Step Four: Skeletons in the Closet

Time to pull them skeletons out the closet, y’all — for realz!

Step four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

This step can get people bogged down trying to remember every frigging thing they ever did wrong. Nothing about recovery calls for beating up on yourself. If you’re having that kind of experience of recovery in whatever program you in, you might wanna get you a new sponsor, or find a new meeting. I had a kickass (as in awesome AF) sponsor and I’mma share the way they did it with me.

You gonna need an hour, or at least fifteen minutes on four different times. Get you something to write with (make sure the shit works so you don’t get jammed up in the middle). I’mma suggest you get a yourself notebook. First fifteen minutes—set a timer!—write about everything you resent. Just write it like a list. Fuck details and frigging be honest. If it come up, write it down, even if it surprise your ass. When the timer go off, stop!

Do the same thing stuff you fear. Write fifteen minutes. When the timer go off, stop. Do the same making a list of things make you feel guilty. Then make a list of the things you shamed of. Serious, y’all, only do fifteen minutes on each. It ain’t a exercise stroking your ego denying you done experienced anything negative in your life. It ain’t a frigging pity party either. Git in and git out. Magic of the step honesty. Half measures don’t avail nothing.

That’s it. You got your work cut out for you. You can think this is something cute to do someday, or you can grow a pair and dive in. The world needs us well right now, so it’s bigger than what you want. It’s got to be about what we need. Let me know how it goes, y’all.

Pink Flowers

Pink Flowers is a Black trans artist, activist and educator, whose work is rooted in ancient shamanic, African trickster, and Brazilian Joker traditions. Pink uses Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, Navajo Peacemaking and other anti-oppression techniques, as the foundation of their theater-making, mediation, problem-solving and group healing practices.

She is the founder of Award-winning Falconworks Theater Company, which uses popular theater to build capacities for civic engagement and social change. She has received broad recognition, numerous awards, and citations for their community service. She has been a faculty member at Montclair State University, Pace University, and a company member of Shakespeare in Detroit.

Pink is currently in Providence Rhode Island teaching directing for the Brown/Trinity MFA program, while also directing the Brown University production of Aleshea Harris’s award-winning What To Send Up When It Goes Down. Get performance detail here.

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Step Five: Spilling the Tea

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Step Three; The Overturn