Dave42001

Daily Reflections

LISTENING DEEPLY, p.226

How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just
what we shall think and just how we shall act.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 37

If I accept and act upon the advice of those who have made the
program work for themselves, I have a chance to outgrow the limits of
the past. Some problems will shrink to nothingness, while others may
require patient, well-thought-out action. Listening deeply when others
share can develop intuition in handling problems which arise
unexpectedly. It is usually best for me to avoid impetuous action.
Attending a meeting or calling a fellow A.A. member will usually
reduce tension enough to bring relief to a desperate sufferer like me.
Sharing problems at meetings with other alcoholics to whom I can
relate, or privately with my sponsor, can change aspects of the
positions in which I find myself. Character defects are identified and I
begin to see how they work against me. When I put my faith in the
spiritual power of the program, when I trust others to teach me what I
need to do to have a better life, I find that I can trust myself to do
what is necessary.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

We in A.A. are offering a spiritual program. The fundamental basis of
A.A. is belief in some Power greater than ourselves. This belief takes
us off the center of the universe and allows us to transfer our
problems to some power outside of ourselves. We turn to this Power
for the strength we need to get sober and stay sober. We put our drink
problem in God's hands and leave it there. We stop trying to run our
own life and seek to let God run it for us. Do I do my best to give
spiritual help?

Meditation For The Day

God is your healer and your strength. You do not have to ask Him to
come to you. He is always with you in spirit. At your moment of need
He is there to help you. Could you know God's love and His desire to
help you, you would know that He needs no pleading for help. Your
need is God's opportunity. You must learn to rely on God's strength
whenever you need it. Whenever you feel inadequate to any situation,
you should realize that the feeling of inadequacy is disloyalty to God.
Just say to yourself: I know that God is with me and will help me to
think and say and do the right thing.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may never feel inadequate to any situation. I pray that I
may be buoyed up by the feeling that God is with me.

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As Bill Sees It

Hope Born >From Hopelessness, p. 217

Letter to Dr. Carl Jung:

"Most conversion experiences, whatever their variety, do have a
common denominator of ego collapse at depth. The individual faces
an impossible dilemma.

"In my case the dilemma had been created by my compulsive
drinking, and the deep feeling of hopelessness had been vastly
deepened by my doctor. It was deepened still more by my alcoholic
friend when he acquainted me with your verdict of hopelessness
respecting Rowland H.

"In the wake of my spiritual experience there came a vision of a
society of alcoholics. If each sufferer were to carry the news of
the scientific hopelessness of alcoholism to each new prospect, he
might be able to lay every newcomer wide open to a transforming
spiritual experience. This concept proved to be the foundation of
such success as A.A. has since achieved."

Grapevine, January 1963

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Walk In Dry Places

Can We Fix Other People's Problems?
Problem Solving
In Twelve Step work, we never run out of people who face serious problems. We're often tempted to use our own expertise and resources to fix these problems for others.
This can be a mistake. It is always risky to undertake such assignments without a great deal of thought and understanding. Such attempts to fix others usually deal only with symptoms rather than causes.
Unless another person is totally helpless, the best course is to share experiences and knowledge with others, but to leave the problem solving to them. We should not encourage anyone to become dependent on us, nor should we set ourselves up as godlike individuals who have all the answers. We actually may be showing off instead of helping, and we may also be robbing others of the self-confidence and growth that come from fixing their own problems.
I'll share my experiences and hope today, while refraining from trying to fix people. I don't have answers for everybody, and it's wrong to believe I do.

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Keep It Simple

You're only human, you've suppose to make mistakes.---Billy Joel
Listen to the kind voice inside. Listen to the voice that tells you you're
good enough. Listen to the voice that tells you it's okay to make
mistakes---you'll learn from them. Listen to the voice that tells you to go
to your meeting even though it's cold outside and you're tired. Listen and
let this voice become more and more clear. Listen, and welcome it in your
heart. Talk with the voice.
Ask it questions and seek it out when you need a friend. This voice is your
Higher Power. Listen as your Higher Power speaks to you. Listen as your
Higher Power tells you what a great person you are.
Prayer for the Day: I pray to the gentle, loving voice that lives in me. Higher Power, You've
always been kind to me.
You've always loved me. Help me to remember You're always there---inside me.
Action for the Day: I will take time from my busy day to listen and talk with the loving voice
that lives inside me.

