Day 133. Fighting thoughts


Earlier in my journey when struggling with not drinking a lot of thoughts entered my mind. “I will not be able to survive the night without a glass”, “This wine is so expensive I can’t turn it down” or “I’ve been so good not drinking that I deserve a glass”.
When these thoughts arrive, and we have decided not to drink the natural response will be to FIGHT them. Fight the thoughts. Make them go away. Push them with force out of our minds. The problem is, as anyone who has seen “The return of the Jedi” knows, that fighting something will make it stronger. And the thoughts keep coming back stronger and stronger until you go to bed, take a bath or cave.
So what should you do? Instead of fighting - invite the thoughts into your finest marble room within yourself and offer them tea. When you sit there with them you listen to what they really want: “I will not survive the night without a glass”. Repeat the thought and really envision you dying on the floor with a water glass in your hand. Use all images you can find to describe the thoughts and make them cartoonish in your head. I like to picture a really stern garden gnome telling me the thought like it’s the most serious thing in the world. The goal is to find the absurdity in the thoughts you’re having to the point that you laugh at them instead of fighting them. Because when you have laughed at them they will disperse.
No more fighting, but instead inviting, exaggerating and laughing. Next time the thought comes back your natural response will be to laugh and you can let go of the thought right away.
Onward and upwards, comrades!

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