After about a month of attending
AA meetings and enjoying my new-found “pink cloud,” I asked an old-timer to
summarize the real essentials of the Program. Knowing my propensity for intellectualizing,
he told me, “It’s really simple, Don. You really only need to do 2 things: First: Don’t drink while you work the 12
Steps with your sponsor. Second:
Change every thing else about your life.” While I stood there stunned, he just
roared this enormous guttural laugh of his and then walked away.
I truly didn’t know whether he
had been serious or not. He was – both serious and right.
I learned, without knowing I was
learning, that thinking alters behavior and – simultaneously – behavior alters
thinking. When I worked AA’s 12 Steps, didn’t drink, went to meetings, talked
to my sponsor regularly, volunteered for service work, shared as honestly as I
could, and really listened to others share, lo and behold, I changed. My
thinking changed and my behavior changed. Everything about my life was
changing, just like the old-timer had said.
Please understand, I didn’t sit
up one night and, after reading some in the Big Book, consciously decide to alter
my thinking and my behavior. By doing all these things I did – simply because I
was told to do them – I changed. I became softer, my desire to drink just
disappeared, my fears began to wane, my acceptance of myself began to grow. I
was healing. I was being transformed.
As I mentioned in last week’s
message, A Course in Miracles (ACIM) says in dozens of different ways,
“Whatever is bothering me, upsetting me, frightening me, angering me, pleasing
me, fulfilling me, satisfying me – remember, it is always an inside job. It is
always the end result of my perception of my universe. It is always the result
of my thinking.”
ACIM is also adamant that I
cannot consciously alter my thinking. My thinking is all screwed up. My
ego-world, which I created, does not truly exist. Only God exists. And He
already loves me. But my ego will have
none of it. To accept the reality of being an already-loved spirit in the eyes
of God is to have my ego die. My ego will smile at that thought and say: “Don’t
worry, Donnie. That’s not going to happen.”
My ego self cannot fundamentally
alter my ego self! My ego’s right. It is not going to happen.
I also stated last week that I
am responsible for my happiness and my well-being. When things aren’t going
right, my first reaction, still, is to find fault outside me. But, pretty
quickly I can now stop and look instead at my behavior, my attitude, my
thinking, my assumptions – all of which play major roles in how I perceive,
react, respond, or contribute to the situation. That must be my focus, not
trying to find fault outside me.
But how do I do that? If that’s
how I think, how do I change that?
If I am to fundamentally change
the way I think, controlling my mind is not
the answer. If I try to control my thoughts, I simply begin thinking about my
thoughts all the more. However, learning to pay no attention to my thoughts –
that’s the answer.
I am not what I think. I also am
not a body. I am not a human being that has, somewhere inside, an eternal soul.
If I am none of these things, then who the hell am I?
Inside me is an Observer Self –
so the Buddhists say. I think they’re correct. I believe ACIM says much the
same thing when it refers to my Higher Mind – that part of myself that can hear
the Holy Spirit. I also have an ego self that chatters constantly. I must
discipline my mind to listen to this Observer Self rather than the constant
chatter of my ego self in order to hear. That’s all I need to do to “control”
my thoughts. Listen to my Observer Self, while learning to acknowledge and then
ignore, my ego self.
As AA admonishes, if you always
do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. It means
the same thing when AA says the same person will drink again. In other words if
nothing changes, nothing changes. Reading AA’s Big Book and thinking about it did not get me sober.
Doing the Program did.
Trying to change what I think
about will not change my thinking. Learning which of the two voices inside me
to listen to – and then really
listening to my Higher, Observer Self while hearing but ignoring my other,
louder, ego voice – will.
Thanks for listening, and – as
always – feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those
accompanying you on your spiritual journey.
Don
#2 October, 2012
Copyright, 2012
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