Facing Our Darker Side

[MajestyJo]

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.

Facing Our Darker Side

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. --Step Four of Al Anon

By the time we get to the Fourth of the Twelve Steps, we are ready to face our darker side, the side that prevents us from loving others, from letting others love us, and from enjoying life and ourselves. The purpose of Step Four is not to make ourselves feel worse; our purpose is to begin to remove our blocks to joy and love.

We look for fears, anger, hurt, and shame from past events--buried feelings that may be affecting our life today. We search for subconscious beliefs about others and ourselves that may be interfering with the quality of our relationships. These beliefs say: Im not lovable. . .. Im a burden to those around me. . .. People cant be trusted. . . . I cant be trusted . . .. I don't deserve to be happy and successful. . .. Life isn't worth living. We look at our behaviors and patterns with an eye toward discerning the self-defeating ones. With love and compassion for ourselves, we try to unearth all our guilt - earned and unearned - and expose it to the light.

We perform this examination without fear of what we shall find, because this soul searching can cleanse us and help us feel better about ourselves than we ever dreamt possible.

God, help me search out the blocks and barriers within myself. Bring what I need to know into my conscious mind, so I can be free of it. Show me what I need to know about myself.

Today I wait in peace and rest in the knowledge that God is working for me while I am resting. --Ruth Fishel

Have found over the years that I had to pray for the willingness to be willing.

God, help me search out the blocks and barriers within myself. Bring what I need to know into my conscious mind, so I can be free of it. Show me what I need to know about myself

.

We don't often realize how many blocks and barriers we do erect, and if we do we feel it is for self-preservation. In recovery, we need to take risk and allow ourselves to become vulnerable.

Everyone fears Step Four. We need to turn it into faith. That means a strong and good Step Three. I read somewhere, I think it was the literature, probably AA, that if we have fear of Step Four, go back to Step Three.

First off, we need to look at why we do a Step Four. We are taking an inventory, in other words taking stock of who wee are. We don't have all negative aspects of ourselves although we can't see that at first and might have to be pointed out to us by our sponsor. There will be things that are good and need to be nurtured and developed into something better. There may be things that may be a bit iffy, but witha little love, it can be changed to a more positive thing. Then there is the not so good, and those we need to turn over to our Higher Power. How can we change something if we don't know what it is.

Secondly is about change. Changing our behaviours, patterns, and habits. My sponsor said, "Clean up your personna, your acts, and your mouth."

W can do some work with our sponsor and our God. We don'thave to do it alone. Some of our fear comes from doing a Step Five. That is another Step. We can pray for the willingness to change. Some times it is the willngness to be willing to change or anything else we need to get through these Steps. I found it best to talk to another in the program, someone who understands our disease or dis-ease if it makes you feel better.