Step Four

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Ah, Step Four – the first freak-out step (Nine is the next one). I have watched many people sit in the misery of dreading Step Four. I had a sponsee who finally did this Step after 2 years of hearing “you might want to Fourth Step that” from me almost every time we talked. It took me 18 months to complete my own first Fourth Step, and, even then, I was not searching and fearless (not until I had done this Step six times did I truly get searching and fearless).

Four IS scary since our egos really fight the personal responsibility thing. I was terrified I would find out just how awful I was. Instead, I found out that I am human – and so are those around me. Part of my taking responsibility includes understanding what I am not responsible for. I am not responsible for what others think of me. I am not responsible for disappointing others (especially in not getting skinny). I am, however, responsible for my own actions and motivations.

One way to do the Fourth step includes looking at our resentments, fears and sex conduct. The AABB way of looking at resentments suggests using four columns: who the resentment is toward, what happened, what it effects (such as sex relations, personal relations, pocket book, etc.), and my part. For fears, we simply list our fears. For sex conduct, we do the four columns again.

I run Step workgroups a couple of times a year. Each time, I do the Steps over some subject or another. This time, I did my Steps over fat, without really meaning to. So, I want to share the majority of my 4th with you (some is too personal for public consumption). I’ll post that later this week.

Step Four is scary, but so worth it. I have found freedom from the things I was willing to bring to light. They no longer haunt me like they used to. I don’t tend to regret or live in my past like I used to. Step Four is a necessary step on the path to freedom.

Feelings and Cravings

In her excellent book, Health At Every Size, Linda Bacon says we can’t trust cravings. I would say that, like feelings, we can’t trust cravings to tell us what is going on, but we can trust cravings to tell us something is going on.

There is a saying in the program: “feelings are not facts.” I did not understand this for the longest time. Finally, I realized that it meant just because I feel it, doesn’t mean it is real. Just because I feel like a situation in the end of the world, doesn’t mean it is. Just because I feel like I’ll never forgive that person, doesn’t mean I won’t with time. Just because I want to give up forever, doesn’t mean I will feel that way tomorrow.

Yet, feelings do tell me something is going on. If I’m angry at someone, that may tell me they did something wrong or that I did something wrong (sometimes, we get mad at others when we are the ones in the wrong) or that I am scared. If I don’t trust someone, it may be my insides warning me, or they just might remind me of someone I learned not to trust.

I think cravings work the same way. They tell me something is going on, but not always what. A great example: I kept craving Sweet Tarts. I could eat as many as I wanted and the craving was still there. If I ate a kiwi or an orange, however, the craving went away. I finally figured out that I was craving Vitamin C since I used to take a Vit C pill that tasted like Sweet Tarts. So, my body wasn’t craving what I thought it was, but it did need something.

Another example, If I don’t get enough sleep, I crave powdered-sugar donuts because I need energy. I have actually found that sleep, or at least rest, is the best way to get rid of that craving. Barring that, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich meets that craving better than the donuts do.

Sometimes, I’m craving a particular comfort food. I started explaining all about that, but I think it deserves its own blog post on another day.

I need to honor my body. If I am craving, that tells me SOMETHING is going on. Figuring out what exactly can be a mystery-solving process.

The Steps

So far, I’ve been covering a Step a month (see One, Two, and Three here). I plan on continuing to do that. However, I’ve realized that I never actually talked about the Steps in general. Because I lead Step workgroups, I have worked through this process many times. Each time I do, I find myself freer, happier and more open to life; I also find myself with less fear and resentment. Working the Steps can be an uncomfortable process, but one that is well worth moving through.

This last time I worked the Steps, I worked them from an FA perspective. Awesome, awesome stuff, I tell you. That process definitely helped me work through some old resentments while increasing my love for my body and myself.

So, how do you work the Steps from an FA point of view? Each month, I’m making suggestions for how I tend to work them, but there are actually many, many ways to work the Steps. The most common way comes out of the Big Book of AA. Al-Anon has a great guide called Paths to Recovery. I’ve never worked a bad Step, though I have gotten more growth out of some ways than others. I think intention is the key: the intention to “uncover, discover, and discard” all that nasty old stuff that has held us back.

I am not sure if any of you do actually want to work the Steps, but I encourage you to do so if you have the desire. One warning, it’s best to work the Steps with someone. Each Step has the potential to bring up uncomfortable feelings, bad memories and other issues.(There is an old saying, "the only way out is through," that I've found to be true.) Ideally, find someone who has worked the Steps before and is willing to share their experience, strength and hope. Finding someone who can handle the FA perspective might be tricky, but here are some options:

• They don’t actually have to be fat accepting, just open minded. I talk about FA stuff with my AA/Al-Anon sponsor. Even though she still buys into societal beliefs about weight loss, she is capable of putting those beliefs aside when she works with me.
• Sometimes, priests or ministers (especially Unity ministers) are versed in the Steps. However, as we well know, many spiritual people buy into the weight loss culture.
• I’ve also wondered if there might be some of you who have been in OA and become disillusioned with it. If you worked the Steps in OA, you might be able to guide someone else through the Steps from the FA perspective without having worked through them yourself. Ideally, though, we want to do it ourselves before we guide others.
• If you cannot find someone to work with you locally, you can always work with me by email (spirit_of_fa at gmx dot com). Feel free to write me about any of this stuff, in fact.

Anyway, the Steps have been a powerful healing tool for me. If you HP leads you in that direction, I encourage you to try them out.

Letting Go

I love the slogan, “Let go and Let God.” This is a slogan that has saved my butt a number of times. I so often believed that I needed to handle something when really I needed to surrender it instead. I have a friend that says, “instead of trying harder, let go harder.”

But what does letting go look like in terms of FA? For me, it has meant letting go of old ways of thinking while embracing a completely new paradigm. For instance, I have had to let go of:

• Food rules. Today, I try to trust my body rather than a predetermined set of rules, including how much I should eat, when I should eat, and ideas of good food and bad food.
• Trying to change my outsides so my insides feel better. This includes the desire to be smaller. I have finally learned that changing my body will not truly change my feelings, though I might fake it for awhile. I still fight that desire to be smaller some days, but today I know it hides an illusion, not reality.
• What people think of me. Some people will hate me on sight, for whatever reason. That has nothing to do with me, but rather with their own issues and prejudices. Some people may judge me as lacking or sick because of my body size. Again, their issue and not my own.

These are just a few of things I’ve learned to let go of and hand over to my Higher Power. I still have to do my part; I still have to take what actions I can. However, I can leave the results up to a Power that knows better than me.