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10-02-2008, 03:58 PM
Wisdom for Today
Each day I face new choices. Some of these choices are easy, and others are more difficult. I used to do a simple cost-benefit analysis to make my decisions. For the most part this worked fine. I simply needed to determine what a particular choice would cost me physically, emotionally, financially or socially. Next I would figure what the benefits would be and then do that which made more sense. I began to realize that this process did not always accomplish what I wanted it to achieve. Even when I thought the choices I made were good, I found out that they did not produce the desired results. Something was missing.
Too often I was leaving my Higher Power out of the equation. I was not evaluating the choices I faced in light of my values. When I started to make a conscious effort to include my values and the will of my Higher Power in my decision-making, then I found that I was at peace. I could live with my decisions and know that I had done what was best for me in each situation. I’m not saying this made choice making any easier, but it did make the choices clear. Do I pray for “knowledge of His will” and the power to carry that out?
Meditations for the Heart
Learning to accept the struggles in life and realizing that God will walk with me in every struggle has made my life better. It is a matter of faith and reliance on my Higher Power. Trusting God to be there for me has not always been easy, nor has it always resulted in the outcome I would expect. Frequently I am surprised by the fact that the outcome was not at all what I had hoped for, but I have clear evidence that God gave me the strength and courage to deal with the struggle. I have found that often times I gain strength by simply admitting I am weak and need help. I guess that is why my sponsor kept telling me to, “turn it over.” Am I learning to “practice these principles in all my affairs?”
Petitions to my Higher Power
God,
Each day brings new challenges and new triumphs. Help me to admit when I need help and to turn to those people that You lead me to for help. Give me a humble heart and mind, so that I may be grateful for the small and large triumphs I experience in my day. When I face new choices in life, let me turn to You first for help in making my decisions.
Amen.
-----
NA Just For Today
Losing Self-Will
"Our egos, once so large and dominant, now take a back seat because we are in harmony with a loving God. We find that we lead richer, happier, and much fuller lives when we lose self-will."
Basic Text p.101
Addiction and self-will go hand in hand. The unmanageability that we admitted to in Step One was as much a product of our self-will as it was of our chronic drug abuse. And today, living on self-will can make our lives just as unmanageable as they were when we were using. When our ideas, our desires, our demands take first place in our lives, we find ourselves in constant conflict with everyone and everything around us.
Self-will reflects our reliance on ego. The only thing that will free us from self-will and the conflict it generates in our lives is to break our reliance on ego, coming to rely instead on the guidance and power offered us by a loving God.
We are taught to consult spiritual principles, not our selfish desires, in making our decisions. We are taught to seek guidance from a Higher Power, one with a larger vision of things than our own. In doing this, we find our lives meshing more and more easily with the order of things around us. No longer do we exclude ourselves from the flow of life; we become a part of it, and discover the fullness of what recovery has to offer.
Just for today: I seek freedom from ego and the conflicts generated by self-will. I will try to improve my conscious contact with the God of my understanding, seeking the guidance and power I need to live in harmony with my world.
pg. 289
-----
October 3 - Daily Feast
The first crystal clear morning after days of blue mist is like music after a long silence. Even the cool air does not dampen the spirits of domestic animals and those that live in the woods. A young bobcat in prime coat wanders along the rock ledges in full view but unaware of interested eyes. No doubt he hunts for field mice and that explains why the barn cats have stayed so close to home. We have not felt the extremes of oncoming winter, but time will insure it. Meantime, adjust, adjust. Don't be taken by surprise. Prepare for change and the unexpected within change.
~ Our people possessed remarkable powers of concentration.....and I sometimes fancy that such nearness to nature.....keeps [us] in touch with unseen powers. ~
CHARLES EASTMAN, PHYSICIAN - SANTEE DAKOTA
'A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II' by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
Elder's Meditation of the Day - October 3
"Spiritual Values are an Attitude."
--Leonard George, Chief Councilor
Attitude is a direction which we follow. If you have a positive attitude, it means you will lean towards a positive direction. If you have a negative attitude, it means you will lean away from the Spirit. Therefore, if we lean toward spiritual values, then our actions will become significant and important. If we lean away from spiritual values, our actions will become insignificant or unimportant. For example, if we value love, we will lean towards it; we will prefer to express and embrace it.
Great Spirit, teach me the significance of spiritual values.
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
"THINK on THESE THINGS"
by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Courage must have its everyday face. We can't preserve it just for special occasions. We must have courage when we are disappointed, because disappointment is a robber of reason and faith, and even dignity. We must remember that whatever we have to meet there is something within us to help us meet it. But it is like a vein of rich ore. We must tap it, know what it is, and turn it into a finished product that will serve a purpose.
