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LEADER'S SHARE ~ STEP SIX
Hi, my name is Thumper and I'm a compulsive overeater. I had made
the long drive to St. Louis to do my 5th step and had just spent about 4
hours with my sponsor spilling my guts and exposing all of these horribly
shameful defects of character and there is one thing that this process
brought to me immediately - and that was that I was entirely ready, even
painfully so, to have all these character defects removed! My steps 6 and
7 happened so closely together that I've never tried to separate them as
being different events until now.
I did this step alone. Following my sponsor's guidance, I walked
down to the Mississippi River with my 4th step under my arm and spent that
quiet hour as suggested in the Big Book . I then took out my list of
character defects and thought long and hard about each one. I tried to
imagine what life would be like without those defects. I was as honest
about it as I could be. I looked at both the positive and negative impacts
that giving them up would have. I tried to understand why I had them in
the first place. When I had difficulty imagining living without them, I
looked at alternatives. And finally, I thought long and hard on the
devastation these defects had caused me and looked ahead to see how much
more damage these defects would continue to cause in my life.
I was raw enough that I really was entirely read to have my HP remove
these defects of character. I wanted no more part in them. I kept in mind
what my sponsor had told me about my being no more powerful over my defects
than I was over the compulsion to overeat itself, that my responsibility
rested in the willingness for change. She taught me that as long as I was
willing to change, then eventually what I WANTED would change, and that
when that happened, change itself no longer takes any effort.
Tell me about your sixth step. Were there character defects you
resisted being ready to give up? How did you actually work the step?
Love,
Thumper
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