The house that was built on a path that had a public 'right of way'

A few years ago I read about a new house that had been built in the South of England for a family of 5 - made up of mum and dad, two sisters and a younger brother – who moved in to it to live soon afterwards. It was a lovely, red-brick built house, with big windows, strong doors, and a sturdy roof on top.

But there was one major problem with this house. Because of a huge mistake or oversight on someone’s part, the house had been built on a path that had a public ‘right of way’. Nobody, apparently, had remembered about this ‘right of way’. As a result, the family received orders to keep the front and back doors wide open day and night so that people passing by could walk through the front door, along the passage-way and out through the back door to the green fields beyond. The local Council tried its best to resolve the problem, but in the meantime, the front and back doors had to be kept open.

Can you imagine anything worse than having every Tom, Dick and Harry walking in and out of your house every hour of the day and night? Surely, the family had a right to some privacy in their own house!

Now this house is a good parable. Our recoveries aren’t built on a ‘right of way’; but the truth is that quite often we allow all kinds of negative thoughts to “walk” through and trample all over our new-found recoveries too - negative thoughts that undermine our self-esteem, convincing us that we’re not worthy, that we don’t deserve success; and that we’re no good. We wouldn’t allow all kinds of people to come into our homes, would we? Neither should we allow these negative thoughts to enter and undermine our recoveries.

Today, more so than ever, we need to close the doors to these negative thoughts. And nobody else will do it for us. We have to train ourselves to challenge these injurious negative thoughts and replace them with rational thoughts that are based on facts. God won’t do for us what we can do for ourselves.

Pity the poor family in the South of England - they had no choice but to keep their doors wide open, night and day. But we can choose to close our front and back doors to all negative thoughts. We can choose which thoughts we allow to enter our minds. We can, if we do this, create our own Heaven on earth.

Living in the solution

Another important lesson I've learnt is that no matter how bleak, how dark or hopeless a situation might seem, there is always something positive lurking there, somewhere underneath - and that if I look long and hard enough, I'll always find that something positive. Once I've found it, however, I'm no longer living in the problem - I'm living in the solution.

It's up to me, though. Nobody else will do it for me. Nobody else will get me positive but me.

I'm reminded of a friend of mine who came across a beautiful garden in deepest Snowdonia. "Wow!" said my friend to the gardener, who was tending to his roses by the entrance, "God has been good to you giving you this garden."

"You should have seen it when God was in charge of it" said the gardener, "it was a jungle then!"

See? The gardener had to do the work. Likewise, the recovering alcoholic (or addict) has to do the work of training his/or her mind to become positive.

How do we do that?

By challenging Negative thoughts (that are always based on lies), and replacing them with Rational thoughts (that are based on facts).

This is how we create our own Heaven out of the Hell of addiction.