Every day we must have courage to forgive. The adamant we shall always face, but to forgive is to disarm. To forgive is to release and to release is to remove the graceless things that make it necessary to forgive.
A little common, everyday courage can give a life so much more to live for and to find contentment in the knowledge that today I did not give in to the smaller self. And I can draw on the strength from One who bore personal suffering with supreme courage.
A comforting adage is that it is always darkest just before the dawn. The darkness of fear and worry and misunderstanding can last only so long, and then the light of dawn breaks through to show everything in its true perspective.
To someone who is troubled, the darkness holds only the most frightening difficulties. This kind of night seems to have no end, but given a little time it will pass, as will our problems.
The very fact that we are not alone should give some comfort, for no matter what we are experiencing someone else has been there too. We must not delude ourselves with notions that we are meant to be cross-bearers forever.
And frequently, they are much better people who emerge from their own night to remember that it is as important to have faith in the dark as it is easy to have faith in the sunshine.
-----
Daily Relationship Reading
Have I been in more than one serious relationship in my life? If so, I've likely said to myself "well, I won't make that mistake again". Maybe I got involved with someone who had a temper, was possessive, had a drinking problem, or something else that led to the end of the relationship. I'm shocked then, when suddenly I find myself in a new relationship, dealing with many of the problems I swore I'd never put up with again, or new problems that bring up the same old feelings in me.
If the FAA treated airplane crashes the same way many of us treat relationships, they would probably say in their reports "don't fly on that airplane again". It's only when they take the time to truly understand why the accident happened, that they can dramatically reduce the odds of a similar disaster.
Each relationship, bad or good, has much to teach me about myself. When I take the time I need to truly learn from my relationships, I'll find they give me valuable insights. As I learn to take the gifts of experience those struggles give me, I'll also find my own attitude improving as I uncover things I'm doing that contribute to my problems.
Just for Today
Today I'll start looking at some small problems in my current relationship, and see what they can teach me about me. In gaining from those new insights, I give myself the best chance I can of learning even more from bigger problems, and building a more rewarding relationship.
One thing about the school of experience is that it will repeat the lesson if you flunk the first time. - Anonymous
-----
You are reading from the book Food for Thought
Being Committed
Success comes with commitment. We cannot maintain abstinence, or a marriage, or a profession, or anything else without being committed to it. Genuine commitment is the attitude required of us if we are to benefit from OA. The program is not something we pick up and put down when we feel like it. If abstinence is not the most important thing in our lives, we will not be able to maintain it.
Sharing our commitment out loud, with another person, reinforces it. We need to stay in contact with our OA friends. It is during the busy times that we especially need to remember our priorities. A phone call plugs us in to the group strength, which sustains our individual efforts.
The physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits, which come to us every day as we abstain and work the Twelve Steps, are what nourish us. Being committed to the OA program is our strength and our recovery.
Make firm my commitment to Your way.
-----
You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
How easy the breath that kills a flame,
How hard to kindle that light again.
Cold words kill and kind words kindle,
By words withheld a dream may dwindle.
--Joan Walsh Anglund
How we treat the people we live with affects the happiness of our family. Just as a breath can blow out a flame, a mean remark can cast a shadow across a brother or sister's heart. People of all ages have left dreams behind because no one encouraged them. They are like candles snuffed out.
On the other hand, if we see a friend or family member feeling good about something they have done, we can learn to be happy for them. If we notice their excitement and encourage them with kind and sincere words, it will help their candle burn brighter. Sharing the happiness of others will make our own candles burn brighter, and it always feels good when we receive kind words ourselves.
In what ways can I bring light and warmth with my words today?
You are reading from the book Touchstones.
You should not have your own idea when you listen to someone.... To have nothing in your mind is naturalness. Then you will understand what he says. --Shunryu Suzuki
A man who is mistrustful and self-centered has difficulty listening to someone else. Perhaps a woman we are close to wants to be understood by us. But we do not hear her on her own terms because we are so intensely involved with our own shame. So we react to our feelings of guilt rather than really hearing what she wants to say about her experience. Or we may be so worried about who has control that we fail to receive the information we are being given. Then we respond with "Yes, but..."
True learning comes - like true intimacy - when we have an open mind. As we detach ourselves, separate from our own ego, we hear the other person better and grow more intimate.
May I learn to set aside my own self-centeredness. Today, I will grow more if I set my ego aside when others are talking to me.
