“My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character. ie false pride, jealousy, envy, selfishness and dishonesty. This stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows, Grant me strength. humility, contentment, trust, honesty, unselfishness. As I go from here to do your bidding.Amen.
In script term this crosses over any possible games that we play to get unmet need met. Games are repetitive patterns of behaviour often played out with others out of adult awareness. These always end up with people having a pay-off’s from what is acted out emotionally. This is because they contain exchanges that hold ulterior messages within the transactions between people. These games can hold a lot of emotion , confusion and blame. The step 7 process is about us cathecting an adult humility which is not about our unmet child needs. This does not mean we discount ourselves but we account for relating to others with compassion which is adult acceptance. If we have needs we can get them met without games. Though it is virtually impossible never to play something out with others. It does invite us to minimise any potential ulterior’s or resentments that can mean acting out emotional games to get unresolved needs met. This in turn means that we get our needs met in a more spiritual functional way rather then unconscious and dysfunctional ways. These end up with pay-off’s that are often just fixes anyway so games do not work long term.
With regards to my replies to these blogs it is important to say that this is from a position of a good period of sobriety and having had the benefits of the experience of therapy in a thereaputic community. I can read and respond to these posts in a way that was impossible if I had read this materiel prior to “getting well” It is important not to forget the intense struggle and resistence to these ideas that are experienced in treatment and recovery.
The acceptence of these ideas as expressed here are most importantly a change in FEELING not just an intelectual acceptance of an argument! My experience it that when unwell I was not able to accept certain aspects of my character. Now I am post treatment I have a clearer idea and experience of “what is good for me” and how I relate to the world
The change from the defensive position to accepence and humility really takes at some point a leap of faith outside of our own instinctive survival mecanisms (scripts). It would seem that at some point that shift MUST involve some sense of submission before a person can begin to heal.
It is obvious too me that that submission can only happen in a loving and nurturing environment. To me step 7 is the culmination of the hard work of the previous steps and should be a joyous release rather than any opressive sense of submission – rather a freeing of the ego than the sense of ones ego being crushed and the fear that that idea obviously creates.
At this point in recovery I am very clearly aware of my emotional dynamics and where there is a difficulty I can move through that experience and change and grow and have the sense off moving on. The pay off in the sense of freedom from painfully emotional experiences is a tremendous excouragement to continue on the journey and not slip backwards.