A format chart for step 6

[clean42day]

imagine colums going down with these catagories as the header:

Character defect;

How It affects me;

How it affects others;

What purpose does it serve? (this is a real important column)

How would life be without it? (imagine freedoms from self)

What would I replace it with? (also gives us something to strive towards)

I found this very helpful....because what we resist persists. The harder I tried to just "not act" on character defects the more stubborn they became. I had to tranform them forward instead into a character trait that is more productive that works. Looking at what purpose they served made me look at the payoff I was getting (as dysfunctional as it was) that payoff still served a purpose. a purpose of protection, denial, avoid fears, protect insecurities of the ego, ect.

How would life be without it? well if you go around ripping bark off trees and removing the protection that serves the core of the tree without replacing it....the tree will die. The same is true for people....we peel layers away gently, all the while replacing those protective dyfunctional layers with something that is equally protective that serves to heal, to create health, and is still functional to help the tree grow and continue to heal itself.
I had to at least imagine what my authentic God-self looked like...so I could see a solution, a remedy, a spiritual principal, and alternative behavior, a different and new perspective.....ect.

what would I replace it with? functional healthy coping skills, spiritual principals, behaviors that honor self and others, integrity, honesty, humility...ect. Imagining what kind of character traits I would value...and then seek to develope them.

I had to at least imagine what my highest good looked like and imagine the character traits that would honor that highest good...so that way I had something to shoot for in forward motions and actions. it is so much easier to move energy forward than it is to push it back. I had to create a working transformation in actions that moved me and my character from where I was...to where I wanted to be.

and alot of that time was spent walking through fear of letting go of the old self. The self that served me for so many years....in favor of something better....the new me.

JMHO.

light and love

Gail

[clean42day]

This list of “Defects of Character� hangs on the wall of the Westside Club in Georgetown. It remains a focal point of the club’s main room and has helped countless recovering alcoholics identify areas of their character that need improvement.

[clean42day]

This is the list I came up with to tranform character defects into improved charcater traits.


Dishonesty - to self honesty and truthfulness with others
Selfishness - thinking of others, compromise, delaying gratification
resentments - to forgiveness
egotisism - to humility, modesty, altruism
fear - to bravery, courage through faith
Anger - expressing core emotion of hurt, fear, injustice - (see below)
Hatred - calm, forbearance, tolerance - also forgiveness
False Pride - humility, modesty
self seeking - God seeking, god consciousness
conciet - humbleness, modesty, reserve
intolerance - fairness, justness, impartiality
envy - genuine admiration for anothers highest good, shared happiness
bigotry - fairness, open-mindedness, tolerance, unbias
laziness - energy, willingness, motivation, productivity
frustration - encouragement, satisfaction, tolerance, patience
impatience - patient, delaying gratification, slow down, tolerance, self control
Jealousy - satisfaction in being enough, having enough, contentment,secure
Arrogance - (form of false pride) humility, modesty
condemnation - suspend judgement
sense of inadequacy - abundance, adequacy, self-esteem, contentment
remorse - acceptance eventually transforms to spiritual gratitude
slef pity - self-esteem, accontability, responsibility
revenge - (revenge is personal and justice is societal) surrender to Gods spiritual justice. or let it go to karma
worry - calmness, reassurance through faith
anxiety - calm, relaxation, security, tranquility through faith and courage
uncharitableness - brotherly love, esteemable acts of kindness, goodwill, service

other character defects that are more insidious:

Checklist of Cognitive Distortions

1.All-or-nothing thinking: you look at things in absolute, black-and-white catagories.
2. Overgeneralization: you view a negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
3. Mental filter: you dwell on the negatives and ignore the positives.
4. Discounting the positives: you insist that your accomplishments or positive qualities “Don’t Count�
5. Jumping to conclusions: (A) Mind reading - you assume that people are reacting negatively to you when there’s no definite evidence for this; (B) Fortune telling - you arbitrarily predict that things will turn out badly.
6. Magnification or Minimization: you blow thing way up out of proportion or you shrink their importance inappropriately.
7. Emotional reasoning: you reason from how you feel: “I feel like an idiot, so I really must be one.� Or “I don’t feel like doing this so I’ll put it off.�
8. “Should� statements: you criticize yourself or other people with “shoulds�or “shouldn’ts�, “musts� “oughts� and “have to’s� are similar offenders.
9. Labeling: You identify with your shortcomings: instead of saying “I made a mistake,� you tell yourself, “I am a mistake� or I’m a loser.�
10. Personalization and blame: You blame yourself for something you weren’t entirely responsible for, or you blame other people and overlook ways that your own attitudes and behavior might contribute to a problem.

more:
Styles of Distorted Thinking
by Adult Children Anonymous

Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of the situation.

