Honesty is the principle of the first Step. Along with it acceptance and surrender is needed to take this Step 100%.
The rest of the Steps can not be worked to the best of our ability if we don't learn to attain these three things.
We need to have a truly honest look at ourselves and find out who we are. To do that we need to work the 12 Steps and to do that, I need to start with the First!
I had trouble getting honest because I used people, places and things for so many years to stuff my feelings and to hide my true self because I feared you would not love, like, accept, and be my friend. I feared rejection, abandonment, disapproval and I looked to you for validation because I could not find it within myself.
I didn't know what I was feeling, I couldn't put labels on things and people would say, "How do you feel?" I didn't know. It was only by going to meeting, hearing others share that I could identify my feelings and behaviors, postive and negative so that I could get honest about them and deal with them. As long as I compared, I stayed sick. I wasn't that bad. I didn't do that. Well I didn't drink or drug, so I am better than they are. Not knowing that my codependency and caretaking lead to the same soul sickness and that I was often more sick than the alcoholics that were in my life.
I used cigarettes and food, work and service to stuff and to hide from my feelings and even in recovery, I stayed sick until I could find true honesty. I had cash register honesty. I could be kind and carrying and yet there were times I would tell white lies so I wouldn't hurt you, but then my motive and intent was generally because I didn't want you to not like me if I was truly honest with you. I learned that it wasn't so much what you said, but how you said it that mattered.
The truth had to come out. I had to find the true me. In order to find my truth I had to get honest, have a close relationship with my Higher Power and allow His unconditional Love transform me into a loving person who was able to let go of bitterness, resentment, an unforgiving heart, anger, guilt, shame, etc.
It was a process. It didn't happen over night. I didn't get sick over night, so I didn't find self-honesty all wrapped up in a package that I could just grap and hold onto.
As the blinders came off, the heart and mind opened, the ear became willing to listen, and I took down the barriers and eliminated the blocks that I had put up in self-defense, I was finally able to allow myself to become vulnerable and open for healing. I had to let go of the darkness and bring it to the Light so it could be healed. I had to shapeshift the old reality and create a new based on my truth and my self-honesty.
I also found that my truth may not be someone else's and even though some one may not agree with me, I had a right to stand up for what I believed in if it came from my God. What I had to do was get honest and decide whether it was my self-will or my conscious self that was making the decision and whether I was being empowered or whether I thought I was the power.
Like so many other things in this program, it took practice, practice, practice. God is as He reveals Himself to me in today.
Love this picture. Found it a long time ago. To me it speaks of the Inner Self. Personal Empowerment, the Goddess within, whatever you want to call it. It was about being aware of the presence of it and building an honest relationships with it.
