Daily Slogan/Saying

Your best is ALWAYS good enough. After you have truly done your best, release your attachment to the outcome. - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Daily Reflection

Amends
​The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.
John Green, Looking for Alaska

I have had a lot of anger towards loved ones in the past. I remember that I used to write down the resentments against them when I took my inventory. I was so upset from the harms that I perceived had been committed against me – even if they were decades old. I had heard in the meeting rooms that forgiveness is key to finding peace. And I kept telling myself to forgive these people. I would even chant it to myself or act as if I had forgiven them. Nothing helped. My resentments remained and I felt frustrated.

Eventually, I got to the 8th Step in my Stepwork with my Sponsor. To do the 8th Step, I had to make a list of all persons I had harmed and become willing to make amends to them all. I listed everyone on my resentment list and listed my anger and judgment against them to be reasons for my amends. Thankfully, I had a wonderful Sponsor that asked me where my amends to myself was on the list. I realized I had no amends to myself – not really. I had hastily scribbled my name on the last page in the margin. My Sponsor reminded me that I was not really honoring and respecting myself by ignoring my self-amends. I took her suggestion and sat and wrote a proper amends to myself. In the amends, I apologized for not standing up for myself in the past. I apologized for lying about my feelings to myself and others. I apologized for ignoring my own needs. I apologized for giving up my power to other people. And then I cried because I had just been given an amends by the one person with whom I actually angry, myself.

As I cried, the pain left me and the suffering left me and my wounds started to close. Since then, every day that I am honest about my feelings, every time I honor my needs, and every time I stand up for myself, the wounds close a little more and open up more space for gratitude and love and even more forgiveness. And as I heal and forgive myself, forgiveness for others comes so easily. I think this is because my reality exists within me and I project that reality onto the world around me. Now that my reality is that I am responsible for loving myself, I am able to stop seeking external validation and resenting people when I do not receive it.

Today, my Higher Power blessed me with happiness and peace as well as pain and fear. All four blessings are always present for me; some offer comfort and some offer opportunity. When I can see all of these as equal, one not better than another, I can stop feeling like a victim and be accepting, grateful, and forgiving.

Daily sharing from the Forum

What Prayer Means To Me:
How I Find Strength In Humility

I can hardly believe I’m writing this but I just realized why prayer is such a powerful tool in Al-Anon recovery. It’s not because I get my way when I pray or that I’m handed the answers to my wishes and desires.

Rather, prayer is a way of letting go of the worry, the fretting, and the obsessing about a person, a problem, or a situation. Prayer releases the questions and unsolved problems and allows answers to come. For me, it’s the beginning of willingness to let go of control.

I also realize that this is why I say the Serenity Prayer. When I pray, I feel a mental-and physical-shift in consciousness from ego to humility. Prayer becomes my admission of powerlessness and that’s okay; it’s actually more than okay, it’s wonderful-it’s freeing!

So when I pray for a loved one, friend, or relative, I am saying, “I know there is nothing I can do to change you or your situation, but God can, and I care about you so I will be open to the loving force in the universe to be of service in any way I can.” Because I am praying, I am letting go of the outcome and trusting that it will all work out the way it is meant to. Linda A. Oregon November 2010