Self Examination
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
The Greeks had the maxim: “know thyself”. On the back of AA coins, it states: “To thine own self be true”. Early in recovery, it’s difficult to know who you are. Therefore, it’s even more difficult to be true to yourself. The first step in understanding who you are is understanding that you don’t know who you are. The first step in learning something is understanding you don’t know enough about it. In order to do this, some sort of position needs to be adopted in the way you see yourself. This is exactly where humility comes in, and why it’s such a great virtue in so many religious traditions.
In teaching in treatment centers, it became a habit of mine to ask the clients why they think children are so great at learning. “Their minds are like sponges”, they would say. Yes, true. I wasn’t asking what the biological reason children are so great at learning, though. Kids are so great at learning because they know that they don’t know shit. They literally walk around at least the first ten years of their life simply asking “why” to nearly every statement uttered. Inevitably, however, most children get to the point around late teens where they stop learning. I remember thinking I knew who I was at sixteen too.
The stoic philosopher Epictetus once said, “Man cannot learn what he already thinks he knows”. Without examining ourselves we often make the wrong assumption that we already are our true selves. Acting according to how we feel. The problem with this, is that, the way we behave, talk, think, and listen are due to the stories we’ve told ourselves throughout our life. In order to become your true self, you must fight to become that self. Let me shine more light on this.
I like to think we have a thinking brain and a feeling brain. My wife’s father left when she was four years old. Do you remember being four? I hardly do. I do, however, remember being a young kid where every little thing that happened to me felt so intense. If I got in trouble it was the biggest deal ever. If my sister said something sideways to me, I took it to heart far too easily. As kids, we are feeling machines. Our thinking brains, however, aren’t up to date on the latest software. We simply haven’t lived enough life to make correct associations and judgments. Therefore, when my wife’s father left, she felt pain and loss. Her thinking brain had no rational way to process the situation, so she turned it on herself: Dad left because I’m not good enough. The consequences of believing this left her feeling like she needed to prove herself. While this can be motivating, it can also be destructive as these beliefs can lead to a life fraught with expectation and premature judgment.
My wife, however, through therapy and programs of recovery has learned that she “told herself a story” and actively seeks to change that story daily by being aware when she has fallen back into old programming.
Who we are is based on what experiences we have had and what protection mechanisms revealed themselves due to those experiences. Therapy is essentially telling your story and having someone help you re write that story in a way that will help your life, not hurt it.
Often, we spend so much time paying attention to other people, wondering why they are the way they are. The issue with this is that we don’t even know why we are the way we are. We don’t always know why we act the way we do. If we are to have any hope in improving our lives – we must start by understanding we don’t know who we are. This is true humility. Humility is knowing and acting with an understanding that you do not know enough in order to not suffer.
Many addicts and alcoholics however have incredibly low self-esteem. Low self esteem often leads to arrogance as a defense mechanism. I can’t tell you how many addicts and alcoholics conveniently switch a flip to “not give a fuck” when they want to do something they know isn’t right. If you don’t give a fuck, you get to act like you don’t. It’s arrogant to pretend you don’t care. Nothing can hurt you if you don’t give a fuck. It makes people think your strong. It’s easier to pretend to have strength than it is to have real strength. Strength is not acting however you want and “not caring” strength is acting in accordance with the truth. The truth is, you care.
Once you get low enough to understand it is the case that you are ignorant about who you are, you also understand that means you are ignorant to who you could be, your potential. Unwrapping who you could be is a gift, but the only way you get to find that is to discover who you are now – which isn’t fun. You are full of flaws. You are not disciplined. You end up in places you don’t want to be. You’ve ended up in a life you don’t want to have. Of course, you don’t know who you are.
So, in order to find out who you are – what do you do?
Well, you watch yourself. You watch yourself; you watch what you say like you were watching a stranger.
What sort of person would say that?
Is that what I really mean?
What is my intention in acting/talking like this? Am I just trying to be understood?
How do I react emotional when I talk like that? Is it making me feel strong or weak? Is it giving me shame or confidence?
How am I coming off to others? Am I someone that I would listen to?
Am I laying out a lie? Am I deceiving myself or anyone else?
Am I adopting personalities in situations that I don’t want to have? Is that making me come across as an asshole?
What do I procrastinate about and why?
What am I willing and unwilling to do?
What do I give myself a hand for accomplishing?
What do I berate myself for failing to do?
