“IYLI” Chapter FOUR: Transcending Anger & Pride
Transcending Anger & Pride... It only takes a moment when angry or filled with pride to make a decision which could bring about regret for years to come. That's what anger and pride do when you believe you are those things, they create more moments to be angry about or prideful over. The truth is, our opinions don't matter, being happy is better than being right, and whatever it is you're holding a resentment towards, judgements of, or negative belief systems around, it's most likely anger and/or pride at the root of it. The gift of anger and pride is found when we see them as stimuli arising so we can surrender over our attachments and belief system to and about them, in exchange for a more loving disposition towards the world around us. Anger and pride is not where you'll find God, but where you can see the glory of God arise from once transcended.
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CHAPTER FOUR:
Transcending the Forces of Anger & Pride
The gift of an examined life…
The three-step process to finding one’s way to God is simple, and so simple that most in history have missed it: surrender, forgiveness, gratitude. These three action steps are also what comprises the 12-step program found here in this book. As I was going through the 12-steps myself for overcoming an addiction to alcohol, I wasn’t aware at the time that these were the synthesis of the steps in succession, but as I made my way towards completion of the steps and looked back on them with an open heart and a clearer mind, I saw that all of the 12 steps fell within these categories.
Over the years and since finishing the steps for myself, through regular prayer, periodic meditation and continued contemplation, what arose as truth is that by following a pathway where surrender, forgiveness and gratitude are at the center of it, one comes face to face with truth in uncompromising ways. If you earnestly surrender over the lesser for the greater, forgive yourself, God, others, and the world for how you feel wronged or how you feel you wronged another, and then actively embrace gratitude for a life free of thinking you’re the worst aspects of your mind, you’ll find God in abundance waiting there. And you too will have the realization that it wasn’t that Love just showed up, it’s that you finally woke up to the fact that God was and is always there with an abundance of love present.
Anger and pride are two stumbling blocks that everyone on earth is familiar with, as well as accustomed to the after-effects of both characteristics of the ego. There is not a person alive who has not felt both of these aspects of humanity arise within them at least once in their life, and more accurately though, arise many, many times in their life, perhaps even once a day. Speaking from an American standpoint, based in the basic psychology and parameters of success that is indoctrinated when growing up a U.S. citizen, both anger and pride are seen as quality aspects worth embracing and not surrendering.
Anger and pride as aspects of being a human are experienced all the time by many, but actually having a consciousness level of either anger or pride, or falling somewhere in-between, are altogether different scenarios entirely.
As Dr. Hawkins states in his map of consciousness, if one finds themselves in a lower level of consciousness than anger and pride, these two aspects of the lower mind can be motivators for success and for upward mobility. However, they always end in damaging ways for the person who uses both energies as a means to an end. When someone finds themselves at the levels of anger or pride as inhabitable levels of consciousness, they vacillate between seeing God as vengeful to indifferent. Meaning, if I am angry with the world and I regularly don’t get what I want, my way of seeing the creator is also how I see myself, which is out to get at all costs. When one reaches a level of pride as their resting point, they are so consumed with their worth versus the worth of another, that they don’t have time for God and in turn see the creator through the lens of “who really cares?”
Within these levels of consciousness, the practitioner of both has a life-view of either antagonistic towards the world or too demanding for getting what they want, or a mixture of both repeatedly as they survey the world and how it operates against them. At the level of anger, it’s easy to hate another person, whereas at the level of pride that hate moves more into judgment and scorn. Anger also gives way to aggression, whereas pride gives rise to the embodiment of an inflated sense of self. Both experiences of anger and pride are also the byproducts of drunkenness many times, as well as where someone might find their state of awareness after being consumed with lust for another or the wanting of something without getting it.
Neither anger nor pride are fun levels to find oneself currently residing in, and if you do find that the characteristics of both are declarative of where you are and how you see things currently, just know that you’re headed towards a mighty fall if you don’t surrender these over to God immediately. Again, having anger and pride arise as temporary experiences is normal. This doesn’t mean you’re backsliding towards a life of despair. It just means the ego is presenting itself in a way that is beneficial for you knowing what needs to be surrendered over in the moment to move past whatever issues seem to be present at the time. If you find yourself as anger or pride continually, take faith in the knowingness that I, too, was once these levels of consciousness, but through surrendering them over to a power greater than myself, these levels subsided and gave way to genuine happiness and gratitude for existence.
