By Terrie C.
Step 4 Prayer
In this moment, I am willing to see myself as I truly am: a growing, unfolding spiritual being resting in the hands of a loving God. I can separate who I am from what I’ve done knowing that the real me is emerging—loving, joyful, and whole.
In the Welcome we read that “We have each experienced in our own ways the painful trauma and emptiness of our childhood and relationships throughout our lives.” Starting with coming from a place of trauma, that is affirmed throughout the welcome reading, we can look at how our responses to this trauma became deeply rooted. Small children, being abused conclude that it is somehow their own fault. We often draw the conclusion that there is something wrong with us, and therefore we are to blame. There is a connection between shame and blame. We become shame based in a deeply rooted way. In 1990 I gathered a group of 5 other women who were incest survivors. We wrote a new program for ourselves and called it the THIRTEEN HEALING CIRCLES.
Today, starting with Circles one and two:
1. We admit that we were abused, were powerless over the abuse at the time, and that its consequences deeply affect our lives.
2. We come to believe that the Goddess will awaken a healing power within us. We become ready to open ourselves to this power and realize that we no longer need to be victims.
In recovery I AM working on changing the belief about myself THAT there was always something wrong with me. In recovery groups, we are working on becoming honest with ourselves. For me, this has been a long, hard process of recognition. In the 3rd step prayer, it says:
I can set aside all the old beliefs about who I am not and be who I am—a child of God.
For me this means an action of allowing my higher power to show me new ways of believing that are not shame based.
In Step 4, the language is problematic for me. I have never felt that I was fearless. In fact, part of the difficulty of my life and relationships is being in fear most of the time. In my trauma as a child, I thought that I was immoral because of sexual abuse. So, to try to heal by saying that I was fearless and to take a moral inventory, actually increased fear.
The 4th Circle reads:
We search deep within ourselves to appraise the abuse done to us, and how it still affects us. We celebrate our strengths and gently acknowledge the ways we would like to change.
WE COULD SUBSITUTE THE WORD TRAUMA AND TRAUMATIZED FOR THE WORD ABUSE. THIS RECOGNIZES THAT THERE IS INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA PASSED DOWN IN FAMILIES AND OUR FAMILIES ACTED OUT OF THEIR OWN TRAUMA. Blame and shame are left out.
Important questions to ask ourselves: WHO WOULD I BE IF I HAD NOT BELIEVED ALL OF MY LIFE THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME? Who would I be if I had not had to develop ways to survive in my family? How would I be different?
I have PTSD which is a body response to trauma. People with PTSD live with the sympathetic nervous system (fight, flight, freeze) turned on all the time, never getting to full parasympathetic nervous system mode where we are in rest and relaxation. In other words, never feeling fully safe! Some of the symptoms are exaggerated startle response and hypervigilance. Also, dysregulation of our brain function. This can be seen on QEEG (Quantitative Electroencephalograms) and functional MRI’s.
The very first 4th step inventory that I prepared was the story of my trauma. I wrote down things that had happened to me when I was powerless. It was my honest truth.
When I began telling my truth in my family, they disowned me. That was another trauma. I was told they just wanted their “Happy” Terrie back. But I was never really that. It was a mask I wore to survive in the family. One of the recovery sayings is ACT AS IF. I feel like I have been recovering from acting as if. I said this in a meeting after another person had been speaker and disclosed her incestuous family history. She came up to me after and said that was true for her too. That felt like a true connection to another honest human being. A wonderful thing about 12 step meetings is that we really can tell our truths and have a deep connection with another trauma survivor.
Of all the meeting readings in CoDA my favorite is The Welcome because it acknowledges our trauma throughout. One of the things that I get scared about in the meetings is being judged because since the beginning of my recovery I have had difficulty with the words, and yet, have felt the principles are right. I believe the 4th step is about telling the truth about our lives. That is the principle. Words are powerful.
In the last year, because of connections with people in CoDA it has been affirmed that adding kindness and compassion is a powerful healing way and there are many who are teaching this way. I have been listening to Tara Brach, Pema Chodron and am reading the Dali Lama’s book on Happiness. I have begun an 8 week course on Mindful Self-Compassion at Common Ground Meditation Center.
A good 4th step guide is to recognize what we believe about ourselves that is judgmental. This leads me right back to the Thirteen Healing Circles of 30 years ago. I KNEW THEN THAT I NEEDED KINDNESS AND COMPASSION IN THE WORDS OF RECOVERY.
I believe that I can heal, and it is my responsibility to do so. I was not responsible for the trauma. For me, the trauma gave me a core belief that there is something wrong with me. That instills fear and means healing from being in fear all of the time. Today, we know that neuroplasticity exists. It is said by scientists that the neurons that fire together, wire together. Feeding ourselves recovery in a community of others who are on this path helps us all heal together. I believe the truth for all of us is that we are doing this work because we learned codependent behaviors to survive dysfunctional families.
The work is to examine (INVENTORY) our beliefs and change what needs it. We seek through prayer and meditation for help in changing that deeply rooted trauma that led us away from who we were meant to be.
I love the CoDA Recovery Prayers and have begun to use them more than the steps. Starting with CoDA step one the principle is to work on our own life (we are powerless over others). Where I am not powerless is to make the choice to do the work of changing my belief about myself.
I end with the 2nd Step Prayer and an affirmation.
In this moment, I can believe that I am never alone; I can experience the sense of freedom that having a Higher Power offers me. I can remind myself that believing is also an action, and if I am willing to practice it, one moment at a time, I will develop faith.
Affirmation:
I affirm that codependent behaviors are a survival response to early and long-term trauma. That I am recovering the person that I was meant to be by BREAKING the OLD PATTERNS & LEARNING NEW ONES!
A Tara Brach talk on this called Freedom from the Prison of Limiting Beliefs