You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
Ambiguity means admitting more than one response to a situation and allowing yourself to be aware of those contradictory responses. You may want something and fear it at the same time. You may find it both beautiful and ugly. --Tristine Rainer
Flexibility is a goal worth the striving. It eases our relations with others, and it stretches our realm of awareness. Letting go of rigid adherence to what our perceptions were yesterday assures us of heightened understanding of life's variables and lessons.
Being torn between two decisions, feeling ambivalent about them, need not create consternation, though it often does. Hopefully, it will encourage us to pray for direction, and then to be responsive to the guidance. And we must keep in mind that no decision is ever wrong. It may lead us astray for a time, but it will also introduce us to uncharted territories, which offer many opportunities for flexibility.
Contradictory responses, our own and also ours in relations with others, keep us on our toes, lend an element of excitement to our lives, and push us to think creatively about our perceptions. Growth and change are guaranteed.
I will be in tune with myself today. I will let my perceptions guide me.
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Getting Through the Discomfort
Surrender to the pain. Then learn to surrender to the good. It's there and more is on the way. --Beyond Codependency
Our goal in recovery is to make us feel comfortable, peaceful, and content. Happy. We want to be at peace with our environment and ourselves. Sometimes, to do that, we need to be willing to face, feel, and get through discomfort.
I am not talking here about being addicted to misery and pain. I am not talking about creating unnecessary pain. I'm talking about the legitimate discomfort we sometimes need to feel as we heal.
When we have surgery, the pain hurts most the day after the operation. When we do the kind of work we are facing in recovery, we are doing an emotional, mental, and spiritual surgery on ourselves. We're removing parts of us that are infected and inflamed.
Sometimes the process hurts. We are strong enough to survive discomfort and temporary feelings of emotional pain. Once we are willing to face and feel our discomfort and pain, we are almost to the point of release.
Today, I am willing to face my discomfort, trusting that healing and release are on the other side. Help me, God; be open to feeling whatever I need to feel to be healed and healthy. While I am doing this, I will trust I am cared for and protected by my friends, my Higher Power, the Universe, and myself.
I choose to be in places and situations and with people where I feel good about myself. I deserve to feel good and I trust that my heart will tell me where to go. --Ruth Fishel
God help me to stay sober and clean today!
Each day I face new choices. Some of these choices are easy, and others are more difficult. I used to do a simple cost-benefit analysis to make my decisions. For the most part this worked fine. I simply needed to determine what a particular choice would cost me physically, emotionally, financially or socially. Next I would figure what the benefits would be and then do that which made more sense. I began to realize that this process did not always accomplish what I wanted it to achieve. Even when I thought the choices I made were good, I found out that they did not produce the desired results. Something was missing.
Too often I was leaving my Higher Power out of the equation. I was not evaluating the choices I faced in light of my values. When I started to make a conscious effort to include my values and the will of my Higher Power in my decision-making, then I found that I was at peace. I could live with my decisions and know that I had done what was best for me in each situation. I’m not saying this made choice making any easier, but it did make the choices clear. Do I pray for “knowledge of His will” and the power to carry that out?
Meditations for the Heart
Learning to accept the struggles in life and realizing that God will walk with me in every struggle has made my life better. It is a matter of faith and reliance on my Higher Power. Trusting God to be there for me has not always been easy, nor has it always resulted in the outcome I would expect. Frequently I am surprised by the fact that the outcome was not at all what I had hoped for, but I have clear evidence that God gave me the strength and courage to deal with the struggle. I have found that often times I gain strength by simply admitting I am weak and need help. I guess that is why my sponsor kept telling me to, “turn it over.” Am I learning to “practice these principles in all my affairs?”
Petitions to my Higher Power
God,
Each day brings new challenges and new triumphs. Help me to admit when I need help and to turn to those people that You lead me to for help. Give me a humble heart and mind, so that I may be grateful for the small and large triumphs I experience in my day. When I face new choices in life, let me turn to You first for help in making my decisions.
Amen.
-----
NA Just For Today
Losing Self-Will
"Our egos, once so large and dominant, now take a back seat because we are in harmony with a loving God. We find that we lead richer, happier, and much fuller lives when we lose self-will."
Basic Text p.101
Addiction and self-will go hand in hand. The unmanageability that we admitted to in Step One was as much a product of our self-will as it was of our chronic drug abuse. And today, living on self-will can make our lives just as unmanageable as they were when we were using. When our ideas, our desires, our demands take first place in our lives, we find ourselves in constant conflict with everyone and everything around us.
