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"Your Thorough Inventory, 4th Step..."Do you need support with your Inventory, 4th Step. Email: woundedh@wounded-healer-support.comIn 12th Step programmes members are asked to complete a Personal Inventory, 4th Step. This is a house cleaning of our lives. If you are in emotional pain and your life is unmanageable, by answering these questions you will be taking stock of your life and you will get to know yourself thoroughly through this GETTING TO KNOW YOU. By loving all of this (your life’s experiences which you will write about by answering each question ) you will become a whole complete human being. Only in embracing all of ourselves and accepting it all, no matter how ugly and immoral it seems can we be truly complete. It’s what we reject that fragments us.
I have seen a few personal inventories, 4th Steps but this is the most thorough. I challenge you to complete it.
Print it off and be sure to read the keys to get the most out of your writing, the keys are at the end. When you have finished or before if you like, print out Wounded Healer’s list of
PERSONAL ASSETS
CHILDHOOD INVENTORYCHILDHOOD INVENTORY1) What kind of relationship did your mother have with her parents? 2) What kind of relationship did your father have with his parents? 3) Were you wanted at birth? Write out the circumstances of your family at the time of your birth? Things such as family size, age differences, financial status. Were there other relatives or people living with you? 4) In general, describe what you think your family thought of you. 5) How old were you at the birth of your brothers and sisters? How did you feel about the new arrivals? 6) Was either of your parents sick enough to need hospitalisation? 7) Were you separated from any important family members? 8) Was there fear or guilt about this separation? In other words, did you feel responsible? 9) Were you frightened by the bogeymen or the devil, etc if you misbehaved? If so, what were your fears in this regard? 10) A child is made to feel guilty about his or her normal sexual curiosity. This comes about by his or her being caught masturbating or playing Doctor or for participating in group masturbation. Many parents tell their children that sexual feelings are evil and must be punished. With no sex education and given this sort of teaching, a child will naturally distort what he or she knows about sex. When a child is exposed to fully developed nude persons (for instance in the bathroom, in home or in public) he or she may begin to feel inadequate because he or she has not yet developed. These feelings may carry over into feelings of inadequacy in adult life even when the person is thoroughly developed adult. Write about any of the above that make you uneasy. YOUV'E STARTED YOUR INVENTORY, 4TH STEP GO FOR IT. 11) Were you afraid of the dark? 12) Were you afraid to fight or were you afraid not to fight because of pressure of parents, siblings or others? 13) How did your parents punish you? Did they try to reason with you or was it physical? 14) How did you react to punishment? 15) What kind of marriage do you think your parents had? 16) If they fought, did you resent it? Did it scare you? Were you used to breaking up their fights? Were you used to taking one side or the other? 17) Or, were they so close you couldn’t feel a part of them? 18) If your parents were from different religions, did you feel confused about it? 19) Were you afraid of storms? 20) List all the feelings of guilt, fear, resentment you had toward each person in your life as a child (not your feelings now)? YOU ARE GOING WELL ON YOUR INVENTORY, 4TH STEP, KEEP GOING 21) List the first time you ever stole anything. Inventory all your thefts. 22) How old were you when you first masturbated? Were you ever caught and made to feel guilty? Did you feel guilty even though you weren’t caught? 23) What other sexual curiosities were you involved in or observant of? 24) If you were named after someone, what was that person like? 25) Did your family move often? If so, did you make friends and then have to break off the relationship so often that you became afraid to get too close? 26) Do you remember starting school? What were your feelings? Try to remember each successive grade in school and as you do, write out the resentments you felt towards teachers, pupils, anyone. Any fights, slights, hurts, embarrassments... PUT IT DOWN ON PAPER. Did you resent church, relatives, friends of parents, parents? If so list them. No resentment is too small to mention. 27) What kind of language did your parents use? Were you ashamed of them for this or anything else? 28) Did you ever see your parents in the nude? What were your feelings? 29) Did you ever hear or see your parents having sex? What were your feelings? 