Clearly, these aren’t the exact questions you’d ask yourself but certainly something along these lines. One of the most important questions to ask yourself is what your intention is in acting a certain way. You must approach this question with honesty – sometimes it’s hard to understand your exact motivations. We avoid these questions because they make us feel. We avoid situations where who we are could be brought to light because it makes us aware and hurts us. We know this.
The funny thing about this, and the reason so many people never change or “grow up”[according to Lawrence Kohlberg’s Model of Moral Development by 36 y/o 89% of people reach adolescent stage of moral reasoning and only 13% ever reach adult stage-CITE THIS] is because don’t watch ourselves, we watch others, judge them and wonder what makes them that way as if it is a good investment of energy.
When you gain humility, you lose arrogance. Examining yourself can lead to a loss of that arrogance. Often that’s why we judge others. It makes us feel better about ourselves without doing anything to be better. You need the loss of that arrogance because that is exactly what is keeping you from moving forward. In mythology, this is sort of the adversarial process that stops your progress. You are too proud of who you think you are to notice the shitty parts of you so that you can address them and change. For some reason, many addicts don’t want to lose that part of themselves. They are too attached to who they’ve been. It’s usually associated with some delusion that helps them keep some sort of positive image of themselves however fragile that may be. They would rather keep that part of themselves than exercise genuine effort. Insulating yourself with people who are either just like you or worse allows you to protect this image. If you were to be around people who are kinder, more disciplined, and more successful you will feel uncomfortable.
This is precisely why the twelve-step program has had success. If done correctly, your environment and community changes. After successfully putting yourself around people who have achieved a portion of what you’re striving to achieve, you see yourself more clearly. Again, if done correctly you’ll get a sponsor who sees your situation objectively. They help you watch yourself, objectively, just to see what’s there. They don’t allow what is wanted or desired to interfere with what is observed. This is the process of change. You must examine yourself without emotion or desires interfering.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
I’ve been sober almost seven years now. I am still wrong daily. By no means do I believe that beginning this journey of self-improvement means 100% compliance with a new way of life. You will make mistakes. You will side with anger, lose your head, and say things you regret. You will commit to a new workout program and end up skipping days. You will call into work when you have no good reason to. You are not going to change overnight. However, you certainly will not change at all if you beat yourself up for every mistake you make.
In the twelve-step program this is step ten. Step ten is a daily inventory. Take time to look back on your day when you aren’t caught up in the emotions of it. After achieving some sort of emotional baseline, you ask yourself if you acted like the person you want to be today. If you didn’t, you admit your faults. If our errors aren’t admitted to have light shined on them, we are more likely to repeat them. Amends and admitting mistakes aren’t just moral things to do, they also remind us we don’t act that way anymore.
By examining ourselves we are able to guard against self-deception. The addict says they want to get high, “one last time”. Why? I ask clients this all the time. You think you only want to get high one more time? No, you’re still operating in old programming and deceiving yourself. I want to wake up with it. I want to go to bed with it. I want to have it every waking hour just in case. That’s the truth, for me at least.
How many of us have got caught up in the cycle of “one more time” without knowing we were lying to ourselves? If we don’t have a program to consciously evaluate our circumstances, health, relationships, and goals they seem to lose priority over feeling okay. Out of sight out of mind, literally. It’s uncomfortable to think about what I want in my life and how far I am from it. It’s nerve wracking to think about my goals and how many times I may fail before I succeed. Self examination ensures I don’t lose my purpose, it gives me something to do. This entire process of sustaining sobriety and progressing in life requires I act. You will hear it all the time, “This is a program of action”.
“Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.”[pg. 58 Alcoholics Anonymous]
Although the twelve steps have an amazing process of self examination in step four, in order to successfully treat addiction it’s beneficial to take a bio-psycho-social-spiritual approach as well. There is never just one reason as to why our life has turned out the way it has. To understand ourselves more, to understand our situations and addictions more, we must examine our health, our psychology/mindset, the social situations we find ourselves in, and our beliefs. Of course, you can do a bio-psycho-social assessment with a mental health clinic where they will ask you questions and then provide you with a treatment plan. I’m sure if you’ve received treatment anywhere in the last ten years at least you’ve done one of these assessments. Many clinicians can communicate this well and help their clients apply it with success. Unfortunately, that tends to be the anomaly. What’s more usual tends to be some combination of the following:
Clinicians having too many clients and not enough time.
The inability of clinicians to connect with their clients and help cultivate the motivation required to effectively apply changes to their life.
Clinicians providing treatment plans simply to satisfy insurance companies in order to receive payment.
Lack of effort, discipline, compassion, honesty, and emotional intelligence among staff and client.
