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09-25-2008, 03:31 PM
Wisdom for Today
When I was using, I thought I was happy; but the truth was that I was not happy. A huge piece of this unhappiness was being cut off from others, particularly the people I loved. My addiction to alcohol and drugs formed a wall between me and the people I loved the most. My wife, my kids, my parents, my siblings -- all were held at a distance. I could have no real companionship or intimacy with the people I loved. It didn’t matter how much or how often I tried to show them love, I just could not get close. My dishonesty, my guilt and the shame I carried around all formed bricks in a wall that did not allow me to be close. The result was terminal loneliness. I could not be in a real relationship with others or even myself as long as I maintained a relationship with the bottle or my drugs.
All this began to change when I entered the fellowship of the Twelve Step program. I began to feel a sense of belonging. I could risk honesty in my communication with others and found that I was accepted. This made it possible to begin being honest with the people I loved. There are still times that I want to run and hide in relationships with others. But it has gotten easier. There are still times I also want to avoid dealing with painful issues in my relationships with others. But the program and my friends in the fellowship give me the courage to face the pain and deal with reality. One thing I do know is that I no longer have to be lonely. Am I risking openness and honesty with the people with whom I need to be?
Meditations for the Heart
Sometimes it is important for me to go off to a quiet place and be in relationship with my Higher Power. God as I understand Him is a friend that cares for me no matter what. I have unconditional acceptance. I don’t need to pretend, cover up or hide my brokenness. I am accepted for who I am. This does not mean I am not encouraged to change the things I can, quite the contrary. I go to the quiet place to find restoration, guidance and power. In relationship with God I find what I need for the day. I do not get what I need for a week or a month, but what I need for the day; and it is enough. In addiction I always wanted more; in recovery what I need is enough. This is one of the gifts of the program. I can rest assured that I will have enough courage, enough strength and enough wisdom for each day. Am I satisfied with enough, or am I still looking for more?
Petitions to my Higher Power
God,
Today I know You will walk with me and support me in all that I do. No problem will be too big, as I know in my heart I will have enough of whatever I need to deal with the problems I face. Continue to encourage me to be open and honest in my relationships with others. Help me to build bridges and not walls.
Amen.
-----
NA Just For Today
Seeing Ourselves In Others
"It will not make us better people to judge the faults of another."
Basic Text, p.37
How easy it is to point out the faults of others! There's a reason for this: The defects we identify most easily in others are often the defects we are most familiar with in our own characters. We may notice our best friend's tendency to spend too much money, but if we examine our own spending habits we'll probably find the same compulsiveness. We may decide our sponsor is much too involved in service, but find that we haven't spent a single weekend with our families in the past three months because of one service commitment or another.
What we dislike in our fellows are often those things we dislike most in ourselves. We can turn this observation to our spiritual advantage. When we are stricken with the impulse to judge someone else, we can redirect the impulse in such a way as to recognize our own defects more clearly. What we see will guide our actions toward recovery and help us become emotionally healthy and happy individuals.
Just for today: I will look beyond the character defects of others and recognize my own.
pg. 280
-----
September 26 - Daily Feast
Walk with me to the edge of the woods and hear the birds. They haven't all gone south, some stay the winter. The cardinal will later perch in the evergreens and make snow seem whiter - but now he sings in the bottom land that is protected from the wind. See the last of summer's flowers, the sunflower that is a great deal bigger than the palm of your hand. And watch the lone jet draw lines from one horizon almost to the other before the wind scatters his lines. Even when the season seems to be taking away all that the land has produced - remember the potential is still there, and so is yours.
~ We gave you our hearts. You now have them. ~
SATANK - KIOWA
'A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II' by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
Elder's Meditation of the Day - September 26
"No one likes to be criticized, but criticism can be something like the desert wind that, in whipping the tender stalks, forces them to strike their roots down deeper for security."
--Polingaysi Qoyawayma, HOPI
You move toward and become that which you think about. Creating a vision is what guides our lives. If we get off track with our vision, then we experience conflict. Conflict is nature's way of telling us we are not in harmony. Criticism can be a way for one human being to help another. Often our Elders will give us criticism. This feedback is intended to be helpful. Criticism from our Elders helps us grow strong.
Great Spirit, today, if I need it, please provide me positive criticism.
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
"THINK on THESE THINGS"
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
So much has been written about happiness - the way to it, the reasons for it, the symbols of it - and still people search for that very special something that will assure happiness forever after. Of all the recipes for lasting happiness, we finally have to mix our own. But the one thing everyone has in common is the need for a little bit more. We have this and this, for which we are very thankful, but always the need is extended to that little bit more.
