Some Thoughts on Step Four

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bluidkiti
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Age: 44
Joined: 01 Dec 2005
Posts: 7079


Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 4:54 am Post subject: Some Thoughts on Step Four


Some Thoughts on Step Four
If you choose to do your Fourth Step in your head and don't write it down,
that's fine but please don't call it AA.
The moment you start to resent a person, you become their slave. He/She
controls your dreams, robs you of your peace of mind and good will, and
takes away the pleasure of your work. He/She blocks your relationship with
God and nullifies your prayers You cannot take a vacation without this
person going along! He/She destroys your freedom of mind and hounds you
wherever you go.
There is no way to escape the person you resent. He/She is with you when
you are awake, invades your privacy when you sleep; is close beside you when
you eat when you drive your car, and when you are on the job. You lose
neither efficiency nor happiness. He/She even influences the tone of your
voice. He/She even steals your last moment of consciousness before you go
to sleep. So, if you want to be a slave -- harbor resentments.
Am I SELFISH? If I am resentful, it is because someone did not do what I
wanted them to do in the past. They did not do it my way. That is being
SELFISH. If I am angry it is because someone is not doing what I want them
to do right now. They are not doing it my way. That is being SELFISH. If
I am fearful it is because I know someone is not going to do what I want
them to do in the future. They are not going to do it my way. That is
being SELFISH. If I feel guilty or remorseful, it is because I got my own
way at your expense. And that is being SELFISH. It seems that page 62 of
the Big Book is correct when it says SELFISHNESS is the root of all my
trouble.
If you hate a person, you hate something in them that is part of yourself.
What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. What I hate in another, is
usually what I struggle with myself.
The 4th step isn't about finding out who you are, it's about finding out who
you are not, so you can get rid of it & who you are will shine thru. That's
why self-knowledge avails us nothing. We need to find out what GOD wants us
to be.
Hating destroys the hater.
Nothing that you fear is as bad as the fear itself. The man who fights
life's battles without fear fights one enemy -- the real thing confronting him.
But the man who fights with fears within him fights three enemies - the real
thing to fight, plus the imaginary things built up by fear, plus the fear
itself. And the greatest of these is fear. Fear is what looses from within
itself the enemies that capture us within before the real fight with the
outward enemy begins. So boiled down to its essence, the conclusion is that
there is nothing to fear save fear nothing to worry about except worry.
Resentment = wrong judgments, Fear = wrong believing, Harms = wrong actions.
That which we fear grows in proportion to our obsession with it. The more
we fear a thing, the bigger it becomes, which in turn increases our fear.
How lucky we are that our Higher Power awaits our call for the strength, the
companionship that is guaranteed us!
We are in partnership, all the way, every day, if we'd only recognize it.
We can move toward and through anything. And the added benefit is that we
come to trust our partnership. We soon know that all situations can be met.
All experiences can be survived. Avoidance is no longer our technique for
survival. Tackling with God's help that which seems impossible, reduces it
to manageable size. It also deflates the power our fears have given it.
Resentment is like taking poison and expecting the other person to get sick.
Fear is the faith that something bad is going to happen.
Thanks for your anger, because it reminds me when I'm angry what I do to
myself.
Fears usually revolve around three things: afraid of loosing what I have,
afraid of not getting what I want, or afraid of someone finding out what I
did. It is not that anything changes, it's just that we get a new pair of glasses
that are in focus, and when we take a look at everything through the
spiritual glasses, we realize everything has been fine all along. The
problem was that our vision was distorted. It was distorted because we were
looking at everything from a position of self-centeredness; we're looking at
the universe with us at the center. From that perspective, everything was
screwed up. As soon as we change to being more God-centered or
love-centered or others-centered, peace of mind becomes our constant state.
(A prayer to begin with each time you sit down to write your Fourth Step)
God please help me with this; show me what I need to know. Please protect
me, Thy Will not mine be done. Amen.
The things we are afraid of seem to be like high mountains to climb. When
we have gone through them they were in fact small speed bumps.
Dear God, it is I who have made my life a mess. I have done it, but I
cannot undo it. I desperately need Your help. My mistakes are mine, and I
will begin a searching and fearless truth-finding inventory. I will write
down the exact NATURE of my wrongs. I pray for the strength to complete the
task. Amen.
If I am trying to make myself "un-self-centered", isn't that still being
self-centered?
"God, Please help me show those I resent the same Tolerance, Pity and
Patience that I would cheerfully grant a sick friend. Help me to see that
this is a sick man. Father, please show me how I can be helpful to him and
save me from being angry. Lord, help me to avoid retaliation or argument.
I know I can't be helpful to all people, but at least show me how to take a
kindly and tolerant view of each and every one. Thy will be done."
Is it possible that fear is a conscious decision?
Instead of going into the 4th Step as "cleaning your room by rearranging the
same old stuff you've always been stuck with", think of it as "cleaning your
room by throwing out the stuff you don't want so you can replace it with
stuff you DO want".
The way you are is NOT the result of what has happened to you, it's the
result of what you decide to KEEP INSIDE of you.
A scientist showed the Teacher a documentary film on the achievements of
modern science. "Today we are able to irrigate a desert," he exulted,
"harness the power of Niagara Falls, and detect the composition of a distant
star and the makeup of an atom. Our conquest of nature will soon be
complete." The Teacher was impressed but pensive. Later he said, "Why
conquer nature? Nature is our friend. Why not spend all that energy in
overcoming the one single enemy of the human race: fear?"
At a certain point, we forgive because we decide to forgive. Healing occurs
in the present, not the past. We are not held back by the love we didn't
receive in the past, but by the love we're not giving in the present.
You don't wait to get better before you do a 4th Step; you do a 4th Step to
get better.
FEAR -- False Evidence Appearing Real or Frantic Efforts to Appear Recovered
or Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything And Recover.
Fear is only an illusion. It is the illusion that creates the feeling of
separateness, which is the false sense of isolation that exists only in your
imagination.
An expectation is a premeditated resentment.
To be wronged is NOTHING unless you insist on remembering it.
If I totally, at the depth of my being, trusted God, I would never
experience fear. So my fears and anxieties reveal my current agnosticism.
It's not what's going on around me that makes me feel the way I'm feeling,
it's what I'm thinking ABOUT what's going on around me that makes me feel
the way I'm feeling.
And when I change the way I'm thinking about what's going on around me, my
feelings toward them also change. Every time I have a negative emotional
reaction, I am always telling myself something about what's happening. And
if I have a negative emotional reaction, whatever I'm telling myself is
always a lie, and all I have to do to stop having these negative emotional
reactions is to become aware that I am telling myself a lie, and the moment
I know I'm telling myself a lie, I stop doing it. And then I stop having
the negative emotional reaction. It sounds complicated but it isn't. Of
all judgments that I can make about what's going on, they all can be boiled
down to two. I'm always telling myself one or the other of two lies whenever
I am angry, disappointed, annoyed, afraid; whatever. I'm either telling
myself: 1) this should not happen, or 2) this is
terrible/intolerable/unacceptable/I am unable to live with this (or however
you want to put it). There is only one cure for resentment -- detachment.
The detachment that comes from attachment, whole-souled attachment, to the
One Who loves even the "unlovable" and the "undeserving" of love. Our
attachment needs to be on God and God alone. And since God is love, we get
over resenting someone by loving them!
Non-consideration of our character defects is every bit as self-destructive
as denial of them. Admission of them is what's called for. But non-sharing
of them with another human being makes it impossible to experience the
maximum experience of feeling ashamed of ourselves that gives the maximum
hope of wanting to be rid of them all.

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