This is my honest opinion because it worked for me!
How ready are you to really start feeling better about yourself? Is the mental load overwhelming and suffocating you? OK, what are you willing to do to dump this mental trash and have a fresh new beginning?
If you are working on the AA 12 Steps, or if you have taken an inventory of yourself, you have finished Step 4. Here you dug deep into your mind and brought a whole lot of mental garbage to the surface. “And I was just beginning to forget this and put it in the past. What do I do now?”
The remarkable thing about the Program is that it has 12 Steps that are written and numbered in an order. It won’t leave you at a cliffhanger after finishing any one of them. This is vital, especially after working on Step 4.
I know that I was willing to go to any lengths in order to feel like I wanted to even continue living. If you are entirely ready, hang on because here we go!
Step 5 states: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. You probably talked about the fear that was put into your mind when fresh into the program.
You even heard from some who had what they called long-term sobriety because they may have had several decades in the program without a drink and quoted the Big Book and Bill W. regularly.
The fear factor is something that we are all used to living with and so we thought that just because someone had 20, 30, or 40 years in the program they knew what they were talking about.
Let me let you in on a little secret — They were not sober for that amount of time. They were DRY. Sobriety is so much more than just not drinking.
Sobriety is feeling good about yourself and handling situations, no matter how tough, with Spiritual insight and guidance so that NOTHING is fearful anymore.
Remember CBA. If you did not drink or drug today and can Conceive an idea, the next step is to Believe that it will happen, and if you have these things in your rearview mirror you will absolutely Achieve the original idea that you Conceived.
Picture the Olympic athlete prior to the starting gun standing at the starting blocks. Visualizing what he or she is about to do and then going out and doing it or Achieving it. You can actually see their heads bobbing as they visualize the event.
If you Conceive the idea that there is fear or failure in any portion of your life, you will begin to Believe it. So, this is just what you will Achieve. If you look at Step 5 as a cleansing of the mind and conscience, guess what? Believe it will happen and you will Achieve it.
This is the Mirror effect of the Law of Attraction or life. What you put into your mirror of life is exactly what you get out of it. Don’t complicate it. Don’t overthink it. Don’t wallow in it.
Don’t listen to negative people, no matter who they are or how long they say they have been in the program.
Finally, just take the Shortened version of Step 3, simply saying “God, Help Me,” and then JUST DO IT!!! Thank you, God!
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