Working Step Four
We made a careful and honest examination of the stories, roles, and strategies we had used to protect ourselves.
Step Four is where reflection turns toward the patterns of our lived experience.
This step invites a searching and honest inventory of how we have lived. Not to condemn ourselves. Not to build a case. But to see clearly.
The structure that follows is one suggested way to work this step. Some may choose a different path, a different format, or a different rhythm. What matters is not the method, but the honesty. The aim is clarity, not conformity.
We are not hunting for flaws.
We are mapping patterns.
Most people work this step in writing, often with the guidance of a sponsor or trusted guide. Structure helps. When we write, we often see more clearly.
Three areas are especially revealing:
Resentments
Fears
Relationships
We move through each slowly and honestly.
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1. Resentments
Resentment is often the clearest doorway into ego-patterns.
Begin by listing the people, institutions, or principles toward whom you feel anger or bitterness. Be specific. Write them down.
Then consider:
What happened?
What did I believe was threatened? (self-esteem, security, reputation, relationships, control?)
What story did I begin telling about myself or the other person?
Where did I try to manage, control, defend, or protect?
A helpful question is: How was my ego trying to stay safe?
This does not excuse harm done to you. It helps you understand your responses.
Resentment often reveals where something mattered deeply to us — fairness, loyalty, safety, recognition, trust. Beneath anger there is often a longing: to be treated justly, to be seen, to feel secure, to experience mutual care.
Underneath resentment is usually one of these:
A desire for fairness.
A longing for connection.
A need for safety.
A hope for mutuality.
A wish to be valued.
Seeing this does not lessen the pain. It helps you understand what was at stake.
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2. Fears
Fear inventory is not about eliminating fear. It is about understanding it.
List your fears plainly. It may look like:
Fear of abandonment.
Fear of exposure.
Fear of financial insecurity.
Fear of not being enough.
Fear of being too much.
Then explore:
What do I believe would happen if this fear came true?
What part of my identity feels threatened?
Where have I tried to rely solely on myself?
How has fear shaped my behavior?
Fear often shows us where self-reliance has reached its limits. It reveals where the ego believes it must carry life alone.
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3. Relationships
This section invites honesty about how we have learned to relate.
Consider significant relationships — romantic, familial, professional, friendships — and reflect:
Where did I feel most reactive or protective?
What did I believe I needed in order to feel safe or valued?
Where did I manage, withdraw, over-function, or perform?
How did fear shape the way I gave or received love?
We are not cataloging failures. We are noticing patterns.
Relationships tend to reveal the ego quickly. They show us where we seek reassurance, avoid rejection, pursue validation, or protect ourselves from being fully seen.
As we reflect, the question is not “What is wrong with me?” but “What was I trying to protect?”
Seen this way, our behaviors begin to look less like moral defects and more like strategies that once made sense — even if they no longer serve the life we are living now.
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Noticing Our Part
Step Four invites us to look at our participation in the dynamics of our lives.
Not to deny harm done to us.
Not to minimize trauma.
But to see clearly how our patterns have shaped our experience.
When we stay focused only on what others did, we remain entangled in the story. When we turn gently toward our own responses — our defenses, our control, our withdrawal, our explanations — something becomes visible.
Blame tends to keep the narrative fixed.
Awareness begins to loosen it.
This step is less about assigning fault and more about recognizing patterns. As we see how the ego has tried to protect us, we begin to understand its strategies without being ruled by them.
Clarity, not condemnation, is the aim
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The Love Inside the Pattern
As we examine our participation, we may begin to see something unexpected.
Underneath almost every defensive strategy was an attempt to love.
The one who over-functions may have been trying to care.
The one who achieves may have been trying to contribute.
The one who controls may have been trying to protect.
The one who pleases may have been trying to belong.
The pattern is not the whole story.
Many of our ego-patterns began as intelligent responses. They were attempts to love, to belong, to survive, to matter. When we look closely, we often find real capacities beneath them — courage, loyalty, intelligence, persistence, tenderness. These qualities were never the problem. What shaped them was fear.
The strength was real. What shaped it was fear.
The contraction was shaped by fear.
The impulse beneath it was often care.
Step Four is not only about seeing where fear distorted our behavior. It is also about recognizing the underlying capacity that was trying to express itself.
When fear loosens, the capacity remains.
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The Spirit of Step Four
This is not a race toward improvement.
It is a deepening of awareness.
As patterns become visible, something begins to loosen. What once felt like identity may begin to look like conditioning. What once felt like proof of being broken may begin to look like adaptation.
We begin to see that we are not our resentments.
Not our fears.
Not even our roles.
We are the awareness noticing them.
And that awareness is not separate from the larger Reality in which we are held — a Love that sees clearly without condemning, the deeper ground of who we are, what some traditions call the True Self.
As we see our patterns clearly, we are not left alone with them. We are held within something larger. What felt like self-examination becomes participation in a Love that does not condemn us.
That noticing creates space.
And in that space, change becomes possible.
