Tools are an important part of recovery.  Working the steps formally and implementing them in our lives as needed are two different things.  If we get a resentment that we are unable to let go of first we pat ourselves on the back for admitting it….we don’t punish ourselves for being human.  Then we can sit down and work a fourth step grid on the issue.  What happened and how did it make us feel?  We write the events down on paper.    At the core of EVERY resentment is fear.  Identifying what we are afraid of is usually not logical…it is a feeling and does not have to be logical to be valid.  We write down our fears.

Are we afraid of losing something associated with the “three S’s” [Sex, Society, and Security]  99% of the time fear of loss is at the core of our resentment.   We revisit the third step and put our fears in our Higher Powers hands.  We ask God to remove our fears,  We admit that we are lacking at some level; faith and trust in our Higher Power or we wouldn’t have fears.  We discuss our lack of faith with God and ask for help.  We pray for the person whom we have the resentment against for a week or as long as it takes to get them out of our head.

These tools are common solutions to our emotional disorder.  We are not hard on ourselves because we know we are making progress and we just showed ourselves the Love it takes to heal!

Emotional sobriety means learning how to take responsibility for our own feelings and actions.