Our willingness to let healing happen determines the extent to which we will become healed, and we cannot force our spiritual healing any more than we can force a cut to heal. Healing is a divinely-given process that simply requires the injured person to discontinue injuring themselves, clean out the wound and simply wait. Our defects of character are like the dirt in our wounds, the little "accidents" or "slips" that keep the wounds open and dirty. The 6^th Step addresses our personal willingness to allow our Higher Power’s natural healing into our lives. We were created with freedom of will, but our free will does not indicate that we have the power to change our external reality or our Higher Power’s will in any way. We do have the power to change how we interpret and perceive reality. We may choose to believe in a transcendent authority, or not, a choice which will not alter the reality of that Power’s existence one iota. We may choose to believe in our illusion of control, or not. We may choose to let go of our character defects (our disease symptoms) or not. Whatever we choose, we affect the most positive change in our lives when we allow our Higher Power to cleanse our inner lives. Only with the help of our Higher Power can we remove the unhealthy filth of our old, negative thought and belief patterns.

Our character defects are born from our negative beliefs and feelings, and they express themselves through our behavior. We choose which beliefs and feelings seem to best serve us, so it is a decision that means we are the creators of our own character defects. We pick up and carry our own baggage for as long as we think we need its contents and we believe that those contents will in some way help us. Travelling lightly, in this sense, means walking through life more unburdened and at ease.

These defects of character may be clearly seen in our 4th Step inventory, which also shows us the reason why we resist giving up our defects (baggage) and continue to lumber along through life with a heavy burden. Over time our defects become the greatest part of our self-awareness. We perceive that the things that are killing us are actually saving us. Some of us enter the grave falsely believing that our greatest defects of character were our greatest assets, virtues and perhaps our Highest Truth. It is often frightening to contemplate giving up the things we use to define ourselves. Some of us are proud of our ability to get violently angry at people. This, some think, means they are strong, in control, and powerful. Others think that their ability to never make waves and to crawl into corners at the first sign of a conflict is a great and holy virtue.

Our character defects are defense mechanisms put into place to alter our moods and take the focus off of ourselves, and oftentimes we become addicted to them.

The following exposes the nature of our character defects, and shows us in detail how we think we believe they serve us for good. Remember that we use these defects much like a drug to take the focus off ourselves and alter our moods.

Perfectionism: This is a self setup for failure, because it establishes an impossible personal standard to uphold. When we continuously fail at achieving our own "perfect" ideals, we increasingly compare ourselves to others who we think meet our standards. This charade reinforces our negative self image while raising others on a pedestal.

Power and Control Issues: It takes power to control people, places and situations. The need for more control begs for more power to control. The less self-image we have the more we think we have to control our environment and the more power we think we need to accomplish this end. We believe that we are protecting our selves from being embarrassed when we have power over others. The accumulation of power can become addictive and many individuals spend their lifetimes in a desperate climb up the ladder of success. What the climbers rarely figure out is that they are seeking more and more power only to cover up the shame inside of them. For even Presidents and Kings die, and when they die they are buried with nothing they can take with them—including their power and authority.

Rage: This is a character defect which stems from the inability to express feelings in a healthy way. "Rage-a-holics" stuff their "unacceptable" feelings (anger, self-hatred, disgust, etc.) until they can tolerate it no more and the dammed up emotions bursts forth as a raging fit. Since they are incapable of drawing boundaries in a healthy way, they find that the only way to get others to respect their feelings is to draw the boundary with a rage fit. This often works—people run away from them in droves. Then, of course, they wonder why they feel lonely.

Arrogance: This is an exaggerated sense of self importance and is another cover-up for low self-esteem. We find our low self-image so unacceptable that we establish a persona, or façade which exhibits the opposite feeling. The result of this character defect is that our judgmentalism and belittling of others leaves people feeling put down. We tend to push away those who would otherwise be close friends..

