I am awe struck by Emmet Fox’s essay from 88 years ago. What a powerful work that has influenced generations. AA was a cornerstone of my father’s life as he struggled with alcohol addiction for years – on and off the wagon. The message finally stuck with him and he became a valued member of that community. Kurt Vonnegut, the famous author, once said that the only true religion in America was AA.

Fox starts out the essay discussing the collective realization that we are what we eat. What we put into our body becomes the building blocks that either, constructively or destructively, affects our meat suit. Food, be it junk food or vital alive organic food, becomes the material that composes our body. It is a fact that people dig their graves with the teeth. Your food choices can lead to disease or wellness.

It can likewise be said that we eat what we are. Our level of consciousness decides what we should eat. The higher the level of our awareness, the better the food choices that we make. Knowledge is structured in consciousness. You don’t know what you don’t know. The more expanded your awareness, the greater your wisdom of what is true in life.

What we realize, we metabolize. We are ingesting everything we experience on this planet. We not only ingest food but our thoughts, our emotions, and our beliefs as well. Many of us struggle with food addiction. Mark J points out we are peptide addicted as well. Our subconscious mental pattern craves certain ‘junk food peptides’ over and over; mindlessly repeating a tired blueprint or action and reaction that keeps us trapped in subconscious hell. If there is a hell, can you imagine one that is not worse than our own negative subconscious patterns with its corresponding belief structures?

Fox goes on to say you are what you think; that what you put your attention grows stronger in your life; what you think about all day long is what you become:

“The most important of all factors in your life is the mental diet on which you live. It is the food which you furnish to your mind that determines the whole character of your life. It is the thoughts you allow yourself to think, the subjects that you allow your mind to dwell upon, which make you and your surroundings what they are.

As thy days, so shall thy strength be. Everything in your life today — the state of your body, whether healthy or sick, the state of your fortune, whether prosperous or impoverished’, the state of your home, whether happy or the reverse, the present condition of every phase of your life in fact — is entirely conditioned by the thoughts and feelings which you have entertained in the past, by the habitual tone of your past thinking. And the condition of your life tomorrow, and next week, and next year, will be entirely conditioned by the thoughts and feelings which you choose to entertain from now onwards.”

Fox addresses how to change your thoughts, by using your free will. God gave man and woman the power of free agency to become a co-creator and the son or daughter of the ever-living God. The power to choose is our birthright. How we use it determines our path. Fox says, “We are transformed by the renewing of our minds.” This is cosmic law.

Our thoughts are not the only thing we can choose. We can choose our moods or feelings as well. We circle back now to a common Mark J theme of thoughts plus emotion determine beliefs.

“You must train yourself to choose the subject of your thinking at any given time, and also to choose the emotional tone, or what we call the mood that colors it. Yes, you can choose your moods. Indeed, if you could not you would have no real control over your life at all. Moods habitually entertained produce the characteristic disposition of the person concerned, and it is his disposition that finally makes or mars a person’s happiness.” Emmet Fox

Saints and masters throughout the ages have admonished us to “choose happiness”; “be happy” ; repeat “I am a happy and joyful being”. We see that we are not only what we eat but what we think and what we feel and we have the power of choice over all of it.

Lastly, let’s look at the converse of Fox’s statement that you are what you think – namely, ‘we think what we are’. Our level of consciousness attracts our quality of thought, feeling, beliefs, character, and conditions in life. This concept is a flip of “I think therefore I am” to “I am, therefore I think.” Is-ness precedes Am-ness and Am-ness is the determining factor in our quality of thought.

In conclusion, Emerson said it best, “Watch your thoughts, they become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your character, and your character determines your destiny.”