12 Steps Series: Step Four

In this episode, we cover Step Four of the Twelve Steps Codependents’ Guide To The Twelve Steps, Melody Beattie STEP 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves Quote #1 - “... We may leave one person because of their particular problem, only to find ourselves in another relationship with someone who has a similar, or perhaps identical, problem.”(p61) Quote #2 - “... What do I need to learn about taking care of myself? And what’s stopping me from doing that?”(p61) Quote #3 - “We are taking this Step to get to the core of recovery: self-responsibility. ... We are responsible for what we have created in our lives and what we will create. We are responsible for our feelings. They are ours.”(p62) Quote #4 - “The great codependency delusion is this: We would be feeling different if someone else would just do something, if we were someone else, if we had something we wanted. Not true...”(p62) Quote #5 - “This Step is the beginning of our own housecleaning. It is where we begin looking within for the solution to our problems and pain. It is how we begin to heal ourselves and our hearts. In this Step, we begin to allow the light to come into ourselves. (p63) Quote #6 - “An important part of this process is finally to feel as hurt and angry as we need to, so we can be done with these feelings... so we can be free from their control and influence. We allow ourselves to grieve our losses fully. Our unresolved emotions may be motivating our behaviors today. Unfinished business does not go away. It keeps repeating itself until we are ready to deal with it. ...”(p70) Quote #7 - “Feelings are an important part of us. Not acknowledging them is a key issue in codependency...” (p71) Quote #8 - “Feelings are not the disease; not feeling them, repressing them, holding back, is the problem.”(p71) Quote #9 - “Some experts now say that unfelt feelings cause disease - physical illness, sometimes death. I agree... ”(p71) Quote #10 - “Remember, our feelings are our responsibility...”(p72) Quote #11 - “We can learn to let ourselves feel, and heal from the backlog of feelings from our pasts...”(p72) Quote #12 - “…these Steps are also a self-esteem program. We work them to be done with shame, guilt, and low self-esteem. We work these Steps to learn how to love ourselves. Then we can learn how to love other people and let them love us.”(p73) Quote #13 - “We go back to the past long enough to be able finally to put it behind us and set ourselves free.”(p75) Quote #14 - “...And I masked it all in a strange dichotomy in which I vacillated between feelings of superiority and inferiority.”(p78 ) Quote #16 - “The grief from this process was enormous...” (p78 ) Quote #17 - “Over and over again, I grieved one less after another, from birth to the present.” (p79) Quote #18 - “This is the healing step. This is the healing-the-heart Step. This Step can change lives. Go deep. Go as deep within yourself as you can. Start with the top layer, and let the process take you deeper. Do not be afraid of what you will find.” (p80) Quote #19 - “...if we are seeking only the temporary relief and “high” of moral superiority, then we can continue doing that. But if we are looking for more from our recoveries and from our lives, looking within is the answer.” (p81) Quote #20 - “We have been doing what we believed we needed to do to survive. Now, we are on the way to becoming fully alive.” (p81 )