Step 7: “Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.”
For Enneagram Type 3s, Step 7 at Surrender School addresses core challenges such as overachievement, image-consciousness, and emotional detachment, along with their tendency to prioritize external validation over inner needs. Type 3s often seek to be successful and admired, which can lead to neglecting personal well-being, manipulating situations to achieve goals, and using food to manage stress related to performance or to maintain a perfect image. Step 7 encourages Type 3s to practice humility by recognizing that their pursuit of success and validation can become a barrier to deeper self-awareness and authentic relationships, and to ask their Higher Power for the willingness to release their need for constant achievement and external approval, trusting that true worth and truth are found by being informed by their feelings and inner experience.
1. Cultivate Humility and Self-Acceptance
Character defenses, such as your patterns of overachievement and image-consciousness, are deeply ingrained behaviors developed over time as ways to feel valuable and worthy of love. Just as you are powerless over food, you are also powerless over these defenses in isolation. Trying to change them solely through willpower is rarely effective. True transformation begins with acknowledging these limitations and opening yourself to support from a Higher Power.
- Reflect on Humility: For Type 3s, humility involves recognizing that your inherent worth is not determined by your achievements or the image you project, but by your intrinsic value as a human being. It’s about acknowledging that overachievement and image-consciousness can prevent you from connecting with your authentic self and experiencing genuine self-acceptance and inner peace. Humility here means valuing your inner self and your feelings as much as your external accomplishments.
- Embrace Feelings as Truth: Accept that to get to truth, you must be informed by your feelings and direct experience. Allowing yourself to connect with your emotions, to acknowledge your needs, and to be guided by your inner wisdom, leads to a more authentic sense of self-worth and lasting fulfillment that is not dependent on external validation. Remember your mantra: “To get to truth, I must be informed by my feelings.” By embracing your feelings, you counteract overachievement and image-consciousness, foster genuine self-acceptance, and discover that true worth comes from within, not from external approval.
Reflection Questions:
- What does humility mean to me, beyond my accomplishments and image?
- How can I practice being informed by my feelings and inner experience to discover a deeper sense of truth and self-worth in my recovery?
2. Ask Your Higher Power for Guidance and Transformation
It is important to reach out to your Higher Power and other trusted, program fellows – connection is the antidote to addiction. As a Type 3, you may instinctively rely on your own drive and competence, often hesitating to show vulnerability or ask for help, fearing it will compromise your image of success. However, true transformation requires surrender and allowing yourself to be supported. Your part in this process is to become aware of when your overachievement, image-consciousness, or emotional detachment is driving your actions and to humbly ask your Higher Power to remove these defenses. This is not a one time event, but an ongoing process of self-awareness and surrender. Each time you notice yourself prioritizing achievement over your well-being or manipulating a situation for approval, you can consciously turn to your Higher Power for guidance. Your Higher Power’s role is to gently remove these defenses as you become willing, freeing you to live more authentically and to value genuine connection over external admiration.
Reflection Question:
- Reflecting on your Character Defense Analysis, recall times you relied on image or performance to gain approval and what the result was. How can I accept that I don’t have to earn love, and that I need help and guidance from a Higher Power?”
Write your own Seventh Step Prayer: In addition to using the Seventh Step Prayer below, take time to write your own version of the prayer, inserting the defenses you identified and speaking from your heart. Keep it simple, honest, and personal. One suggestion for modification is presented below.
Seventh Step Prayer: “My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me my (each of the defenses listed in my Character Defense Analysis) which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.”
Personal Prayer: “Higher Power (our words of your own choosing), I am now willing that you should have all of me, true-self and false self. I pray that you now remove from me the defense of _________________ if it stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Help me to see my other defenses as I live my life in alignment with your will. Amen.”
Letting go of control for a Type 3 means: releasing the need to control your image and achievements to feel worthy, and trusting that true worth is inherent and found by being informed by your feelings. It means surrendering the belief that value comes from external success and admiration, and embracing the truth that inner peace and authentic self-expression are the foundations of genuine fulfillment. Letting go allows a Type 3 to experience deeper self-acceptance, to build more genuine relationships, and to find a more sustainable and meaningful sense of success rooted in inner truth, not external validation.
