Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
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| Image credit: Photo by Ligadier Truffaut on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons |
I am currently working on Step 4 of the 12 Steps with an online group. Step 4 is the one that scares people (including me), because who really likes to take a good look at all their character defects? Ok, I'm not perfect, but do we have to talk about it, really? Can't we just pretend it's not there? That method has been working for me so far, right? Well, alright, it hasn't, but I'm pretty sure denial could work if I just give it one more go and try harder this time.
Still, so far Step 4 is turning out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would be, in part because one of the things I get to do is list all my resentments. (Sure, I'm going to have to find my part in those eventually, and let them go, but for now listing them is delightful.) I have traditionally been a resentment stuffer. I shove all of my resentments way down into a hard little ball inside me that has become so dense over the years that it's in danger of collapsing under that vast pressure into a black hole that will eat the world. It already has an amazing gravitational pull, let me tell you. But now I finally have permission to let all of those resentments out.
I got through close to 30 people just during the time my husband was putting the kids to bed last night. I kept sitting on the sofa and thinking, "Who else do I resent? Oh, yeah! There's that guy!" And I'd delightedly type some more. There were a lot of people and a lot of crusty, yucky old resentments that I'd been hoarding for years inside, and it felt good to just bring them out into the light of day.
My husband actually has the distinction of having made the list several times. After all, marriage can be a hotbed of resentments (yes, the fact that he doesn't help as much as I'd like with the housework was on the list), but marriage to a sex addict breeds whole new categories of resentments. Fortunately, I tried to stick with generalities like "lying" rather than burning time on specifics.
Later today I have to deal with these resentments and find my part in them, but for now, I say: "In your face, guy who stopped me on the street fifteen years ago to ask for directions to 7-11 and wasn't satisfied when I said that it was one block over and a few blocks up! I resent you! I resent the fact that when I tried to be helpful, but couldn't remember the name of the cross-street or whether or not it was exactly two or three blocks up, you harassed me and called me stupid and sighed and rolled your eyes and stormed off like a big spoiled teenager instead of a grown man in a business suit. I resent the fact that you took up my time and in return for my effort at kindness, you badgered me for details and made me feel incompetent because you weren't satisfied with the directions that really would have, believe me, gotten you to that all important 7-11. So there!"
Whew! I feel better! Admitting the resentments are there is the first step. Isn't that fun?
This post originally published at The Second Road on October 8, 2008.
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