When you feel you have taken the 5th step, hopefully withholding nothing...
Review the first 5 steps...
Spend some time reviewing the first step. Connect the work you have just been doing with the items showing up on the first step lists. Connect the dots, see the spiritual malady and follow the trail of clues. Trace the path from the pain of living in disconnection from the Force that surrounds us all, to the symptoms of this intolerable situation.
Review the second step choice, and having to face the reality for us, that for people like us, there is no middle of the road solution. Either we are aligned with the Force, or we are not. Remember the distinction between spiritual time and self-reliant time and review how you have been able, as the result of taking these steps, to live in space and in time in your life where connection to the Force is real. Living in this connection, I am restored to sanity.
Read from the start of chapter 5 until the bottom of page 75.
Remember the analogy of the actor who wants to run the whole show, connect to the hopelessness of the actor on page 62 that even when the actor can manage to perform the role as directed by self-reliance, the show still does not come off. Even in my best moments, when I could actually act out the role as I was directing it, did I not still produce confusion rather than harmony.
Review the third step decision, that from now on I am going to represent this True Power, in all things. I decided that from now on, my protection and leadership was to come from this Power and not from my self-reliance. I was no longer going to attempt to arrange life to solve my own problems, but instead trust and rely on the Force to keep me safe, and direct my life.
Scan over the journey that has been this fourth step. Read through the prayers and directions, and understand that the inventory was a practice field for a set of skills required to live in a place, and in a time, where we are aligned with the Source of All Power. See how the clues at the scene of the crime lead us back to the things inside us which had been blocking us; how when we invited and trusted this Power into our lives, the Force could direct us and show us what was truly blocking us even though we had hidden these truths deep inside us, as far away from our own knowledge as possible.
Finally, experience the miracle that the fifth step has been. As we let this Power flow through us, and we trusted the Universe and each other, we found the things we had been holding on to, and we affirmed our third step decision by releasing them. We connected and aligned with the Truth. We felt the Sunlight of the Spirit upon places and times inside us that we had never allowed it to shine before, and we were set free of the bondage of self in a way we had never been before.
And so, are the stones properly in place?
If they are not, do not despair. This process, this practice field, this book, and this Power, are never ending gifts which we can go back to whenever we need to. They are part of a Well that never runs dry, we can always return when we are thirsty. We are on the Broad Highway, and what we are involved in is a way of living. This workshop, and even these steps, are just a small part of a life in alignment with, and in acceptance of, the Truth.
If they are, then welcome to the realm of the Spirit if you were not already living here, or welcome back if this is not your first visit. Now we must take this connection and these skills; this awareness of the Truth, out into the world and represent our Power in all that we do. This connection can sustain our efforts. If ever we are feeling alone and afraid, we now have a map back to connection, and these new memories of walking the path Home together, to guide us.