Steps 6 & 7

I keep coming back to read “Drop the Rock” again. Steps Six and Seven. Today I read, “God can’t remove our defects of character if we keep practicing them.”

Oh, I hate that. It means I can’t keep saying, “I’ll just finish up this last bag of candy or finish these cookies someone gave me.” I won’t gossip any more—right after I tell this one story.” “I’ll be brave or surrendered very soon, but this thing I’m facing today, that’s scary.”

I have to get it through my head that God is helping me and willing to remove these but the big cartoon hand is not going to come from the sky and snatch the bag of licorice from me or swoosh me out of the store where I'm contemplating just one more pair of shoes. I mean, if I just get this pair then I’ll have all the shoes I need—until I see the newest, latest, most chic….

“Stop practicing them.” It’s that easy and that hard. And why I need to keep talking.

My Rocks My Self

As I’m working through my list of “rocks to drop” (Steps Six and Seven) I find  that I need to remind myself that I am dropping these rocks for me. Not for him or her or them. But for me—for my recovery, my peace of mind and my sanity.

I also have to remind myself that I drop these rocks because I’m the one with the 12-step program and I’m the one who needs to make changes and who wants to be changed. It doesn’t matter if he or she is right or wrong or better or worse; it doesn’t matter if it’s fair or unfair. These are my rocks, and I drop them—or try to --one day at a time—for me.

Integration or Insight is the Booby Prize

Today I am in that painful place of having insight and understanding but not change. I’ve been working through some things and had great moments of “Aha, now I’ve got it.” I see why I do it; I know where it comes from; I know what change would look like, but grrrr…I’m not doing the new behavior. Frustrating.

It’s not integrated. It feels like I have the understanding in my head but it has not “dropped down” into my heart or body.

My prayer is to get what is in my mind to integrate with my body and behavior.

I think this is also the “X” factor in Steps 6 and 7.

In this equation “X” equals God.

Steps Six and Seven

This separates the boys from the men and maybe it separates the women from the men too. In my case maybe that’s a good thing! I am looking at my patterns in relationships. That old, scared part of me that connect me to men who cannot be there in a committed way or who are unavailable: married, depressed, long distance, too busy, distracted or unavailable in some way. A wiser woman would walk away but I walk toward. The insight is not new, the grieving is not new but the impact of what this has cost me and others is overwhelming.

This makes steps six and seven so important. There is what I can do: inventory, therapy, amends, and changing my behavior when I can catch it but the old habits of thought and fear—so deeply ingrained they feel like simple reality. I need God’s help for that to change. Please remove these “defects of character” that get in the way of my relationship with you and others. That’s it.