The 12 Steps and 12 Traditions book of Alcoholics Anonymous says that step 6 is where we seperate the men from the boys. Because at this point we have begun to grow up and have faced a lot of truth about ourselves working the previous steps.
Step 6 is about living the change, the old character failed and we are not trying to build him up. Instead we are building and supporting our true selves as we were ment to be. Everyday and in every situation we are now striving to be honest, tolerant, and loving. We work step 6 by practicing and improving letting go of limmiting beliefs, charachter defects, and inapropriate behaviors as best we can.
After I had been in the program a while I was still flurting with women, as a married man this can only lead to trouble. I was eventually called to act on my flurting by one of the prettiest women I had ever seen. Now what was I to do? You can see where this can lead to dishonesty and pain without me telling you the rest of the story. I mention it because even though I did not act as best I could of, because I worked through it with a sponsor and kept working the 12 steps it was a great lesson for me on charachter building and working the sixth step. I hope to be working on step 6 for the rest of my life, not repeating to many mistakes, and leaning to grow as I go.