Happiness is like any other part of our lives, we must use wisdom in seeking it. We too often rush headlong into something that seems to be instant happiness, all the time telling ourselves we can right the wrong at a later time. But happiness doesn't remain happiness for very long when it has such strings attached.
In order to be rightly happy we concentrate on getting, but it is giving that we find most necessary to mix into every recipe. To some happiness will always be elusive, never quite settling anywhere, never quite revealing itself, for they have yet to learn that happiness has the wings of angels, the breath of God, and the love of man, all hidden within Him.
-----
Daily Relationship Reading
Do I ever feel overwhelmed by some of the struggles that come my way in my current relationship? Maybe my SO is excessively drinking, gambling, or working, or has a drug problem. Perhaps I struggle over sex, money, privacy, goals, time together, time apart, freedom, and so on.
I usually try to find solutions to such problems alone - if I simply pay enough attention to it, work hard enough at it, think enough about it, I'll find a solution. Often though, all I end up with is more frustration and despair.
When I have a broken leg, do I try to diagnose it myself, and make my own cast? No! I recognize that I simply don't know enough about the problem, or how to treat it properly, so I find someone who can help - a doctor. Yet, in trying to fix our relationship problems, I somehow feel as if I should know enough to be able to fix them myself.
The truth is that I wasn't born with the information I need to handle relationships, nor was I ever taught enough growing up. When I recognize this, I can begin to see that reaching out to a support group, or a therapist is a way for me to expand my knowledge.
Just for Today
When problems seem to overwhelm me, I'll admit that there's still a lot I have to learn about relationships.
Today I'll search out whatever support groups or counselling services are available to me, and treat them as important tools to help me gain new experience and understanding.
The healthy, the strong individual, is the one who asks for help when he needs it. Whether he has an abscess on his knee or in his soul. - Rona Barrett
-----
You are reading from the book Food for Thought.
Character Defects
Beginning the OA program, we are inclined to feel that our problems and difficulties are largely due to circumstances and other people. The enemy seems to be outside. The more we work the Steps, the more we realize that our troubles are within, rather than without. Furthermore, we learn that the only person we can change is our self.
We see that the root of our difficulty lies in being centered on self instead of centered in our Higher Power. Our egos can take us only so far before we reach a point where continued growth demands that we begin to abandon them. What a relief to get rid of the anxiety, frustration, and fear that goes with an ego-centered life!
Our Higher Power removes our character defects as we become willing to let go of them. Honest awareness is our first task, and this is facilitated by maintaining abstinence from compulsive overeating. Abstinence gives us the honesty and the energy to change. As we change, circumstances and relationships improve.
I ask that You remove my character defects according to Your will.
-----
You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
There is no hope of joy except in human relations. --Antoine de Saint Exupery
It is hard to imagine being really joyful and excited without our family and friends. We can imagine a birthday party with no one but us attending. Even if we got many gifts, we would feel empty if there were no one around to share our excitement with.
Our joy comes from each other. Even the hard times furnish us with wonderful memories for later in life. We share the good and the bad, and the rewards of both. When our lives together seem too difficult, when it's too hard to share, too crowded to think, when there are too many disagreements, we can find comfort by looking at one another once again and seeing all the ways we are truly alike, and what we share every moment that we sometimes take for granted--our food, our thoughts, the very air we breathe.
What are the things we share right now?
You are reading from the book Touchstones.
To try to extinguish the drive for riches with money is like trying to quench afire by pouring butterfat over it. --Hindu proverb
In recovery, we learn what we truly want and what is only a symbol of our desires. Do we truly want to use our energies pursuing success, or are we seeking approval from others? Do we truly want money so much, or are we attempting to escape the basically insecure nature of life? Do we truly enjoy the pleasure of food so much, or are we in search of comfort for our emotions?
Our desires, our wants, and our anxieties are spiritual issues. What at first we think we want may only hide deeper, more vulnerable, and painful feelings. When we admit the deeper fears and desires, we move closer to the spiritual truths of our lives. We can search for acceptance within ourselves and from God. We can learn to have spiritual peace in an insecure world. We can learn to accept the love of others even though we know we're not perfect.
Today, I will ask myself what I want and listen with courage to my answer. It will lead me in my spiritual progress.
