Searching and fearless

Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Hmm. Can I just stop this entry right there?

(Hee.)

The first time I consciously thought about what this step might mean, I could imagine making a searching moral inventory of myself. I didn't like the idea at all--I knew it would mean facing things I wish I could forget--but I could imagine doing it when the time came.

But fearless? No effing way. Fearless would mean knowing, before I even started, that whatever I discovered about myself would be not just tolerable but acceptable. Fearless would mean having faith in my worth as a person despite the things I've done and failed to do.

Before and sometimes during sobriety, I've had that kind of faith only when I wasn't honest with myself, when I shoved aside any awareness of the darker aspects of my character. It's incredibly difficult to simultaneously hold those aspects in one hand and self-love in the other. The urge to fling away one or both is almost overwhelming.

Lately I've experienced a shift of sorts. It doesn't stay with me consistently, but at times I do feel fearless about Step Four. Even excited. At such times I realize that the wise inner voice will see me through. And I believe that she sees all of me, the bad parts included, yet understands, accepts, and loves me.

Freaky shit, I know. The reason it's happening, I'm pretty sure, is the spirituality component of AA. I was never prone to getting even small glimpses of genuine self-acceptance before I started trying to figure out the HP stuff.

It helps a lot--and I wish I felt it more consistently--because what's coming up in my step work is heavy indeed. But first I am going to move to my itsy-bitsy house and finish some freelance work and sleep a lot. Cause I am only fearless a percentage of the time, and that too is okay.