Steps Six and Seven and a Run with the Wolves

Today I found an old copy of a favorite book: “Women Who Run with the Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Maybe you also read this when it was new, and you too underlined every page and passed it from friend to friend? Yes—it had that kind of power. Pinkola-Estes is a Jungian, a psychologist, an expert of myth and languages and a storyteller and feminist

extraordinaire.

On the page I read today I saw all of my old scribbles in the margin and I marveled at what I read so long ago and wanted to absorb.

Here’s one section that stands out in the chapter on Vasialisa/Cinderella/the wild power of a woman’s intuition and libido:

“Can a negative aspect of psyche be reduced to cinders by being watched and watched? Yes, indeed it can. Holding any part of ourselves in consistent, consciousness can cause the thing to dehydrate. Focused attention can reduce an aspect of the psyche we struggle with to cinders—they are deprived of libido.”

When I read that so long ago I was marveling at the exegesis of Pinkola-Estes with fairy tales and myths. I was just a few years into recovery and still not grasping the bare beginnings of steps six and seven. But today when I read that I thought, “Of course, we need but pay attention, bring our focus to defects of character—or better, characteristics that are harmful-- and they can dehydrate.”

And isn’t “dehydrate” the perfect word? We can remove the “juice”—the power from these defects/aspects of character…and they can be cinders.

Steps Six and Seven ask us to ask our Higher Power for help but we are expected to do our part as well. Bringing conscious awareness is our part. We do that through doing inventory, talking with a sponsor, making lists, identifying the opposite behavior and the practicing. That is paying attention, bringing “consistent consciousness” to that “negative aspect of psyche” as Pinkola-Estes said so long ago.

Beliefs and Fears

I have been thinking a lot about old beliefs and how they feed my fears. Yes, old childhood stuff—beliefs that I am not lovable, will be abandoned, am defective and that I must subjugate myself to redress all of the above. The schema—as they are called in cognitive therapy—do in fact, scheme. They conspire and work together. The fear of being unlovable is built on the belief of being defective, so how could you love me? Therefore you’ll abandon me. To try to prevent that I subjugate myself and then I get mad at you and then at me. It’s a not very merry Merry-Go-Round of bad beliefs and bad feelings.

To break the cycle I have to have new beliefs. We say “old tapes” but now I know they are so deeply imbedded that they are closer to subliminal messages. I can do the work of catching and changing those messages when I am aware of them but so often I seem to “come to” in the middle of being convinced that one of my fear thoughts is absolutely true. Somehting like,  “She doesn’t like me.”  “They don’t want to be friends with me”. Or the bottom-line  “I’ll be alone and sad.”

There is  a lot that I can do about this way of thinking but after that it really is God’s work. I think that’s what steps six and seven are about: Do what I can to change these underlying beliefs—they are after all what leads to lying, cheating, gossiping and being mean. But then I also need God to help me and to heal me and that is my ongoing prayer.

Spiritual Pilates from the Twelve Steps

I have been in twelve-step recovery for thirty years. While I know my life is transformed there are those days—and weeks—when I think, “God, am I ever gong to get this?” And yes, it is about God, and my complaint is a kind of prayer.

But yesterday I had an insight into this work that we do. I have been doing yoga and Pilates for several years now and most days in a Pilate’s class I think, “This is as hard as ever.” And “When am I going to get this scoop or this lift or this inverted pose?” But then later I look at my body or I feel myself moving or running or dancing and I think, “My God, my body really is different.”

I think it’s like that with the steps of recovery. Recently I participated in a Big Book Step Study and I did steps six and seven with a group and learned a new process of daily prayer to remove each defect—quite specifically—and praying for the very specific opposite characteristic.

For example, I now pray “Please remove my resentment toward X and replace it with forgiveness and compassion for X today. And then I invite myself to behave –this day—as if that is true. And I go thru a pretty long list of people and defects naming specific names and most importantly—naming the specific behavior I’ll practice this day—that represents the opposite of that defect. It’s a lot of work. But the repetition and the specificity seem to be what makes a difference.

Doing steps six and seven in this highly specific—and out loud—way keeps it very real and very active. This is not the old “pray for your defects to be removed” and move on method that I embraced for years. This is work. And it’s uncomfortable.