30) In every family a child usually has certain chores assigned. What were yours? Were they fair? Could you do them to please your parents? IF YOUR FEELING PAIN FROM DOING YOUR INVENTORY, 4TH STEP WE CAN MAYBE HELP, OR TALK TO SOMEONE YOU TRUST 31) Did your parents seem to like your friends better than they did you? And did your friends seem to like your parents better than they did you? If so, did you resent this? 32) Did you have any bad experiences at Sunday school? Or summer camp? 33) Were you an only child? Did you resent this or did you enjoy it? Did your parents want a child of the opposite sex wen they had you? And did they name you, or dress you to match their sex of choice? 34) Write down any other childhood memories that were, or are, painful. 35) Did your appearance (looks, dress, etc) embarrass you? Did you feel that you were different from your classmates? 36) Which of the above questions in your inventory about childhood was the toughest for you? THE NEXT SECTION OF YOUR INVENTORY IS AWAITING. Do you need support with your Inventory, 4th Step. Email: woundedh@wounded-healer-support.com NEXT SECTION OF YOUR INVENTORY COMING UP ADOLESCENCE INVENTORYADOLESCENCE INVENTORY37) Many children experience homosexual episodes. If there is an overload of guilt attached, the child will find itself not a real homosexual, but repeating this experience from time to time, he or she suffers from fears of homosexuality and fears homosexual experiences, and the fears overcome the normal desires. A child relies on the misguided sex information obtained from peers. This can produce a number of severe problems (as, never outgrowing the desire for sexual activity with the parent or sibling of the same sex). Although these are UNCONSCIOUS desires, they bring on conscious guilt’s that have to be dealt with. What has been YOUR experience concerning the above? 38) Distortion may come when a person is too young emotionally to handle adult sex. There is involvement because of peer pressure, or the desire to please another. Not being in touch with adult feelings, pretence sets up which then leads to anger, disappointment and guilt. This will have a tendency to prevent normal sexual and emotional growth. The guilt prevents the person from talking the feelings out with a mature adult, which may result in a need to repeat the same pattern over and over again. Write down your experience concerning the above. 39) Some girls are taught that men are interested in sex only, and some boys that they must be the greatest of all time. These attitudes are destructive and damaging to the total person. Have you experienced either of these attitudes? Is there a pattern? How has it affected you? 40) Did you have friends? What kind of friend were you? I KNOW IT CAN BE PAINFUL DOING THIS INVENTORY, 4TH STEP BUT HEY WE'VE PUT THE PAIN OFF FOR TOO LONG 41) What interest or lack of interest did you have in school? How was your social life? Did you participate in sports? What were the reasons for your participation or lack there of? 42) Were you a trouble maker? If so, in what way? Did you destroy property? 43) Did you resent leaders, either physical or mental leaders? Did you resent not being the most handsome or beautiful person at school? 44) Did you feel you were a coward because you didn’t want to fight? Or did you like to fight? Were you a bully? Did you feel embarrassed because anyone made fun of you or avoided you? 45) Were you exposed to other children in gym class or the rest room that were older than you and more developed physically? Some people don’t develop physically until late adolescence. Were you like that? Some people feel inadequate as adults because they were at one time exposed to youngsters more developed at the time. If you feel uptight in this area, write about your feelings. 46) Did you resent not being a part of a crowd? Or not being a leader? Or not being “in”? Were you shy or outgoing? How are you now? Does any particular type of person make you shy? 47) If you dropped out of school, explain your feelings and reasons. Did anything happen to you in high school that was a continuing source of shame? 48) Did your parents compare you to other family members or friends? Did you resent them for wanting you to be like someone else? 49) How did you get the attention of your family? Did you sulk, pout, be a good child, and have temper tantrums, act like a dummy? 50) What kind of lies did you tell, if any? How did you feel when you got caught lying? 10 MORE INVENTORY QUESTIONS DOWN 51) What was the most embarrassing incident of adolescence? Were there any others you remember? 52) Were you jealous or envious of others? 53) If sexy feelings were discounted and put down in your family, there is a strong possibility that you feel guilty about them. We ‘catch’ attitudes. A boy who is pushed to always do better or is criticised no matter what he does, may find himself having trouble in his sexual performance. Or a girl, who has been told that it is not okay to feel sexy, may grow up to dislike her own body and distrust her feelings. These attitudes create unnatural or uncomfortable sexual behaviour. Did you ‘catch’ any of these attitudes? Can you see it cropping up in your life now? 54) First sexual intercourse, what were your feelings? Did you feel guilty? Did you feel disappointed? Be as explicit about the feelings as you can. 55) List in detail any homosexual experiences, masturbation fantasies, any other sexual activity you particularly remember…keep in mind that we are not concerned about with when or on what date, or how often, but rather, how did you feel about the experience. 