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10-06-2008, 05:49 PM
Wisdom for Today
Man, I loved to party! I loved going out with my drinking buddies and buying them a round. I loved turning other people on. It made me feel important. But I wasn’t doing any of them a favor. Most of the people I hung out with probably were alcoholic or addicted people just like me. Buying them a drink just helped them get drunk. Getting them high just enabled their addiction to progress. I wasn’t really even doing it for them; I was doing it for my own selfish reasons. I needed people around me who would support and endorse my behavior.
When I joined the program, things changed. People genuinely cared and supported me in the changes I needed to make. As I put a few more twenty-four hours under my belt, I was able to return the favor. I was able to share my experience, strength and hope in order to help others. Sometimes I was doing this without even being aware that I was helping. Friends would come up to me after a meeting and say, “I could really relate to what you shared tonight.” As time passed, I was able to become a sponsor to others in the program and could act as a guide through the steps. I was helping others in a genuine, unselfish way, just as I had been helped. Am I willing to help others in the program in an unselfish way? Do I give away what I have been given? This is the fellowship of the Twelve Step program.
Meditations for the Heart
You can’t teach a child to learn how to really ride a bike if they refuse to take the training wheels off. It is a clear indication that they do not trust. Similarly, God cannot teach us if we do not trust. We have to let go of our fears and learn to trust our Higher Power. There are two blocks to trusting in our Higher Power. The first one is that we do not trust ourselves. We say, “I can’t do that.” We convince ourselves that we are not capable of accomplishing anything. The second block happens when we say, “God won’t be there for us when we need Him.” Learning to trust that God cares for us is not always easy. But recovery can’t happen if we hang onto our stubborn, self-defeating beliefs. It can’t really happen if we refuse “to take the training wheels off.” Do I trust that God will be by my side each step of the way in this new life I’ve been given?
Petitions to my Higher Power
God,
Today let me accept the help that is offered to me, and let me reach out to others by sharing my experience, strength and hope. When I get stubborn, remind me to trust. Teach me to use the steps in my life as a guide to solving my problems.
Amen.
-----
NA Just For Today
Depending On Our Higher Power
"As recovering addicts, we find that we are still dependent, but our dependence has shifted from the things around us to a loving God and the innerstrength we get in our relationship with Him."
Basic Text pp.67-68
For many addicts, rebelliousness is second nature. We didn't want to depend on anyone or anything, and especially not on God. The beauty of using, we thought, was that it gave us the power to be and feel anything we wanted, all by ourselves. But the price we paid for this illusory freedom was a dependence beyond our worst nightmares. Rather than freeing us, using enslaved us.
When we came to Narcotics Anonymous, we learned that dependence on God didn't have to mean what we may have thought it meant. Yes, if we wanted to be restored to sanity, we would need to tap "a Power greater than ourselves." However, we could choose our own concept of this Higher Power - we could even make one up. Dependence on a Higher Power would not limit us, we discovered; it would free us.
The Power we find in recovery is the power we lacked on our own. It is the love we were afraid to depend on others for. It is the sense of personal direction we never had, the guidance we couldn't humble ourselves to ask for or trust others to give. It is all these things, and it is our own. Today, we are grateful to have a Higher Power to depend on.
Just for today: I will depend on the love and inner strength I draw from the God of my own understanding.
pg. 293
-----
October 7 - Daily Feast
We get to know ourselves when we are alone. What may have brought us to this place may not be as important as what to do now that we are here. When we are with other people we listen to them, but in solitude we follow our own way. Great strength comes from the quiet and it prepares us for times when the sands run very fast. Solitude is never withdrawal but being with ourselves, learning what affects us, and what of it can be given to others. We learn how to be a good friend when our attention is not divided - a good friend to ourselves and a good friend to another who needs it.
~ It is hard to fight people that live like groundhogs. ~
TECUMSEH - SHAWNEE
'A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II' by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
Elder's Meditation of the Day - October 7
"We have a biological father and mother, but our real Father is Tunkashila [Creator] and our real Mother is the Earth."
--Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA
Who really gives us our life? Who really gives us our food and nurturing? Who really allows us to be born? We are born through our parents who act as the vehicle of life for the Creator and Mother Earth. Our parents take care of us for a little while and when we are ready we must leave them and be faithful to our true Father, the Creator, and our true Mother, the Earth. Then we need to be of service to the Creator and be respectful to Mother Earth.
Great Spirit, thank you for being my Father. Teach me to honor the Earth.
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
At these times when we have planned for something and have our hearts set on our affairs going in a certain direction but they fail to materialize, we are disappointed. If we have any faith at all, we must remember that one door never closes but another opens. That which once seemed the right thing to plan for may not hold all the things that would be for our good in the long run. It may have been right in the beginning, but as times passes and other events come into being, a change may be necessary for the benefit of the over-all picture.
Sometimes we affix our attention so rigidly on one thing, one part of life, one person, that a change throws us into a state of extreme disappointment. But disappointment, like all of the emotions, can serve to strengthen rather than take away. The attitude with which we face life can determine its outcome.
We can look with woeful eyes on the negative mental attitude and wallow in self-pity, or we can flip the mind to the upper side and let the positive mental attitude bring to us the strength and peace we need.
Disappointment is something no one has escaped. The many plans we make sometimes fade like mist in the sunlight. A cherished dream may take another shape and to lose that vision can throw a dim view on all of life. Because one tiny part could not be fulfilled, we are so tempted to let all of the rest go with it.
But if only we could wait a bit. So often we then come to realize the reason for our change in plans.
Sometimes disappointment is the very thing that keeps us mounting the steps upward, keeps us stretching our minds to understand. And it may test our spirits. For if disappointment can make a spirit better, the joy of accomplishment would have soon soured.
There is no joy in disappointment, but it may be the thing to save us from a life of mediocrity.
English novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton wrote, "Man must be disappointed with the lesser things in life before he can comprehend the full value of the greater."
-----
Daily Relationship Reading
Do I ever have the feeling I'm unworthy of the love and attention my SO gives me? Maybe they've done something especially nice for me, but when I look the things I've done for them, I feel as if I've come up short. Or maybe I've been in a down mood, and think of how much of a burden I'm being to them.
I may have used the phrase "it's the little things that count" in telling others how much their friendships mean to me, and yet I forget that when I look at my own relationship.
If I had a video camera that recorded all the little things I've done that brightened my SO's day, I'd probably be surprised at how much of a difference I've actually made. It's hard to remember every hug, every kind word, and every gesture of compassion. But if my memory was perfect, I'd probably feel very warm remembering all those little special moments.
Maybe the next time I feel unworthy, I can remind myself that all it takes to bring back those feelings is one simple little act - a hug, a soft kiss, a smile, or a tender caress.
Just for Today
When I take care of the little things, the big things tend to take better care of themselves.
Today I'll try to fill my day with little moments of kindness and love, accepting that I'll probably forget that many of them, and that is ok. It's easier to remember to do them.
The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
- William Wordsworth
-----
You are reading from the book Food for Thought.
Old Anxieties
The causes of our past anxieties may no longer be operative. Compulsive eating behavior, however, brings back these anxieties in full force. Our weight may be normal, but we are never safe from the danger of personality disintegration brought on by a return, however slight, to compulsive overeating habits.
If we are to maintain our sanity and our sobriety, we must continue to abstain completely from all patterns of thinking and behavior associated with overeating. We have become new people. Daily we grow stronger and freer from old fears and anxieties. The new behavior, which gives us this new freedom, is abstinence. Without abstinence, we will again be overwhelmed and incapacitated by irrational fear and anxiety.
To be alive is to experience a certain amount of anxiety. We will never be completely rid of all fear. As long as we are abstaining, however, and relying on our Higher Power instead of ourselves, we will be given the confidence and serenity we need.