Although I have an insane amount of gratitude and thanks for those working in my field, in the six years I’ve been a part of it, it’s disgusting how many problems could be avoided - how many lives could be saved just by having these companies and their employees do regular self examinations of their own. Far too often have I seen the detrimental effects of a dishonest leadership, a lack of compassion and effort, and an inability to deal with our own personal issues without letting it affect the clients we serve. Many of these companies begin with great intentions but as time passes they lose their original motivations. Because of this, treatment centers can be great for beginning a journey, but to sustain that journey usually requires regular, more honest and connected self examination.
These self assessments, examinations, or inventories help us organize our psyche. They only tend to work when we commit to them voluntarily though. It’s just like anything, they don’t tend to do much when we’re forced to do them (as we are when we enter treatment). The voluntarily commitment to something is what actually changes our brain. This is why sponsorship helps so many people. When we find someone we connect with on some level, without being forced to connect with them (as we are with many clinicians), our “treatment plans” are more real and personalized.
Amen Clinics, Inc. is a world leader in applying brain imaging science to treat all sorts of issues from addiction and weight control to anger management, anxiety, and depression. Amen Clinics differs from traditional treatment centers in many ways. First, they perform a SPECT (single-photon emission computerized tomography) scan on every clients brain. This scan allows Dr. Daniel Amen and his team to measure the internal workings of the brain. Dr. Amen and his team believe brain health is the most important factor in changing our life. Therefore, they don’t simply treat symptoms, but the entire person - starting with optimizing brain health. Amen and his team will assess their clients biologically, psychologically, socially, and spiritually. While I don’t believe many of my readers will be receiving treatment there, it is possible. In his book “Unchain the Brain” Dr. Amen and his co author Dr. David Smith put forth a great example of what would fall under each category:
Clearly, not all of us can get a SPECT scan, or even do regular blood work. But we are lying to ourselves if we believe that we regularly assess ourselves on the above. Normally, its our lack of effort to progress in these areas that leads to relapse. Whether you like it or not, progress in these areas is within your control. While we may not be fully in control of progressing in these areas, we can always ask ourselves some questions to shine light on our ignorance in order to increase our humility. Go ahead, ask yourself these questions and consider rating how much effort you are putting into progressing over these four dimensions.
Are you committed to a regular exercise program for your physical health? Many addicts and alcoholics have low blood flow to many areas of their brain. Exercising to increase the heart rate can help your brain receive adequate blood flow. Also, BDNF (Brain derived neutrophic factor) is a compound released in our brain when we exercise that serves to fight stress. Would you commit to something for 45 minutes per day if it led to less stress?
Are you making an effort to support or enhance your psychological health? Those who struggle with substances tend to have underlying mental health issues that might need to be addressed with medication, therapy or more. Aside from that, if you aren’t taking medication and you don’t need therapy are you doing anything to improve your psychological health? PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR SLEEPING PATTERNS. GET ADEQUATE SLEEP. As science improves, we are learning more and more the importance of sleep on our physical and psychological health. Are you practicing non judgment? Kindness? Are you discussing the issues in your life? Are you being kind to yourself?
Do you have a positive community around you? The number one issue that plagues those who seek recovery is their inability to leave behind their old life. Staying connected to old friends and toxic relationships that are going no where continues to be the great barrier between misery and success in recovery. If you have removed all the old friends, and you don’t continue to involve yourself in toxic relationships, make sure you are surrounded yourself with people who are taking care of themselves and pursuing their own goals in life.
Do you consciously, deliberately and daily follow a new “program” of life? This is the spiritual aspect of the assessment. Spiritual is defined as the non material. You must follow a new way of life. I like to think of the first law of thermodynamics: You cannot create nor destroy energy - it can only be transferred. You have to live by new rules, morals, attitudes. If you do not deliberately choose to do this you will revert back to old programming. We must live according to something else.
The fact for every human on earth: you can improve yourself. Regularly being honest with yourself on where you are in life and where you want to go will help you adequately assess how much you are living in reality, and how much you are living in delusion. Who do you want to be? Are you acting in a way that will get you there? As famous psychiatrist Scott M. Peck said:
Mental health is the ongoing dedication to reality at all costs.
Once this process of growth becomes regular, you reflect on your life and understand why you got worse or stayed the same for so long. Becoming better is no easy task. Becoming better is THE task. There is nothing more worth doing and nothing more within your control.
I’ve found it incredibly hard to write and get my point across clearly. I want to give myself opportunities to add to these articles in order to clarify, reiterate, or enhance any ideas.
ADDITIONS:
