Let me begin by explaining that even though this particular’s gift includes the word cleansing, which might imply the removal of something, it doesn’t! I like to think of this step and this gifts as intermediaries between the fourth step and the sixth and seventh step. We have written everything we could think of as we did the fourth step. What I referred to previously as ‘dirty laundry’, is referred to in the literature and the steps as our character defects and shortcomings. Now, this gift of cleansing, gives me the opportunity to start moving this “stuff” out of those hidden corners of my being and lay it out in the open for all to see. I haven’t necessarily made the commitment to do away with all of these things, but I am cleaning out that part of me that has been holding onto it all asked if I could not live without it.
