Posts Tagged: step 10

“ON NOT WANTING TO KEEP STRICT RECORDS”

I hate math!  I don’t like numbers.  I never have.  But sometimes, it is a good idea to make your hatred work for you.

So, true confession time: I have a runaway mind.  I tend to think inappropriate thoughts—lust, self-pity, judgmental thoughts, worry, regrets, you name it.  And once I start down that rabbit hole, I am like Alice.  I keep falling.

So, I’ve tried an experiment today.  I am trying to keep a strict record of all my inappropriate thoughts.  I haven’t had a lot of them.

Why?  I think because I hate quantification so much.  You might say that I have a case of “quantiphobia.”  (I thought that I was the first to identify this sort of irrational fear.  However, my illusion of creativity was punctured almost immediately by googling “the fear of numbers.”  Numerophobia and arithmophobia are fairly common.  Oh well!)

So, here is how I’ve been handling inappropriate thoughts today.  I have been trying to quantify them.  Trying to keep a strict account of my unhealthy thoughts is so intimidating that it is easier simply not to have them.

In a sense, this might be a variation on the tenth step of twelve-step groups: “Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.”  Sometimes, just being aware of my tendency to go wrong is a helpful thing.  Admissions of truth to oneself are never easy.  It is much easier to inflict truth on other people.

Furthermore, I have such an easily distracted mind, and such a contrarian mind, that trying to focus on any unhealthy thoughts for more than a second or two leaves me desiring to distract myself with healthy thoughts.  And I am so contrary that if I decide to concentrate on unhealthy thoughts, my mind is prone to rebel, and go to healthy thoughts.  (The same is true for me concerning healthy thoughts.  If I set out to think only healthy thoughts, I know it’s going to be a long and frustrating day.)

Now, I realize that this is exceedingly strange.  I don’t think that this approach would work for most people.  I don’t know if it will work for me over the long haul.  However, I’m going to try to make it a habitual discipline, and see if it will work.  One thing is for sure: It has helped me today!

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