show me

i've certainly been at least one of these characters. and i've certainly pretended to be the other.
am i really just one though? which one? once a whore, always a whore? and if i'm a whore, what do i do with that now?

my sponsor has asked me to complete something which heretofore has been out of my reach. he requests that i finish the part of step 4 which i had not been able to comprehend at all. that would be around the completion of the sex inventory. not the bit about reviewing our conduct, getting it all on paper, and looking at it. that section was excruciating, but i completed that.

no, the piece i had difficulty with is the sexual ideal. and up until now, the concept has really been elusive. i haven't really been in the space to consider being involved in a sexual relationship again. i guess i had just been so oversexed the last few years that i was pretty burnt. and i think i had been using poon as a validation tool and it had stopped working a while back. for years i hadn't considered having a relationship that combined both emotional intimacy and sex. i kept those two things very seperate. i had been hurt early on and just decided it wasn't worth the pain. i also hurt someone else and i really struggled with feeling worthy after that.

but things for me have changed somewhat. i feel as if i have already begun a journey of personal discovery. and there is some strength and joy and outward facing energy that has begun to emerge. add that to the power of intention and i find that my chi is completely realigning itself. so maybe i am ready to look at this now. my sponsor has suggested such, so i think i'll try to work on this. probably at the roundup this weekend. i guess i'll just ask god to show me how to proceed.

the suggestions from the aa book read as such:

in this way, we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. we subjected each relation to this test- was it selfish or not? we asked god to mold our ideals and help us live up to them. we remembered always that our sex powers were god-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed.

whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it. we must be willing to make amends where we have done harm, provided that we do not bring about still more harm in doing so.in other words, we treat sex as we would any other problem. in meditation, we ask god what we should do about each specific matter. the right answer will come, if we want it.

so, not published in the big book of alcoholics anonymous are some ideas and thoughts that i scribed as dictated by my sponsor. these have been handwritten in blank spots on pages throughout the book. btw-this is why sponsorship is highly recommended. these cliff notes would be missed otherwise. since i am currently looking at step 4 section, i will write as is handwritten:

investigations/inventories can be expected to create angst and to take us outside our faith boundaries..... prayer expands these boundaries...

we have to own the feelings behind our fears/resentments. (not at all comfortable)

until we get in touch with these raw emotions, we cannot consciously process our inventories.

when we finally own them, we can then turn them over to god.

step 4 involves
1)honest gut checks(our role)
2)diligence ( a lot of honest work)
3)perseverance ( ego will interfere)
4)lots of prayer ( god will help us open up)
5)be specific

yes virginia there really is a foreigner