admin
10-13-2008, 09:03 PM
Wisdom for Today
Once in a while I can't help but think that I should be able to go back and drink or use again. After all, I have been clean and sober for a long time, and I know all about addiction and what to watch out for. But this kind of crazy thinking will only get me in trouble. I must remember that I am an alcoholic and an addict. It is important that I remind myself that I have a disease each day. I must remember all the times I tried to control my use but failed. I must remember that I can still fall back into the trap of denial.
Somewhere along the way I went too far. I went past the point of no return. I am not really sure when that happened, but I am convinced that I not only passed it but went far past it. I cannot ever go back. I need to remind myself that I already had enough and then some. I know that I cannot go back. My only choice is to move forward in recovery. Have I stopped looking back?
Meditations for the Heart
Somewhere along the line I read the story called, "Footprints in the Sand." I was very impressed with this story because I suddenly realized the number of times that God carried me. By all rights I should have been dead. The number of close calls I had was astounding. But by the grace of God I walk though life today. Even in recovery I am amazed at how many times my Higher Power carries me through the difficult times and struggles I still face. Sometimes I forget just how close my Higher Power is. I need to remember that God is always near and freely gives me what I need. My job is only to improve my conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will and the power to carry that out. Do I believe that a Higher Power will help me along the way?
Petitions to my Higher Power
God,
Sometimes I can still get mixed up with crazy thinking. Help me to recognize when I stray from the path of healthy thinking, and redirect me so I can continue on this path of recovery. Help me to recognize all the times that I am helped by Your power. Walk with me this day, for I never know when I will need Your help.
Amen.
-----
NA Just For Today
October 14
The End Of Loneliness
"With the love that I am shown in Narcotics Anonymous, I have no excuse for loneliness."
Basic Text p. 262
Addiction is a lonely disease. We may be surrounded by people but, sooner or later, our addiction drives a wedge between us and even our closest loved ones. Many of us are driven to Narcotics Anonymous by a desperate loneliness.
Though we may approach the rooms of NA with caution and suspicion, we are welcomed with a hug, a smile, and a warm "keep coming back." This may be the first place where we have felt welcome in a long, long while. We watch other members talking and laughing, leaving the meeting in groups for more talk at the local coffee shop. We wonder if we, too, could become a part of this loving bunch.
Our pattern of isolation can make it difficult for us to join in. Over time, however, we begin to feel "a part of" rather than "apart from." Soon, when we walk into the rooms, we feel at home. We begin to make friends and our lives start to change.
NA teaches us how to overcome our isolation. Through our first tentative friendships formed in our home group, we start to find that making friends isn't hard. A sense of belonging comes when we share ourselves with others.
Just for today: I am thankful for the friendships my Higher Power has given me in NA. Because of them, I am lonely no more.
-----
October 14 - Daily Feast
Contentment happens when our emotions give place to common things that in other times can draw little attention. It is releasing a deep inner peace that heals sadness and lifts a sagging spirit. Contentment is an intensely personal thing, adjusting to different people in its most effective way. It rides a shaft of sunlight to put on the gray bark of a tree, or it rises from laughter, deep and kind. It is nearly always unexpected and settles as softly as a bird lights on a limb. It is a remarkable fact that we simply let contentment happen. Socrates called it a natural wealth, but most have called it a miracle.
~ Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. ~
CHIEF STANDING BEAR - SIOUX, 1800s
'A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II' by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
Elder's Meditation of the Day - October 14
"Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth and the Great Silence alone!"
--Ohiyesa (Dr. Charles A. Eastman), SANTEE SIOUX
The most important thing we can do during the course of the day is pray in the morning. There is a special time in the morning that has great power. This is the exact time the sun is rising. During the rising of the sun, everything on the Earth is waking up. Animals, plants, birds and humans will be blessed at the rising of the sun. This is a special time to help us prepare for the day. During this time we ask the Creator to bless our day. We ask Him to guide us, to protect us and to give us courage to overcome the day's obstacles. Doing this everyday will give us knowledge of God's will for us.