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Each Day a New Beginning

The bottom line is that I am responsible for my own well-being, my own happiness. The choices and decisions I make regarding my life directly influence the quality of my days. --Kathleen Andrus
There is no provision for blaming others in our lives. Who we are is a composite of the actions, attitudes, choices, decisions we've made up to now. For many of us, predicaments may have resulted from our decisions to not act when the opportunity arose. But these were decisions, no less, and we must take responsibility for making them.
We need not feel utterly powerless and helpless about the events of our lives. True, we cannot control others, and we cannot curb the momentum of a situation, but we can choose our own responses to both; these choices will heighten our sense of self and well-being and may well positively influence the quality of the day.
I will accept responsibility for my actions, but not for the outcome of a situation; that is all that's requested of me. It is one of the assignments of life, and homework is forthcoming.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 5 - HOW IT WORKS

What usually happens? The show doesn’t come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?

p. 61

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY - This young alcoholic stepped out a second-story window and into A.A.

After the meeting, people welcomed me with open arms and gave me their telephone numbers. The discussion meeting was followed by a speaker meeting, where I had my first awakening in A.A. The speaker said, "If you're an apple, you can be the best apple you can be, but you can never be an orange." I was an apple all right, and for the first time I understood that I had spent my life trying to be an orange. I looked around at a room filled with apples and, if I was understanding the speaker, most of them were no longer trying to be an orange.
pp. 426-427

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Two - "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

Another crowd of A.A.'s says: "We were plumb disgusted with religion and all its works. The Bible, we said, was full of nonsense; we could cite it chapter and verse, and we couldn't see the Beatitudes for the `begats.' In spots its morality was impossibly good; in others it seemed impossibly bad. But it was the morality of the religionists themselves that really got us down. We gloated over the hypocrisy, bigotry, and crushing self-righteousness that clung to so many `believers' even in their Sunday best. How we loved to shout the damaging fact that millions of the `good men of religion' were still killing one another off in the name of God. This all meant, of course, that we had substituted negative for positive thinking. After we came to A.A., we had to recognize that this trait had been an ego feeding proposition. In belaboring the sins of some religious people, we could feel superior to all of them. Moreover, we could avoid looking at some of our own shortcomings. Self-righteousness, the very thing that we had contemptuously condemned in others, was our own besetting evil. This phony form of respectability was our undoing, so far as faith was concerned. But finally, driven to A.A., we learned better.

p. 30

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Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so
hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.
--Samuel Smiles

It is better to live one day wisely and reflectively than to live a
hundred years in ignorance and indulgence."
--Buddha

Without forgiveness life is governed...by an endless cycle of
resentment and retaliation.
--Robert Assaglioli

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.
--Buddha

Do not fear going forward slowly; fear only to stand still.
--Chinese Proverb

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.
--Mark Twain

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in
your years.
--Abraham Lincoln

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
--Seneca

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

THOUGHT

"Thought makes the whole
dignity of man; therefore
endeavor to think well, that is
the only morality."
-- Blaise Pascal

I think that human beings are very imitative creatures; we imitate
clothes, hair styles, mannerisms and lifestyles. A man's mind will be
influenced by what he listens to and what he reads. And what we think
is very important to sobriety.

Today I make an effort to examine my thinking and check it out with a
sponsor or in a support group. I know that my dignity in sobriety is
connected not only with what I do but also with my attitudes and
thoughts --- when my thinking begins to go crazy, I know I am in a
dangerous place and I need to talk. God created me with the ability to
think, therefore, I need to safeguard the information I put in my mind.

Let me learn to develop morality of mind.

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"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained."
Philippians 3:12-16

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and
admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord."
Colossians 3:16

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Daily Inspiration

Whatever your problem, know that there is a solution. Lord, I trust in You always even to the point of a miracle.

God is always at work in your life. Notice His light on the events of your day. Lord, I sometimes look without really seeing. Help me to pause and notice.

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NA Just For Today

The Shape Of Our Thoughts

"By shaping our thoughts with spiritual ideals, we are freed to become who we want to be."
Basic Text, p.101

Addiction shaped our thoughts in its own way. Whatever their shape may once have been, they became misshapen once our disease took full sway over our lives. Our obsession with drugs and self molded our moods, our actions, and the very shape of our lives.

Each of the spiritual ideals of our program serves to straighten out one or another of the kinks in our thinking that developed in our active addiction. Denial is counteracted by admission, secretiveness by honesty, isolation by fellowship, and despair by faith in a loving Higher Power. The spiritual ideals we find in recovery are restoring the shape of our thoughts and our lives to their natural condition.