56) If you got someone pregnant or became pregnant yourself, what did you do and how did you feel about your actions? 57) Were you ashamed of your parents? Were they too old, too fat, too sloppy, too drunk, too whatever? 58) Did you have the kind of clothes that other kids wore? Was there enough money for the things you needed and if not, were you resentful of that? If there was, did you take too much for granted? Did you feel any sibling got more than you did? Write out your feelings about money as an adolescent.>br? 59) Were you the kind of child you want to have? 60) Were you a thief? IF YOUV'E GOT THIS FAR WHY STOP DOING THIS INVENTORY, 4TH STEP, YOUR A WINNER 61) Were you ever double promoted at school? If so, did you have trouble catching up emotionally? How did you act? How did you feel…did you feel uncomfortable because you were younger than the other students? 62) Did you feel uncomfortable because you were superior or inferior to other students? 63) Were you undependable as a friend; breaking off relationships without any explanation when something or someone who seemed better came along? 64) Did you put one member of your family against another? 65) What was the best experience you had? 66) What was the worst experience you had? 67) We’ve covered a lot of ground on this inventory questionaire. Now is there ANYTHING that made you particularly uncomfortable when writing out these inventory answers? Have you put down EVERYTHING in the inventory that has bugged you? Even the simplest most nit-picking things are important to your inventory if they trouble you. Put it down in your inventory. Do you need support with your Inventory, 4th Step. Email: woundedh@wounded-healer-support.com NEXT SECTION OF YOUR INVENTORY COMING UP ADULTHOOD INVENTORYADULTHOOD INVENTORY68) When, and how and in just what instances did my selfish pursuit of sex relations damage other people and me? What people were hurt, and how badly? Did I spoil my marriage and injure my children? Did I jeopardize my standing in the community? 69) Just how did I react to these situations at the time? Did I burn with a guilt that nothing could distinguish? Or did I insist that I was the pursued and not the pursuer, and thus absolve myself. 70) How have I reacted to frustration in sexual matters? When denied, did I become vengeful or depressed? Did I take it out on other people? KEEP GOING WITH YOUR INVENTORY YOUR DOING GREAT. 71) If there was rejection or coldness at home did I use this as a reason for promiscuity? 72) Many people who are lonely and don’t really know how to love get involved senselessly in sexcapades. The temporary loss of loneliness makes one call sex ‘love’. When the sex partner is gone, it makes for an even greater feeling of loneliness. Have you experienced this? It’s better to try to relate in other areas first, for a more permanent relationship. 73) If you have married a cold, unloving person, ask yourself why you chose that one to be your mate. Did you use it as an excuse to find new romances? Was your mother or father cold and unloving and this is your chance to get even with them through your spouse? 74) Why did you get married? Was it for the right reasons? Or haven’t you gotten married?>br> 75) Did you marry earlier than your peer group? Later? 76) Do you resent the responsibilities of marriage and family? 77) If married, do you allow your family to come between you and your spouse? 78) Are you still a baby in your parents’ eyes and take advantage of this? 81) Do you write bad cheques? 84) Are laws made for other people? Do you have the right to make up your own laws as you go along? 85) If revenge were possible right now, who would be the top people on your list? Why? HEY YOUV'E PASSED HALF WAY ON YOUR INVENTORY, 4TH STEP, PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK. 86) What are your present feelings about sex, parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, your children, spouse, your intimate friends, and your job? What are your feelings about finances, your marital status, about being an alcoholic, addict, gambler, food addict etc? What are your hopes and goals? 87) How much time do you spend with your family? With your recovery and healing? 88) What is your greatest fear? 89) Do you use sex as a punishment or reward? What is your sex life like? Is it as mature as you might want to be? Are you careless of your partner’s feelings? Write out your ideal of a healthy sex life. 90) Write on all sexual experiences not previously discussed, especially those which made you feel uncomfortable. 91) Do you engage in sex in order to build your own ego by a feeling of conquest? 92) Are you afraid of being sexually rejected? 93) Are you ashamed of your body or the way you look? Write out what you think is wrong with you. 94) Write out your feelings of pride about any of these questions and the best things about you physically. 