Facing Our Darker Side

[MajestyJo]

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.

Facing Our Darker Side

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. --Step Four of Al Anon

By the time we get to the Fourth of the Twelve Steps, we are ready to face our darker side, the side that prevents us from loving others, from letting others love us, and from enjoying life and ourselves. The purpose of Step Four is not to make ourselves feel worse; our purpose is to begin to remove our blocks to joy and love.

We look for fears, anger, hurt, and shame from past events--buried feelings that may be affecting our life today. We search for subconscious beliefs about others and ourselves that may be interfering with the quality of our relationships. These beliefs say: Im not lovable. . .. Im a burden to those around me. . .. People cant be trusted. . . . I cant be trusted . . .. I don't deserve to be happy and successful. . .. Life isn't worth living. We look at our behaviors and patterns with an eye toward discerning the self-defeating ones. With love and compassion for ourselves, we try to unearth all our guilt - earned and unearned - and expose it to the light.

We perform this examination without fear of what we shall find, because this soul searching can cleanse us and help us feel better about ourselves than we ever dreamt possible.

God, help me search out the blocks and barriers within myself. Bring what I need to know into my conscious mind, so I can be free of it. Show me what I need to know about myself.


Today I wait in peace and rest in the knowledge that God is working for me while I am resting. --Ruth Fishel

Have found over the years that I had to pray for the willingness to be willing.

We don't often realize how many blocks and barriers we do erect, and if we do we feel it is for self-preservation. In recovery, we need to take risk and allow ourselves to become vulnerable.