What the Heck are Defects
of Character Anyway?
It's really about what's not working
The 6th Step asks
us to become willing to let go of our defects of character;
the 5th says we need to tell God and a person the exact nature of
our wrongs, and Step 4 asked us to take a moral inventory.
The 7 Deadlies
It all sounds
vague and more than a bit negative – besides, each of these terms
is hard to define.
The 12 and 12 tries
to shed some light on this by referring to the Seven Deadly Sins.
The first problem is I can never remember all seven! This time I
went to
http://www.rushman.org/seven/
to find them all ;) and, as it happens that's a very
Catholic/Christian look at them:
-
Greed
-
Anger
-
Lust
-
Pride
-
Envy
-
Gluttony
-
Sloth or
procrastination
The religious, primarily
Christian emphasis in this list puts many off, and with some reason.
Although I occasionally use
the 7 Deadlies as a double check (not often, believe me!) I've found another
approach that works better for me. I simply look at what's working in my life
and what isn't.
A Gentler Approach
In the beginning of my 12
Step Journey the list seemed endless, so I chunked it down and asked myself what
was bothering me the most and worked from that. In my case it was usually men
and money. By poking around gently, and every more honestly, I found where I
was demanding too much from relationships and how I was lying to myself about
how I handled money.
With my 4th Step, these
issues were huge. Now, as I work the 10th Step it's not so bad.
Later on I learned to take a
different sort of look – these days I'm much more apt to ask "What's
working and what's not?"
For example, as some of you
have figured out, I work as a freelancer, which means I usually have a bunch of
projects going all at one time. I found I was focusing on deadlines rather than
on my long-term goals. I don't know if this falls into the category of character
defects exactly, but it was bothering me and I began to feel like nothing was
working well. It did mean I was taking more naps, which sounds like sloth, and
was procrastinating on those things that are most important.
Since I'm a net junky, I did
a search for goal setting and came up with Goal Pro – a program that, when I
use it, reminds me what I need to do and what I want to do. I find this makes my
daily decisions much easier. I'm not taking as many naps and I'm feeling better
about myself.
The point isn't to find the
right software, but to get to know yourself well enough that you can spot
problems before they become huge and take self-supporting action whatever it is.
The 10th Step is a great help with this sort of inventory. The results are
usually truly empowering.
Love, peace and
abundance,
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