Polarized Thinking: Things are black or white, good or bad. You have to be perfect or you are a failure. There is no middle ground.

Over Generalization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or other piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again.

Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to tell how people are feeling about you.

Catastrophizing: You expect a disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start, "What if's?" What if a tragedy strikes? What if it happens to you?

Personalization: You think everything people do or say is some kind of a reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc.

Control Fallacies: You feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control makes you feel responsible for the pain or happiness of everyone around you.

Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what's fair but are sure that other people won't agree with you.

Blaming: You hold others responsible for your pain, or else you blame yourself for every problem or reversal.

Shoulds: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act or feel. People who break these rules anger you and you feel guilty if you violate them yourself.

Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid or boring.

Fallacy of Change: You expect that others will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes and happiness seems to depend on them.

Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities into a negative judgment. When you make a mistake, instead of describing your error, you say: "I'm a loser." If someone irritates you, you label them, "He's a louse."

Being Right: You are continually on trial to prove your opinions and actions are correct.

Heaven's Reward: You expect all of your sacrifices and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score.


1. Self Pity 11. Impatience
2. Self Justification 12. Resentment
3. Self Importance 13. Hate
4. Self Condemnation 14. Enviousness
5. Criticizing 15. Jealousy
6. Negative Thinking 16. Laziness
7. Vulgar Immoral Thinking 17. Lying
8. Insensitivity 18. Gossiping
9. Procrastination 19. Selfishness
10. Dishonesty 20. Fear

[dalin]

thanks for the post.
you folks help me out often

[Nana]

iI NEED TO READ AND RE-READ THIS......THANK YOU LOVE NANA

[dalin]

1 Abusing Others for enjoyment
2 Action, failing to take
3 Aloof
4 Anger Anger 37, 66, 88, 108, 135
5 Antagonistic
6 Anxiety
7 Anxious, overly
8 Apathetic
9 Apologetic, overly
10 Appearances, preoccupied or obsessed with
11 Argumentative
12 Arrogance
13 Avarice
14 Avoiding confrontation
15 Beating yourself up
16 Beauty, obsession or preoccupation with
17 Bigotry
18 Blaming others for disease
19 Blaming self for disease
20 Boastful
21 Boundaries, not setting
22 Busybody
23 Cheating
24 Choosing easy prey, gossip
25 Choosing easy prey, physical
26 Closed-mindedness
27 Codependenc
28 Coldheartedness
29 Communication, avoiding
30 Communication, poor
31 Companions, seeking corrupt / lower
32 Compassion, lack of
33 Competitive, excessively
34 Complaining
35 Conceit
36 Condemning
37 Confrontation, avoiding
38 Controlling
39 Controlling Others
40 Cowardice
41 Critical
42 Crude
43 Deceptive, deceiving
44 Dependency, dependent
45 Dependent on parents
46 Destructive
47 Devious
48 Different, thinking you are
49 Disease, feeling responsible for/taking credit for
50 Disease, making excuses for
51 Disease, not accepting
52 Dishonesty
53 Dishonesty by omission
54 Disorganized
55 Egotistical
56 Envious
57 Exaggeration
58 Excess
59 Faith, lack of faith in God
60 Fanatical
61 Fantasizing
62 Favoritism, playing favorites
63 Fearful
64 Filthy-mindedness
65 Financially dependent on others
66 Financially insecure
67 Following through, failing to
68 Frustration
69 Gluttony
70 Gossiping
71 Greed
72 Guilt, about sexual fantasies
73 Guilt, excessive feelings of
74 Guilt, feeling guilty for things beyond control
75 Harsh
76 Hate
77 Hatred of others
78 Hatred of self
79 Health, irresponsibility with or neglect of
80 Help, refusing/not asking for
81 Hopelessness
82 Ignorance Ignorance 2, 20, 107
83 Ill wishes toward others
84 Immodesty
85 Impatience
86 Impulsive purchaser
87 Inadequacy, sense of
88 Incompassionate
89 Inconsiderate Inconsiderate 69, 82, 108, 125
90 Indecisive Indecision 86
91 Indifferent
92 Injustice
93 Insecure in your own skin
94 Insecure in sexuality
95 Insecurity, financial
96 Insensitivity
97 Insincerity Insincere 96
98 Intolerance Intolerance 50, 103, 120, 135, 160
99 Intolerance of sick people
100 Inventory, taking other’s
101 Irresponsibility
102 Irresponsibility, financial
103 Irresponsible
104 Isolating
105 Jealousy
106 Judgmental of others
107 Knowing it all
108 Laziness