This chapter is all about the 4th step in the program, and I would be remiss if I did not break it down for you now, as well as share the pitfalls that will present themselves in relation to reaching this step and seeing it through until its conclusion. Transcending past anger and moments of pride is what this step is all about, as well as transcending all other aspects of the ego in your quest for finding your own experience with truth.
If anyone is going to quit working the program, it probably will be at this step. If not here, then step 9. Step 4 is also the step that has the potential to bring about the most relief from the ego once completed. It is no coincidence that when one chooses to put their life down on a piece of paper, as is being asked in this step, looking for the ways that being wronged had more to do with the part they played than what the world around them did, the ego feels the most threatened. When the ego feels threatened it tends to lash out through turning up the dials of wants, desires, cravings, procrastination, and any other manner of inner turmoil at its disposal. This is normal and natural, and as we talked about in earlier parts of this book, from a mile-high view the ego does not do this as a means to hurt you, even though it may seem that way when you’re going through it. No, it acts in this manner to deliver you along the pathway of knowing what needs to be surrendered and forgiven so that gratitude is a natural state and not something you pretend to have.
In my own experience of the 4th step, I found relief immediately in applying the rules of the step to only a single person, my mother. Because of the relief I felt from the truth of seeing through my clouded past view of our relationship and her role in my life, I felt lighter and more capable of seeing the truth in other aspects of life. I let a little truth with regards to my mom stop me from completing the rest of this step for over a month. This is normal for anyone working through this step, and either you find immediate relief, or you find fears screaming loud enough that it stops the spiritual aspirant from moving through this step as fast as they can or are capable of.
As an aside, many believe the spiritual life and the path to truth to be one always paved in gold and easily traversed every moment of the journey, complete with robes worn and people bowing at your feet for wisdom. However, those are false assumptions. The reason most people never reach a level of consciousness characterized as enlightenment, is not because it is impossible to do in a single lifetime, but because finding God as the reality of Self does not happen through half measures and little effort put forth, nor your clothes worn or fancy breathing techniques. Paraphrasing Jesus, the path is straight and narrow, and it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. From past experience, this is true. This is not the case because a rich man has done something wrong to become rich, but because serving two masters leads not to enlightenment but to the partial service of both heaven and earth. The road is straight and narrow because in order to find truth and arrive in heaven subjectively while in the physical form, one has to be willing to surrender over their attachment to everything they believe is real, and in turn have faith that the juice which comes from letting go of the world is worth the squeeze of the effort, all while letting go of even the desire to reach enlightenment in the process.
No one can do the work for you to reach higher levels of realized truth, and likewise, no person can give you enlightenment as well – not a guru, teacher, pastor or new age spiritual healer. If someone claims to possess the ability to give you enlightenment, they themselves are far from someone worth investing time into. Enlightenment is a chosen path and one that doesn’t always end in finding God as the Self in the lifetime you choose to pursue it. By honestly doing the steps in this book you have the opportunity to undue past karma, to transcend your attachment to the mind, and to see all fears for what they are: illusions. But the work in this book can only take you to the doorway of transcendence. It will be up to you and your karmic propensity for being here as to whether or not you have the last bit of strength needed to rely on God with total surrender and lay down even your life before the Creator. This program will deliver the lost into levels of consciousness where more and more love is present, and if you follow the steps of surrender, forgiveness and gratitude, they can lead you to a level of love or unconditional love as byproducts. Enlightenment is between you and God. Being love is between you and the world.
The aim of this book and the author who pens this work is to point you in the direction of Truth while giving you the tools necessary to choose Love for yourself. As we dive deeper into the rest of the book past this chapter, we’ll see together how gratitude is also an action as well as a reality. For now, if you desire and choose to continue chasing after God and moving towards experiencing a life you never thought possible but always hoped could be present, finish this chapter and don’t do as I did by putting off finishing the step. But instead, finish the 4th step as quickly as possible without hurrying or missing anything. Be quick, but don’t hurry. And don’t let the fear of not being perfect stop you from finishing the step.
This step is about being thorough, about being absolutely honest with yourself, and it’s not about leaving anything out of the equation. What one leaves out of the equation for dissection is the very same thing the foundation of the ego will find solace in and continue to torment you over. This step brings about fear for many people because they hold onto the mind’s belief that looking back at your life in earnest will lead to too much pain and suffering as the result. This assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. Why the ego puts up such a fight while approaching this step is because when a person puts pen to paper and breaks down their life as if a movie script, the person starts to truly see the ego as something other than what they are, because they see that what they think and how they think about something is often times far from the truth. This step is not to be done in the mind alone by simply answering some questions internally, for that which you keep in the mind stays fed by the mind, with the mind being the very same thing that writing something down proves to help transcend. We want to get out of the mind in order to better see the mind. There is pure magic in writing things down for this step, and you will not find maximum relief and transcendence if you choose to think you’ll be fine by doing this step without a pen and paper. For those of you who choose to not use pen and paper for this step, please put this book on a shelf right now and come back to it when you are ready.
