Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves . (Step Four). When I speak of the 4th Step of Depressed Anonymous this means that we are now ready to make a moral and fearless inventory of our lives. It also means that we are ready for action and choose to change the way we live out our daily life. Fearless means brave and courageous.
By now, most of us are aware that because of our depression our lives are unmanageable and out of control. They are out of control to such an extent that we may have even thought about ending our lives.
We have admitted that there is a power out there that is greater than ourselves. We are willing to turn our minds and our wills over to the care of God as we understand God.
If we just take a little time and look at the way we talk to ourselves we may discover the reason for our depression. So often we turn and run when the old feelings of sadness appear in front of us. What we want to try and do now is to look the beast in the face and deal with it. Accept it. Don’t run from it.
Just let’s say that you always took path A home from work everyday. You passed the same old signs, the same old building, the same old malls -you feel you could almost drive home with your eyes closed. This is of course boring and also deadening to our thinking processes as we do everything out of habit. The saying is true that we are creatures of habit. But let’s say that there is a detour along our old familiar path – we become disoriented – we become confused -we say to ourselves -where am I? Now where do I go? Good questions.
Since we may presently be depressed and in that dark deep pit of depression we may decide that we don’t have anything to gain by reading on at this point in our discussion. But I know and you know that you want out of the darkness. Many depressions lift by themselves but many don’t. Because of the way we were brought up as children many of the negative ways we think about ourselves have been with us since childhood. Old ideas about ourselves die hard and so do old impressions from the early days of our lives.
Our personal attachment to feeling isolated, alone and worthless is like a road from which can’t exist. Our attachment to our sadness is a comfort in a strange sort of way – almost like a person who is addicted or attached to a chemical, behavior, way of thinking or even to a person.
But as we have figured out, even though my path home is very predictable it is still a path that is making my ability to keep a focus on my hopeful outcome almost impossible.
Working the 4th Step is like coming home a different route. It is a path that is filled with signposts that point us in a different direction from where we are used to going. And for many of us this is the first time that we are really intent upon taking a hard look at who we are. This taking inventory of ourselves has much to do with our loving ourselves and making ourselves open to a new path and feeling different.
To actually get started on working a good Fourth Step we need first of all to sit down, get a pencil or pen and begin to ask ourselves some questions. As soon as the answers come we then write these down and begin our inventory. It’s always best to look at ourselves through the black and white characters that translate our thoughts and feelings down on paper. Remember the inventory is about strengths as well a our character defects. Character defects are ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that keep us isolated and in pain.
NOTE: The inventory is not to make us feel bad but to help us understand what is keeping us in the pit of sadness.
For more information on how to discover insights of our depression and how we got to where we are today, namely depressed, THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKBOOK will be your tool for coming home a new way.
To order this Workbook click onto VISIT THE STORE at homepage menu depressedanon.com and this will take you to The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore. All Depressed Anonymous literature can be ordered online.
Copyright(c) The Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002) . Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY.