Join us on FacebookGROW 12 Step Program – Step 5
We also tackled our weaknesses and failures. (new wording). We made moral inventory and cleaned out our hearts. (original old wording). This article on Step 5 of the GROW 12 Step Program is a selection of pieces by different writers who explore how different aspects of our personality can be both a strength (Step 4) and a weakness (Step 5). For example, many people who attend GROW are “givers” and sometimes give too much of themselves to the detriment of their own physical and mental well being, but to completely suppress this personality trait would not be good – it is really about getting the balance right.
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Brigid: I am diplomatic by nature – I have a fear of upsetting people. However diplomacy can give you a stomach ulcer – and that’s why I came to GROW. At that time I didn’t realise that I wasn’t sticking up for myself. GROW helped me to find my voice.
My fear of upsetting people still causes me angst, probably on a daily basis. However I have learned that I generally say or do the right thing and that if I don’t I can make amends. Knowing this makes it easier for me to speak out. Initially it doesn’t feel good – I am out of my comfort zone.
For example, recently I was asked to do extra weekend work, more than my fair share. On confronting my boss, all the old feelings of self-doubt came up: ‘she’ll be mad at me’, ‘she’ll think I’m petty, because the work is important’, ‘will my family really miss me if I’m not there?’ It’s a struggle to ignore these feelings, but I did. After speaking with her I felt shaky and unsure of myself for a time.
It wasn’t until I was laughing at something funny my kids said over a family meal, and feeling very relaxed and happy, that I realised I could have been in work and missed all this – suddenly the evening stretched out before me like a precious gift. Sometimes the benefits of speaking out are not obvious at the time, but they do become apparent further down the line.
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Mike Watts: I seem to have been born with an ability to always see the positive. Whatever happens the bottle is always at least half full. Most of the time this feels like a personal blessing. It means that I can usually work my way through problems, and often find having a problem to be a real opportunity for growth. The downside is that a part of me doesn’t really mind that much if things go wrong because, like ‘Mr Micawber’ (from Charles Dickens book ‘David Copperfield’), I ‘know’, somewhere beyond my rational self, that something will turn up and in the long run everything will be okay.
Being able to see the positive means that I am ‘not afraid of making mistakes’. It is a quality that has allowed me to aim really high in a number of life areas, to get things done and to cope with very high levels of stress along the way. However, sometimes my positivity can get in the way of reality. Perhaps in a way it means that I don’t have to prioritise or think through what is really important and so I find I need friends to check in with. If I always tend to feel good what’s the difference?
A tendency to always see the positive can be a real negative when it’s another person who is in difficulty. I have learned that often people don’t want or need a quick, positive solution. They want someone to be with them who can experience their pain and give them permission to feel their woundedness. While I can do this and genuinely have a deep empathy with others, there is a part of me that wants to ‘get on with life’ and avoid reflection. Also I notice that some people are afraid of my ability to always keep going with a smile on my face!
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Anne Waters: I have always been a worrier. I tend to feel inadequate and somehow guilty for all that I fail to do and for all the things I might be able to do better. The piece in GROW that has helped me with this is “Ordinariness”. I not only can be ordinary, I AM ordinary! While I can do what most ordinary good people do, I cannot do everything. I can’t know everything. I really am NOT God. While I have always known this fact intellectually, emotionally I felt guilty. It was in GROW that I suddenly realized I was trying to take on all the problems of the world and, of course, making a miserable job of it. My worrying about war, global warming, the miserable way people treat other people is useless. Figuring out solutions for global problems that I can do nothing about is completely unnecessary. I am responsible for myself and my own actions, only. I can pick a few areas for my energies and my money, but I can’t do everything. It is so freeing to know I don’t have to! I can do what is sensible and not worry about the rest. I am not the only good person in the world, I can safely trust others to do their share. Whatever happens, I need only feel responsible for what I, as an ordinary person, do or fail to do. This knowledge frees me up to live and love and be actually more successful.
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Tadhg: By nature I am extremely stubborn. It was this extreme stubbornness that caused me to ignore offers of help, leading to my breakdown. Attending GROW has made me realise that stubbornly refusing help and guidance is a weakness. Recovery means learning how to cooperate with help and this is something I am slowly learning.
However stubbornness can also be my strength. It has given me the ability to keep going in difficult times, when many other people would have given up. This ability to see things through to the bitter end can be a great strength if the end goal is positive.
Using the serenity prayer: if stubbornness helps to change things for the better, then it is a strength. However if it only makes a bad situation worse, then it is a weakness. I come to GROW to learn wisdom: i.e. when to doggedly pursue goals or when to let go and find a more appropriate goal.
Perhaps GROW’s most important lesson is to forgive myself for all the times that I have made wrong choices. Too often in the past I would be burdened by a crippling sense of guilt for all the stupid, bull-headed mistakes I’ve made. Now I realise all I can do is accept past mistakes and, most importantly, try to learn from them. It is this willingness to learn from mistakes that will teach me wisdom.