ACOA Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

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Step Eight

Became willing to forgive those who had harmed us, and to let go of the past.

How simple this step sounds, yet how difficult it was to carry out! And there were many good reasons for this. We had, for many years, focused on the harm that was done to us, not on the harm we had done to others. The ability to protect and control our own bodies was taken from us at an early age. We learned in a powerful way to react instead of taking action in our lives. And, although the abuse itself may have stopped many years ago, many of us did not take back the responsibility for our bodies and our actions. In our fear and loneliness we continued to believe that we could be happy if only others would change. We became frustrated in our attempts to "fix" our spouses, friends, lovers and families. And in our futile attempts to control the uncontrollable, we ended up hurting the very people that we love.

The steps help us to focus on the self again. They give us a pattern for living that does not depend on the actions of others, but on our own willingness to be honest. Step eight directs us to ask ourselves "who have we harmed?" Some of us began our lists by first looking at the harm we had done to ourselves. This harm may have been physical or emotional or both. Some examples were suicide attempts, over-eating or self-starvation, abuse of alcohol and other drugs, involvement in abusive relationships, avoiding intimacy, discounting compliments or expressions of love from other people, expecting perfection from ourselves and others - all of these harm us either directly or indirectly. Many of us continue to punish ourselves by taking responsibility for the incest experience itself. We had, as judge and jury, pronounced ourselves guilty and we were to live out our sentences. But we now realize that we cannot expect adult maturity from our childhood selves. Nor could we continue on the road to self-destruction. The eighth step encourages us to make amends with the child inside of us and the adult we have become.

Now we look at those closest to us to see who else has been harmed. How were friends or lovers harmed by our self-abuse? How were they harmed by our perfectionism? Our irresponsibility? Our dishonesty? Our lack of trust? Our need to control? How were others harmed by our denial of the sexual abuse? Did our care-taking prevent another person from growing or was our need to be taken care of an unfair burden for a loved one.

This can be a very disturbing task especially if we have been raised feeling a lot of guilt and shame for small deeds as a child. It is important to realize that samll deeds and acts result from basic attitudes and values toward humanity. Upon these values and attitudes are based each person's sense of morality and determine if our behavior toward others was harmful or if it showed respect for and acceptance of their humanness. The discovery of what is harmful or helpful to people is not a simple task. It is a task that continually helps us grow in our perception of people, the world and life as a whole it helps us discover our greater power.

If we take this step seriously we realize that every human being has value. We will consider not only our close relationships but also people we aren;'t close to or those we don't like. We are capable of harming others and we have a responsibility to own these behaviors.

Amends means acknowledgement. It is knowledge that we have done wrong and that we feel sadness about that. It is recognition that we are human and we make mistakes. We have lived in shame for so long that many of us have a hard time distinguishing between making mistakes and being a "bad" or unworthy person. In SA we recognize that there are no bad people, only people who make mistakes. Each of us is capable of recognizing those mistakes and making amends for them. All step eight asks of us is that we become willing to do so.

ACOA Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

In association with books, music and videos recommended by Don't Fall Until You See the Whites of Their Lies.

ACOA Redondo Beach incest survivor MBW Family known for genealogy, Harry Potter Easter Party, wedding pranks, divorce pranks, redhead jokes,  the Oh No A Bear Picture, Colorado resident Marvin the Martian, Spirituality Stories, Casper, Amaryzingrace's Tweety, Angela's Taz, Brittny's and Drew's Angelica and Tommy from Rugrats Playground.  The guys won't want to miss my co-worker and model Marina Blackwell's photo gallery.