The truth that you’ll see in this step is that forgiveness for yourself and the world around you is the byproduct of honestly finishing this step. You’ll see that ignorance is the only sin available to mankind, and that if you could have done better you would have done better. You’ll also see that it’s foolish to hold onto the definitions you gave to past moments in your life once you see them more clearly with the gift of honest and thorough hindsight.
You cannot move on in the steps until this particular step is complete. I’m going to say that one more time: you cannot move on in the steps until this step is complete. If you are unwilling to complete this step before moving on, please put this book on a shelf right now and come back to it when you are ready.
Because of this fact, and because of the way the ego will interact with your awareness while approaching and working on the 4th step, this may be the first time in your life where you’ll actually have to choose and practice faith. That’s right, faith. Faith is part of the straight and narrow pathway to Truth, but many of you have probably never come across a good description of faith, so let’s end this part of the dialogue before we get into further truths in the next section. Talking about faith in a way that might finally feel worthy of understanding and applying.
On July 4th, 2017, I had to choose faith in response to God’s offer of help. I had to choose to believe there is a better way of life other than what I currently knew as reality, even though my reality was all that felt real or possible. The way I approached it was through reason at first, meaning: if all of life appears to have an up as well as a down, a left as well as a right, a here as well as a there, wouldn’t it stand to reason that if life sucks so bad now, can’t it also be wonderful later? That was my bridge to faith before actually choosing faith. Sanity was found in that reasoning for me, and it was through a bit of sanity that I was able to choose faith in the proposition from God about choosing another way to live. From the logic of “just because I feel this way right now and don’t truly know that life could be better, doesn’t mean that there is not a world where life is better, because for every down there’s an up, right?” was the link between choice and faith I needed. Faith, for me, at first, was choosing to trust that there was an up without any evidence of it currently being present.
Faith for you in the face of the 4th step might be something similar: “I have a program and a person who speaks from firsthand experience of the benefits of completing the fourth step and the program as a whole, so am I going to believe my ego which says I don’t need to complete it, or am I going to have faith that once it’s thoroughly completed and the steps are finished, I will have the hindsight and relief needed to know that faith is actually part of the pathway to transcending the very same thing that tried to convince me otherwise?”
Faith at first is a choice, but the wonderful thing about faith is that it breeds more faith, and with more and more faith one has the opportunity to have faith as a habitual response to life. Once faith becomes part of what you are, God is not out of reach for long. Faith in action is the quickest way to transcend the mind and see truth more clearly. Most people choose what they presently understand and are comfortable with as opposed to the choice of having faith that there has to be something better than what they’re currently experiencing, especially if what one is currently experiencing has caused them to even question if there’s a way to actually be happy. Do you see how faith is a choice to start with logic and reason and end with taking a calculated leap? If you know you’re not happy, why would you choose to double down on where you are and what you know (even though it’s creating no growth) as opposed to having faith that there’s something else out there ready to be experienced?
If you find yourself stuck in completing the 4th step, take stock in what I am about to say: all fear is an illusion, and it is perfectly safe to walk straight through it. Faith without action is worthless in this case, for it takes faith to have the action necessary to see that faith was part of what set you free. Once you have your own experience of faith, you’ll be able to provide another with hope when they need it, and just like truth, faith is a gift that one can’t talk about from firsthand experience without having firsthand experience with it. Having faith in the fact that you are not greater than that which created you also leads to the humility needed to honestly give an appraisal of your life in this step which is the whole reason we’re doing this step. Faith in something greater than you is not foxhole fear or weakness. In all actuality it’s strength. The ability to admit one’s limitations and then ask for help with them is anything but weakness.
TRUTHS
(The Tao Te Ching) Achieve the state of a new-born child. Clear and purify inner vision.
(The Gospel of John) Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
(The Dhammapada) With earnest meditation, purity of mind, and compassionate acts of kindness, you will become an island of serenity which even the greatest floods cannot sweep away.”
(The Bhagavad Gita) See Me in all things. Dwell in Me as I dwell in you.
