There is a lot of material on Step Six in the book Paths to Recovery, including twenty-three
bullet points containing questions.
This aims to keep things simpler.
Step Five reveals that my attitudes, thinking, and behaviour
at times suck.
Step Six in Paths to
Recovery refers to these as 'survival skills that no longer serve me'. It
does not give examples, however. There may be instances where this is the case,
but, for instance, I have never experienced obsessive worry about other people's
behaviour 'serving me'—or them—in any way at all; similarly, I have never experienced
verbal punishment of other people serving me—or them—either. The list could go
on.
There is, however, a 'payoff'. This 'payoff' never did help
me survive then, and will not help me survive now.
For example, obsessive worry allowed me to preserve the
illusion that I was in control because I was 'paying attention'. In truth, I
was and am powerless over much. I was opting for the illusion of control
because I was frightened of powerlessness.
A second example, verbal punishment gave me the temporary feeling
I could actually change others' behaviour if I bullied enough. It never worked,
but my ego told me, at some level, it eventually would. Again, I was opting for
the illusion of control because I was frightened of powerlessness.
Here's the truth: all defects are destructive. That's why
they're defects. If there were merit in them, they would not be defects.
The illusion that they're helping anyone must be
systematically rooted out and eliminated, with the help of a sponsor if
necessary. We prepare to have God remove our defects, but the preparation is a
very human affair.
Footnote regarding guilt:
The Paths to
Recovery solution to the guilt associated with character defects is to call
them failed survival skills. I would counter: if you've behaved badly, you're
supposed to feel guilt, at least until you've admitted the problem and are
taking action to resolve it. This is the phenomenon of having a conscience, and
it's an integral part of being human. I have felt entitled not to feel the full
range of human emotions—or the full range of human defects. I have needed to
get over that sense of entitlement: I am no more above these defects than
anyone else, and guilt is supposed to persist until I submit to change. That is
by design. The guilt is not the problem: the real problem is taking my own
defects personally, as though they are who I am. That's a simple case of
mistaken identity. The defects are not survival skills, but they do stem from
bad wisdom that was taught to me as a child without my request or permission.
To feel I am a bad person because I have defects is (a) not to give credit where credit is due for why I have them and (b) to mistake myself for what I have
been taught: I am spirit, not the sum total of bad lessons learned and played
out in spiritual blindness. I'm responsible for doing something about them, but
I'm not them.
Once I've recognised (a)
the defect is a defect and (b)
there's no actual benefit at all, there is a third problem: the fear of what my
life will look like if I am 're-landscaped' by God. Removal does not take place
without substitution. As Paths to
Recovery says, 'I learned to replace my defects with assets'. This is where
I trust that, as Paths to Recovery indicates,
'God is a God of love, not a God of fear'. By definition, God's will—the re-landscaped
version of my life—is 'the best of all possible worlds'. The fear of what will
happen if I submit to God is actually fear of what God is. Either God is love
or God is fear. If God is fear at all, the whole well is poisoned.
God is love. God's will for me is the expression of that
love in all areas of my life.
Ultimately, I have to stand back and say: I am willing for
every attitude, every thinking pattern, and every behaviour pattern to change.
Not all of them will turn out to need amendment, but many will. I must hold
none back on principle. Why? Because God is love, and fear of the outcome of
any change in this regard is really an irrational fear of God.
Then I am ready to
ask God in Step Seven to remove my defects, and to take the action in Steps
Eight through Twelve.
Paths to Recovery
uses the analogy of buying a new pair of slippers. In Steps Eight through
Twelve we deliberately wear the new slippers, i.e. deliberately adopt the new
attitudes, thinking patterns, and behaviour patterns, with God's help, but
essentially applying our will along the line of God's will. In the meantime, the
old slippers are quietly disposed of by God. That's entirely God's doing. We
turn round some time later, and the old slippers—the old attitudes, thinking
patterns, and behaviour patterns—are simply no longer available to us.