110 Leering, crude toward Lewd
112 Lifestyles, not accepting others’
113 Love and friendship, refusal to accept
114 Lustful
115 Lying
116 Making excuses for disease
insecure
118 Manipulative
119 Measuring self against others
120 Meddling
121 Messy
122 Miserliness
123 Negative body image
124 Negative Thinking
125 Negatives, focusing on or magnifying
126 Neglectful
127 Opinionated
128 Opinions, not respecting others’
129 Overcompensating for projected wrongs
130 Overcompensating for weaknesses
131 Perfectionism
132 Pessimism
133 Physical appearance, obsession or preoccupation with
134 Physical health, neglect of
135 Playing God
136 Playing God with self
137 Positives, not looking at
138 Possessive
139 Preachy
140 Prejudice
141 Pride, False
142 Pride, Intellectual
143 Pride, Spiritual
144 Procrastination
145 Program, working other’s
146 Psychoanalysis of others
147 Reckless
148 Remorseful
149 Resentment
150 Revenge, vengefulness
151 Rude
152 Sarcastic
153 Secretive
154 Seeking attention
155 Seeking negative attention
156 Self Condemnation
157 Self Deprecating humor
158 Self Importance
159 Self Justification
160 Self Pity
161 Self reliance
162 Self Seeking
163 Self, putting self on pedestal
164 Self-absorbed
165 Self-centeredness Self-centeredness 14, 61, 62, 64, 111*, 124
166 Self-hatred
167 Self-indulgence
168 Selfishness Selfish 7, 21, 61, 67, 69, 82, 84, 86, 87
169 Self-loathing
170 Setting expectations
171 Sex, hidden
172 Sex, lack of appreciation for
173 Skeptical
174 Sloth
175 Stealing Stealing 68
176 Step on others to get to top
177 Stewardship of assets, poor
178 Suspicious
179 Thoughtless
180 Thrill-seeking
181 Uncharitableness
182 Uncleanness
183 Undependable
184 Undisciplined
185 Unfaithful
186 Ungrateful
187 Uniqueness, terminal
188 Unreliable
189 Untrustworthy
190 Valuing the opinion of a sick mind
191 Vengeful
192 Vulgar Immoral Thinking
193 Wasteful
194 Worry

[dalin]

from Toronto NA -

Input to Step Six


“ We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”



This is a step of preparation for the next level of our personal recovery. This is wear the readiness and the willingness have to work together so we can get the complete freedom the steps promise.

Over a long period of time, many in this sponsorship family have noticed areas where we all have trouble. These consistencies lead to us using the six P formula.

1] Perspective - These are old ‘survival skills’ that no longer work for us. At one point they did, but now they recharge our unmanageability. H.P. wants more than survival for us today, so we can let them go.

2] Pain - When clinging on to a defect or survival skill becomes more painful than our fear of letting it go, we have become entirely ready to surrender to a higher power.

3] Prayer - God removes the defects, not us addicts. Our part is to pray for openness and willingness. So, God shows us the defect, and we do the footwork of listing, sharing and becoming willing to have God remove the defects in the 7th Step.

4] Patience - God is in charge of the outcome, and chooses how and when our defects are removed due to our lack of humility.

5] Process - Becoming entirely involves a process, like a grief process, where we walk through our denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and work toward surrender and acceptance. Each defect goes through this process, and they can be tough. At the end of this process we write each survival skill, create a good bye letter, thanking it, but letting it know that it will no longer be required.

6] Payoff - When we are struggling with a defect, we need to see what quick fix mechanism is being fed. If we are having a hard time letting it go, what is so good about it? Are we being self righteous, unforgiving, proving that only we know what’s best? Are we justifying, rationalizing, or any number of the usual suspects? Write about each situation that keeps a defect frozen so we can become entirely ready.

One more thing we need to see here is that every character defect is also a characteristic also. Take out the addictive urge, add the spirituality, and you can find assets in each one.

So all our defects have a God centeredness when we check them out. If we drop the negative will, and pray for God awareness, we can see how we were spiritual, even when we weren’t practical. We can act our way into spirituality, by watching for negative will.


- dalin and the Toronto guys...