I turn over to You my anxieties.
-----
You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
There are two kinds of slaves, the prisoners of addiction, and the prisoners of envy. --Ivan Ilich
No emotion brings us more personal pain or wastes more of our time than envy. When we envy, we are never free from stress, because envy takes no holidays. Shakespeare called envy the green sickness. Envy magnifies molehills into mountains.
Just how foolish envy truly is becomes clear when we think of it as a row of hooks on which to hang grudges. When we envy others, especially our family members, we blind ourselves to the good we could see in all people. We are ignoring life's flowers to gather bouquets of weeds.
When we envy the accomplishments or possessions of another, we will be better off if we look to our own prized possessions, to those things in ourselves that no one else has in exactly the same way.
What riches do I have within and around me?
You are reading from the book Touchstones.
If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn't like me, I've got to get out. --Marlon Brando
How much acceptance is enough for us? Do we feel one person's criticism undermines the acceptance of 199 others? Do we get so focused on one person's negative response to us that we cannot hear the positive? If we are unable to accept criticism from others, it becomes a sink without a plug, draining away all the positives we naturally have in our life.
As we become spiritual men, we're able to detach from negative and critical messages. We must still hear them. We must still listen to their messages because we can learn from them. But we can separate ourselves from the negative message. We can make a mistake. Someone can dislike us. But we do not give up our places as equal, worthwhile men for any reason.
God, I pray for your support when my own strength to stand up for myself falters.
You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
There is a divine plan of good at work in my life. I will let go and let it unfold. --Ruth P. Freedman
We are never certain of the full importance or the eventual impact of any single event in our lives. But of one thing we can be sure: Each experience offers something valuable to our overall development. We must not discount the experiences that are long gone. They contributed to all we've achieved at the present. And wherever today takes us will influence what tomorrow will bring.
Perhaps our greatest difficulty as recovering women is not trusting that life is a process and one that promises goodness. That growth and change are guaranteed. That our lives have design, and we're blessed therein. Trusting isn't easy. But we can learn, and we'll discover freedom.
Letting go of the outcome of every experience, focusing instead on our efforts, making them as good as possible, validates our trust in the ultimate goodness of life. Our frustrations diminish when our efforts, only, are our concern. How much easier our days go when we do our work and leave the outcome where it belongs.
I will know a new freedom when I let go and trust that "my plan" is unfolding as it must. I will do my part, and no more.
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Letting Go of Naivete
We can be loving, trusting people and still not allow ourselves to be used or abused. We don't have to let people do whatever they want to us. Not all requests are legitimate! Not all requests require a yes!
Life may test us. People may seek out our weak spots. We may see a common denominator to the limits that are being tested in our life. If we have a weak spot in one area, we may find ourselves tested repeatedly in that area by family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. Life, people, our Higher Power, and the universe may be trying to teach us something specific.
When we learn that lesson, we will find that problems with that area dwindle. The boundary has been set, the power has been owned. For now, the lesson has been learned. We may need to be angry with certain people for a while, people who have pushed our tolerance over the edge. That's okay. Soon, we can let go of the anger and exchange it for gratitude. These people have been here to help us learn about what we don't want, what we won't tolerate, and how to own our power.
We can thank them for what we have learned.
How much are we willing to tolerate? How far shall we let others go with us? How much of our anger and intuition shall we discount? Where are our limits? Do we have any? If we don't, we're in trouble.
There are times to not trust others, but instead trust ourselves and set boundaries with those around us.
Today, I will be open to new awareness about the areas where I need healthier boundaries. I will forego my naive assumption that the other person is always right. I will exchange that view for trusting myself, listening to myself, and having and setting healthy boundaries.
I no longer decide what I should feel. That is very limiting. If I limit my negative feelings, I limit my positive feelings as well. Today I am opening myself to all my feelings. That gives me great joy. --Ruth Fishel
God help me to stay sober and clean today!