CONTEMPLATING ON TRUTH
Whether you grew up in a faith-based household or grew up without the thought of religion entering your psyche, one can agree that the eyes of a child are filled with wonder, excitement, enthusiasm, and unfiltered love for those who show love first, not based upon a religion, but intrinsic to their molecular make-up.
Children are magical beings, filled with no animosity towards another race, ethnicity, gender or species apart from themselves. But at a certain point they begin to be programmed by their surroundings and by those who raise them to think otherwise, and often remain tightly connected to the people and the world views around them. Children are inherently innocent from birth, only knowing that which they are taught, besides the sensations of hunger, warmth, the need to use the bathroom, and love from their caregivers. When we transition into adulthood, we have become mannequins clothed by others’ ideas of the world, and the garments we wear are direct reflections of how we were told to see the world around us. The key to letting go of both the programs of anger and pride is as simple as surrendering over our past programming, one layer at a time, to a power greater than ourselves, until we reach a place of purified inner vision towards the world around us. That does not mean we become naive to the ways of the world, but we instead become open to a different reality not yet held by our ego-driven conceptions of what we have come to believe reality is.
In some degree of truth, from one angle, reality is subjectively what we say it is, and only our perception of it gives rise to any particular definition. So, the same amount of energy it takes to be angry with a stimulus is the same amount of energy it takes to love a stimulus. What was educated into us can be unlearned, reprogrammed, and reconstructed from the ground up if need be; all depending on the world we choose to live in once we separate from the throws of childhood programming. The world is inherently nothing more than the world, and it is neither bad nor good, it just is. What we see in the world is dependent on our level of consciousness, and our level of consciousness is dependent on our willingness to surrender the lesser definition for the greater awareness. Anger and pride are both aspects of the ego personified. And when one remains in lockstep with the personal ego, one remains a slave to both anger and pride. Life is better when one surrenders the ego for the state of a new-born child, complete with clear and purified inner vision.
Being born anew is not a religious term but more of a daily spiritual way of experiencing the world. Depending on your religious background, the term “born again,” or “born anew,” may carry significant weight or turmoil for the person looking the shed anger and pride from their life. However, both terms simply give the spiritual seeker a starting point for their new journey of self-discovery, regardless of their predisposition within the confines of a current mode of thinking or religious dogma. One cannot move from where they are to where they have the potential to be without first knowing from where it is they are starting. One cannot build a mighty structure atop a wobbly foundation, and then think the building will stand for years to come. If the foundation is unknown and untested, the building atop it won’t last for long. One cannot experience the joy and freedom that comes from transcending anger and pride until they first choose to start again by being born anew and start again from a place of purified emptiness as well as renewed emphasis on keeping a fixed gaze on the Kingdom of God.
In order to see the glory of the Kingdom of God, which is in and around you, one must choose first to acknowledge that their outer life is but a mirror of an inner level of consciousness. And if so chosen, can be cleansed for a fresh start by letting go of perpetual negative programming through the process of surrender. Being born anew simply means, to wake up in the moment of now and realize that in this very moment there is the chance, as well as the opportunity, to start fresh with a completely different perspective, renewed hope, and a refreshed emphasis on living consciously. In essence, being born anew means that from the rebirth forward, a new direction is continually chosen by the chooser and not burdened by past habits. Every moment we are born anew, but very few choose to see the opportunities that this revelation produces in the precise moment of choosing in the here and now.
When one chooses to look outside of themselves for happiness instead of within for the Kingdom of God, they’re choosing to ignore the opportunity to be born anew. Whenever someone chooses to pursue validation through the eyes of another instead of through internally seeking the Kingdom of God, they’re choosing to ignore the opportunity to be born anew. With every choice comes the opportunity to be born again.
Anger and pride scoff at earnest meditation, and then retort with ‘why should I meditate, I am fine the way I am?’
Anger and pride scoff at purity of mind, and then retort with “why do I need to purify my mind, it is fine the way it is?”
Anger and pride scoff at compassionate acts of kindness, and then retort with “why should I help that person, no one helped me?”
Anger and pride like to scoff at all things seemingly opposite of their attracter energies because the last thing anger and pride desire to do is vanish from your life. In fact, anger and pride carry along with them more anger and further moments of conceited behavior which beckon opportunities to show the world what they’re made of.
