Ask for feedback (and help) when you're stuck

I have a friend whose wife spent them into bankruptcy. He claims he does not resent his wife. He does have a rather extensive list of her shortcomings, or as he likes to say, “suggestions for her improvement”. He reports feeling very sad, even depressed. He keeps a notebook filled with all the ways she has hurt his feelings. My friend has resentment but is not quite ready to own it. He has also accidentally completed his resentment list for Step Four as it relates to his wife!

As a child he was taught that anger is a sin. FYI - Feelings are not sinful. They are warning lights to let us know we need to pay attention. (We know they can become shortcomings if we do not appropriately deal with them, but that is a different kettle of fish.) Because he received bad intell about emotions and was punished if he did express his anger, he has no skill sets for processing his anger and frustration. He also thinks that good Christians do not feel anger. Wrong. Even Jesus got appropriately mad when circumstances called for it!

As we work through our inventories, we may need to push the pause button time and again and ask for feedback and help sorting through our emotions - particularly if we have repressed ours or been taught that our feelings are wrong. In fact, our inability to express and respond in healthy ways to a wide range of feelings may contribute to our daily problems. It certainly makes our daily life more difficult. The Fourth Step allows us to grow and learn and figure out not only our emotions, but other key information about ourselves too.

Lives of careless wrongdoing are tumbledown shacks; holy living builds soaring cathedrals.

~Proverbs 14:11, The Message

Reacting, Ruminating, Blaming, and Numbing

When we experience trauma, our entire being goes into a form of survival mode. This is a reaction, not a response. We do not think. We do not feel. We do not reason. We do not evaluate the situation and ask how we want to respond based on our core values or long term plans.

We react. We ruminate. We blame. We numb.

Maybe take some time today to consider how you might be reacting (rather than responding), ruminating (rather than thinking in a balanced way about life), blaming (rather than accepting responsibility for our issues and letting others deal with their issues), and numbing (by a million different coping strategies - over or under eating, over or under sleeping, over or under exercising, using alcohol or drugs to excess, spending too much money, etc.)

A Meditation Moment

“Solitude, silence and stillness are the corrections to the compulsions that come out of our head, heart and gut. Together they make us whole. They bring us home.”

~ The Sacred Enneagram by Chris Heuertz, p.169

Today, sit in solitude, silence and stillness with gratitude.

Don't judge yourself as you make an inventory

Most of us do not skate through life without experiences that are quite upsetting, even traumatizing to us. Trauma is an interesting phenomena. We cannot judge what trauma means for anyone but ourselves.

I am a person who is particularly sensitive to issues related to security and safety. This is my deal. This is how I see the world, and it is no one else’s fault or responsibility. Since I see the world this way, events that I perceive as threatening to either security or safety have a much bigger impact on me than someone who does not share my worldview.

When we seek to raise our self-awareness, our particular ways of seeing the world will be a factor in how we perceive what has happened to us over the years and how it has affected us. We must not judge ourselves in this regard.

As you inventory - be gentle with yourself and do not filter your responses based on whether or not you think your reactions are reasonable, right or fair! Just write!

Make an inventory of your resentments

Not everyone can get in touch with their feelings of resentment. People who fear that their anger is unacceptable may be better able to relate to experiences with depression or problems with ruminating over particular people or events. If you want to practice this part of the inventory, or maybe just want to take one example from your everyday life, here is how. I recommend a list with four columns:

1. The person or object of resentment (or rumination or who depresses you)….

2. What happened to cause the resentment (specific event/s)?

3. How did this affect me? What do I think this event cost me?

4. How did I react? What shortcomings about myself were revealed?

Here is an example:

1. I resent my spouse Susie Smith.

2. I resent Susie because she not only cheated on me with a guy at work, but she left me and

the kids and moved in with him. She emptied out our bank account.

3. The effect it had on my life includes: I resent her, my pride is hurt, I am afraid I am going to go

bankrupt, I am embarrassed. It cost me my marriage and my financial security and the

affection of my children.

4. I got really angry; I went to her work and caused a ruckus; I called the other guy’s wife and she

ended up kicking him out; I embarrassed myself and lost a lot of dignity while acting out. I relapsed.

Today’s assignment for all you intrepid inventory makers is to make a list of all the people you resent, ruminate over, and/or hate, then answer the questions for each. Again, starting with your first resentment and moving forward can be helpful. Use your inventory journal to record your resentments.