Step Four (traditional language): Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 

Charlotte Kasl reminds us that it is important to “take inventory” of positive things that support our recovery and that we want to grow towards. Another core component of Step 4 is examining the thoughts, feelings and behaviors that fuel, encourage or support our eating disorders. For most people, we have a list of secrets or things from our history that we feel regret, shame, embarrassment, anger or resentment about. These memories and feelings do not point to any moral failing or character defect in us but if they are fueling our eating disorder — for example, if we turn to eating disorder thoughts and behaviors to distract ourselves from feelings of shame or anger — we might want to examine them more closely.

Charlotte Kasl suggests an journaling exercise to take our own inventory of the secrets or areas of our life that we may need to process or even just acknowledge to ourselves so we can continue to grow. This builds on the idea that people in recovery are “as sick as our secrets.”

She suggests making 3 lists:

1. Things I that could be helpful to share, process or “get off my chest,” with someone else, but I could feel comfortable talking a wide circle of friends or acquaintances about.
2. Things that I might want to share or process with someone else, but that I would only trust my very best friend or other very closest/most trusted people) with.
3. Things that I still need to admit/acknowledge/process for myself.

To be clear, you’re not writing this list for the purposes of sharing it with ANYONE at this point. The idea is to take inventory of any areas where you may need to process things with yourself or someone else as well as to get an overall sense of how “loaded” or troubling each item listed is. You can use this list in Step 5 to decide what (if anything) might be helpful to share with other people. Of course, as Step 5 materials will talk about further, it’s important to have boundaries and discernment around what we share with others. And we should never feel pressured to share ANYTHING that does feel safe to share. At the same time, secrets CAN make us sick; either because the regret, embarrassment, guilt, shame or other challenging feeling associated with the secret is fueling our escape patterns or because we need to be honest about ways we are still engaging in eating disordered behavior so we can be accountable for them.