THE UNMANAGEABLE SIDE:

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By the time we get to the Fourth of the Twelve Steps, we are ready to face our
unmanageable side, the side that prevents us from loving ourselves and others,
from letting others love us, and from enjoying life. One of the purposes of
Step Four is not to make ourselves feel worse; our purpose is to start to
remove our blocks to joy and love. We also can't forget to search for our
positive traits as well.

We look for fears, anger, hurt, and shame from past events – buried feelings
that may be affecting our life today. We search for subconscious beliefs about
ourselves and others that may be interfering with the quality of our
relationships. These beliefs say: I'm not lovable … I'm a burden to those
around me … People can't be trusted … I can't be trusted … I don't deserve to
be happy and successful … Life isn't worth living. We look at our behaviors
and patterns with an eye toward discerning the self-defeating ones. With love
and compassion for ourselves, we try to unearth all our guilt – earned and
unearned – and expose it to the light.

We can perform this examination without fear of what we shall find, because
this soul-searching can cleanse us and help us feel better about ourselves
than we ever dreamt possible.

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