Baby Steps of Step 4, column 3

This column is going to require a lot of personal insight. If you know that is not easy for you, please get someone to help you. If you love counseling and personality quizzes, you can begin this alone. In all cases, you will be sharing this with a trusted friend or mentor during Step 5 and additional insight will be inevitable. The important issue is to begin.

What to document

Day 6 Assignment: In column 4, list your actions or reactions associated with column 2.

We’re looking for the responses that we’re not proud of. What’s the defensive behavior we fall back on- anger, criticism, or even withdrawing? What was our habitual attitude in this relationship before the ‘big event’ listed in the second column?

Choose from the following:

How did I deny reality? (ignore the obvious, lie to self and others)
Who did I blame?
When did I stay in unhealthy situations?
Where did I make poor choices?

It might be what we did after the ‘event’ or it might be something we were doing before the event that actually triggered it. Caution: don’t ignore expectations. Our assumptions and expectations can set a problem into motion.

How to document

Examine what behavior you exhibited for each event from Column 2, and then list those behaviors in Column 4. In other words, what did you do?

In column 4, list your arsenal of weapons: verbal attack, non-verbal hostility, deadly retorts, obvious disdain and chilly disregard, clever sniping, criticism, and rants.

If those don’t work, you have more in the warehouse: escapism, avoidance, behind the back attack and social media comments.

Why do this?

First, insight. The more we know about our reactions to painful situations, the sooner we can stop. We can stop doing things that make us feel ashamed. We can stop doing things that destroy our self-esteem and make us feel bad. Most importantly, we can identify what our expectations are in our key relationships. Finally, all of this insight gives us a chance at connectivity with people we love.

Examples of documentation

Need some more ideas? Check out ‘Ya Buts’. and Tattletale.

You’re almost done with the Step 4 Not So Scary Resentment Worksheet. If you need more copies, click on it, or go to the sidebar of any post and open the Not So Scary Worksheets. If you’d like someone to bounce ideas off, use the contact form also found below. I love this inventory. It works!