And what is that "natural condition"? It is the condition we truly seek for ourselves, a reflection of our highest dreams. How do we know this? Because our thoughts are being shaped in recovery by the spiritual ideals we find in our developing relationship with the God we've come to understand in NA.

No longer does addiction shape our thoughts. Today, our lives are being shaped by our recovery and our Higher Power.

Just for today: I will allow spiritual ideals to shape my thoughts. In that design, I will find the shape of my own Higher Power.
pg. 227

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You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements... --Sir Thomas Browne
One definition of divinity in the dictionary is "supreme excellence." It also means "god-like character" and "divine nature."
Doesn't that describe someone we love? When we are in love with someone, we see only the best of that person--it's impossible to see anything else. That person is "divine," we say, perfect for us, because he or she loves us and is lovable.
Each one of us has a part that is divine. We see it occasionally in others, and they see it in us when they love us. We can draw on that divine part of every person for strength and hope and courage and faith and love. There is wonderful, mysterious beauty in all of us, even when we behave badly.
What divinity do I see in those around me right now?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
The whole problem is to establish communication with one's self. --E. B. White
We are like many faceted gemstones. Each side represents a different aspect of us. We have our emotional sides with different feelings and responses. We have our competencies and strengths, hopes and desires, destructiveness and negativity, self-doubts and resentments. We also possess a drive for power and knowledge, a desire to serve, and a wish to connect with others.
Our spiritual masculinity requires that we know our many sides. We need a working relationship with our thoughts and feelings so they can be appreciated, accepted, and understood. When we tell our story in a meeting, we let others know us, and we get to know ourselves better. When we are spontaneous in what we say or do, we communicate with ourselves. We discover ourselves through meditation, journal writing, playfulness, physical activity, and conversations with others. In that way we become more honest.
Today, I will use my lines of communication with myself and become more self-accepting and more honest.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
The bottom line is that I am responsible for my own well-being, my own happiness. The choices and decisions I make regarding my life directly influence the quality of my days. --Kathleen Andrus
There is no provision for blaming others in our lives. Who we are is a composite of the actions, attitudes, choices, decisions we've made up to now. For many of us, predicaments may have resulted from our decisions to not act when the opportunity arose. But these were decisions, no less, and we must take responsibility for making them.
We need not feel utterly powerless and helpless about the events of our lives. True, we cannot control others, and we cannot curb the momentum of a situation, but we can choose our own responses to both; these choices will heighten our sense of self and well-being and may well positively influence the quality of the day.
I will accept responsibility for my actions, but not for the outcome of a situation; that is all that's requested of me. It is one of the assignments of life, and homework is forthcoming.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Attitudes Toward Money
Sometimes, our life and history may be so full of pain that we think it totally unfair that we have to grow up now and be financially responsible for ourselves.
The feeling is understandable; the attitude is not healthy. Many people in recovery may believe that certain people in particular, and life in general, owes them a living after what they've been through.
To feel good about ourselves, to find the emotional peace and freedom we're seeking in recovery, we need healthy boundaries about money - what we give to others, and what we allow ourselves to receive from others.
Do we feel that others owe us money because we cannot take care of ourselves? Do we believe others owe us because we do not have as much money as they do? Do we consciously or subconsciously believe that they "owe" us money because of emotional pain we suffered as a result of our relationship with them or another person?
Punitive damages are awarded in court, but not in recovery.
Unhealthy boundaries about what we allow ourselves to receive from others will not lead to healthy relationships with others or ourselves.
Test by looking within. The key is our attitude. The issue is boundaries about receiving money. Become willing to meet the challenge of taking responsibility for yourself.
Today, I will strive for clear, healthy boundaries about receiving money from others. As part of my recovery, I will take a hard look at my financial history and examine whether I have taken money that may not reflect good boundaries. If I uncover some incidents that reflect less than an attitude of healthy self-responsibility, I will become willing to make amends and develop a reasonable plan to do that.


In quiet meditation I listen to my own Higher Power. I connect with my personal spirituality in my own time and place. --Ruth Fishel

*****

Fresh and Unfixed
There is Only Now by Madisyn Taylor

Being present lets us experience each moment in our lives in a way that cannot be fully lived through memory or fantasy.

