Thought for today:
Taking a fearless moral inventory is essential to getting solvent. It takes courage, but by the time we’re through processing it, we get a “10,000 foot view” of how we fit in to the rest of the world.
A member shares:
“The members of my group told me that if I wanted to get past my anger at my life, my creditors, and myself, I would have to process a personal moral inventory in DA. If I didn’t do this, they made it clear that, in their experience, I would probably debt again.
“They were right. I tested the waters after a while in the program, and came back with “a few more zeros” added to the end of my debt!
“I had to learn the hard way that I had to admit that I was powerless over debt, find a Higher Power, and then let go absolutely to that power, so that I could learn from DA’s inventory process. I started listing my resentments in Step 4, and that got me to the underlying fear.
“I was angry at one bank in particular. Their phone calls were horrible. My self-esteem sank after each call. That bank was at the top of my list. This not only hurt my self-esteem, it threatened my home life, and I couldn’t even think about being intimate with my spouse, so it affected my sex relations as well. That one bank literally owned my serenity.
“In Step 5, I shared my extensive list with my sponsor. and my Higher Power. I found that I was not alone, because my sponsor had been through much of the same feelings. We traced the anger back to fear of losing self-esteem and sex relations.
“I was to go home and contemplate what I had learned. If I was ready (Step 6), I was to ask my Higher Power to take away my fears (Step 7) and replace them with courage to make amends (Steps 8 and 9) have a Pressure Relief Meeting to set up a repayment schedule and an Action Plan that put my needs first.
“This is how the Tools and the Steps started to work together to bring me back to sanity.”
DA Steps 4 through 9 lay out how exactly how to take a fearless moral inventory:
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Ask:
When stuck, am I taking a fearless moral inventory, and learning what I can from it?
Meditation for today:
Looking out the window of an aircraft can give us an amazing perspective. There are places where nature takes over the landscape, and others where people have claimed it with properties neatly lined up next to each other. From this vantage point, our place in the universe seems to lose significance. We seem rather small. And yet the human mind, small as it is, is nature’s greatest creation that we know of. There are more cells in the brain than stars in the sky. We can learn more with our minds than any other creature. Our thoughts can create magnificence!
Affirmation for today:
“My life is getting stronger and more prosperous every day.”
Meditations for Manifesting: Morning and Evening Meditations to Literally Create Your Heart’s Desire
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