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4th Step Inventory
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4th Step ConclusionSome More Questions - Here & Now
a. Do you tend to be impulsive about spending money?2. Did fear and inferiority about fitness for your job destroy your confidence and fill you with conflict?
a. Did you try to cover up these feelings or inadequacy by bluffing, cheating, lying, or evading responsibility?3. Are your standards for yourself unduly high? 4. Did you overvalue yourself and play the "big shot"?
a. Did you have such unprincipled ambition that you double-crossed and undercut your associates?5. Are you extravagant? a. Do you recklessly borrow money, caring little whether it is repaid or not? 6. Are you a penny-pincher, refusing to support your family properly?
a. Did you try to cut corners financially? Continous and Recurring TroublesThe most common symptoms of emotional insecurity are worry, anger, self-pity and depression. These stem from causes which sometimes seem to be within us, and at other times without. To take inventory in this respect we ought to consider carefully all personal relationships which bring continuous and recurring troubles. It should be remembered that this kind of insecurity may arise in any area where instincts are threatened.Questioning directed to this end might run like this: Looking at both past and present, what sex situations have caused me anxiety, bitterness, frustration or depression? Appraising each situation carefully and fairly, can you see where you have been at fault? Did these perplexities beset you because of selfishness or unreasonable demands? Or, if your disturbance was seemingly caused by the behavior of others, why do you lack the ability to accept conditions you cannot change?
Fundamental InquiriesDo you feel that faith and dependency on a Higher Power is somewhat weak, even cowardly? Has your inability to accept much on faith been handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasonable prejudice? Do you dissect spiritual beliefs and practices of spiritually-minded persons as a basis of wholesale condemnation? What would your choice be if you fearlessly had to face the proposition that God either is or He isn't?These are the sort of fundamental inquiries that can disclose the source of your discomfort and indicate whether you are able to alter you own conduct and so adjust yourself to self-discipline. Suppose a particular insecurity constantly arouses the same feelings again and again. You can ask to what extent your own mistakes have fed your gnawing anxieties, and if the actions of others are part of the cause, what can you do about that? If you are unable to change the present state of affairs, are you willing to take the measures necessary to shape your life conditions as they are?
Acceptance Of SelfAm I really willing to forgive myself? It takes a great deal of humility to be ready for the final phase of your inventory. If we accept ourselves as we are, with all our shortcomings as revealed in our inventory, we can go to another human being with our inventory and reveal all there is to know about ourselves. If we are truly humble in the sense that we are beginning to rely increasingly on our Higher Power in more of our affairs, then we are ready for the last phase.If you made your appointment you need only to keep that appointment and verbally discuss every portion of your inventory. Difficulties commonly experienced are: 1. Will the other person keep my inventory in confidence?In taking your inventory you wrote down all these fears realizing they stem from our need to present a "good" image of ourselves to everyone. We fear that if we don't, they will have nothing to do with us. We will be isolated and outcast and, therefore, worthless. On closer examination, it is the need to "doctor" or distort our image which has been the real barrier between us and the rest of the world, which in fact do isolate us in spite-or because-of the false front we present. Nothing draws us to others, and others to us like honesty and humility. They represent true humanity and that is what really attracts us to each other.
Rewards Include1. Feeling more a part of the human race."A friend is someone who knows everything there is to know about you, and loves you in spite of it."
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