JUDY EMERSON Author and Personal Coach

It’s been pointed out to me that AA’s Big Book’s chapter 6 is called Into Action. The Big Book does not have a chapter called into thinking, into cogitation, into understanding everything, into perfection, into good intentions, into insights. Damn, those have been my favorite topics.

Come to think of it, my own spiritual tradition, based on the example of a guy named Jesus, tells us a whole lot of stuff I’m asked to DO. “Whatever you DO to the least of these, you DO it unto me”. Etc. It’s more than thinking about stuff.

For decades, I didn’t DO the healthy actions I thought about doing. I was stuck, depressed, and I stayed that way, in a pattern that did not change. I thought about change, a lot. But I stopped myself at the impulse stage.

What actions DID I take? Any “free time” I had, I withdrew. This is a not-uncommon story. I sat myself in my favorite chair, read a ton of books. Watched TV. I got up to fix myself food, ate the food. And seconds. And snacks. Which made me sleepy, so I took naps. What move might be called “the next right thing”? I might possibly think about that, but I didn’t take action. And repeat. For decades. In my 40’s I entered a phase of self-examination, when I went to therapy. Which kicked off years of compulsively reading (like snorting cocaine) nonfiction books I hoped would have the ANSWER to how to fix myself, how to understand why bad stuff happened, and why they did that, and why I didn’t get the same loving attention others got. I had deep insights through therapy sessions and my journaling, and I emerged from therapy healed enough, invigorated enough to get into gear sufficient to finish my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, create a career and function far better than I had in a thousand ways, for a long time. But once “graduated” from therapy (and moved to the other chair in the counseling room), during those years I didn’t have a template to follow in an ongoing way, an example of establishing accountability or frequent check-ins with my ego. Over time, I got blown off course by the winds of challenging circumstances, my reliance on certainty, and my avoidance of asking for help. I didn’t recognize as it happened the accumulation of relapse into mask-wearing, pretending I was fine. I insisted I was okay, until I eventually crashed into a very hard wall. It took me several more years to find and follow the twelve-step pattern that offered exactly that template for checking in, “taking my own temperature” to regularly get honest with myself and start growing again.

But still, I slide back into avoidance a lot (isn’t she sick of this topic, you ask), then step away from it. Still. Sigh. I call it dancing these days.

Our addictions are our default settings—the well-worn familiar paths we’ve kept choosing. Alcohol, for lots of people. Gambling, pornography, sex, drugs, overworking, compulsive cleaning, compulsive eating (this one’s my personal favorite) or compulsive restriction of food, compulsive religiosity, compulsively trying to fix or control somebody else (also guilty). Etc. The variations are endless. We can think we’ve got one compulsion/addiction nailed down and another one pops up, like “Whack-a-Mole” (that’s an old-style game, for you youngsters. You can Google it.)

In my experience—even if you’d rather not hear it—I gotta say, the persistence of that unhealthy distractibility pattern probably means we’re avoiding something else that we don’t want to allow “airtime”. Nope, you’re likely to say. Not going there, even if I don’t know what “there” is. Whatever default distraction floats our boats, we all know those as shortcuts to avoid getting real, vulnerable, and honest. Something inside us believes we’re better off in this “holding pattern” that is addiction, than open to whatever Pandora’s Box mess we think might erupt if we unlock the vault. We imagine the unknown might be scarier than just calling ourselves bad names for this familiar version of our flawed selves (“bad fat girl!”). Lots of us double down on our default settings all the way to our deathbeds.

The reasons why I do these things? Reasons are important to understand, and we should allow space for that. Child trauma is certainly one of the reasons we get stuck. That’s crucially important to address. For THIS moment, though, get that inner child cuddled up safe inside your heart while your grown-up self takes care of today’s tasks, our theme for today—Into Action. That little one still needs a functional life in today’s world. It will help that child be safer.

For TODAY (the only day I actually have the power to make change),” reasons” are only cogitation—imagine it as that icon on your computer screen that keeps going around in circles but doesn’t open the web page you asked for. Yeah, like that.

“If nothing changes, nothing changes.” Really.

If I want my life to change, I have to DO something different. A small thing, to start. Then another. (Also, maybe I don’t really want my life to change. And nobody twisting my arm can make me.)

There’s a lot of stuff I know I “should” do. I can’t do all of it. I can’t do any of it perfectly, I can’t do what other people would want me to do, I can only do what I can choose to actually enact in my life in this one moment. I can take a small action that is not the action I would have done if going by old habits.

If I never do those things I admit would be good for me, I will not like myself. I’ll probably keep beating myself up for it. I know this about me. I have experience with self-loathing, which was a fundamental element of my depression and anxiety.

Anxiety, which has best been described to me as the way I can rev up my car’s engine by giving it gas with my right foot and simultaneously keep the gear in “park” and my left foot holding down the brake pedal. That loud noise of the engine gunning faster and faster with no actual movement, is a lot like a racing mind with a still body.

If I continue to lecture myself about what I OUGHT to be doing (giving it gas), while simultaneously telling myself I can’t or I shouldn’t do that same thing (pressing the brake), I’ll probably be anxious. I’m opposing myself.

The engine runs quieter, and with better effect, if I safely let off the brake, steer carefully, and move, cautiously at first, till I get the hang of it. It’ll get easier.

Tomorrow’s not available for actions. So, beginning today, If I take action with one small, imperfect step, I move onto a path leading toward freedom from my default avoidance patterns. But I have to decide.

I loaded the dishwasher this morning, the next right thing to make my life a tiny bit better.

What’s one small step you can take?