In this video Hannah Rose, LCPC, explores Step 10 of the 12‑step recovery program – continuing personal inventory and promptly admitting when one is wrong. She illustrates the power of immediate admission with a personal anecdote about snapping at her husband, and frames the practice as a way to keep the ego in check and stay in a beginner’s mind. Rose outlines a daily mindfulness inventory, asking whether one has been resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid, and explains how this can be done informally throughout the day or as a formal evening review (Step 11). She connects the AA “promises” for Step 10 – neutrality, freedom from alcohol, intuitive guidance – to the deeper awareness cultivated by the step. The speaker weaves in concepts from Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now (identifying present‑moment tension, distinguishing situations from problems) and shares her own Insight Timer meditation track “On Awakening: A Secular Adaptation,” which adapts AA’s “On Awakening” pages for non‑theistic listeners. A concrete case study describes how she used a fear inventory to uncover underlying self‑worth issues tied to financial insecurity in her group practice. Finally, Rose offers practical exercises: daily affirmation, monitoring fear/anger/resentment, and reflecting on inner‑child needs, emphasizing that Step 10 is an ongoing, never‑ending process of self‑inquiry and growth.
Chapters
Welcome back to Day 11, Step 10, which is my favorite step if I had to choose one. And it is, continue to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. So first and foremost, that second part is a game changer. When we were wrong, promptly admitted it. For example, I'm walking around my house My husband asks me a question. I snap and give him a really impatient answer. I notice that I did that. I immediately say, hey, I'm sorry for snapping at you. I'm just really hungry. He says, it's okay. Ah, the beauty of promptly admitting when you're wrong. It's quite something. It's the continuation of leveling our pride and ego And saying, hey, I don't know, right? In the expert's mind, there are few possibilities, but in the beginner's mind, there are many. To me, Step 10 is constantly staying a beginner. Continue to take personal inventory. Now, in Alcoholics Anonymous, the questions are as follows. When we review our day, This is technically step 11. I'm putting it in 10. The semantics of the step 10 and 11 debate don't matter here. If you are in a 12-step program, you probably know what I'm talking about. But the inventory— so continue to take personal inventory. You don't have to do a really intense 4th step inventory if you live step 10 every day. And so the inventory goes as follows: When we review our day, We look back. Were we resentful? Yes or no? If yes, write about it or think about it. Were we resentful, selfish— write this down if you want— dishonest, or afraid? So we're just taking inventory. Hey, when I look back on my day, was I resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid? Was I thinking about myself most of the time? Or was I thinking about what I could pack into this dream of life? Do I owe an amends? Right? We ask ourselves these questions and we can wait until nighttime to do a formal 11th step inventory, or we can start to work this into our day-to-day. And this is a mindfulness practice. Step 10 is a mindfulness practice. Am I resentful right now? Can I pause? Do I give myself permission to walk away when I need time? Resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid? In what ways is fear running my life? And so we start to bring a deep awareness of our inner workings into our day-to-day. Now, every step in Alcoholics Anonymous has what's called promises. At most AA meetings, The 9th step promises are read. They're really beautiful. It's like, these are the promises after taking step 9. I'm gonna paraphrase. It says, we are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. Fear of others and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. There's so many more. There's a bunch of promises. And are these extravagant promises? And then the whole meeting says, we think not. And it says, they are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. Now the Step 10 promises are my favorite. It basically says, for at this point we will have been placed in a position of neutrality. Now this is specifically about alcohol. It says we will pull away from alcohol as if from a hot flame. We don't even have to try, it just comes. We come to rely on our own intuition, our God consciousness. It's so beautiful. My dog is barking, hold please. And so what happens with Step 10 is we are deepening our awareness Our self-inquiry. And it may sound selfish to say, well, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about if I'm resentful, dishonest, selfish, or afraid. But the reality is that we often are going through our lives on autopilot, and to just pause and take stock of where we're at in any given moment is so powerful. I just finished reading Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now, and he says, So this gives me permission that as often as possible, ask yourself, how am I feeling right now? And we won't even know that we're holding stress and tension and friction internally. Just, oh, oh, I'm gripping. I do this constantly. I will be kind of stressed