In that way it’s like a daily practice of yoga or Pilates. Small muscles, small movements, tiny, tiny incremental changes and the sense of, “This is no easier”…except that very slowly something is changing.

In the same way that my body slowly changes, almost without notice, my thinking and my heart are slowly changing too. Our Twelve Steps are spiritual Pilates and I am a grateful student.

Step Seven --You Can Just Throw a Party

In the Seventh Step prayer we humbly ask God to remove the defects of character that “stand in the way of my usefulness to you (God) and my fellows.”

That was something that I always wanted. But it took me a long time to understand that there is a world of difference from asking God to remove the defects that limit my usefulness to others versus the ones that that I don’t like or the defects that effect how others think of me. I wanted Step Seven to be a kind of self-improvement process or like getting a makeover. What I have come to realize is that this is a place where that humility kicks in: I don’t necessarily get to choose the defects that will be removed.  My Higher Power does. I don’t get to use the Seventh Step in a self-serving way, “Now I’ll get so good that everyone will like me.”  Dang!

So how to approach this step in a loving, and not self-bashing way?

Here’s a bit of Step Seven wisdom I got from an early sponsor with help from a very early therapist: We do not kill our character defects! My first therapist in recovery pointed out to me that my “character defects” were all things that saved my life growing up. Being a “high screener”—super vigilant --was a life saving skill in an alcoholic home. And being super organized (controlling) gave me a sense of safety and security as a kid. Being hyperaware of other people’s feelings and anticipating them made a chaotic world more manageable. Telling lies, stuffing feelings, being seductive or bossy or too complaint were all part of my survival.

And so my defects were once important assets.

Until they weren’t.

My sponsor pointed out that it didn’t make sense to hate these parts of me because they were, in fact, part of me and that I didn’t want—especially in recovery—to hate myself.

Instead I could retire my character defects.

I love the idea of retirement. If we think of our character defects as workers whose skills no longer fit our company’s goals then retirement is honorable and appropriate. Just as in a business we can say, “Hey, we are doing new things now and doing things a new way” but we honor the “retirees” for all they gave to our enterprise. Rather than shove the character defects out the door or pray that God destroys them we could have a retirement party for our character defects.

Imagine that. We could list each defect and thank them for their contribution, and thanking them for their help in our early lives. There could be laughter and stories just like a real retirement party. And then we can walk them to the door, take their keys and parking pass and shake their hand.

 But we don’t have to kill retirees.

Here’s the thing to remember: Just like at our workplace, sometimes retirees come back to visit—and sometimes they visit at inopportune times—and that can be frustrating. But we don’t kill them. We may say, “ Hey, I remember you; remember how we used to work together?” And then, ever so gently, we might say,  “But you don’t work here anymore.” And we walk them to the door, and say, “Thanks.”

A Retirement Party for Your Character Defects

In the Seventh Step prayer we humbly ask God to remove the defects of character that “stand in the way of my usefulness to you (God) and my fellows.”

That was something that I always wanted. But it took me a long time to understand that there is a world of difference from asking God to remove the defects that limit my usefulness to others versus the ones that that I don’t like or the defects that effect how others think of me. I wanted Step Seven to be a kind of self-improvement process or like getting a makeover. What I have come to realize is that this is a place where that humility kicks in: I don’t necessarily get to choose the defects that will be removed.  My Higher Power does. I don’t get to use the Seventh Step in a self-serving way, “Now I’ll get so good that everyone will like me.”  Dang!

So how to approach this step in a loving, and not self-bashing way?

Here’s a bit of Step Seven wisdom I got from an early sponsor with help from a very early therapist: We do not kill our character defects! My first therapist in recovery pointed out to me that my “character defects” were all things that saved my life growing up. Being a “high screener”—super vigilant --was a life saving skill in an alcoholic home. And being super organized (controlling) gave me a sense of safety and security as a kid. Being hyperaware of other people’s feelings and anticipating them made a chaotic world more manageable. Telling lies, stuffing feelings, being seductive or bossy or too complaint were all part of my survival.

And so my defects were once important assets. Until they weren’t.

My sponsor pointed out that it didn’t make sense to hate these parts of me because they were, in fact, parts of me and that I didn’t want—in recovery—to hate myself. Instead I could retire them.

