Acting As If

In Twelve-Step programs we hear the phrase “act as if”. We are guided to “act as if” we have courage when we are scared, and we are told to “act as if” when we feel like an imposter in our work lives.

Acting as if has helped me many times. It’s a great tool to shift from negative to positive thinking, and it is a way to invite the changes we are making to shift from being intellectual concepts to be fully embodied parts of us.

Act as if is closely related to “Fake it till you make it” which I first heard in Alanon. In that program the “faking” I had to do was to act like I felt detachment when I was still clinging and craving.

 There are still many times when I tell myself to act like a writer and teacher when my confidence is missing in action.

These ideas are not new and they are not unique to Twelve-Step thinking. Like most AA

wisdom the idea of acting or faking our way to growth and change has been around a long time.

Aristotle wrote, “We acquire virtues by first having put them into action.”

 Many years later the philosopher William James expanded on the connection between how we act and how we feel wrote, “Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together. By regulating the action, which is under the direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.”

It’s worth noting that early AA’s devoured the writings by William James, especially his book, “The Varieties of Religious Experience.” Bill Wilson was enraptured by these ideas of the early psychologists in the James circle.

Then, translating for a modern sensibility, Timothy Wilson at the Universality of Virginia said, “One of the most enduring lessons of social psychology is that behavior change precedes changes in attitude and feelings.”

Look at that again: “Behavior change precedes changes in attitude and feelings.” If you don’t like how you feel first change your behavior. It’s so simple but still hard to really get it. Don’t wait around to feel better; act as if.

Yeah, “act as if” is much easier said than done. But maybe make it an experiment. And here’s a bit of crazy contemporary proof: Research over many years has now shown that people who use Botox are less prone to anger, and it’s because they can’t make angry facial expressions.

One tiny caution: “Act as if” shouldn’t be used with your finances. Don’t spend money you don’t have and don’t charge-card yourself into debt. But even there you can act more generous than you feel by donating or tithing and the feeling of generosity will follow.

So I’m making these notes to myself this week: Act like I love to meditate, act like my body craves yoga, and don’t wait to feel like writing: Just go do it and watch the feelings follow. 

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More on how we make changes in recovery in the book, "Out of the Woods" published by Central Recovery Press.

What Changes in Long-term Recovery? Willingness!

Among the true markers of long recovery is a life with more peace, more compassion and more acceptance. When I hear folks with long recovery talk what impresses me most is their willingness. I hear, and I see—because it’s behavior that counts --their willingness to use the tools of recovery; their willingness to admit they are wrong; and their willingness to say, “I don’t know” and “You may be right.”

Our friends with strong recovery have a willingness to believe in a Higher Power, and a willingness to surrender their lives to that Higher Power. Yes, there is still that swing of giving and taking back our will, and no one does this perfectly, but I do admire the willingness of people in recovery who do more than just give up or go along with what is

happening. Instead they practice a kind of active willingness.

Seeing that kind of deep and amazing change is what prompted me to write about long-term recovery in the book, “Out of the Woods.”

I think of it this way: Willingness is more than just gravity. An apple falling from a tree may or may not be willing. But a person who tries sky diving, bungee jumping or slipping into the deep end of the swimming pool is demonstrating willingness. Acceptance requires willingness, and forgiveness is the product of willingness. And, as we’ve been told over the years, you only need a little bit of willingness to do any of this. Just a very little bit. 

Some of my favorite sayings about willingness are these:

“Willingness is a grace. It is a softening. It is leaving the door slightly ajar.”

“Willingness is showing up. It is showing up and letting go.”

“Willingness is a freedom and it is a step toward freedom.”

“Willingness is a movement of energy; my energy joined to God’s.”

One of the finest messages we garner from The Big Book is about willingness. It is in the story called, “Freedom from Bondage” and it describes the author wanting so badly to be free of a terrible resentment. She gets some help from a magazine article and she describes the practice this way: “If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or thing that you resent, you will be free.” The prescription suggests that we do this praying for two weeks.

The writer goes on to say, “It has worked for me many times, and it will work for me every time I am willing to work for it.”

In many ways it couldn’t be a simpler suggestion. We can seek willingness and even the willingness to be willing. 

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"Out of the Woods--A Guide to Long-term Recovery" is published by Central Recovery Press. 

Willpower--The Book

My friend Steve gave me a copy of the new book, “Willpower” –as a “get going” gift as I begin to write my book length manuscript of “Out of the Woods”. “Willpower” was written by the pioneering research psychologist Roy Baumeister with New York Times science writer, John Tierney.

This was a perfect gift for my book-writing marathon and for a writer writing about addiction. I mean, isn’t that what most people think addiction is all about? A lack of willpower? I am so into this book that I am both reading it AND listening to it on CD in the car.

It’s definitely an “out of the woods” book. There are parts of the research and explication that might shake up a newcomer, and maybe some old-timers too.  Not everyone wants to know the science behind our behavior. But I love this stuff.

“Willpower” has lots of answers and insights if you do wonder about the backside of recovery and change. They give the scientific explanation for things we advise in AA—like “no major changes in the first year.” There is some serious chemistry to managing more than one change. They also give the reason for the old-timers advice about eating a piece of candy when you crave a drink. It turns out that willpower runs on glucose and it can become depleted when you are doing something hard –like trying to change a habit like drinking too much.

The take-aways are fabulous. It is a kind of “how it works” book for the bio-neurology of willpower . Baumeister & Tierney write about the cognitive, and biochemical and psycho-neurological processes that operate to create and sustain our habits, and what has to change to weaken or stop a serious habit—or addiction. The habits they write about run the gamut from overeating to worry to exercise to heroin, and the use of alcohol.

There is also there is a chapter on how Eric Clapton and Mary Karr got sober—and how they surrendered. And a chapter called, “The Perfect Storm of Dieting.” This is great stuff.