STEP FIVE
May 3, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily readerS
“Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” BRB p.190
“In Step Five, for the first time we came clean about our real feelings and walked away from it more whole than before. We were not perfect and that was okay. We allowed our Higher Power to guide us through our histories with new insight. We were validated by our fellow travelers in the process, and we now knew definitively that we had been wronged and that we no longer need to accept abusive behavior from others.
This Step took a lot of courage. We paused before going forward to reflect on how far we had come and to enjoy the view. In a sense we had been reborn into self-awareness on a level we didn’t know existed.
We started to put ourselves first because we were worth it. No one could take this new foundation away from us, because it was built on rock-solid pillars that could not be torn down by others anymore. We were gaining the inner strength necessary to face whatever was put in our paths. We were becoming free from those things that plagued us because we had been honest with our Higher Power and another person.
We looked forward to connecting with our Inner Child as we progressed. That child was awakening and knew it would never ever be alone again. We were there to provide the nourishment, giving everything we had.
On this day I will be honest with the most important person I will ever get to know: Me.”
My Experience:
Step 4 was a very scary step. Thinking about all the wrongs I did, feeling like I was a horrible person, the questions that were asked about my past that I had to think about and write down. The emotional roller coaster this put me on. I had to see, in writing, the things that I did. But, there were also some exercises in step 4 that asked about some positive traits. Since I was feeling like a horrible person, writing about my positive traits was extremely difficult. Then there were these things called “gentleness breaks.” These were times after you have gone through a few gut wrenching exercises that I was able to be gentle with myself through meditation and prayer. During these times gave me a sense that although these things that I did may have been horrible that does not translate into me being a horrible person. These were good reminders along the way so as to keep me sane and to keep me going on this step. Now, in Step 5 I needed to admit, out loud to my sponsor and to my Higher Power, these wrongs. OMG! Are you serious? Writing and reading these wrongs was hard enough, but actually voicing these things to someone else, this is going to break me! When the time came, I swallowed and mustered up the courage, and began. It was long and it was painful. It took two and a half sessions to get through it. What I started to realize about half way through, my sponsor was listening, really listening. He took some notes, but mostly just listened. What I realized was not happening, there was no judgement. In the past I had to be very careful of my words lest I would be judged harshly. I am now talking about the most horrendous behavior I have done over a lifetime and there was no judgement. So when I got to the end, it was sort of anti-climactic. There was no, “you are a bad person,” “you will burn in hell,” nothing. It has been said that you have to walk through the fire to get to the other side. Step five is definitely the fire.
Blog: www.bkcoates.com
Instagram: bkcoates
Facebook: brian coates
Twitter: @cornbread182