Three Things to be Grateful For/Fourth Step

I love doing these three "I am grateful for"

1. I am grateful to be working on the 4th step of the AlAnon program and have a good sponsor to work with.

2. I am grateful for a lawyer who read my lease and clarified the ending date for me. I may be able to leave prior to November 1 should I find a place in DC or Chicago.

3. For food fresh from the garden. My friend Ann cooked lunch from rice, Swiss chard, beans, squash-a funny round ball, and peppers from the garden. Wonderful meal way out in Estill county KY in a community called Irvine. I could not believe how remote their 126 acre homestead is.



Working on the 4th step
I believe that the spiritual-emotional continuum is one. When we work to understand ourselves we are freeing ourselves from past learned behavior.
AlAnon is a 12 step, self-help group therapy exploring our own woundedness and choosing to change my behavior because:

The Serenity Prayer
God (as I understand God)grant me the serenity
to accept the things I can not change (another's behavior/attitudes)
Courage to change the things (my own behavior and attitude) I can
and wisdom to know the difference.

(italics, my additions to prayer)

The 4th step is from the AA Big Book and is a part of a spiritual process of healing the wounds of our lives as we act them out in our interactions with others. I encourage all who have an addict of any kind in their family system, he/she may be living or dead to attend AlAnon meetings. We have been influenced by the people we have relationships with.

The 4th Step is an inventory of my characteristics, behaviors, attitudes. "Step Four is an exercise in perception, a way to distinguish between what works in our lives and what is no longer necessary...For many of us the more information we learn about ourselves in a broad range of categories, the better we can understand who we are and how we got this way." Being an ACOA, I have learned dysfunctions resulting in behaviors that hurt myself and others and repression/non expression of feelings. As I have said before, those actions the scriptures call "sin" I believe are these behaviors and if we stay unconscious we cannot change the behavior.

Here is the nutshell discussion of the attributes covered today;
1. Honesty-I have trouble speaking my truth in conversation. I am "wobbly in my skills" This arises because I was not able to be honest in my childhood and during my marriage. My parents could not teach what they did not know. My spouse could not share what he did experience in his own feelings. I lived a marriage that was a lie emotionally and spiritually. Now I am trying to bring my life into congruency: values I hold dear I want to live them in the external world. In my marriage relationshi9p I did not live my values of equality for women and care of children. The RCC oppresses women, I took a stand for justice for women by becoming a RCWP. I want to be more active for peace and justice making.

2. Self-worth Self-worth arises from affirmation in childhood and continues throughout life. Again this is an issue I have struggled with all of my life. We are told "You are a beloved child of God." Yet if we have not experienced support and care in the world, we will not have self worth as an adult.

I need to listen for positive feedback from my behavior in groups. I have received affirmation after my RCWP ordination from all whom I meet. It is the first time in my life that others have affirmed an action I have taken or a behavior.

3. Fear Fear "Many of us who lived with alcoholism became intimately acquainted with fear...in AlAnon we learn that fear is nothing more that a lack of faith, and that by developing our faith we can have courage beyond our expectations...We begin to understand what we did, and that leads to compassion for who we used to be. Our growing awareness about the truth of our situation points us toward freedom. We may have fear...but we are shown we can acknowledge our fear and remain free to live life anyway, under the care of our Higher Power." "Instead of expending my energy on living my life, I focused almost exclusively on avoiding pain, stuffing disturbing feelings, and keeping myself as numb as I could." (How AlAnon Works, P 154)

I lived my life in fear until I walked into Walter Reed and gave control over to God. Jason would live or die, it was in God's hands. My consciousness was raised, I could give my whole self over to God and live without fear. And so I have. I have the freedom to respond to God in the now, not past nor future but today.