It can be easy for us to walk through the world and our lives without really being present. While dwelling on the past and living for the future are common pastimes, it is physically impossible to live anywhere but the present moment. We cannot step out our front door and take a left turn to May of last year, any more than we can take a right turn to December 2010. Nevertheless, we can easily miss the future we are waiting for as it becomes the now we are too busy to pay attention to. We then spend the rest of our time playing “catch up” to the moment that we just let pass by. During moments like these, it is important to remember that there is only Now.

In order to feel more at home in the present moment, it is important to try to stay aware, open, and receptive. Being in the present moment requires our full attention so that we are fully awake to experience it. When we are fully present, our minds do not wander. We are focused on what is going on right now, rather than thinking about what just happened or worrying about what is going to happen next. Being present lets us experience each moment in our lives in a way that cannot be fully lived through memory or fantasy.

When we begin to corral our attention into the present moment, it can be almost overwhelming to be here. There is a state of stillness that has to happen that can take some getting used to, and the mind chatter that so often gets us into our heads and out of the present moment doesn’t have as much to do. We may feel a lack of control because we aren’t busy planning our next move, assessing our current situation, or anticipating the future. Instead, being present requires that we be flexible, creative, attentive, and spontaneous. Each present moment is completely new, and nothing like it has happened or will ever happen again. As you move through your day, remember to stay present in each moment. In doing so, you will live your life without having to wait for the future or yearn for the past. Life happens to us when we happen to life in the Now. Published with permission from Daily OM

*****

Journey to the Heart
Respect Life

The message came softly, gently, during the sweat lodge ceremony I went to in Sedona. At the end of the evening, the shaman thanked the rocks-- for glowing with heat, bringing their passion to evening, symbolizing passion in our lives. She thanked the wood that created the fire that heated the rocks-- for giving its life so that we could have warmth, so that we could celebrate the event. She thanked the water for cooling our throats. And she thanked God for life, for each of our lives, for our lifetimes on this planet.

Respect life. All of it. The world moves so fast, it's so easy to forget to respect all that lives, all that is. We get so harried, so hurried, we take life for granted. Take time to remember that all life is sacred. All that is part of creation is a creation, and the same life force moves through us all. With all its trials, tests, worries, heartaches, and sometimes heartbreaks, life is a gift.

A few short years on this planet, then we are gone. Do not spend it worrying about all that has gone wrong. You will miss the lesson. You will miss the gift, the gift of life.

Respect life. All of it. Respect and honor your own.

*****

more language of letting go
Stop fighting it

I go to the refrigerator and open the door. The food in it smells bad; the air feels warm. I decide that the power must have gone off for a while and close the door. My friend comes over later that day and opens the refrigerator, to get himself a soda.

"Whew," he says. "There's something wrong with your refrigerator."

"No, the power just went off for a while," I said.

I don't want anything to be wrong with the refrigerator. I'm busy with too many other things. I don't want to take the time to call a repair service, be interrupted when they come to the house, then be interrupted again and again, as they come back to fix it.

Later that night, I open the refrigerator again, I look for a moment, then slam the door shut. Dang, it is broken, I think. I take all the frustration about the inconvenience and use the energy to surrender to the problem, then get it fixed.

There's a difference between fighting with a problem and pushing against the resistance it offers in our lives. When we fight with the alcoholic to sober up, we're fighting with the problem. When we get hurt and angry enough to push against it, we use that frustration to motivate us to surrender, then go to an Al-Anon meeting, or a therapist, and begin to learn how to detach and take care of ourselves. Life gets better. Instead of fighting with the problem, we're pushing against it, and using the resistance to move down our path.

Are you fighting with a problem in your life right now, instead of using the resistance it offers as a challenge to grow? Instead of depleting your energy fighting with that problem, surrender. Then use the frustration and upset as motivation to assert yourself and take positive action.

God, thank you for the resistance in my life. Help me stop fighting with it and to use that energy to truly solve the problem.

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One More Day

My handicap is part of me because I have had to make peace with it. And in doing so, I’ve made peace with the less obvious handicaps of other people, like resentment, prejudice, hate.
– Ginger Hutton

Living with an illness — whether our own or a loved one’s — has taught us that handicaps are not always physical. We begin to understand fear is handicapping, prejudice is handicapping, inaccessibility to the community is handicapping.

More and more we are able to make peace with our own limitations and those of others, and as we do this we gain insight into which of them we have to accept and which we don’t. We recognize there are some limitations we can do something about and others we must accept for the sake of our serenity.

