March 4: The Power to Think

(Adapted for personal use from Courage to Change in Alanon.)

Al-anon has a slogan that is just one word, "Think." We don't have this slogan in EA. The message I got in my early program was that my problem was that I think too much.

I wasn't really happy with the concept of  "stinking thinking, " either. Perhaps because I was belittled as a child and told, "You don't think, you stink."  Honestly, I believe it was not until I read the author of today's CTC sharing that the insight they received overhearing  a child's recitation of safety rules learned in school,  "Stop. Look. Listen." 


Stop and catch myself before my emotions carry me away.  Before I get lost in obsessions. Before I get caught up in the drama of another Catch-22 with my borderline family member. Before I get to worrying about the future.  

This way, when someone is unkind to me, I don't need to react and get into an angry argument.   I can look at what is going on, and my role in it. Then I can ask for spiritual guidance in seeing my choices for healthy speech and actions.  While I am clear and calm I can discuss it, or I can simply use the moment to walk away. "If I choose to enter the argument, then the decision is a conscious one, rather than one that is decided unconsciously by habit or reaction."

If I  can stop, look, and listen, then I have the power and time to Think. Powerful and simple thinking,  helps maintain emotional balance. Today is my day for joy and beauty and I only get to live it once.  "Let me cherish the seconds, the minutes and hours I spend here. Help me to think before I speak and pray before I act."

The mind is everything. What you think, you become. The Buddha