3. Practice Surrender and Trust in the Process of Transformation
It is important to let go of outcomes! It is vital to relinquish the need to control your path to success and validation, and to dictate how self-acceptance and inner peace will manifest in your recovery. Surrender your need to orchestrate outcomes and maintain a perfect image throughout your transformation. Instead, cultivate trust that your Higher Power will guide you as you open yourself to being informed by your feelings and authentic self-expression. You may find yourself prioritizing well-being over work, expressing vulnerability in relationships, or making choices aligned with your inner values rather than external expectations—not because you are abandoning success, but because you are being guided towards a more holistic and genuinely fulfilling understanding of it. Transformation unfolds organically, in its own time, and often in ways that redefine success beyond societal measures, towards inner peace and authentic living.
Incorporate your mantra into your daily prayer and meditation:
For Type 3s, your mantra is a tool to counter your tendency toward overachievement and image-consciousness. It’s a reminder to actively connect with your feelings and inner experience as pathways to truth and self-knowledge. Consistent repetition helps to gradually reshape your default patterns of thought and behavior, fostering growth and a more balanced approach to defining success and finding genuine fulfillment.
“To get to truth, I must be informed by my feelings.”
Reflection Question:
- How does my mantra challenge my reliance on external validation and achievement as my primary drivers? If it doesn’t fully resonate, what revised mantra could better support my surrender in Step 7 and my journey towards inner truth and self-acceptance? Suggestions for a Type3 might include:
-
- “My worth is not tied to what I achieve.”
- “True success includes rest, honesty, and connection.”
- “I surrender the mask and trust that my real self is enough..”
-
Choose one of the mantras above or create your own, based on what you’ve discovered about your defenses and patterns. Commit to using it in your daily surrender practice.
4. Embrace New Habits and Attitudes
Welcome the expansion and growth that comes from releasing your defenses and cultivating self-awareness. As you deepen your connection with your Higher Power and with others, you will discover a different kind of success—one rooted in authenticity, inner peace, and genuine relationships, rather than solely in external achievement and admiration. These changes will foster richer, more meaningful relationships and establish a more grounded and authentically fulfilling path in your recovery journey.
- For each of your defenses, gently visualize yourself practicing the opposite behavior you have previously identified in your Readiness Assessment for Step 6.
- Choose one or two defenses to work on at a time.
- When you notice a defense arising, consciously ask your Higher Power for help, repeat your mantra, and actively practice the opposite behavior.
Examples for Type 3:
- Overachievement: I can value myself for who I am, not just for what I achieve.
- Image-consciousness: I can show up as my true self, knowing I am worthy without needing external validation.
- Neglecting personal needs: I can prioritize my well-being, recognizing that my needs matter as much as my goals.
- Emotional detachment: I can allow myself to feel and express emotions without fear of losing control or credibility.
- Manipulation: I can be honest and direct, trusting that authenticity leads to better outcomes than control.
- Perfectionism: I can strive for excellence while allowing myself to be human and imperfect.
- Fear of vulnerability: I can share my true feelings, trusting that vulnerability leads to stronger connections.
- Competition: I can celebrate others’ successes and recognize that collaboration benefits everyone.
- Fear of failure: I can take risks, knowing that failure is part of growth and not a reflection of my worth.
Reflection Questions:
- Which of my defenses can I start practicing the opposite of right away? And how specifically?
- How can I create new habits that support my self-care and recovery, particularly around connecting with my feelings, prioritizing well-being, and seeking authentic connection?
Summary for Type 3
For a Type 3 working Step 7 at Surrender School, the core shift involves recognizing that true success and fulfillment are found in authenticity and inner peace, not just in external achievement and validation. Humility in this step means acknowledging that your pursuit of success and admiration can become a barrier to deeper self-awareness and genuine relationships, and asking your Higher Power to remove the defenses that perpetuate overachievement and image-consciousness. By embracing feelings as a source of truth, practicing surrender of the need for constant external approval, and cultivating new habits of self-care and authentic self-expression, you can transform your relationship with food and build a more meaningful and genuinely successful recovery rooted in inner worth, not external metrics.