Early in my recovery in
Alcoholics Anonymous I was mesmerized by one of the simple sayings of
old-timers in the Program: “You don’t
think yourself into a new way of living, you live yourself into a new way of
thinking.” I had always prided myself on my intellectual prowess, my
ability to discern and apply specific lessons to a wider field, and my ability
to remember and to “connect the dots.” Now I was basically being told to ignore
my intellectual strength and just follow simple directives.
They also said over and over: “If
you want what we have do what we do.” They did not say, “Think about doing what
you think we are doing.” They simply said, “Just do what we do.” These
old-timers also said: “If you always do
what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Do the steps – don’t think about the steps, memorize the steps, opine about the steps. Just do the steps and you’ll change and,
eventually, come to understand that you have had a spiritual awakening. You will
no longer be the same person – and you will probably be the last person in the
room to recognize how much you have changed. They also reminded me: “Work the Steps, live sober today, and the
rest of your life is none of your business.”
So, if they said “Jump!” I
jumped. If they said, “Get here early and make coffee,” I got to a meeting
early and made coffee. I did what I was told and I got better. My compulsion to
drink left me – although I couldn’t remember when that happened. I began
thinking of others. I became aware of my impact (or not) on others depending on
how I had acted. All these things were new to me, a little uncomfortable to me,
and always a little awkward for me.
And then I had a marvelous
experience during the early years of my recovery.
While I was still drinking, a
young man from my university (although many years behind me) came to work as a
software developer on a project of which I was the Test and Integration
manager. Several years later, now sober, I was a Program Manager overseeing 7
different projects. I hired this same young man, Joel, to be a project manger
over two of the projects. Our client, a federal departmental director, was very
difficult to work with. He called and wanted me to fire Joel and to cancel our
work. Joel and I went to see him. After the meeting the client not only
rescinded his request for terminating our effort, but had actually expanded our
scope of work. Later that day, Joel asked if he could discuss something
privately with me. We went to lunch.
Joel told me something like
this: “When we worked together 3-4 years
ago, I got to know Don O’Dell from North Texas State University. You still look
the same and still smoke a pipe, but everything else about you is absolutely
different. What has happened?” I
told him about my recovery in AA. We became very close friends.
That acknowledgement of how much
I had changed was such a wonderful gift to me. I had just been doing what I had
been told, and here was a total “outsider” who was amazed at how different I
had become. It was such a cherished bit of feedback.
All this is true for A Course in
Miracles (ACIM), a well.
It’s been two years since I have
worked the lessons in the Workbook For Students in ACIM. In the Introduction to
the Workbook, there is an instruction that is very reminiscent of what I
learned in AA (Bold emphasis is
mine):
INTRODUCTION
1 A theoretical foundation such as the
text provides is necessary as a framework to make the exercises in this
workbook meaningful. Yet it is doing
the exercises that will make the goal of the course possible. An untrained mind
can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of this workbook to train your mind
to think along the lines the text sets forth.
2 The exercises are very simple. They do
not require a great deal of time, and it does not matter where you do them.
They need no preparation. The training period is one year. The exercises are
numbered from 1 to 365. Do not undertake to do more than one set of exercises a
day….
4 The purpose of the workbook is to
train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and
everything in the world….
6 The only general rules to be observed
throughout, then, are: First, that
the exercises be practiced with great specificity, as will be indicated. This
will help you to generalize the ideas involved to every situation in which you
find yourself, and to everyone and everything in it. Second, be sure that you do not decide for yourself that there are
some people, situations or things to which the ideas are inapplicable….
8 Some of the ideas the workbook
presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite
startling. This does not matter. You are
merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do. You are not
asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use
that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true.
9 Remember
only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you
need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this
will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the
workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them.
Nothing more than that is required.
I cannot just think about the Course, or memorize pithy quotes from the Course,
or opine on the meaning of the
Course. After reading the Text, I just need to do the Lessons as
instructed.
As I’ve stated before, “I have
to understand, on a visceral level, who the “Me” or “I” really is when I am
speaking or thinking. The “I” that says to myself, “I really need a newer, more
reliable car” is a different “I” than the one that says to Spirit, “I can’t do
this anymore; help me perceive things the way You see them.”
Although these messages are
mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and
all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and
those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.
Don
#1 Jan 2017
Copyright 2017
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