can win. We will be victorious. Maybe we lost this game but with practice and faith -- we believe we'll win the next one.

What We Can Learn from Recovery ... The Power of Gray Days

Sometimes, the gray days scare us. Those are the days when the old feelings come rushing back. We may feel needy, scared, ashamed, and unable to care for ourselves.

Gray days can send us back to how we were before entering recovery: unsure of ourselves, self-centered, and untrusting of others. We lose faith in our Higher Power and journey back to self will. We lose touch with how we’ve grown out of the brokenness of our past, and we give up on the future. We become absolutely certain that our goals and aspirations will never come to pass. Every obstacle, no matter how small, seems to cripple us.

Our default is to reinstate our codependent and controlling ways. We then enlist the old negative reactions we've worked so hard to shed. When we slip into these states, it’s important to remember that we’re still ourselves. Our emotional state is separate from our environment.

No person or thing has the power to make us happy or heal us. In the program, we learn that a peaceful state can only be achieved through the Twelve Steps, our Higher Power, the companionship of our brothers and sisters in recovery, and our own choices.

Once we understand this, and are able to return to a composed, trusting, and open state, we often find that we are able to achieve what it is we want. The power of the gray day is that it reminds us how far we've come and how our lives have been changed for the better.

Religion vs. Spirituality

I just spent several hours with someone from my group, and I feel like I'm losing my mind. This woman insisted that the only way I would make progress in my program was to go to her church and succumb to her religious rules. She pushed and insisted, and insisted and pushed. She's been in the program so much longer than I have. I kept thinking that she must know what she's talking about. But it didn't feel right. And now I feel crazy, afraid, guilty, and ashamed. —Anonymous

We do not have to feel afraid, ashamed, or insecure because we don't share someone’s beliefs about religion. No where in the Program do we link successful recovery to a specific religious affiliation. While the Twelve Steps are a journey of spiritual growth and fulfillment, it doesn't demand religious conformity from those it helps.

Today, people often separate religion from spirituality. Religion is about the organization of people and their beliefs, which are placed within a structural body and focuses more on the group as a whole. In contrast, spirituality is about your personal approach to life. It's about what you choose to believe in and how you live your life.

The spiritual path we walk in conjunction with the Twelve Steps is our own. It is a relationship that we form with God as we understand Him. It is integral to our recovery that we build a relationship with our Higher Power. Spiritual growth is part of the program and we need a Power greater than ourselves to keep us sane and to heal our brokenness.

Do you want to right or reconciled?

Recovery is not about being right; it's about being yourself and accepting others as they are.

We have been groomed to believe that if you’re right, you’re okay, and if you’re wrong, you’re at fault. We may have hung our entire self image and self worth on being right, and were confronted with a loss of identity when we were wrong.

In recovery, we have to remember that it’s progress, not perfection. We have to gain a healthy understanding of giving and receiving love, not a superiority over others. While it’s true that we sometimes have to make decisions about people’s behavior, we can learn to do that without belittling the person. Taking care of ourselves does not mean raising ourselves above the person we’re in conflict with.

If someone’s words or actions are harming us, then it is our responsibility to stand up and protect ourselves. However, we do this by setting up and maintaining good boundaries, and keeping the focus on our own thoughts and feelings. This way, we avoid the temptation of placing blame on someone us.

Through the Twelve Steps we are learning that what is right for others doesn’t have to be right for us. Our actions are separate from those of the people we’re in contact with, and what others choose to do isn’t our business.

Although we may want to default to the comfort of superiority in being right, analyzing and criticizing the actions of others, it is ultimately more beneficial to turn the focus on ourselves and how we can improve our own lives and recovery.