Make a searching and fearless written moral inventory of yourself.

We talked about Step 3, about trusting your higher power as you understand it/them. In Step 4, we demonstrate that willingness to trust our higher power. We make a searching and fearless written inventory of our lives, surveying or summarizing the thoughts, events, emotions, and actions of our life, making our inventory as complete as possible.

Doing a fearless and thorough inventory of your life will not be easy. When we say fearless, we do not mean you will have no feelings of fear, seriously! We will likely experience many emotions as we survey our life, including embarrassment or shame or fear. Fearless means you will not let your fears stop you from being thorough in the inventory process. In step 4, it means you commit to rigorous honesty as you focus on events in your life, including your own weaknesses, and not on anyone else’s weaknesses.