[nandm]

Day 7

The Triple Whammy

"It is not the criminal things that are hardest to confess, but the ridiculous and shameful." Jean-Jacques Roussea.

The value of our inventory is never more clearly demonstrated than when we admit the nature of our wrongs to ourselves and others. Without that written evidence, our minds search for every excuse, rationalization and justification in the book.

We could remain masked and inscrutable to ourselves and others were we not faced with the triple whammy that Step Five delivers.

"To God, to ourselves," are the two preliminary phases that prepare us for the moment when we face another human being with our disclosures. But there is absolutely no way we can be candid with that other person until we ourselves have made full and complete disclosure to ourselves.

This unmasking, this tearing away of our self deceptions, is very painful. We have to drop the "act" that was our coping mechanism. We have to release the image that we and others have painted of ourselves. We have to let go of the fiction that we've been hapless victims of cruel fate. At this point, there's nothing left to do but honestly confront the truth that no one but ourselves is responsible for the spot we have found ourselves in today.

This, at long last, is when we're able to embrace our dark side---our "shadow".

And this is where we start.

Today's Step: I am no longer afraid to admit the exact nature of my wrongs.

Step by Step. Muriel Zink