You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
Why is life so tragic, so like a little strip of pavement over an abyss? I look down; I feel giddy; I wonder how I am ever to walk to the end. --Virginia Woolf
As we look toward the hours ahead, we can be thankful that we need be concerned with only a single day's worth of hours. No more. What may come tomorrow, a decision that might be necessary next week, a big change in our lives coming next year, all will be handled with ease, when the time is right.
How fortunate we are, those of us who share this program for living! Our worries about the future are over, if we want them to be. We need to take only one step at a time. One day at a time. And always in the care of God. Relief from our lives of worry is immediate when we live the axiom, "Let go and let God."
Life does present us with tragedies, and we learn from them. They need not detour us, however. In fact, they strengthen us and encourage personal growth. And no experience will ever be more than we and our higher power can handle.
I will turn to the program and everything it offers today. Just today, and no more, is my concern.
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Feeling Protected
Our task is not a naive one of feeling safe, of living and loving in a utopian world. One woman commented that our task is making ourselves feel safe while learning to live and love in a world that is unsafe.
We do not want to dwell on the dangers, for that gives power to the negative. Neither do we want to ignore them or pretend they don't exist.
If we were going to sunbathe, we would not be naive about the dangers from the sun. We know that harmful rays can burn. We would take steps to protect ourselves, so that we could enjoy the benefits of the sun.
That is our task in recovery.
This is what a woman, a helping professional, told me:
Picture a sunscreen surrounding you. Place it around yourself - not too heavy and thick so no light can penetrate, and not so thin that you are exposed to danger.
See yourself protected by a sunscreen that is effective. Make certain that the screen is open to the good. For a while, your screen was too heavy. It held back what you wanted. Now change it to let the good come through.
This is your screen for life and the world. See it. Imagine it surrounding you always. It wraps you in love, in comfort, in protection. No harm can enter. No negative energy can penetrate the screen.
Go in peace; go in safety;, now, know you are protected. Go anywhere you need to go. The evil has been blocked; the goodwill comes pouring forth. You do not have to work so hard at protecting yourself. You can relax and enjoy life trusting that you are safe. Go without fear, for you are wrapped in love and protection. And you shall always be.
Today, I will envision myself wrapped in a shield that blocks the negative and harmful rays of the world, but it is constructed so that the good can enter.
Today I have the courage I need to take the step forward in my life that I have been putting off. I can manage one step at a time, one change at a time, with ease and confidence. --Ruth Fishel
God help me to stay sober and clean today!
When I was using, I thought I was happy; but the truth was that I was not happy. A huge piece of this unhappiness was being cut off from others, particularly the people I loved. My addiction to alcohol and drugs formed a wall between me and the people I loved the most. My wife, my kids, my parents, my siblings -- all were held at a distance. I could have no real companionship or intimacy with the people I loved. It didn’t matter how much or how often I tried to show them love, I just could not get close. My dishonesty, my guilt and the shame I carried around all formed bricks in a wall that did not allow me to be close. The result was terminal loneliness. I could not be in a real relationship with others or even myself as long as I maintained a relationship with the bottle or my drugs.
All this began to change when I entered the fellowship of the Twelve Step program. I began to feel a sense of belonging. I could risk honesty in my communication with others and found that I was accepted. This made it possible to begin being honest with the people I loved. There are still times that I want to run and hide in relationships with others. But it has gotten easier. There are still times I also want to avoid dealing with painful issues in my relationships with others. But the program and my friends in the fellowship give me the courage to face the pain and deal with reality. One thing I do know is that I no longer have to be lonely. Am I risking openness and honesty with the people with whom I need to be?
Meditations for the Heart
Sometimes it is important for me to go off to a quiet place and be in relationship with my Higher Power. God as I understand Him is a friend that cares for me no matter what. I have unconditional acceptance. I don’t need to pretend, cover up or hide my brokenness. I am accepted for who I am. This does not mean I am not encouraged to change the things I can, quite the contrary. I go to the quiet place to find restoration, guidance and power. In relationship with God I find what I need for the day. I do not get what I need for a week or a month, but what I need for the day; and it is enough. In addiction I always wanted more; in recovery what I need is enough. This is one of the gifts of the program. I can rest assured that I will have enough courage, enough strength and enough wisdom for each day. Am I satisfied with enough, or am I still looking for more?
Petitions to my Higher Power
God,
Today I know You will walk with me and support me in all that I do. No problem will be too big, as I know in my heart I will have enough of whatever I need to deal with the problems I face. Continue to encourage me to be open and honest in my relationships with others. Help me to build bridges and not walls.
Amen.
-----
NA Just For Today
Seeing Ourselves In Others
"It will not make us better people to judge the faults of another."