Self-will reflects our reliance on ego. The only thing that will free us from self-will and the conflict it generates in our lives is to break our reliance on ego, coming to rely instead on the guidance and power offered us by a loving God.
We are taught to consult spiritual principles, not our selfish desires, in making our decisions. We are taught to seek guidance from a Higher Power, one with a larger vision of things than our own. In doing this, we find our lives meshing more and more easily with the order of things around us. No longer do we exclude ourselves from the flow of life; we become a part of it, and discover the fullness of what recovery has to offer.
Just for today: I seek freedom from ego and the conflicts generated by self-will. I will try to improve my conscious contact with the God of my understanding, seeking the guidance and power I need to live in harmony with my world.
pg. 289
-----
October 3 - Daily Feast
The first crystal clear morning after days of blue mist is like music after a long silence. Even the cool air does not dampen the spirits of domestic animals and those that live in the woods. A young bobcat in prime coat wanders along the rock ledges in full view but unaware of interested eyes. No doubt he hunts for field mice and that explains why the barn cats have stayed so close to home. We have not felt the extremes of oncoming winter, but time will insure it. Meantime, adjust, adjust. Don't be taken by surprise. Prepare for change and the unexpected within change.
~ Our people possessed remarkable powers of concentration.....and I sometimes fancy that such nearness to nature.....keeps [us] in touch with unseen powers. ~
CHARLES EASTMAN, PHYSICIAN - SANTEE DAKOTA
'A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II' by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
Elder's Meditation of the Day - October 3
"Spiritual Values are an Attitude."
--Leonard George, Chief Councilor
Attitude is a direction which we follow. If you have a positive attitude, it means you will lean towards a positive direction. If you have a negative attitude, it means you will lean away from the Spirit. Therefore, if we lean toward spiritual values, then our actions will become significant and important. If we lean away from spiritual values, our actions will become insignificant or unimportant. For example, if we value love, we will lean towards it; we will prefer to express and embrace it.
Great Spirit, teach me the significance of spiritual values.
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
"THINK on THESE THINGS"
by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Courage must have its everyday face. We can't preserve it just for special occasions. We must have courage when we are disappointed, because disappointment is a robber of reason and faith, and even dignity. We must remember that whatever we have to meet there is something within us to help us meet it. But it is like a vein of rich ore. We must tap it, know what it is, and turn it into a finished product that will serve a purpose.
Every day we must have courage to forgive. The adamant we shall always face, but to forgive is to disarm. To forgive is to release and to release is to remove the graceless things that make it necessary to forgive.
A little common, everyday courage can give a life so much more to live for and to find contentment in the knowledge that today I did not give in to the smaller self. And I can draw on the strength from One who bore personal suffering with supreme courage.
A comforting adage is that it is always darkest just before the dawn. The darkness of fear and worry and misunderstanding can last only so long, and then the light of dawn breaks through to show everything in its true perspective.
To someone who is troubled, the darkness holds only the most frightening difficulties. This kind of night seems to have no end, but given a little time it will pass, as will our problems.
The very fact that we are not alone should give some comfort, for no matter what we are experiencing someone else has been there too. We must not delude ourselves with notions that we are meant to be cross-bearers forever.
And frequently, they are much better people who emerge from their own night to remember that it is as important to have faith in the dark as it is easy to have faith in the sunshine.
-----
Daily Relationship Reading
Have I been in more than one serious relationship in my life? If so, I've likely said to myself "well, I won't make that mistake again". Maybe I got involved with someone who had a temper, was possessive, had a drinking problem, or something else that led to the end of the relationship. I'm shocked then, when suddenly I find myself in a new relationship, dealing with many of the problems I swore I'd never put up with again, or new problems that bring up the same old feelings in me.
If the FAA treated airplane crashes the same way many of us treat relationships, they would probably say in their reports "don't fly on that airplane again". It's only when they take the time to truly understand why the accident happened, that they can dramatically reduce the odds of a similar disaster.
Each relationship, bad or good, has much to teach me about myself. When I take the time I need to truly learn from my relationships, I'll find they give me valuable insights. As I learn to take the gifts of experience those struggles give me, I'll also find my own attitude improving as I uncover things I'm doing that contribute to my problems.
Just for Today
Today I'll start looking at some small problems in my current relationship, and see what they can teach me about me. In gaining from those new insights, I give myself the best chance I can of learning even more from bigger problems, and building a more rewarding relationship.