Anger and pride, as they arise, act as if they are your dearest friends of old, but unlike a true friend who is in your life to be a benefit and a blessing, anger and pride have no other motivation than that of destruction and separation. As a man who once lived his life dominated by lesser attracter fields, consumed by both pride and anger, and now as the same physical entity, yet transformed by surrendering both over to God, I can bear witness to the fact that happiness immediately followed the latter rendition of the man who now writes to you today.
Holding onto anger and pride does nothing but cast away the sunshine from your face, acting as a distraction of needless clouds carrying with them distant hopes of better days to come.
Anger and pride cannot test the strength of an island built with a foundation of Love, but they will do their best to hide the promise of its beaches from any would-be island hopper. When one allows anger or pride to play a dominant role in their day-to-day life, what they’re essentially doing is allowing their life to be less impactful than it could be, less meaningful than it could be, and less important than it is. The importance of a man is not measured by how many enemies he makes, or even defeats, but by how many people he helps.
Anger and pride will not allow you to help another person as easily as a life where anger and pride are surrendered over for the gifts of love and acceptance. Anger and pride are two parts of the ego manifested, embraced, and chosen if allowed to remain dominant points of perspective. One misses the gifts that freedom carries with it when they remain a slave to the cravings of resentment and adulation which are by-products of anger and pride.
When we choose to take on a different viewpoint of life, and when we choose to be born anew in the Love and Power of the Way, we not only understand that the Kingdom of God resides within our very beingness, but we also see that anger and pride are nothing more than two levels of consciousness designed to help the spiritual seeker choose the greater of two paths possibly traveled. When I found myself dominated by anger and pride, I felt as if there was no way out, no way to have a better life where happiness was part of the equation. The willpower that was mine at the time had failed to produce a life that was worth living. Until I let go of both anger and pride and surrendered over my attachments to both, life appeared as nothing more than existing day-to-day. Suddenly, upon the final surrendering of both anger and pride, the clouds parted above my head and I not only knew I could find a new life dwelling in the Lord, but that the Lord had been dwelling within me the entire time. God is in all things, what language calls the good and the bad, but it took seeing anger and pride as nothing more than opportunities to learn this lesson, until I understood what lesson I was to learn in the first place. You see, anger and pride are levels along an evolutionary scale of consciousness. It just so happens to be one’s level of consciousness that dictates how one views the world around them, how one loves themselves, and how one views God and the world at large.
If you stay stuck in the juice of anger and pride, you miss out on the pleasures of love and acceptance that lay hidden on the other side of letting go of your attachments to both negative energy fields. Anger and pride are particular attracter fields, but both anger and pride carry very little power along with them to create happiness as a lasting reality. When anger and pride are seen as teaching agents and only aspects of the experience of being human, and not what a person is when they both arise, there is hope for transcending these aspects of the personal ego experience, and thusly of moving into a more conscious connection with that which created you. The parts of clouds that hide a person from the sunlight of the spirit are the particulates known as anger and pride. As long as one holds onto their attachment to either, the spiritual traveler stays stuck in the rain and remains a safe distance from regular sunshine.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR STEP FOUR
We first begin by making a list of all the people, places, things and institutions we currently carry resentments of, fear over, or anger towards. Be exhaustive in this list and vigilant not to leave out anything for the sake of shame. This list is your list, and it’s not my list or the world’s list. This initial list is what you’ll use to complete the worksheet designed to walk you through what to do with the list compiled. For this part of the step, I would take out a piece of paper and a pen and write at the top of the page the title of the list, i.e., people, or places, things or institutions. Once you have a title for the page, write a short prayer underneath saying something to the effect of: Lord, please help me see what needs to be seen so that I can surrender over what needs to be surrendered over.
If you’re like I was and feel as if there are no current resentments or active fears coming to mind, feel free to create your list, but start by also placing a number corresponding with an age below the prayer and let God show you at that age what comes up when sitting down to write the list out. I started with 1, and made my way to 32, with not every year yielding information worth writing down. But to my astonishment, many aspects of early life came back into awareness as a result and then I wrote them down as they came up. My list at the end of this looked like 32 years’ worth of information regarding people, places, things and institutions. No matter how you get your initial list of people, places, things and institutions written down, the goal is to have a complete list to work with for the rest of the step.
You can find worksheets all over the internet which will be helpful once you have the list created and are ready to apply it. But whatever worksheet you find to help with this step, it needs to comprise at least 4 basic elements:
1. Category one: The person, place, thing, institution
2. Category two: The offense needing investigation
3. Category three: Affects my … self-esteem, personal relationships, material possessions, finances, ambitions, and sex relations
4. Category four: Where was I to blame … selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, frightened, and inconsiderate.