I love the idea of retirement. If we think of our character defects as workers whose skills no longer fit our company’s goals then retirement is honorable and appropriate. Just as in a business we can say, “Hey, we are doing new things now and doing things a new way” but we honor the “retirees” for all they gave to our enterprise. Rather than shove the character defects out the door or pray that God destroys them we could have a retirement party for our character defects.

Imagine that. We could list each defect and thank them for their contribution, and thanking them for their help in our early lives. There could be laughter and stories just like a real retirement party. And then we can walk them to the door, take their keys and parking pass and shake their hand.

 But we don’t kill retirees.

Here’s the thing to remember: Just like at our workplace, sometimes retirees come back to visit—and sometimes they visit at inopportune times—and that can be frustrating. But we don’t kill them. We may say, “ Hey, I remember you; remember how we used to work together?” And then, ever so gently, we might say,  “But you don’t work here anymore.” And we walk them to the door, and say, “Thanks.”

Getting Humble with Humility

Have you had one of those experiences where you have read about an AA idea and maybe even heard it a million times in meetings over the years and then one day something clicks and it’s like you never saw the words before?

I’m having one of those OMG! Experiences with Step Seven and humility.

My sponsor and I are working through the steps and we’re getting ready to move on to Step Eight next so I thought, “Well, I’ll re-read Step Seven so that I’m sure I really “did” it and I’m reading the words in the “Twelve and Twelve” book and thinking, “this is why humility is in here?”

Here is what I read: (all this on page 75)

“we saw failure and misery transformed by humility.”

“humility had brought strength out of weakness”

“humility we discovered to be a healer of pain”

It’s like the discovery of an incredible medicine or the ingredient that the ancients sought that could transform stones into gold. Humility is a transformational agent; it changes weakness to strength and it is a healer.

Yeah, I know, the words have always been on those pages and I have read them many times. I even see that I underlined them in my book—the value of keeping your old Big Book and Twelve & Twelve. But it’s like they are in neon now.

And then: “we sought humility as something we wanted rather than something we must have.”

Huh! I certainly sought humility before. I knew I was supposed to be humble and indeed whenever I shared I tried to sound humble (the very opposite of humility of course). And I wanted to be seen as humble because I knew that’s what a good recovering person looks and sounds like- (again more prideful humility). But really get it—and want it—deep in my gut? Not so much.

But working the steps and looking ahead to Eight it makes so much sense. Real humility takes the fear and sting right out of Eight and maybe even Nine. We’ll see. I also know that while I am in this lovely state of awareness right now this may not be one of those things that sticks from insight alone. So we keep going and even have to develop humility about our desire for humility.

Here’s the kicker from page 76: “The whole emphasis of Step Seven is on humility”. It’s not about the shortcomings/defects of character that we named in Step Six. It’s the humility that allows us to really ask God to help us.

Duh.

Drop the Rock

Early in recovery I listened to tapes of classic AA talks. I listened to Clancy and Bob Earle and Sandy Beach and Terry Gorski. But then as cars changed I didn’t have a tape player and most of the tapes broke or wore out so I moved on to listening to other kinds of spiritual guidance or self-help in the car. (As an aural learner I literally change the tapes in my head this way.)

I’ve recently learned that some of those great AA talks are now available now in CD format on EBay. And that sent me searching.

With my sponsor I’m working now (and forever) on steps 6 and 7—and she mentioned the book, Drop the Rock—written by Bill P. and published by Hazelden. It’s a simple paperback that talks about the process of these two elusive steps. And that sent me to EBay where I found the AA talk by Sandy Beach who begat the idea of “drop the rock”.

In his parable Sandy Beach describes someone in AA who begins to see the freedom and good life that is possible by working the steps. This newcomer is swimming behind the boat, Good Ship Recovery, and can see those onboard who are happy, joyous and free. He wants to get on board—however he is being mightily weighed down by the rock he is carrying while swimming—the rock is all his character defects and old beliefs. The swimmer calls to the people on Good Ship Recovery saying, “How do I get up there?” and they yell back, “Drop the Rock”.But the swimmer hesitates saying, “But it’s my rock; I know this rock, but how do I get up there to be happy like you?” and –as you can guess-- they keep saying, “Drop the Rock.”