Step 7: “Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.”
For Enneagram Type 7s, Step 7 at Surrender School addresses core challenges such as impulsiveness, avoidance of pain, and the tendency to seek constant stimulation and new experiences. Type 7s often seek to keep their options open and maintain a sense of freedom, which can lead to difficulty with commitment, overindulgence, and using food to escape boredom or uncomfortable feelings. Step 7 encourages Type 7s to practice humility by recognizing that their pursuit of constant positivity and stimulation can become a barrier to deeper, more meaningful experiences and self-awareness, and to ask their Higher Power for the willingness to release their need for constant distraction and novelty, trusting that true fulfillment and joy can be found in presence and acceptance of the present moment.
1. Cultivate Humility and Self-Acceptance
Character defenses, such as your patterns of impulsiveness and escapism, are deeply ingrained behaviors developed over time as ways to maintain a sense of optimism and freedom. 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 7s, humility involves recognizing that true joy and fulfillment are not about endless options and constant stimulation, but about being present and content in the here and now. It’s about acknowledging that avoiding pain and seeking constant distraction can prevent deeper emotional processing and self-discovery. Humility here means valuing the present moment and accepting limitations as pathways to deeper experience.
-
- Embrace Focus and Presence: Accept that focusing on the present moment and staying with your experiences, even the uncomfortable ones, is where you truly find clarity and lasting satisfaction. Allowing yourself to be present, to feel your feelings fully without needing to escape or distract, leads to richer, more meaningful experiences and a deeper sense of inner peace. Remember your mantra: “Focus & staying present are my Holy work. I am enough.” By embracing focus and presence, you counteract impulsiveness and escapism, foster genuine contentment, and discover that true joy is found in being present, not just in constant seeking.
Reflection Questions:
- What does humility mean to me, beyond always being positive and avoiding pain?
- How can I practice focusing on the present moment and find contentment in “what is” in my life and 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 7, you may instinctively seek to maintain your optimism and freedom by avoiding discomfort and keeping busy with new possibilities, often hesitating to slow down and face difficult emotions or limitations. However, true transformation requires surrender and allowing yourself to be supported. Your part in this process is to become aware of when your impulsiveness, escapism, or overindulgence 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 seeking distraction or avoiding commitment, 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 find joy and contentment in the present, valuing depth of experience over constant novelty.
Reflection Question:
- Reflecting on your Character Defense Analysis (from Step 6), recall times you tried to avoid pain or limitation through distraction and what the result was. How can I accept that true freedom includes facing discomfort and that I need help and guidance from my Higher Power and others?
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 7 means: releasing the need to control your experience to be constantly positive and exciting, and trusting that you can find joy and fulfillment in the present moment, even with limitations and discomfort. It means surrendering the belief that happiness lies in endless possibilities and distraction, and embracing the truth that true contentment is found in presence and acceptance. Letting go allows a Type 7 to experience deeper satisfaction, to cultivate meaningful commitments, and to find a more grounded and lasting joy rooted in being present, not just in anticipating future pleasures.
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 emotional state and to dictate how joy and fulfillment will manifest in your recovery. Surrender your need for constant positivity and excitement in the process of transformation. Instead, cultivate trust that your Higher Power will guide you as you begin to face discomfort and embrace presence. You may find yourself slowing down, making deeper commitments, or staying with challenging emotions—not because you are forcing yourself to be serious, but because you are being guided towards a more balanced and authentic experience of joy, rooted in the present moment. Transformation unfolds organically, in its own time, and often in ways that reveal joy in unexpected places, beyond the pursuit of constant novelty.
Incorporate your mantra into your daily prayer and meditation:
For Type 7s, your mantra is a tool to counter your tendency toward escapism and distraction. It’s a reminder that true fulfillment and knowledge are found not in constant seeking, but in focusing on and being present with your current experience. Consistent repetition helps to gradually reshape your default patterns of thought and behavior, fostering growth and a more balanced approach to finding joy and contentment in the present moment, not just in the anticipation of future pleasures.
“Focus & staying present are my Holy work. I am enough.”
Reflection Question:
How does my mantra challenge my tendency to seek distraction and avoid discomfort? If it doesn’t fully resonate, what revised mantra could better support my surrender in Step 7 and my commitment to presence and focus?S
Suggestions for a Type 7 might include:
-
- “Presence is my path to peace.”
- “I can sit with what is — it’s enough, and so am I.”
- “The joy I long for is here, in this moment.”
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 joy—one rooted in inner peace, presence, and genuine contentment, rather than solely in external stimulation and novelty. These changes will foster richer, more meaningful experiences and establish a more grounded and authentically joyful 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 7:
- Impulsiveness: I can pause before acting and make choices that align with my deeper values, rather than chasing fleeting excitement.
- Avoidance: I can face difficult emotions with courage, knowing that true growth comes from embracing all of life’s experiences.
- Overindulgence: I can enjoy life’s pleasures in moderation, knowing that true satisfaction comes from balance.
- Escapism: I can stay present and face reality with openness, rather than constantly seeking an escape.
- Difficulty committing: I can commit to people and experiences with confidence, knowing that fulfillment comes from depth, not just variety.
- Superficial optimism: I can embrace both joy and struggle, allowing my positivity to be grounded in truth rather than avoidance.
- Fear of limitation: I can find meaning in commitment and recognize that limitations can bring clarity and purpose.
- Minimizing pain: I can allow myself to feel pain fully, trusting that it will pass and bring deeper understanding.
- Seeking distraction: I can be still and present with myself, knowing that peace comes from within, not from external stimulation.
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 cultivating focus and presence and managing my tendency to seek distraction?
Summary for Type 7
For a Type 7 working Step 7 at Surrender School, the core shift involves recognizing that true joy and fulfillment are found in presence and acceptance, not in constant seeking and novelty. Humility in this step means acknowledging that your pursuit of constant stimulation and optimism can become a barrier to deeper experience and self-awareness, and asking your Higher Power to remove the defenses that perpetuate escapism and the avoidance of pain. By embracing focus and presence as your “Holy work,” practicing surrender of the need for constant distraction, and cultivating new habits of commitment and emotional honesty, you can transform your relationship with food and build a more grounded and authentically joyful recovery.
Want to go Deeper?