Man, I loved to party! I loved going out with my drinking buddies and buying them a round. I loved turning other people on. It made me feel important. But I wasn’t doing any of them a favor. Most of the people I hung out with probably were alcoholic or addicted people just like me. Buying them a drink just helped them get drunk. Getting them high just enabled their addiction to progress. I wasn’t really even doing it for them; I was doing it for my own selfish reasons. I needed people around me who would support and endorse my behavior.
When I joined the program, things changed. People genuinely cared and supported me in the changes I needed to make. As I put a few more twenty-four hours under my belt, I was able to return the favor. I was able to share my experience, strength and hope in order to help others. Sometimes I was doing this without even being aware that I was helping. Friends would come up to me after a meeting and say, “I could really relate to what you shared tonight.” As time passed, I was able to become a sponsor to others in the program and could act as a guide through the steps. I was helping others in a genuine, unselfish way, just as I had been helped. Am I willing to help others in the program in an unselfish way? Do I give away what I have been given? This is the fellowship of the Twelve Step program.
Meditations for the Heart
You can’t teach a child to learn how to really ride a bike if they refuse to take the training wheels off. It is a clear indication that they do not trust. Similarly, God cannot teach us if we do not trust. We have to let go of our fears and learn to trust our Higher Power. There are two blocks to trusting in our Higher Power. The first one is that we do not trust ourselves. We say, “I can’t do that.” We convince ourselves that we are not capable of accomplishing anything. The second block happens when we say, “God won’t be there for us when we need Him.” Learning to trust that God cares for us is not always easy. But recovery can’t happen if we hang onto our stubborn, self-defeating beliefs. It can’t really happen if we refuse “to take the training wheels off.” Do I trust that God will be by my side each step of the way in this new life I’ve been given?
Petitions to my Higher Power
God,
Today let me accept the help that is offered to me, and let me reach out to others by sharing my experience, strength and hope. When I get stubborn, remind me to trust. Teach me to use the steps in my life as a guide to solving my problems.
Amen.
-----
NA Just For Today
Depending On Our Higher Power
"As recovering addicts, we find that we are still dependent, but our dependence has shifted from the things around us to a loving God and the innerstrength we get in our relationship with Him."
Basic Text pp.67-68
For many addicts, rebelliousness is second nature. We didn't want to depend on anyone or anything, and especially not on God. The beauty of using, we thought, was that it gave us the power to be and feel anything we wanted, all by ourselves. But the price we paid for this illusory freedom was a dependence beyond our worst nightmares. Rather than freeing us, using enslaved us.
When we came to Narcotics Anonymous, we learned that dependence on God didn't have to mean what we may have thought it meant. Yes, if we wanted to be restored to sanity, we would need to tap "a Power greater than ourselves." However, we could choose our own concept of this Higher Power - we could even make one up. Dependence on a Higher Power would not limit us, we discovered; it would free us.
The Power we find in recovery is the power we lacked on our own. It is the love we were afraid to depend on others for. It is the sense of personal direction we never had, the guidance we couldn't humble ourselves to ask for or trust others to give. It is all these things, and it is our own. Today, we are grateful to have a Higher Power to depend on.
Just for today: I will depend on the love and inner strength I draw from the God of my own understanding.
pg. 293
-----
October 7 - Daily Feast
We get to know ourselves when we are alone. What may have brought us to this place may not be as important as what to do now that we are here. When we are with other people we listen to them, but in solitude we follow our own way. Great strength comes from the quiet and it prepares us for times when the sands run very fast. Solitude is never withdrawal but being with ourselves, learning what affects us, and what of it can be given to others. We learn how to be a good friend when our attention is not divided - a good friend to ourselves and a good friend to another who needs it.
~ It is hard to fight people that live like groundhogs. ~
TECUMSEH - SHAWNEE
'A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II' by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
Elder's Meditation of the Day - October 7
"We have a biological father and mother, but our real Father is Tunkashila [Creator] and our real Mother is the Earth."
--Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA
Who really gives us our life? Who really gives us our food and nurturing? Who really allows us to be born? We are born through our parents who act as the vehicle of life for the Creator and Mother Earth. Our parents take care of us for a little while and when we are ready we must leave them and be faithful to our true Father, the Creator, and our true Mother, the Earth. Then we need to be of service to the Creator and be respectful to Mother Earth.
Great Spirit, thank you for being my Father. Teach me to honor the Earth.
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
At these times when we have planned for something and have our hearts set on our affairs going in a certain direction but they fail to materialize, we are disappointed. If we have any faith at all, we must remember that one door never closes but another opens. That which once seemed the right thing to plan for may not hold all the things that would be for our good in the long run. It may have been right in the beginning, but as times passes and other events come into being, a change may be necessary for the benefit of the over-all picture.
Sometimes we affix our attention so rigidly on one thing, one part of life, one person, that a change throws us into a state of extreme disappointment. But disappointment, like all of the emotions, can serve to strengthen rather than take away. The attitude with which we face life can determine its outcome.
We can look with woeful eyes on the negative mental attitude and wallow in self-pity, or we can flip the mind to the upper side and let the positive mental attitude bring to us the strength and peace we need.
Disappointment is something no one has escaped. The many plans we make sometimes fade like mist in the sunlight. A cherished dream may take another shape and to lose that vision can throw a dim view on all of life. Because one tiny part could not be fulfilled, we are so tempted to let all of the rest go with it.
But if only we could wait a bit. So often we then come to realize the reason for our change in plans.
Sometimes disappointment is the very thing that keeps us mounting the steps upward, keeps us stretching our minds to understand. And it may test our spirits. For if disappointment can make a spirit better, the joy of accomplishment would have soon soured.
There is no joy in disappointment, but it may be the thing to save us from a life of mediocrity.
English novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton wrote, "Man must be disappointed with the lesser things in life before he can comprehend the full value of the greater."
-----
Daily Relationship Reading
Do I ever have the feeling I'm unworthy of the love and attention my SO gives me? Maybe they've done something especially nice for me, but when I look the things I've done for them, I feel as if I've come up short. Or maybe I've been in a down mood, and think of how much of a burden I'm being to them.
I may have used the phrase "it's the little things that count" in telling others how much their friendships mean to me, and yet I forget that when I look at my own relationship.
If I had a video camera that recorded all the little things I've done that brightened my SO's day, I'd probably be surprised at how much of a difference I've actually made. It's hard to remember every hug, every kind word, and every gesture of compassion. But if my memory was perfect, I'd probably feel very warm remembering all those little special moments.
Maybe the next time I feel unworthy, I can remind myself that all it takes to bring back those feelings is one simple little act - a hug, a soft kiss, a smile, or a tender caress.
Just for Today
When I take care of the little things, the big things tend to take better care of themselves.
Today I'll try to fill my day with little moments of kindness and love, accepting that I'll probably forget that many of them, and that is ok. It's easier to remember to do them.
The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
- William Wordsworth
-----
You are reading from the book Food for Thought.
Old Anxieties
The causes of our past anxieties may no longer be operative. Compulsive eating behavior, however, brings back these anxieties in full force. Our weight may be normal, but we are never safe from the danger of personality disintegration brought on by a return, however slight, to compulsive overeating habits.
If we are to maintain our sanity and our sobriety, we must continue to abstain completely from all patterns of thinking and behavior associated with overeating. We have become new people. Daily we grow stronger and freer from old fears and anxieties. The new behavior, which gives us this new freedom, is abstinence. Without abstinence, we will again be overwhelmed and incapacitated by irrational fear and anxiety.
To be alive is to experience a certain amount of anxiety. We will never be completely rid of all fear. As long as we are abstaining, however, and relying on our Higher Power instead of ourselves, we will be given the confidence and serenity we need.