95) Now write out the things about yourself that you are ashamed of. 96) Do you use people to get what you want? Do you gossip or perform ‘character assassination’ on another in order to ‘make it’ in the social or business world? Or do you do this in an effort to feel superior to the one gossiped about? 97) If you are a thief, what have you stolen? Don’t forget to include employer’s time and good feelings you had and destroyed. 98) Do you have a pattern of getting sick? Be honest. Do you use illness as an excuse to avoid responsibilities or get attention or sympathy or to get out of a jam? 99) In business relationships, write out your resentments toward bosses and co-workers. Do you feel jealous of them? List all the negative feelings you have about people in your work life. 100) Are you concerned that others in your office will get more money or prestige than you will? 70 QUESTIONS OF YOUR INVENTORY, 4TH STEP TILL FREEDOM 101) Are you indifferent and careless of your job? Do you maybe think you should be the boss? Do you use the excuse that because you are not using your addictive substance now your boss, or your family and friends shouldn’t expect so much of you? 102) If you are divorced or getting divorced, write out negative feelings about the situation and the people involved. Resentments, fears and guilt concerning your relationship with your spouse and your children. Have you set up a game where your children are forced to make a decision on which parent they love the best? 103) If married, write out EXACTLY how you feel about your spouse and children. Are they living up to your expectations? 104) What are your expectations? Are they unreasonable? 105) How do you think you would be different if they were out of your life? IF YOUR FEELING PAIN STAY WITH YOUR INVENTORY, 4TH STEP. 106) Do you feel that no one really understands you? (If they only knew what you had been through they wouldn’t expect so much from you). 107) Do you still feel different from or apart from other people in recovery and healing? 108) Do you feel superior or inferior? 109) Do you avoid looking at yourself by statements such as “At least I’m not as bad as that person”? “At least I’m not that colour”. “At least I’m not flaky”. 110) Do you judge or make fun of people who appear to be less fortunate mentally, physically, or morally than you THINK you are? 111) Do you compare yourself to others to make yourself suffer by picking people who are further along in the recovery and healing journey than you, or people who are talented in areas you are not? 112) The only person you can adequately compare yourself to is yourself. How you were five days ago, five weeks ago, five months ago, at your first experience with recovery and healing, and how are you now? Forget how other people are and work on yourself. 113) List every act that you swore you would take to the grave, disclosing to no one. Be open and honest. Remember, life gave you good and bad experiences. Usually the things you are the most ashamed of are the very acts that made you try to grow into something better. If you want freedom, you have to let go of it all. The AA BIG BOOK STATES: “We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it…no matter how far down the scale we have gone; we will see how our experience can benefit others. (Page 84) If you want to help bring peace into the lives of the people you will be dealing with later, you must find it in your own life first. 114) Are you afraid of getting too close to another person for fear of being rejected? 115) Do you reject others before they can reject you? HOW ARE YOU GOING WITH THIS INVENTORY, DROP US AN EMAIL. 116) Define love. What do you feel it is? 117) In what ways are you a responsible person? 118) Are you a tightwad? What are your fears concerning money? Do you spend with no thought of tomorrow? 119) Is your personal appearance particularly careless or prideful? 120) On sight do you judge people by their appearance? THERE'S NO REASON GOOD ENOUGH TO STOP WHEN YOUV'E DONE SO WELL ON YOUR INVENTORY, 4TH STEP 121) What things make you feel greedy, envious or angry? 122) Are you scornful of ideas that weren’t your own? 123) Do you tell others of how bad you have been or are? This is pride in reverse, a good tool if you like self pity or depression. Or do you got o the other extreme and tell people how great you were or are? This is a good way to give your ego a false sense of security. However, when the security topples you are back in depression, loneliness and not OK. 124) Write your feelings for your parents, brothers, sisters, other family members. NOW. 125) What resentments or hates do you still have? 126) What makes you feel guilty? 127) Do you pad your expense account or use food allowances to buy things just for yourself? 128) Do you feel resentment for another recovery and healing member? 129) What kind of things do you lie about the most? 130) Do you still need to play the “Big Shot”? 131) Are you hurt when people turn away from you and won’t play your game? 132) Do you resent not getting as much attention as you did when you were brand new in recovery and healing? 133) Do you help protect the new “member of recovery and healing”, insisting on platonic friendships rather than something heavy that might put pressure on them leading to a relapse? 