Stepping Outside – Step Four (Part 1)

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It seems like we never really get away from this inventory business. No, I did not say that as a negative statement. It’s true that before I seriously committed myself to this 12-step program, the last thing I wanted to do was to look at myself. When I looked in the mirror, not to shave, but to try to look at the real me, it was a terrible experience. My self-esteem was, pretty much, non-existent. I thought that I had so many flaws, character defects, and shortcomings, that the last thing that I, or God once it was for us to have any kind of a relationship.

Of course, I have learned, through sweating, cursing, crawling, and crying my way through this program, that somewhere inside I am perfect. Yes, you read that right! I was a person who saw absolutely no hope for myself, and certainly, no love. Through this program I have been able to discard those things that I had allowed to cover up the true me and my two personality. Part of the way I did that was by honestly look-ing at myself and enabling myself to see all those character defects and shortcomings without running away from them or trying to rationalize them out of existence.

In other words, I took the 4th step. I made, as best I could at that time, a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself. I try to avoid the “blame game”, and I tried, as best I could, to leave others out of that personal inventory. I cannot begin to tell you how important that inventory turned out to be.

It is this same inventory that I will speak about, and how to keep using it in our daily lives. Of course, I won’t be able to talk about this step as far as using it as part of our day, without talking about the 10th step, which is:, “Continued to take personal inventory, and when I was wrong, promptly admitted it.”