Step Ten

CONTINUED to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

source: http://www.fasttrackph.com

Step Ten, which amounts to ongoing constructive self-criticism, is the first of three maintenance steps. We shouldn’t, however, be lulled into complacency with thoughts that all the heavy lifting is done.

This step is demanding in what it asks of us; namely, to remain self-aware in the present long enough to make objective self-scrutiny a habit

If we fail to do this, it is only too easy to fall into the old grooves we’ve worn into our brains through years of dysfunctional living. 

No practice has been more rewarding to my recovery than the regular application of Step Ten. That being the case, one might surmise that I clung to this practice as soon as I could appreciate the dividends it pays out. But this is not the case. I have rarely kept up this practice for any length of time. I love this Step, and speak about it as a wondrous unfolding of insight, as it was the few times I was able to stick with it for more than a week. 

Why do I continue to abandon it, then? Why do I have such a strenuous journey coming back to this Step if I really love it as much as I say I do? The practice doesn’t take long—a spot check here or there, a few minutes every night, and several hours a year—so it can’t be the time factor that keeps me from my Personal Inventory. And it’s not that I am avoiding what comes of it, because I invariably feel lighter after looking at myself objectively. So what is it? It’s the mindset that I need to crawl into. The frame of reference I need to possess to be able to survey my actions and attitudes critically is what becomes so imposing.

Most alcoholics I know are like me: extremely sensitive and no damn good at being receptive to criticism. After a day of engaging in social behaviours such as storytelling, where I cast myself as the hero of my own narrative; gossiping about other people; judging the world and the people in it; and routinely polishing the image I wish to present of myself to the world—either physically, or virtually through the likes of facebook—it requires some sincere effort to shrug off this ego armour and get real with myself.  the honesty required for self-appraisal isn’t the natural state I live in all day, each day. I can easily fall into the ruts worn by time and the unconscious practice I’ve given to ignorant living where my character defects, particularly the artful and indistinct ones I am not yet aware of, are steering me.

However, when I can manage to climb over the psychological hurdle of living a subjective, superficial life in a fallacious, time-based mentality, and more into an objective and compassionate place of presence and unconditional self-acceptance, I gain new insight. Whether this insight involves the burgeoning awareness of a previously undiscovered character defect, or the recognition of an addictive way of thinking that is hamstringing my own happiness, it pushes me into a new realm of recovery. The widening awareness of how my patterns of thought and behaviour grow subtler and subtler until, at their very roots, they are seeded with very ancient imprints, imprints which taught me to believe certain things about the way things are that were never necessarily true, although they appeared to be. 

This is the way of life recovery demands: no more stuffing our feelings and hiding our motives. There is a distinct difference from feeling my feelings authentically and reacting to them in damaging ways. When I feel my feelings authentically and allow them, in a safe place, to have the spontaneous movement they require, I experience tremendous growth. When I react blindly to these feelings, even if it appears I have movement happening, I am generally harming myself and most likely others. The more gross is my mind, the more difficulty I will have discerning the line between the two. That’s what the first nine steps are for. 

Step Ten invites me to take continuous responsibility for the successes and failures in my ongoing attempts to take back my life. It is how I learn the intricacy and the sometimes baffling insidiousness of what was steering my ship. Through practice, I can navigate to calmer seas and avoid hazards and even foul weather. I can see clearly whether I am isolating or taking valuable communication risks, whether I am becoming more obsessed—with food, money, sex, power, control, internet, television, fixing others, my warped idea of love—or whether I am releasing obsessions. Through ongoing practice I can see if I am owning my own feelings, which means allowing them to be felt without needing to deconstruct or label them with my mind, or if I am playing the blame game, dumping ownership for my cruddy feelings on others by acting like a victim or a martyr.

Undertaking this step is huge because it is an objective exercise in accepting all of my behaviours compassionately and learning to cultivate gratitude that I can learn from them and grow into the man I always wished I could be.