Finding Your Self at Work: The Fourth Step, self-inventory

23 Nov Finding Your Self at Work: The Fourth Step, self-inventory

Self-inventory: the light at the top of those stairs! Tintinhull House, inside, staircase. Somerset, UK. Photo uploaded to Flikr by Elliott Brown, accessed via Creative Commons.

Self-Inventory!

What did we do to put ourselves in this situation of dependence upon capitalism? We made our sanity dependent on something insane. (See Step One.) We did that! Self-inventorying shows us this.

Then we realized we had become dependent, and we realized there had to be a way out. We can find our Selves at work, through work: the quest for money becomes the quest for abundance, and true abundance isn’t found by chasing anything out there.

Step Two, Recap

Step Two reminds us to choose higher joy–the joy that is in here, inside us. We are still seeking abundance. It’s just more direct to go straight to its source. (Believe me, I won’t leave you in the lurch. In this series and in any of RAISING CLARITY’s work with you, you aren’t being asked to abandon family and self and live in a cave. That’s not where all of this is going.)

Step Three, Recap

Step Three pointed out that since we had surrendered to capitalism, we could choose to surrender to something else that simply made sense and was in greater alignment with ourselves. And it pointed us in the direction of that higher, saner Power that we can trust to take care of us. Important to note: we don’t have to understand it completely and we don’t even to trust it completely. We just have to be willing to trust in it.

And Now, Step Four: Self-Inventorying

So now, suddenly, we turn our gaze away from that beautiful Power that still looks like it is “out there” somewhere and we look within, and we see–yecch. Yup, that’s the “searching and fearless moral inventory” of Step Four: we

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Wha–? Why do this right now? Why is this the very next step?

It must be because it really is the next step. I am gonna guess that millions of addicts who have used this program successfully to kick addictions and live delighted lives are not wrong. This Step must be just what is needed at this point to help us do the hard thing: trust. It must help us come into alignment with the Power we are flirting with surrendering to.

Fears About the Self-Inventory Step

It’s so easy to think that Power is puny or at least less practical anyway than just having lots and lots of money!

But whom do we think is really the puny one? Us! Who feels less practical at the mere idea of trusting in a Power beyond capitalism? Us! Who needs to get into alignment with this Power? you guessed it…

This step calls us to evaluate all we have abandoned of ourselves. It must be time for this step. (It’s easy; in the next one you have to share your self-inventory! Eek! Stay tuned. In Step Five’s post, I share mine. All the Steps to Recovery from Capitalism are here.).