Soulshine

“For gracious and merciful is he, Slow in anger, rich in kindness, And relenting in punishment.” Book of Joel , Chapter 2 Many of us, as codependents, enter recovery bitter and angry. We feel like we have been used and abused by so many people, and these negative feelings make it hard for us to fathom working Step 4 of the 12 Steps. So we are sometimes inclined to practice self-righteousness instead of practicing mercy. When we enter this self-righteous mode we are quick to point out how everyone else in our lives sinned against us, abused us and abandoned us, and we subconsciously use are self-righteousness to hide our own sins and character defects. We become blind to them all. I know I did. The first time I looked at Step 4, I thought to myself “what did I ever do wrong? I’m not the abuser. I’m the abused.” At that point in recovery, it didn’t occur to me that I had been secretive, manipulative and controlling. Nor did it occur to me that I had lied, spied and done w...

“Folks who have no vices have few virtues.” Abraham Lincoln It’s important to own our vices. In recovery, we refer to them as “character defects,” which seems a bit harsh to me. I’m not sure that there’s a nicer word for them. We could refer to them as “vices” or “flaws,” I suppose. But the truth is that they are the imperfections that emerge from our dark side. Every human being has a “light” side and a “dark” side. We are all part Dr. Jekyll and part Mr./Ms. Hyde. And we need to accept this fact. There is no such thing as a perfect person. No one is all light-- and no one is all darkness. What we often don’t understand is that light and darkness need each other. Think about a flashlight. Flashlights are worthless on a bright sunny day. It’s impossible to tell if the flashlight is on or off in the midst of sunlight. A flashlight is dependent upon darkness to make its light seen—and so are we. When we work Step 4 of the 12 Steps, it gives us the opportunity to r...