Cleaning House

 The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.   Joseph Campbell

I can have all sorts of insights about myself. They usually appear just as I’m trying to get to sleep at night. I thank my Higher Power for showing them to me, and then blissfully forget about them.

It is in the forgetting that no action needs to be taken. I’m actually being reminded about those traits I keep in dark storage. I can’t throw them away if I never acknowledge their presence, never unpack and look at them. They just stay where they are, taking up space, sapping my energy.

Step 5 encourages me to drag them into the Light, to see them and deal with them. When I share their existence with that Light and with another human being, I begin to see how they’ve kept me from true freedom and happiness. I get to choose to confront my shortcomings, or to shove them back into the dark cave of resistance. When I look at my part in my resentments and hurts, I can begin to see the ways in which those dark characteristics snake out of the cave and negatively affect my life. I learn to notice when they try to sneak up on me, and say “no - not this time!”.

Learning about, accepting as true, being encouraged to offer up those defects of character brings me to the treasure of becoming the person I came here to be - one who is kind yet strong, who has boundaries yet is loving and helpful, one who recognizes her worth as a child of her Creator. 

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