Daily Reprieve

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 42)

Step Four is the vigorous and painstaking effort to discover what the liabilities in each of us have been, and are.  I want to find exactly how, when, and where my natural desires have warped me.  I wish to look squarely at the unhappiness this has caused others and myself.  By discovering what my emotional deformities are, I can move toward their correction.  Without a willing and persistent effort to do this, there can be little sobriety or contentment for me.

To resolve ambivalent feelings, I need to feel a strong and helpful sense of myself.  Such an awareness doesn’t happen overnight, and no one’s self-awareness is permanent. Everyone has the capacity for growth, and for self-awareness, through an honest encounter with reality.  When I don’t avoid issues but met them directly, always trying to resolve them, they become fewer and fewer.

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What am I looking for when I am conducting a fearless moral inventory?  The contributor to today’s reflection say that I am seeking out Inner Liabilities, the Warped places in me produced by (Exaggerated) Natural Desires, my Inner Sources of Unhappiness to others and myself, Emotional Deformities, Unresolved Ambivalent Feelings, Personal Issues, and ways to resist the Temporary State of my Self-Awareness.

What happens when I know these things about myself?  What am I seeking to do about it?  The contributor says that I am seeking Correction, Sobriety, and Contentment.  I am looking to build a Strong and Helpful Sense of Myself knowing that it will be a Long Term and Repetitive Process requiring willingness and persistent effort.  I am seeking an Honest, Truthful Encounter with Reality to Foster Growth and Self-Awareness.  I am to meet my personal Issues Directly and Attempt to Resolve them.

The moral inventory is a solitary intelligence gathering process.  The sponsor is there to help keep me from being bogged down in morbid self-reflection or to give up in an old habit of denial.  The power of the corrective action I take with my sponsor’s help will be proportional to the determined accuracy of my intelligence gathering mission.

This entry was posted on April 1, 2014 at 7:26 am and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Addiction, Alcoholism, Journal, Life, Personal, Recovery, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.