Basic Text, p.37
How easy it is to point out the faults of others! There's a reason for this: The defects we identify most easily in others are often the defects we are most familiar with in our own characters. We may notice our best friend's tendency to spend too much money, but if we examine our own spending habits we'll probably find the same compulsiveness. We may decide our sponsor is much too involved in service, but find that we haven't spent a single weekend with our families in the past three months because of one service commitment or another.
What we dislike in our fellows are often those things we dislike most in ourselves. We can turn this observation to our spiritual advantage. When we are stricken with the impulse to judge someone else, we can redirect the impulse in such a way as to recognize our own defects more clearly. What we see will guide our actions toward recovery and help us become emotionally healthy and happy individuals.
Just for today: I will look beyond the character defects of others and recognize my own.
pg. 280
-----
September 26 - Daily Feast
Walk with me to the edge of the woods and hear the birds. They haven't all gone south, some stay the winter. The cardinal will later perch in the evergreens and make snow seem whiter - but now he sings in the bottom land that is protected from the wind. See the last of summer's flowers, the sunflower that is a great deal bigger than the palm of your hand. And watch the lone jet draw lines from one horizon almost to the other before the wind scatters his lines. Even when the season seems to be taking away all that the land has produced - remember the potential is still there, and so is yours.
~ We gave you our hearts. You now have them. ~
SATANK - KIOWA
'A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II' by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
Elder's Meditation of the Day - September 26
"No one likes to be criticized, but criticism can be something like the desert wind that, in whipping the tender stalks, forces them to strike their roots down deeper for security."
--Polingaysi Qoyawayma, HOPI
You move toward and become that which you think about. Creating a vision is what guides our lives. If we get off track with our vision, then we experience conflict. Conflict is nature's way of telling us we are not in harmony. Criticism can be a way for one human being to help another. Often our Elders will give us criticism. This feedback is intended to be helpful. Criticism from our Elders helps us grow strong.
Great Spirit, today, if I need it, please provide me positive criticism.
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
"THINK on THESE THINGS"
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
So much has been written about happiness - the way to it, the reasons for it, the symbols of it - and still people search for that very special something that will assure happiness forever after. Of all the recipes for lasting happiness, we finally have to mix our own. But the one thing everyone has in common is the need for a little bit more. We have this and this, for which we are very thankful, but always the need is extended to that little bit more.
Happiness is like any other part of our lives, we must use wisdom in seeking it. We too often rush headlong into something that seems to be instant happiness, all the time telling ourselves we can right the wrong at a later time. But happiness doesn't remain happiness for very long when it has such strings attached.
In order to be rightly happy we concentrate on getting, but it is giving that we find most necessary to mix into every recipe. To some happiness will always be elusive, never quite settling anywhere, never quite revealing itself, for they have yet to learn that happiness has the wings of angels, the breath of God, and the love of man, all hidden within Him.
-----
Daily Relationship Reading
Do I ever feel overwhelmed by some of the struggles that come my way in my current relationship? Maybe my SO is excessively drinking, gambling, or working, or has a drug problem. Perhaps I struggle over sex, money, privacy, goals, time together, time apart, freedom, and so on.
I usually try to find solutions to such problems alone - if I simply pay enough attention to it, work hard enough at it, think enough about it, I'll find a solution. Often though, all I end up with is more frustration and despair.
When I have a broken leg, do I try to diagnose it myself, and make my own cast? No! I recognize that I simply don't know enough about the problem, or how to treat it properly, so I find someone who can help - a doctor. Yet, in trying to fix our relationship problems, I somehow feel as if I should know enough to be able to fix them myself.
The truth is that I wasn't born with the information I need to handle relationships, nor was I ever taught enough growing up. When I recognize this, I can begin to see that reaching out to a support group, or a therapist is a way for me to expand my knowledge.
Just for Today
When problems seem to overwhelm me, I'll admit that there's still a lot I have to learn about relationships.
Today I'll search out whatever support groups or counselling services are available to me, and treat them as important tools to help me gain new experience and understanding.
The healthy, the strong individual, is the one who asks for help when he needs it. Whether he has an abscess on his knee or in his soul. - Rona Barrett
-----
You are reading from the book Food for Thought.
Character Defects
Beginning the OA program, we are inclined to feel that our problems and difficulties are largely due to circumstances and other people. The enemy seems to be outside. The more we work the Steps, the more we realize that our troubles are within, rather than without. Furthermore, we learn that the only person we can change is our self.
