Episode 67 (Season 2) - Trying Not to Think About It is Thinking About It

Recovery Radio KMP300. Regular piping hot cup of French roast coffee here from Trader Joe's mixed with some Don Francisco's Hawaiian hazelnut. It is freaking delicious. And and look, I don't want to make anybody jealous. I don't, but I'm about to. And I do owe you an amends for what I'm about to tell you. Maybe I'll pray about it. But I'm having pizza for lunch, so I don't know. I feel like I I don't want to make anybody jealous. I don't I care about you. I love you. I don't want you to hurt.

But, you know, just full transparency here. I'm having pizza later today. So, I just wanted you to know that. Okay. Enough of those shenanigans. It's true, though. All right. There's a book by Em EMTT Fox called The Golden Key and 22 additional essays. I'm going to read something from it and then tie it into the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and then talk about my own experience. And

that is the plan. So, I'm going to read a lot of this, not every part of it, but I'm going to read a lot of this essay called The Key of Destiny. It's on page 19 if you happen to have that book. There are a few great laws that govern all thinking just as there are a few fundamental laws in chemistry and physics and in mechanics for example. We know that thought control is the key

of destiny. And in order to learn thought control, we have to know and understand these laws just as the chemist has to understand the laws of chemistry and the electrician has to know the laws of electricity. One of the great mental laws is the law of substitution. This means that the only way to get rid of a certain thought is to substitute another one for it. You cannot dismiss a thought directly. You can only do so by substituting another one for it. On the physical

plane, this is not the case. You can drop a book or a stone by simply opening your hand and letting it go. But with thought, this will not work. If you want to dismiss a negative thought, the only way to do it is to think of something positive and constructive. It is as though in order, let us say, to drop a pencil, it would be necessary to put a pen or a book or a stone into your hand when the pencil would fall away.

If I say to you, do not think of the Statue of Liberty, of course, you will immediately think of it. If you say, I'm not going to think of the Statue of Liberty, that is thinking of it. But now having thought of it, if you become interested in something else, You will forget about the Statue of Liberty. It sometimes happens that negative thoughts seem to besiege you in such force you cannot overcome them.

This is what a call what is called a fit of depression or a fit of worry perhaps a fit of anger. In such a case, the best thing to do is to go find someone to talk to on any subject or go to a movie or play or read an interesting book or a good novel or biography or travel book, something of the kind. If you sit down to fight the negative tide, you will probably succeed only in amplifying it.

Turn your attention to something quite different, refusing steadfastly to think of or rehearse the difficulty. And later on after you have completely gotten away from it, you can come back to it with confidence and handle it by spiritual treatment.

Now I'm going to turn to the big book and I'm going to keep this very simple. I'm just going to read a couple of things. There's more we could read, but I'm just going to really keep this brief, uncomplicated as possible. Page 68, third full paragraph, last two sentences. We ask him to remove our fear and to direct our attention to what he would have us be. That's what I just read about. We ask God to remove our fear and then think of something else.

Ask God to direct my attention to something else. 70 second full paragraph halfway through. If sex is very troublesome, we go to meetings and share about it and talk about it endlessly and rehearse it and we try not to think about it. Just kidding. If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. Are you ready for this? Page 76 at the top. Uh we then look at step six. We have emphasized willingness as being

indispensable. Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable? Can I now take them all? Everyone. We still cling to something we will not let go. We ask God to help us be willing. When ready, we say something like this. My creator, I'm now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defective character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and

my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to your bidding. Amen. I just read step six and step seven.

When I went through the work in 1992, when I was about two and a half years sober with this understanding that I'm talking about now, I had a completely different experience than I had earlier when I was spending a lot of time looking at rehearsing, sharing about, focusing on, studying, trying to ignore my character defects. When I was doing that, when I was highlighting the 12 and 12 in my very early recovery, I was a mess. I was more uncomfortable.

Going back to what EMTT wrote, if you sit down and fight the negative tide, you'll probably succeed only in amplifying it. But when I went back through the big book, that message that I understand and have today that's so simple and in alignment with what I just read from EMTT Fox changed my whole life. The focus isn't on fear anymore. The focus is on love. I know I have character defects. I know that I come up short daily. I know that I

um make mistakes daily. I know that I have selfishness now that I can't see yet. That I'm I hope that I will at some point. I've learned these things, but these things I watch for them. Like the big book says, we continue to watch for these things, but I don't focus on these things because I have found that like I said, when I focus on these things, I amplify them.

So I very deliberately focus on as best I can what I think God would have me be, which is not somebody who's talking about my character defects and amplifying them, discussing them endlessly over and over again and studying them over and over again. I had to do I had to write down my character defects in step four and so I can identify them and give them to God. And I have to do that when I do inventories now.

But aside from, you know, gathering up that trash and putting it on the curb for God to remove, I don't it's not my focus and it has made and makes all the difference in the world for me.

Well, my focus today is going to be on pizza that I'm having for lunch. So, my new modeling gig, I'm doing a a photo shoot for a non-alcoholic beverage called Um, you know what? I'm just going to abort this joke. I'm stopping. All right. want to give a shout out to uh podcast Greater Than Yourself and the Sober Gratitudes podcast. And want to say hello to Chelsea and