One thing about the school of experience is that it will repeat the lesson if you flunk the first time. - Anonymous
-----
You are reading from the book Food for Thought
Being Committed
Success comes with commitment. We cannot maintain abstinence, or a marriage, or a profession, or anything else without being committed to it. Genuine commitment is the attitude required of us if we are to benefit from OA. The program is not something we pick up and put down when we feel like it. If abstinence is not the most important thing in our lives, we will not be able to maintain it.
Sharing our commitment out loud, with another person, reinforces it. We need to stay in contact with our OA friends. It is during the busy times that we especially need to remember our priorities. A phone call plugs us in to the group strength, which sustains our individual efforts.
The physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits, which come to us every day as we abstain and work the Twelve Steps, are what nourish us. Being committed to the OA program is our strength and our recovery.
Make firm my commitment to Your way.
-----
You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
How easy the breath that kills a flame,
How hard to kindle that light again.
Cold words kill and kind words kindle,
By words withheld a dream may dwindle.
--Joan Walsh Anglund
How we treat the people we live with affects the happiness of our family. Just as a breath can blow out a flame, a mean remark can cast a shadow across a brother or sister's heart. People of all ages have left dreams behind because no one encouraged them. They are like candles snuffed out.
On the other hand, if we see a friend or family member feeling good about something they have done, we can learn to be happy for them. If we notice their excitement and encourage them with kind and sincere words, it will help their candle burn brighter. Sharing the happiness of others will make our own candles burn brighter, and it always feels good when we receive kind words ourselves.
In what ways can I bring light and warmth with my words today?
You are reading from the book Touchstones.
You should not have your own idea when you listen to someone.... To have nothing in your mind is naturalness. Then you will understand what he says. --Shunryu Suzuki
A man who is mistrustful and self-centered has difficulty listening to someone else. Perhaps a woman we are close to wants to be understood by us. But we do not hear her on her own terms because we are so intensely involved with our own shame. So we react to our feelings of guilt rather than really hearing what she wants to say about her experience. Or we may be so worried about who has control that we fail to receive the information we are being given. Then we respond with "Yes, but..."
True learning comes - like true intimacy - when we have an open mind. As we detach ourselves, separate from our own ego, we hear the other person better and grow more intimate.
May I learn to set aside my own self-centeredness. Today, I will grow more if I set my ego aside when others are talking to me.
You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
Ambiguity means admitting more than one response to a situation and allowing yourself to be aware of those contradictory responses. You may want something and fear it at the same time. You may find it both beautiful and ugly. --Tristine Rainer
Flexibility is a goal worth the striving. It eases our relations with others, and it stretches our realm of awareness. Letting go of rigid adherence to what our perceptions were yesterday assures us of heightened understanding of life's variables and lessons.
Being torn between two decisions, feeling ambivalent about them, need not create consternation, though it often does. Hopefully, it will encourage us to pray for direction, and then to be responsive to the guidance. And we must keep in mind that no decision is ever wrong. It may lead us astray for a time, but it will also introduce us to uncharted territories, which offer many opportunities for flexibility.
Contradictory responses, our own and also ours in relations with others, keep us on our toes, lend an element of excitement to our lives, and push us to think creatively about our perceptions. Growth and change are guaranteed.
I will be in tune with myself today. I will let my perceptions guide me.
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Getting Through the Discomfort
Surrender to the pain. Then learn to surrender to the good. It's there and more is on the way. --Beyond Codependency
Our goal in recovery is to make us feel comfortable, peaceful, and content. Happy. We want to be at peace with our environment and ourselves. Sometimes, to do that, we need to be willing to face, feel, and get through discomfort.
I am not talking here about being addicted to misery and pain. I am not talking about creating unnecessary pain. I'm talking about the legitimate discomfort we sometimes need to feel as we heal.
When we have surgery, the pain hurts most the day after the operation. When we do the kind of work we are facing in recovery, we are doing an emotional, mental, and spiritual surgery on ourselves. We're removing parts of us that are infected and inflamed.
Sometimes the process hurts. We are strong enough to survive discomfort and temporary feelings of emotional pain. Once we are willing to face and feel our discomfort and pain, we are almost to the point of release.
Today, I am willing to face my discomfort, trusting that healing and release are on the other side. Help me, God; be open to feeling whatever I need to feel to be healed and healthy. While I am doing this, I will trust I am cared for and protected by my friends, my Higher Power, the Universe, and myself.
I choose to be in places and situations and with people where I feel good about myself. I deserve to feel good and I trust that my heart will tell me where to go. --Ruth Fishel
God help me to stay sober and clean today!