or tense. And as soon as I ask myself, how am I feeling right now? I notice that I'm tense. I notice I'm gripping. And then I pause and ask why, and it usually has to do with something in the future that does not exist right now. Eckhart Tolle says there are no such things as problems, there are just situations, life situations. And ask yourself, do I have a problem in this moment? Not a past problem that I'm still resentful about. Do a 4th step. Not a future problem that quite literally doesn't exist. In this moment, is there a problem? And I'd like you to ask yourself that right now. And if not, what is it you're gripping onto? So step 10 deepens our awareness of the present moment. It is a personal inventory. Some of my favorite pages in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous are 86 to 88, I believe. And they say something like, on awakening, let us think about the 24 hours ahead. We review our plans for the day. We ask God to help divorce us, like divorce our mind from self-pity, self-seeking, or selfish motives. We do not tire so easily because we have stopped trying to arrange life to suit ourselves. It's so beautiful. Oh, I made a track, one of my first audio tracks on Insight Timer, and it's called On Awakening: A Secular Adaptation. So if you are here on step 10, I highly encourage you to listen to that because it is— it's those pages. It's the On Awakening pages. On Awakening, let us think about the 24 hours ahead. I had a sponsor that told me to read them every single day for a really long time. Um, and so that track, it's called On Awakening. All I did was replace the word God with the universe, just in case there are people that have a hard time with the word God, which is normal. So step 10 is continue to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. The 10th step promises in Alcoholics Anonymous are beautiful, and the 10th step in The Codependent's Guide to the 12 Steps Looks like this. How do you continue your process of self-awareness and inventorying? Do you spend time each morning or evening reviewing your day, or do you allow insights to happen naturally as you go through life and recovery? What works best for you? And you're just taking inventory. All of this is to stop the momentum habit energy of just going through our lives and not pausing. Taking stock, taking inventory. We love an inventory in the 12 steps. The other day I was feeling a lot of financial insecurity. I own a group practice and, you know, sometimes therapists leave and sometimes we hire new ones because I encourage them to go start their own private practice. Like, we don't do non-competes, but that means sometimes people happen to leave at the same time on great terms, but it impacts our profit. And I am a business owner. But I'm a therapist first. And so I was feeling a lot of fear, and you know what I did? I just sat down in the morning after listening to some Insight Timer, and I did a fear inventory. So I took that resentment inventory from step 4 and just did it on my fear. What am I— like, what? So it was fear. What? Financial insecurity. What is the cause? Our profits are down. What does it impact? Self-esteem, self-worth, pride, finances, right? Like, and I didn't realize, like, oh, it's less about money and it's more about what comes up in me. Like, oh, this is a reflection of my self-worth. And then I looked at my part and it said, and I wrote down, what did I write down? Not trusting the Tao, not trusting the universe, expectations. Maybe some entitlement because the first five years of my practice were really smooth. Resistance to working more, like I could also just see more clients, right? And so I was able to clearly look at my part, clearly look at my shortcomings, and and then I turned it over, and I immediately felt a release from fear. That is a tenth step. The tenth step is continuing to just clock in. Clock in? Check in. What's coming up in me and why? And it's a process of self-inquiry and turning it over, and it's a really beautiful process deepened by working the steps with another person. But if you're not doing that, this is still incredibly invaluable. When was the last time you caught yourself doing something you didn't feel good about? Did you take care of the issue promptly? Either daily or weekly— I would say daily— force yourself to find one thing in your life and one idea about yourself that is good. Affirm that good until it sinks in and it feels real. Watch for ways that fear, anger, and resentment arise in your life. Watch for beliefs underlying these feelings. Watch for ways that your anger toward yourself influences your anger and behavior towards others and yourself. And then the last one: What is the affirmation that you and your inner child most need in your life today? And that one's long. This is a very long one, so I'll let you, I'll let you read that on your own if you get the book. But I love the 10 steps so much because what it does is continue to allow us to grow and grow and grow, and there's never an end. And it's not that something is wrong with me and I have to make myself better. I don't have to be sick to get well, but I can just keep deepening my experience of existence and living and my relationship with myself and others. Through the process of self-inquiry. I love Step 10. We only have 2 steps left. Oh my goodness. I will see you tomorrow for Step 11.
