Sick As Your Secrets?/Transparency

What a great reminder tonight, and it tied in to closing off my personal inventory.

I, like many others, had secrets buried deep inside of me that I honestly thought I die with. No one ever had to know.

Today I am aware that these secrets caused guilt and shame daily, and some I had buried so deep that in my own Disneyland, they were off the radar screen.

I’d heard people say you are only as sick as your secrets. As I started my journey to a new life, I had no idea of how true the statement is!

I had taken one feeble stab at a personal inventory, and it had not yielded great results.

Using a guideline I’ve incorporated into my addiction mentoring and coaching practice, I dug deep in to the dark corners of my past. And oh the secrets that came from within me and onto paper. I can honestly say I was guided to memories I had buried in places I had just locked up.

I took the time in doing this inventory, and once again, I found good and good intentions along with the dark secrets and other bad behaviors. In any inventory of things, there is both good and bad stock. While the good things did not cause me to use mood altering substances and take mood altering actions, I had really lost perspective on the bad.

It has struck me, if you look at the world through an a..hole, all you will see is s..t, and I was there.

In reviewing my inventory after completion, I became aware of all the secrets I had stashed inside my head. And it felt good to have them out there.

Once I had gone through this searching, fearless and at times painful exercise, I found I had become transparent to myself, and for the first time in my adult life I had a very good idea of what had happened from a point of innocence to my personal bottom, and why I had followed the route.

In reading the inventory a day or two after completion, and reading it almost like it was the story of another person, I had a tear in my eye and realized that I was a good person who had really strayed from the path, and I felt empathy (not pity) for the person and the waste. I also committed to myself that I would never build up secrets again, that I would be honest to myself: transparent to me!

This was hard work, but looking back many years later, it was work that was worth every minute. Thanks to the strength given to me by my higher power, and using my will and character properly and honestly, I have not had a secret from my past jump out and bite me! For this I’m grateful.

At this point, I had completed step 4, my 4^th footprint, and was ready for the challenges to come!

I was sick in part because of my secrets, and became ready to be transparent to me.

The challenge, if some of this step 4 stuff strikes a chord, you must decide, have I got the intestinal fortitude to move ahead and disgorge the secrets that keep me sick? Am I prepared to live a life transparent at least to myself?