Language of Letting Go - April 2
Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Language of Letting Go - April 2
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: I'm not lovable . . . I'm a burden to those around me . . . People can't be trusted . . . I can't 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.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
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: I'm not lovable . . . I'm a burden to those around me . . . People can't be trusted . . . I can't 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.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
There is a good Step Study led by Catspajamas on the "sticky" threads at the top, and is well worth a read.
Step 4 is when we begin to look within to see why we are the way we are in our codependency. It can be painful to dig up the old resentments and take a better look at them from a recovery point of view, but for me it was like a big housecleaning job..it seemed overwhelming at the beginning, but with help and direction from my sponsor I knew that when I was done there would be a lot of old garbage that I could set by the curb and be rid of forever.
These steps truly saved my life, and today they continue to make my life better and help me keep my balance through acceptance, awareness and action...the 3 "a"'s as we call them.
I encourage anyone here who has not been to meetings or worked the steps to begin today, starting at Step 1 and taking your time with each one. I promise that you too can find a better way to live, no matter how anyone else is choosing to live their life.
Hugs
Step 4 is when we begin to look within to see why we are the way we are in our codependency. It can be painful to dig up the old resentments and take a better look at them from a recovery point of view, but for me it was like a big housecleaning job..it seemed overwhelming at the beginning, but with help and direction from my sponsor I knew that when I was done there would be a lot of old garbage that I could set by the curb and be rid of forever.
These steps truly saved my life, and today they continue to make my life better and help me keep my balance through acceptance, awareness and action...the 3 "a"'s as we call them.
I encourage anyone here who has not been to meetings or worked the steps to begin today, starting at Step 1 and taking your time with each one. I promise that you too can find a better way to live, no matter how anyone else is choosing to live their life.
Hugs
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