Blame: The negative beliefs we have about ourselves stem from our low self esteem. We believe we are very flawed and never want to examine these flaws. A very effective way to defend against having to examine them is to take the attention off ourselves and place it instead on others. Blame is a stock method of doing this. So long as we can continually focus our attention on someone else, no one, especially ourselves, will ever look at us.

Patronizing: When we see people who we think are less resourceful than us we oftentimes seize the opportunity to patronize them. By becoming someone’s "yes man" and giving them all sorts of unwanted support and ego bolstering, we are—in effect—belittling and walking all over them. Because we have made someone small we feel bigger. The person whom we have patronized will feel ashamed for receiving so much attention from a "superior" person and this makes us feel very good.

Care-taking and rescuing. This defense strategy is an attempt to take the attention away from our own issues by focusing on the issues of another person, much as with blaming. The main difference is that care-taking and rescuing is more socially acceptable than being critical or blaming while it accomplishes the same thing. It is a dishonest scam because the true objective of the rescuer is not the rescuee, but the activity of rescuing itself. This character defect is institutionalized in certain professions that attract rescuer personality types: doctors, nurses, therapists, clergy, teachers, and many other occupations attract rescuers.

People Pleasing. People pleasers are among the most insidious and deceitful of addictive personalities. Sometimes they go to the extent of "befriending" people they hate in order to carry out their need to be in control and on top of a low self-esteem. Those in the know can oftentimes see through their plastic smiles and failing laughs to avoid getting caught in their personality snare and being used. Because the people pleaser is not being their genuine self they feel safe from being discovered as the bad person they believe they are.

Envy and Greed. Envy and its companion, greed, are firmly rooted in the belief that our lack of happiness is the direct result of not having the things we want. We falsely reason that we do not have all the things we want because others (who do not deserve it) have them instead of us. We deceive ourselves into believing that we are just in blaming others for having the things we deserve Our envy forms the justification we seek for our dishonest and sometimes criminal behavior.

Fear is the chief roadblock to willingness. Our fear of giving up our cherished defense mechanisms is so great that it may take some time in order to become ready. It is usually when the pain, caused by a particular defect, becomes greater than the fear of letting it go that we become truly ready, or willing, to allow our Higher Power to heal us. As we let go of our fear its opposite, love, creates in us the willingness to give in, let go and trust that Power which is greater than us.

Bill Wilson often wrote about his self-centered pride, a defect which was never removed, but transformed into a gift which resulted in his writing a large body of recovery literature. Among this literature is the text Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

It is worthy of reflection that nowhere in the traditional text of this Step does it state that our Higher Power will necessarily remove our character defects, only that we must be "ready" for that to happen. Sometimes our Higher Power will transform a defect into a gift, and it is important to keep in mind that spiritual healing is a perceptual change, not a change in objective reality. For it is not reality that is in need of healing, but rather it is our false perception of reality that is faulty.

Step 6 is usually not worked, in a general sense, upon all of our character defects at once. It is to be worked for each defect individually, along with the 7th Step. While it is possible for all of our defects to be removed all at once (since we created them in the first place), rarely (if ever) is anybody capable, willing or ready for the total internal change of character that such a cataclysmic healing would cause. We are chipping away at the stone, not shoving the whole thing over a cliff. If willingness to let go of just one of our defects is a fearful thing, the willingness to let go of all of them at once could be terrifying. It is wise to pray for our Higher Power to help us become willing to specifically let go of our jealousy, violent anger, rages, manipulation of family, etc. We should be very specific about the defect we are addressing because, as we continue practicing prayer, we will discover that we oftentimes get what we pray for.

Note that this is exactly the same process we used in the beginning of our recovery to deal with the physically addictive phase of drug addiction and alcoholism. Initially, we must break through our denial, and then become willing to be healed.

Suggested Assignment: derive from your 4th Step inventory a list of your character defects and order them by priority. Begin with the ones which are the most painful for you. Include these one-at-a-time in your daily prayer, asking for the willingness to let go of each one. You may choose to work on a single defect for some time before going on to the next, but schedule a time frame in which you will pray for all of them.

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