I recently heard a talk by a wonderful speaker (a long-timer) who, as part of his talk, was talking about how to do inventory. He had a recent example and explained at great length all of the ins and outs of the other person's behaviour and how it affected him, etc. It was very well explained. But something did not sit quite right. There was a focus on, almost a revelling in, the external details. It took a very long time to get to anything about the speaker himself. I understood him completely, and I identified completely. My resentment inventories can be just like that. But is this what inventory looks like after many years in recovery?
In Step Four, the real moral inventory starts on page 67. The pages preceding that are about the phenomenon of resentment, which must be eliminated before I look at myself and my behaviour soberly and with perspective. The fever has to abate before I can concentrate.
I absolutely do have to keep inventory current, but that means keeping my understanding of my own character defects current. I have got lost in inventory at ten, twenty years and more by actually becoming more absorbed in resentments than I was to start with, and finding myself no further ahead. Self-knowledge really does avail nothing (on its own). If a person has never written a resentment inventory, self-knowledge will be vital: it will be important to understand, for the first time, that resentment is a defensive attack against a perceived external attack on my 'assets', and that it is my attachment to my assets that is the problem. Fine. But beyond that, there's not a lot of information to retrieve. Sure, occasionally I need to dig into resentments, to find out what demands to drop. But endlessly examining other people's behaviour and the third column can actually inflate the self and lead to self-indulgence and bloated self-absorption.
So, do I ignore resentment?
No! It needs to be addressed. But how?
The problem is not the content of the resentment but the fact that I am permitting it. I need to revoke its licence. How?
Drop the demands: My scripts, outcomes, and image are what is causing my unhappiness. In truth, it's the lack of demands, not their fulfilment, that opens me up to peace.
Drop the judgement: I'm in no position to moralise, and it does no good.
Foster empathy: How are my motivations like theirs?
Foster love: Pray the page 67 prayers.
Then I can get onto the real inventory, which is where my beliefs, thinking, and behaviour are off.
That's calm and cool, if not cold, and no one figures in that inventory but me.