Guidance and Encouragement

A searching and fearless moral inventory. I got stuck on the word fearless. I was anything but fearless. I was terrified. If fearless was the requirement, I wasn't qualified to begin.

Then I heard someone in a meeting say she cried through her entire inventory. Someone else said he started his three times before anything stuck. Another member said her sponsor sat with her on the phone while she wrote the first page. None of them sounded fearless. They sounded human — afraid, but doing it anyway, with help.

That's what the fellowship gave me. Not fearlessness, but borrowed courage. My sponsor's steady voice when mine was shaking. A member's story that made me feel less alone. The quiet proof that imperfect people had walked this path before me and survived it.

I didn't become fearless to start my inventory. I let the fellowship carry what my courage couldn't — and I began.

If I'm waiting to feel ready for a Step, I can ask someone who's done it to share their experience. I don't need my own fearlessness to make a beginning. I can borrow theirs.