[dalin]

The 6th step says that only a Higher Power can remove our defects ? Whats Your resposibility ?A solid belief in a HP, A written 4th followed up with a 5th & the Humility to followed direction ..........., below is the worksheet I worked off of & the re-direction of one of our predecessors Linda D. For suggesting I purchase a THESAURUS

"We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Entirely ready are key words in this Step. The very act of living Steps One thru Five make us entirely ready, we just need to recognize this and know our defects can be removed. A question that is always asked is - How does God remove all these defects of character? The answer can be found in the Third Step. Before we can use the Third Step in relation to the Sixth Step, we must do some footwork. Our Higher Power will always work through us and other recovering addicts, as long as we are willing to provide the perspiration, our Higher Power will provide the motivation.

The way I did the footwork was to make a list of all My defects.& got a Thesaurus to find words that are similar in meaning to the origional defect On one side of a piece of paper list defects of character, draw a line down the center of the paper. Across from each defect on the other side of the line we list the opposite (Assets) of each defect such as:

DEFECT ASSETS

Greed Temperance , Unselfesh ,

Sloth Active, self-motivated , willingness ,

Errogant Humble,modest,selfeffacing,unconceited ,

Loathing Admiration, Affection ,appreciating ,benefit,blessing ,

This is what a good thesaurus will do ,it'll show the many defects that can possibly stem from INTOLERANCE,no I didn't have all of them but it sure helped find a lot more & the Antonyms show You a potential ASSET . behavior I replace the character flaw (defects) with ...................

Intolerence

Synonyms: arbitrary, arrogant, bigoted, bullheaded*, categorical, cocksure*, confident, definite, despotic, determined, dictative, doctrinaire, domineering, downright, egotistical, emphatic, fanatical, fascistic, formal, iceman, imperious, intolerant, magisterial, narrow-minded, obdurate, obstinate, one-sided, oracular, overbearing, peremptory, pigheaded*, prejudiced, red neck, stiff-necked, stubborn, stupid, tenacious, tyrannical, unequivocal, wrong-headed
Antonyms: amenable, flexible, liberal-minded, open-minded, questioning, tolerant


After we have completed this list to the best of our ability, we can now focus on assets we wish to have. This becomes a goal.

Now that we are entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character we will move on to the Seventh Step. Most of us, being the addicts we are will say this sounds too simple, but remember the Sixth Step says: "We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character." and this is what we did, became entirely ready. During the Fourth Step we came in touch with our innermost feelings and ourselves. During our Fifth Step we came in touch with our Higher Power, ourselves and another human being. During the Sixth Step we used the information from the Fourth and Fifth Steps to see our defects of character and patterns. We looked at them and went through the work of listing them on paper All of this adds up to being entirely ready.

As she says -Your Mileage May Vary



andaction

[anniemac]

Originally Posted by clean42day

imagine colums going down with these catagories as the header:

Character defect;

How It affects me;

How it affects others;

What purpose does it serve? (this is a real important column)

How would life be without it? (imagine freedoms from self)

What would I replace it with? (also gives us something to strive towards)

Yup, I did what Gail started this thread with....I looked at what purpose my defect serves, what would happen if I stopped using it, and what could I replace it with.

I'm glad to see that someone else has used this method, as many tell me that I "overthink" this Step as it is only one paragraph in the BB. To me it is a HUGE step and was pivital in my recovery.

[dalin]

How It Works: 12 Steps

Step Six

"We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character."

Surrender is the initial part of working each Step. Surrender prepares us to ask God to remove our defects. Respect and honest humility are keys that open doors to powers that are so great that they dare not approach us when we are exerting our wills. The loving higher powers do not want to hurt us, and going against our unsurrendered will would definitely hurt! We have a blessed tendency to not violate certain basics of humanity. If we betray, exploit or manipulate others without their knowledge or permission, the shame and guilt can exact a high price. The Sixth Step gives us a chance to actualize our disapproval of the way we have been living our lives. The danger here is that our illness of addiction tries to make us forget that we are tapping into a greater power that enables us to work our way back to health through the Twelve Steps. We find that submission calms us and allows us to do our part by being willing and open to change rather that letting us be hurt. But we have to keep going with the Steps! By the time we get to this Step, we have begun to see that addiction only feeds us contradictions. Some experienced NA members have said that we need to clearly define what is bothering us. We want to make sure we really are suffering from a defect and not merely confused by our disease.

This is a step of preparation for the next level of our personal recovery. This is wear the readiness and the willingness have to work together so we can get the complete freedom the 12 Steps promise. Over a long period of time, many members have noticed areas where we all have trouble. These consistencies lead to us using the six P formula.