We see that the root of our difficulty lies in being centered on self instead of centered in our Higher Power. Our egos can take us only so far before we reach a point where continued growth demands that we begin to abandon them. What a relief to get rid of the anxiety, frustration, and fear that goes with an ego-centered life!
Our Higher Power removes our character defects as we become willing to let go of them. Honest awareness is our first task, and this is facilitated by maintaining abstinence from compulsive overeating. Abstinence gives us the honesty and the energy to change. As we change, circumstances and relationships improve.
I ask that You remove my character defects according to Your will.
-----
You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
There is no hope of joy except in human relations. --Antoine de Saint Exupery
It is hard to imagine being really joyful and excited without our family and friends. We can imagine a birthday party with no one but us attending. Even if we got many gifts, we would feel empty if there were no one around to share our excitement with.
Our joy comes from each other. Even the hard times furnish us with wonderful memories for later in life. We share the good and the bad, and the rewards of both. When our lives together seem too difficult, when it's too hard to share, too crowded to think, when there are too many disagreements, we can find comfort by looking at one another once again and seeing all the ways we are truly alike, and what we share every moment that we sometimes take for granted--our food, our thoughts, the very air we breathe.
What are the things we share right now?
You are reading from the book Touchstones.
To try to extinguish the drive for riches with money is like trying to quench afire by pouring butterfat over it. --Hindu proverb
In recovery, we learn what we truly want and what is only a symbol of our desires. Do we truly want to use our energies pursuing success, or are we seeking approval from others? Do we truly want money so much, or are we attempting to escape the basically insecure nature of life? Do we truly enjoy the pleasure of food so much, or are we in search of comfort for our emotions?
Our desires, our wants, and our anxieties are spiritual issues. What at first we think we want may only hide deeper, more vulnerable, and painful feelings. When we admit the deeper fears and desires, we move closer to the spiritual truths of our lives. We can search for acceptance within ourselves and from God. We can learn to have spiritual peace in an insecure world. We can learn to accept the love of others even though we know we're not perfect.
Today, I will ask myself what I want and listen with courage to my answer. It will lead me in my spiritual progress.
You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
Why is life so tragic, so like a little strip of pavement over an abyss? I look down; I feel giddy; I wonder how I am ever to walk to the end. --Virginia Woolf
As we look toward the hours ahead, we can be thankful that we need be concerned with only a single day's worth of hours. No more. What may come tomorrow, a decision that might be necessary next week, a big change in our lives coming next year, all will be handled with ease, when the time is right.
How fortunate we are, those of us who share this program for living! Our worries about the future are over, if we want them to be. We need to take only one step at a time. One day at a time. And always in the care of God. Relief from our lives of worry is immediate when we live the axiom, "Let go and let God."
Life does present us with tragedies, and we learn from them. They need not detour us, however. In fact, they strengthen us and encourage personal growth. And no experience will ever be more than we and our higher power can handle.
I will turn to the program and everything it offers today. Just today, and no more, is my concern.
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Feeling Protected
Our task is not a naive one of feeling safe, of living and loving in a utopian world. One woman commented that our task is making ourselves feel safe while learning to live and love in a world that is unsafe.
We do not want to dwell on the dangers, for that gives power to the negative. Neither do we want to ignore them or pretend they don't exist.
If we were going to sunbathe, we would not be naive about the dangers from the sun. We know that harmful rays can burn. We would take steps to protect ourselves, so that we could enjoy the benefits of the sun.
That is our task in recovery.
This is what a woman, a helping professional, told me:
Picture a sunscreen surrounding you. Place it around yourself - not too heavy and thick so no light can penetrate, and not so thin that you are exposed to danger.
See yourself protected by a sunscreen that is effective. Make certain that the screen is open to the good. For a while, your screen was too heavy. It held back what you wanted. Now change it to let the good come through.
This is your screen for life and the world. See it. Imagine it surrounding you always. It wraps you in love, in comfort, in protection. No harm can enter. No negative energy can penetrate the screen.
Go in peace; go in safety;, now, know you are protected. Go anywhere you need to go. The evil has been blocked; the goodwill comes pouring forth. You do not have to work so hard at protecting yourself. You can relax and enjoy life trusting that you are safe. Go without fear, for you are wrapped in love and protection. And you shall always be.
Today, I will envision myself wrapped in a shield that blocks the negative and harmful rays of the world, but it is constructed so that the good can enter.
Today I have the courage I need to take the step forward in my life that I have been putting off. I can manage one step at a time, one change at a time, with ease and confidence. --Ruth Fishel
God help me to stay sober and clean today!