Step 4....who am I

We learn from the originator of the 12 steps (according to AA's literature) that recovery is within the reach of all except those who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. Well again more study of who I am and how I experience everything aspect of a day, is in order.

Whatever I will share in the next step with God who knows whether I am honest or not and with myself (who is seriously trying to find out) and finally with a trusted person, this inventory will be right.

In the sharing (with a person in Step5) I will know by how I feel as I speak, whether I am being totally honest or somewhat witholding etc. Where I am in my own recovery, it usually boils down to a discussion around 1-what I am feeling good about and 2-what is triggering anything uncomfortable in my feelings. Solutions are very close at this point for me. Notice I said, discuss the good before the other.

I sense I am very nearly ready to share so prayer is now (always is) crucial. For me that means pray write listen write pray write listen and so on and so on until it all seems to stop. Now review of it all and what will I (we if you use partner type two-way prayer like I do) learn. It is never too late to uncover and recover. This is discovery!! A favourite saying for me is "discover and recover". In other words if I discover it through the process (my working the steps), I can use the wisdom to heal me. If you tell me or teach me or give me unsolicited info of any kind. if you try to manipulate a situatiuon that you think will help me, then I believe the motivation is completely wrong and the results will be anything but spiritual and spiritual answers require NO HELP from people. As I ask people who are interested in this philosophy "do you really want a spiritual answer to your problem(s)? Men/women do not provide spiritual answers although spiritual discovery sometimes happens through others' words or behaviours BUT only when the motivation of such people was inward healing/growth for themselves rather than fixing/controlling/helping/changing/enabling/looking after, someone else. All this to say beware of the roll of the trusted person you will talk to when sharing Step5!!!!