2nd part of category four: The exact nature of my wrong
Once you have found a worksheet online that fits the parameters above, print off a copy of it and be ready to make many more copies for future use.
Once the people, places, things and institutions aspects of your list is complete, there is one last inventory which needs to be addressed: the sexual inventory. In this area of the step, we look back over all past sexual encounters we have taken part in over the course of our lives. This section of the step accounts for acts of sex, partners with sexual encounters, as well as times of lusting we took part in throughout our life. We also look at the use of pornography and any other behaviors we keep locked away out of sight for the world to see. When I comprised my list for this component of the 4th step, I blocked people into categories of relationships, short flings, one-night stands, encounters other than intercourse that were nameless, and attachments to people whom I was having sex with. Remember, this step is yours, not the world’s, so whatever you share with yourself is what you share with God, and then inevitably with someone you trust to be confidential in the 5th step.
We will go deeper into the reason for the 5th step in the next chapter, but please don’t be less than thorough in your sexual inventory because you fear that someone will find out and be mad at you, or because you think God or someone else will judge you. Everyone on earth who goes through these steps accounts for all manner of quirky sexual encounters, and whatever your proclivity for sexual arousal is, it is not something someone else hasn’t gone through or had experience with. You are not unique in your sexual encounters, and your sexual encounters are not worth hiding behind for fear that releasing them isn’t a worthwhile endeavor.
This step is designed to allow someone to look back over their life and examine it from a clearer headspace. If you have experienced sexual trauma in your past, abuse in your past, cultish programming in your past, or any other form of abuse which is still fresh to you or has not had the opportunity to be worked through in any other manner by you to date, know that you are not at fault for any circumstances of what has transpired, and also know that by looking back over past traumatic experiences, there is a chance that the wound will feel fresh again. This process is not designed to bring you pain and anguish, so if digging up certain past traumas on your own is not comfortable or safe for you to do, feel free to bring in an experienced counselor or therapist to help you with this step.
You also have the benefit of attending an open AA meeting on the steps which could help you understand more clearly their intent and how to work through them. If you attend a meeting or meetings, which I encourage you to do, do not speak if the opportunity arises for you to do so, simply say “I pass” or “I am here to observe and learn, so I pass.” 12-step groups have open and closed meetings, with the open meetings being for anyone who desires to attend, and the closed meetings being for only those who suffer with the disease they are there to learn more about. You can look up meetings in your area online and you will see brief descriptions of them posted there as well. Within the description of the meeting, you will see if it is closed or open. All meetings and the people within them are anonymous, which means what you see and hear in there stays in there. You are never to out another person for being in a meeting, nor do you bring attention to such people when out in public as being part of an anonymous group. It is more than okay to say hello to the people you meet in meetings when out in the world and to build lasting friendships and relationships with them, but anonymity is the basis for these rooms of healing.
In any 12-step program there is the added benefit of having a sponsor who has gone through the steps to show you how to go through them. This book can act as your pseudo sponsor, as well as the online lectures about the steps you’ll find littered about on the internet, and the lectures I will have on the internet every week talking about the steps and walking people through them. As more people complete these steps with the aid of a sponsor, more sponsors will become available to help take you through the steps and be ready for you to take the 5th step.
As part of this book’s mission, and part of the author’s reason for existence, through online platforms, at least one day a week is devoted to the 12-step program for transcending the ego and fear. As our community grows, so too will availability of sponsors. If you cannot find a sponsor through our program, feel free to ask a trusted friend, religious figure in your life, counselor or therapist to stand in for the 5th step and parts of the 4th step. Remember, sponsors are only guides to the program and not your savior or your way to finding salvation. A sponsor is not to be given money or helped out financially for giving you their time. If someone asks you for money to be taken through the steps, politely say no and choose never to think of them again as someone trusted to help you with the 12-steps.
To date, I have been through this program myself, I have witnessed hundreds of others go through the program, and I have taken multiple people through it as well. By the time this book is published there will be more people who have gone through the program, as well as online resources designed to help people with the program. You are not alone in this pursuit and the benefits of such, and you will not be alone in working these steps whenever they find you.
STEP FOUR
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I choose to make a fearless and searching moral inventory of my life, leaving out nothing of consequence.
STEP FOUR PRAYER
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Please help me to see what needs to be seen in order to surrender over what needs to be surrendered. Thank you for the gift of truth, and for the gift of faith in a power greater than myself restoring me to a life transcendent over the ego.