The iStep Recovery Support Process

The iStep approach to personal growth is focused on improving self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and behavior by targeted regular self-reflection. The backbone of the program incorporates the principals of the renowned recipe for a better life, the twelve-step recovery program without forcing any religious aspects onto users.  

1. Get to grip with reality

   At this stage, you will develop a better understanding of what your life has become and what brought you to this point. It will help you clarify the two directions your life can take from this point forward. Normally the options are either a. don’t change and continue down the drain or b. work yourself up the mountain towards peace and serenity. By the end of this stage you will break any lingering denial that you are ‘fine’ the way you are. You’re not fine, otherwise why would you be reading this? People that are “fine” don’t seek help… they are ‘fine’ after all. This stage involves an admission that there is a better strategy for life; compared to what you have been doing to date which is likely trying (unsuccessfully) to cope with life by abusing rewarding behaviors, drugs, or alcohol. Have an open mind, there is a better way and we will show you.

2. Acknowledge the existence of your conscience and the critical relationship between it and yourself
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   You’re probably not crazy, but there are at least two voices in your head. Accept that, understand it, start a dialog with yourself, and use it. Recognize that your moral compass, inner voice, god, or whatever you want to label it, is there to care for you and provide good direction in life. It doesn’t want to ruin you or damage you. It wants the best for you, so why not leverage it?

3. Start listening to your moral compass and start actively trying to follow it
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   Rather than rationalizing your decisions, start to leverage your conscience and trust that it will always show you the truth of a situation. Once you can listen to the voice of your conscience and recognize it, you gain the ability to be rigorously honest in your thinking, and that will guide your actions. No one is perfect and no one can perfectly follow the direction given by their conscience. However, we can all try, and as we try, we will see the results and build our trust and faith in our conscience. It won’t happen overnight, but as your life begins to improve, you will start to recognize the benefits of listening to your conscience.

4. Figure out exactly who you are
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   This stage is a hectic, complex, and critical. At this point, you have started to develop and practice your ability to identify truth and honesty by using your conscience (or at least the ability to hear your conscience when it flags self-deception). With this tool of absolute honesty, you can start digging deep into ten specific areas of your life, such as your resentments, causes of guilt/shame, fears, emotionally significant life events, family members, relationships, sexual practices, character defects, and the giving and receiving of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. This stage is about fully understanding these memorable life events and accepting your exact role in them. iStep walks you through this detailed process in a manner that enables you to complete it without missing vital information.

5. Time to get over yourself and admit to someone else exactly who you are
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   You can print out the work you did in the previous step, and read it to the most trusted person in your life; ideally, someone else in recovery who can relate to you and your past. The power of this full and absolute disclosure is extraordinary. The outcome is, you learn that some people can accept you for who you are regardless of your past – these are the people that, in turn, become good friends. You can be yourself, your true-self with confidence. No more hiding. It is a liberating process.

6. Time to take responsibility for your self-improvement
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   Ok, so now that you accept yourself for who you are, you have a clear starting point for character development. At this stage, you work to identify every character defect present inside your personality. During this analysis process, you will come to realize that these character defects are the underlying reason for all your bad behavior and dysfunction. This stage is about self-awareness. You must be aware of why you do certain things, and once you can identify it, you can work on not doing it. Once you determine that you have a cut on your arm, you can spend the time needed to help it heal and avoid infection. If you don’t know the wound is there, you have no hope of fixing it. If you can not recognize your character defects, there is no chance you will grow past them.

7. Your conscience or a higher power will now help you avoid acting out on character defects
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   With heightened awareness, you will start to spot your character defects before they trigger impulsive reactions. iStep will help make this process part of your daily life. iStep allows you to track when character defects occur, and analyze the situation and feelings causing it and your reaction to it. It then helps you focus each day on different character defects that are present in your life most recently, and supports focus on their opposite spiritual principal. For example, the opposite of impatience is patience. Maintaining a focus on patience and tolerance during any particular day will help identify and manage feelings of frustration.

8. Identify the people, businesses, and institutions that you have harmed in your life
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   While most people immediately think of physical harm, it is essential also to consider psychological or emotional damage caused to others, as well as social or even legal and financial harm. iStep will help you build this list and analyze each part. In doing so, it will help you come closer to become willing to make amends. The key at this stage is to forget about anyone causing harm to you. What other people did to you does not matter. If you harmed them, they need to be on the list and put under review.

9. Replace the guilt and shame of causing harm with the self-esteem and pride linked to making amends
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   First, you start to plan your amends for each item on your list, and then you execute them. We recommend that you only perform an amend after you have a plan of action that is approved by a support person or sponsor. The reason for this is because you do not want to cause any further harm in the process of making amends, which is possible. This planning and execution process should happen with someone you trust to ensure you cause no further damage. For example, if you slept with your sibling’s wife a couple of years ago – it’s probably going to cause serious harm to try come clean about it now. In this case, indirect amends, rather than direct amends, are a solution.

10. Reflect on your day, every day
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    A daily inventory supports the process of comparing yourself to yesterday and recognizing improvement or decline. Once you are aware – you can continue satisfied or adjust any poor behavior and grow. The alternative to self-reflection is willful blindness. Many people avoid looking at themselves to avoid the unpleasant feelings of guilt or shame connected to bad behavior or decisions. While you can reflect on any number of questions, a few are key. For example, your extreme feelings, character defects, and harm caused. If you have not already started taking a daily inventory, it begins now. day. iStep makes this process easy by tracking each day and will provide helpful reports that will show areas of improvement, areas of decline, and help you refocus on aspects of your life that need the most attention. The iStep character defect support system collects this information and will help remind you to remain focus on the areas of your life that need attention. It is so easy for the human mind to forget that you are trying to work on patience or your anger. iStep comes to the rescue with daily guidance personalized to your journey.

11. Have a regular and ongoing dialog with yourself, your higher power, your conscience
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    For personal growth, this dialog must always have two steps. Ask-Listen. Clear your mind and internally or verbally ask for guidance on absolutely anything in your life. Then in the form of meditation, listen for the advice from your conscience or inner voice. You must give yourself time to listen and also debate, and adjust the question as needed until the confidence to take action forms. This process can take seconds, days, months, or even years on massive decisions. The critical aspect is that it becomes part of your daily life and a tool you use to ensure you grow in the direction that is best for you.

12. Help others grow, be at service, make the world a better place
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    Follow the principals learned in this program and apply it to your life and share it with others. The outcome is that your family, friends, and society as a whole will become better for everyone.