March 9
Less Cruel, More Exact
Calling ourselves a terrible person can feel like a thorough confession. It is certainly painful. Yet it may leave the listener knowing very little about what we actually did. A harsh label covers everything at once: the action, the motive, the fear, the person affected. We can become so occupied proving our worthlessness that the particular truth remains strangely untouched and any possible repair disappears from view.
An honest conversation brings us back to particulars. We broke a promise. We wanted admiration. We let someone carry a burden that belonged to us. Such admissions can be harder than a sweeping denunciation because they describe conduct we can face and change. The person listening may help us lower the volume without softening the facts. There is no spiritual requirement to make ourselves sound worse than we were. Accuracy gives us more to work with than contempt ever did.
Where does condemning myself keep me from admitting something specific?
The truth does not need an insult attached.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Five, pp. 58–59.