I turn over to You my anxieties.
-----
You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
There are two kinds of slaves, the prisoners of addiction, and the prisoners of envy. --Ivan Ilich
No emotion brings us more personal pain or wastes more of our time than envy. When we envy, we are never free from stress, because envy takes no holidays. Shakespeare called envy the green sickness. Envy magnifies molehills into mountains.
Just how foolish envy truly is becomes clear when we think of it as a row of hooks on which to hang grudges. When we envy others, especially our family members, we blind ourselves to the good we could see in all people. We are ignoring life's flowers to gather bouquets of weeds.
When we envy the accomplishments or possessions of another, we will be better off if we look to our own prized possessions, to those things in ourselves that no one else has in exactly the same way.
What riches do I have within and around me?
You are reading from the book Touchstones.
If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn't like me, I've got to get out. --Marlon Brando
How much acceptance is enough for us? Do we feel one person's criticism undermines the acceptance of 199 others? Do we get so focused on one person's negative response to us that we cannot hear the positive? If we are unable to accept criticism from others, it becomes a sink without a plug, draining away all the positives we naturally have in our life.
As we become spiritual men, we're able to detach from negative and critical messages. We must still hear them. We must still listen to their messages because we can learn from them. But we can separate ourselves from the negative message. We can make a mistake. Someone can dislike us. But we do not give up our places as equal, worthwhile men for any reason.
God, I pray for your support when my own strength to stand up for myself falters.
You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
There is a divine plan of good at work in my life. I will let go and let it unfold. --Ruth P. Freedman
We are never certain of the full importance or the eventual impact of any single event in our lives. But of one thing we can be sure: Each experience offers something valuable to our overall development. We must not discount the experiences that are long gone. They contributed to all we've achieved at the present. And wherever today takes us will influence what tomorrow will bring.
Perhaps our greatest difficulty as recovering women is not trusting that life is a process and one that promises goodness. That growth and change are guaranteed. That our lives have design, and we're blessed therein. Trusting isn't easy. But we can learn, and we'll discover freedom.
Letting go of the outcome of every experience, focusing instead on our efforts, making them as good as possible, validates our trust in the ultimate goodness of life. Our frustrations diminish when our efforts, only, are our concern. How much easier our days go when we do our work and leave the outcome where it belongs.
I will know a new freedom when I let go and trust that "my plan" is unfolding as it must. I will do my part, and no more.
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Letting Go of Naivete
We can be loving, trusting people and still not allow ourselves to be used or abused. We don't have to let people do whatever they want to us. Not all requests are legitimate! Not all requests require a yes!
Life may test us. People may seek out our weak spots. We may see a common denominator to the limits that are being tested in our life. If we have a weak spot in one area, we may find ourselves tested repeatedly in that area by family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. Life, people, our Higher Power, and the universe may be trying to teach us something specific.
When we learn that lesson, we will find that problems with that area dwindle. The boundary has been set, the power has been owned. For now, the lesson has been learned. We may need to be angry with certain people for a while, people who have pushed our tolerance over the edge. That's okay. Soon, we can let go of the anger and exchange it for gratitude. These people have been here to help us learn about what we don't want, what we won't tolerate, and how to own our power.
We can thank them for what we have learned.
How much are we willing to tolerate? How far shall we let others go with us? How much of our anger and intuition shall we discount? Where are our limits? Do we have any? If we don't, we're in trouble.
There are times to not trust others, but instead trust ourselves and set boundaries with those around us.
Today, I will be open to new awareness about the areas where I need healthier boundaries. I will forego my naive assumption that the other person is always right. I will exchange that view for trusting myself, listening to myself, and having and setting healthy boundaries.
I no longer decide what I should feel. That is very limiting. If I limit my negative feelings, I limit my positive feelings as well. Today I am opening myself to all my feelings. That gives me great joy. --Ruth Fishel
God help me to stay sober and clean today!