Program Paradoxes: As we think more about ourselves, we think more of ourselves.
The Program involves a lot of introspection. Working the Steps consists of thinking a lot about myself. Moral and personal inventories, Step Five conversations where I talk about myself, review of my defects, making amends for my behaviours, and on and on.
Pre-Program habits of self-contemplation had led to omphaloskepsis, self-absorbed navel-gazing. This path took me nowhere, or worse to brooding, maudlin reflections. But thinking about myself with the Steps as guides led to new outcomes. The disciplines of structured inventories and constructive sharing meant that thinking about myself led to character development. And character development allowed me the beginnings of self-respect and self-esteem.
By thinking more about myself, I began to think more of myself.
It was not until I turned this corner and could look back on my life that I saw how desperately I had loathed myself.
Recently at a meeting, a returnee was tearfully talking about how this time he had almost killed himself. I thought back to the first suicide ideation that I recalled. I was 15 years old. Even then, I was full of self-loathing and self-doubt. I learned from character development that came from working the Steps that I hated myself and my existence. But with some character development, this self-loathing diminished. I could see reasons for living.
So, by thinking more about myself with the Program Steps as guides, I came to think more of myself.
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