I am currently trying to use
some techniques I first learned in AA to help move me along in my overall
awareness of the “real” me – my already-loved eternal spirit called Donnie.
Last week I discussed a little bit of having a “higher” and “lower” mind.
Although that concept has seemed to work for me for quite a while now, it has
gotten to become more and more confusing inside my head. That’s not been
helpful.
So, I’m trying something
different. I’m trying another approach.
In AA I was taught to do certain
things to move my sobriety along. Old-timers would tell me: “If you want what
we have, do what we do.” “How do I do that?” I’d ask. “You guys do that because
you’ve been at this for a long time. I haven’t.” Their response? “Fake it ‘til
you make it.” or “Don, please remember – you don’t think yourself into a new
way of living, you live yourself into a new way of thinking.”
I’d scratch my head. “Okay – I
think.” They’d laugh.
Well, it worked. I practiced
saying or doing what they told me to say or do when I was confronted with
anger, or resentment, or disappointment, or fear. I didn’t have to believe it –
but I did have to do it. In other words, I faked it. I began behaving “as if....”
Slowly, over time (shorter for some issues and longer for others), I was
changing and so was my thinking. What had started as deliberate, forced/faked
actions had become a new normal for me.
My life, words, actions, and thoughts
had changed somewhere along the way. There was no specific time I could point
to and say, ”Aha! See, my outlook just changed. My perception just shifted.
Wow!” That never happened – at least to me. It did happen, of course, but not
in a way that I recognized it while it was happening.
Nevertheless, as I looked backed
on my journey to sobriety, I realized the changes that had occurred were truly
amazing.
So, I’m using that same approach
now with my growth in A Course in Miracles (ACIM). At issue for me is a
difficulty in distinguishing the difference between my ego thoughts and my
higher thoughts. My ego – like alcohol – can be very cunning, baffling and
powerful. The net result? I continue to get fooled – but who is the “I” in this
sentence?
In order to help myself, I have
decided to name my ego. This helps me distinguish or objectify what’s going on
inside me. Rather than saying to myself: “My ego is up in arms – ready to
attack.” I now say “Felix, you’re acting out again.” Yes – Felix is the name
I’ve given to my ego – which doesn’t really exist, whose perceptions also don’t
exist, but whose cunning has fooled me for a long time into thinking,
believing, saying, and acting as if its perceptions were very, very real.
ACIM, however, tells me Felix is
not really real. But I’ve listened to him for so long that to ignore him feels
very, very unreal. I believe that’s a good sign.
I (not Felix) am trying to look
at everyone I meet with deliberate and conscious attentive listening, with
love, with a surrounding white light, with the thought: “Inside you there is
another me.” ACIM tells me that when I do this, the Holy Spirit will take over
and things will change. However, that’s not my job. The outcome will be whatever
He wants – not what Felix expects.
To do this as best I can and as
often as I can requires only that I make a choice dozens of times (or more)
each day. If I stray and begin mentally criticizing the person, I am not
“sinning,” or being weak and bad, or any other negative judgment I can hurl at
myself. I have simply started to listen to Felix or the other person’s Felix,
instead of allowing my TRUE me to focus on the TRUE person in front of me. I
can simply remake the decision and start actively listening again. I do this,
however, not by engaging Felix and telling him to go away, but by simply
ignoring Felix by stilling my mind – allowing Felix to “play, snort, holler, do
jumping jacks, critique the other’s Felix, or whatever” in the background, while
I refocus my attention.
I realize this sounds awkward
and tedious. And sometime it feels that way.
However, I do believe that
making a conscious effort to see the Christ in others, which the Course tells
me is really seeing the Christ in my True Self, can become a new normal for me
over time. As I mentioned last week, as I listen to other alcoholics share of
themselves, I always can see a little piece of me in each of their stories.
After a quarter of a century of experiencing this in AA, I am seeing little
bits of me in virtually everyone I meet. Now, I’m trying to build on that
positive experience.
But when I use this new-to-me
approach now, I will admit it makes me feel strange, or a little phony, or a
little shallow. I felt the same way early in my AA Program. So be it. It’s a
start. I’ll fake it ‘til I make it. Since my Higher Power helped my desire to
drink disappear and has helped me see bits of my True Self in you, I’ll continue
to live myself into a new way of thinking – distinguishing Felix from my True
Self.
Although these messages are
mostly for me, thanks for listening. As always – feel free to forward this
message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual
journey.
Don
#2 August 2014
Copyright, 2014
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