The more tolerant I am, the less limited I become.

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A Day at a Time

Reflection for the Day
Among the important things we learn in The Program is to be good to ourselves. For so many of us, though, this is a surprisingly difficult thing to do. Some of us relish our suffering so much that we balloon each happening to enormous proportions in the reliving and telling. Self-pitiers are drawn to martyrdom as if by a powerful magnet – until the joys of serenity and contentment come to them through The Program and Twelve Steps.
Am I gradually learning to be good to myself?
Today I Pray
May I learn to forgive myself. I have asked – and received – forgiveness from God and from others, so why is it so hard to forgive myself? Why do I still magnify my suffering? Why do I go on licking my emotional wounds? May I follow God’s forgiving example, get on with The Program and learn to be good to myself.
Today I Will Remember
Martyrdom; martyr dumb.

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Food For Thought

Future Phobia

Irrational worry about the future may have triggered eating binges before we found the OA program. Learning to live one day at a time is a necessary part of controlling our disease. Our instinct for security must not be allowed to run riot any more than the other instincts we are learning to control.

Trusting our Higher Power today ensures that we will trust Him tomorrow also. We do not know what the future holds for us, but we are assured of God’s continuing care and support. To entertain irrational worries about what might or might not happen is to doubt the Power, which is restoring us to sanity. When we take Step Three without reservations, we give up our crippling anxieties.

We do not expect that life will be a rose garden in the future, any more than it is right now. There are problems and disappointments and pains to deal with. What we do expect is the strength to cope with whatever our Higher Power gives us, realizing that the difficult experiences are often the ones from which we learn the most.

May faith in You blot out fear.

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One Day At A Time

PAIN
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit
must break, that its heart may stand in the sun,
so must you know pain."
Kahlil Gibran

There was much to be unhappy about in my childhood. There was also a lot of unhappiness in my adult life. Until I found The Recovery Group online, that unhappiness was the driving force in my life. That force robbed me of the ability to see and enjoy the many wonderful things that I had experienced. I wore a cloak of sadness, bitterness and resentment ~ I had been short-changed. It was the old glass-half-empty, glass-half-full story....poor me.

Being able to share the pain and unhappiness I have known has freed me from the power it had over me. Clearing away the wreckage is enabling me to see my part in some of the unhappiness I've known. It has enabled me to see more clearly that there is so much for which I can be grateful. It has enabled me to see that I truly AM the person of value which I had represented myself to be towards others. I am integrating that person into the "unacceptable" being I carried within. I have seen others here endure challenge, pain and hardships with so much grace. I have learned that pain is, indeed, inevitable. I have the choice whether to dwell on the pain morbidly, or to instead focus on the joy of this day.

One day at a time...
I will live in the joy of this day and I will strive to share this wonderful gift of self-acceptance to others in program.
~ Karen A.

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to effect a contact with Him. As soon as we admitted the possible existence of a Creative Intelligence, a Spirit of the Universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction, provided we took other simple steps. We found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the Realm of Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men. - Pg. 46 - We Agnostics

Hour To Hour - Book - Quote

Occasionally we get a glimpse of how others have truly seen us. It is a dreadful experience and if it weren't for the loving attitude of our fellowship, we sometimes could not bear it. But the growth process is worth the pain as we slowly transform into the people we have always pretended to be.

Thank You, for the love of the fellowship to see me through my painful growth forward.

Always Here

Today I recover the spirit that has always been there, vibrating just beneath the surface of my being, the membrane of my life. I am whole and in tact. I call to that part of me that has been waiting patiently for me to come to my senses and claim it. That part of me that is eternal, that never dies. Spirit has been with me even in my darkest hours. I turn and look, I quiet my mind and see, I rest in awareness and experience. Spirit has never been far, but I have been asleep. Today I wake up to spirit.

I am alive to life

- Tian Dayton PhD

Pocket Sponsor - Book - Quote

When egos collide, use kind words, do what you have control over, and do what you think is right. Surrender what you don't have control over, even if you think what others are doing is wrong. Others have the right to be wrong.

I define myself by what I do and how I do it, not by who wins.

"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

Sober and Serving.

Time for Joy - Book - Quote

In quiet meditation I listen to my own Higher Power. I connect with my personal spirituality in my own time and place.

Alkiespeak - Book - Quote

If I share my pain and shame I cut in half. If I don't, I double it. - Anon.
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