134) Or do you use their weakness when new to indulge in your sexual gratification? Or does just the consideration of this make you feel guilty? 135) What kind of things do waste most time worrying about….the future or the past? 136) Do you find yourself punishing your children the way your parents punished you? 137) Have you been so busy trying to make money and/or make a perfect household that your family sees little of you? 138) Do you say “I give my family everything they want, butt they aren’t ever satisfied”? 139) Are you working to build your ego? 140) When your spouse turns cold, do you spend more time with him or her, or do you turn to someone else who is more” understanding? YOUR INVENTORY, 4TH STEP IS NOW A COUNTDOWN MY FREIND 141) Do you spend too much time at recovery and healing groups? 142) Do you take at least one night a week for the family only? 143) Have communications with your family become so intolerable that you are depending on recovery and healing members to get your necessary strokes? 144) Do you feel that you somehow have to prove that you are worthy of love from others, either other recovery or healing members or elsewhere? Elaborate on this. 145) Are you cold and indifferent to your family, friends, work, and your own needs? 146) Are you loaded with a sense of guilt for putting people through so much hell? 147) Do you threaten others by saying that you can’t stay abstinent from the substance if you don’t get your family back, or get your own way, etc? 148) Are you involved in a love affair that could bring yourself or others harm? 149) Do you argue with people? Is it important for you to be “right’? Do you become angry when people don’t see things the way you do? 150) Do you pass along gossip or make up things about other peoples behaviour? 151) Do you worry about other peoples Higher Power not being as good as yours, or maybe even better? Are you comparing yourself with others in spiritual growth? Do you feel superior spiritually? 152) Do you still feel guilt about masturbation? 153) Do you feel superior because you have more education, money, brains, the right colour skin, social background, vocation, or any other seeming advantage? List your feelings of inferiority? 154) Do you feel inferior because you have less of all the above? List your feelings of all the above? 155) Do you think you are superior to the general run of people? Please list in what ways you are different? 156) Do you think you are inferior to the general run of people? Please list in what ways you are different? 157) Do you have a hard time getting to places on time? 158) Do you resent others who don’t seem to have problems finding others? 159) Are you still judging the outside of others by the inside of you? 160) Have you bothered to ask the people who seem happy how they got that way? 10 QUESTIONS TO GO OF YOUR INVENTORY, 4TH STEP, YOU ARE GOING TO EXPERIENCE A MIRACLE IF YOU HAVENT ALREADY 161) Do you still envy people who can use your addictive substance that you can’t? 162) Are you hostile because you don’t like the hand that life has dealt? 163) What are your present fears? List them. 164) How do you presently get peoples attention; pouting, sulking, temper tantrums, being extra good (and letting them know it), playing stupid (dummy), frustrating others activities, bitching so that others will know how bad YOU feel? 165) In addition to my addictions, what character defects contribute to my financial instability? 166) Did fear and inferiority about fitness for my job destroy my confidence and fill me with conflict? 167) Did I try to cover up those feelings of inadequacy by fluffing, cheating, lying, or evading responsibility? Or by complaining that others failed to recognise my truly exceptional abilities? 168) Did I overvalue myself and play the “Big Shot”? 169) Did I have such unprincipled ambition that I double-crossed and undercut my associates? 170) Was I extravagant? Did I recklessly borrow money, caring little whether it was repaid or not? Was I a penny-pincher, refusing to support my family properly? Did I try to cut corners financially? What about the quick-money deals, the long shot sure-thing that would rocket you to riches? Business men and woman will naturally find that many of these questions apply to them but the housewife can also make the family financially insecure. She can juggle charge accounts, manipulate the food budget, spend her afternoons gambling, and run her husband into debt by irresponsibility, waste and extravagance. http://www.wounded-healer-support.com YOUV'E DONE IT, WHAT AN ACHEIVEMENT HOW DO YOU FEEL NOW ABOUT YOUR INVENTORY, 4TH STEP? LET US KNOW BY FILLING OUT THE FORM AT THE BOTTOMM OF OUR PAGE. HERE ARE SOME KEYS TO HELP YOU GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS INVENTORY • Buy a special book to write your inventory, 4th Step, in not scraps of paper. This is your life to date and it should be treated with respect and pride. a SPIRITUAL focus on our food and eating issues
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