1] Perspective - These are old ‘survival skills’ that no longer work for us. At one point they did, but now they recharge our unmanageability. H.P. wants more than survival for us today, so we can let them go.

2] Pain - When clinging on to a defect or survival skill becomes more painful than our fear of letting it go, we have become entirely ready to surrender to a higher power.

3] Prayer - God removes the defects, not us addicts. Our part is to pray for openness and willingness. So, God shows us the defect, and we do the footwork of listing, sharing and becoming willing to have God remove the defects in the 7th Step.

4] Patience - God is in charge of the outcome, and chooses how and when our defects are removed due to our lack of humility.

5] Process - Becoming entirely involves a process, like a grief process, where we walk through our denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and work toward surrender and acceptance. Each defect goes through this process, and they can be tough. At the end of this process we write each survival skill, create a good bye letter, thanking it, but letting it know that it will no longer be required.

6] Payoff - When we are struggling with a defect, we need to see what quick fix mechanism is being fed. If we are having a hard time letting it go, what is so good about it? Are we being self righteous, unforgiving, proving that only we know what’s best? Are we justifying, rationalizing, or any number of the usual suspects? Write about each situation that keeps a defect frozen so we can become entirely ready.

One more thing we need to see here is that every character defect is also a characteristic. Take out the addictive urge, add the spirituality, and you can find assets in each one. So all our defects have a God centeredness potential when we check them out. If we drop the negative self- will, and pray for God awareness, we can see how we were spiritual, even when we weren’t practical. We can act our way into spirituality, by watching for negative will.

We addicts require gentleness when we deal with areas of sensitivity caused by past pain. A light touch will do to communicate our needs and our readiness to a loving and attentive God. Gentleness soothes our tendency to relate change with hurting or losing. It gives us maximum capability to pay attention to spiritual principles that may require all our attention. Harshness and abrasiveness make it hard to envision the freedom we seek as near at hand. A loud voice may make us unable to hear at all.

The disease of addiction seems to find a second wind so to speak as we approach this Step. We may want to 'take our time', having 'come so far.' Many have found themselves thinking that if we were to have all our defects removed, we would be unable to survive. Remember here that the purpose of addiction is to mislead and confuse. All that we are seeking in this Step is a growth in our trust and faith that our loving Higher Power will meet our needs. In doing this, we gain the ability to turn loose of harmful defects as we continue with the Steps. We will not be able to go further in recovery unless we trust God to do for us. We have to ask for help from our Higher Power and mean it for the Steps to continue our forward process. Defects do not benefit us. Defects will continue to create countless problems for us and those we love long after we have stopped using drugs. We retain even in recovery the illogical obstinacy and resistance to change in any form. We may even speak well of the Program of NA and the Twelve Steps of recovery and yet we continue to hold back from asking God to remove these defects. There are things and places over which we now have some control. We maintain those things in the best way we can. One of the lessons that we will learn again and again in recovery is to keep to our place. While we stress personal responsibility, we get better at choosing what is our business and what is not. Feeling bad over things that went wrong where we really had no say is ridiculous and is only another way the disease will work to make us miserable when it can.

With an increase of trust and faith from this Step, we give ourselves permission to move forward. Our permission is evidence of our surrender and our willingness to change. So far as we know, God has never forced goodness on any of us. We are all free to mess-up forever. If we want to see what ‘better’ is like, we must let God come into our lives and remove character defects which have blocked our path. Misplaced fears often cause many of our members to slow down when they get to this Step. This is like hanging around outside a restaurant when you're hungry. We addicts feel so brave about things that don't matter to us yet we can be so meek and timid when we face change or improvement. Recalling the early fears that we might have had to overcome in early recovery may help us snap out of any illusions that we might have that the Sixth Step is a resting place in the quest for spiritual growth.


Narcotics Anonymous Way of Life,
Traditions War: a pathway to peace,
The Spirit of NA
or NA Twenty Plus
being edited on this site.

N.A. FELLOWSHIP USE ONLY
Copyright © December 1998

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All rights reserved. This draft may be copied by members of Narcotics Anonymous for the purpose of writing input for future drafts, enhancing the recovery of NA members and for the general welfare of the Narcotics Anonymous Fellowship as a whole. The use of an individual name is simply a registration requirement of the Library of Congress and not a departure from the spirit or letter of the Pledge, Preface or Introduction of this book. Any reproduction by individuals or organizations outside the Fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous is prohibited. Any reproduction of this document for personal or corporate monetary gain is prohibited.


Final edit of step six.Next edition we are adding Gails awesome work along with the defect list.