Grandfather, Grandmother, guide my path. Let my thinking be guided by You.
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
When there's thinking to be done a person does well to have a little private retreat.....a place where there's no worry that any minute someone will interrupt. And the very ease of knowing that here is a little time to do nothing but just think.
Except that I must carefully direct those thoughts so never to let them roam to things that serve only to disturb. But where does one find a place these days that affords a time alone?
It doesn't take much room to think. Some have little special places hidden from view.....a hillside maybe.....a sunny spot along a path.....a closet not so large.....a park bench.....or they may even take a drive.
But that place that is always available to us id that place within our own selves. This is the secret place within the heart where desires are stored. And no matter what we do, where we go, thoughts are productive.
Here is where thankfulness is stored.....here is where love is born.....here is where the very life of life is built and rebuilt. This is our retreat when there's thinking to be done.
-----
Daily Relationship Reading
As I spend more time in this relationship, I might be noticing that some of the things I found so attractive earlier have become irritating. And worse, I and my S\O are exact opposites in many more ways that I ever realized. One is usually late, the other punctual; one is cautious, the other takes risks at the drop of a hat; one constantly worries, the other doesn't seem to care about anything; one watches money scrupulously, the other spends it with little thought. And so on.
Each of us defends our way of doing things, and it gets aggravating and frustrating when my SO seems to refuse to see my viewpoint, and how right I am.
If I take the time to step back for a moment though, often I'll get a sudden flash of insight. For example, I saw that my caution was actually a fear of risk, because in the past I took what I thought was a safe risk, and got hurt very badly. My SO had the opposite experience - they got hurt in the past by trying to play safe.
What we discover is that each other's behavior triggers the same fear and deep hurt we both experienced long ago. Once we see our old, deep wounds more clearly, we can begin healing them, by talking about them fully with each other, and getting outside insight when we need to.
Just for Today
Today I'll take a few moments to think about how my SO's behavior aggravates me at times, and see what treasures my frustration can teach me about myself. If I won't learn my lessons, what gives me the right to try and teach my SO?
Search your own heart. What pains you in others may be in yourself also. - John Greenleaf Whittier
-----
You are reading from the book Food for Thought.
Surrender
Continuing to take the first three Steps enables us to become increasingly surrendered to our Higher Power. Our goal is to let our egotistical selves be dissolved in a greater Self, so that the Higher Power lives through us. The loss of ego frightens us and attacks our illusions of self-sufficiency.
Here is where we can be grateful for our disease. If we were not convinced of our helplessness in the face of our obsession with food, we would not be desperate enough to surrender to a Higher Power. Only after we have tried and failed over and over again in our battle with compulsive overeating are we willing to accept the OA program.
We surrender in order to stop eating compulsively. We gain infinitely more than we had expected. Not only does our Higher Power give us abstinence from compulsive overeating, but more than that He gives us Himself. No longer do we live as an isolated, weak self, but in us lives the Power of the universe.
May we surrender completely to Your power.
-----
You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances. --Julia Soul
Do we avoid making new friends because we're scared they won't like us? Do we get embarrassed when we make a mistake and avoid trying again? When we get our feelings hurt, do we think we're bad, or that something is wrong with us?
Being scared or shy or hurt are all part of being alive. When we try to stay away from painful feelings, we keep ourselves from having many wonderful adventures. If we're afraid to meet new people, we may never have any close friends. If we stop trying when we're embarrassed, we may never learn a better way of doing things. And if we don't share our hurt feelings, we may never find out that everyone else has the same feelings we have.
What can I try again today that I failed at yesterday?
You are reading from the book Touchstones.
No man is more cheated than the selfish man. --Henry Ward Beecher
When we're selfish, we close off the channels of exchange with others. Not only are we grabbing and holding all the goods or attention we can get, but we are denying others the possibility of sharing with us in the benefits. We may be selfish in material goods, but there are many other ways too. Some of us expect our spouses to meet our needs while we make little effort to meet theirs. Some of us discover our selfishness as we drive, refusing to yield a position to another car or getting furious if we lose a place in heavy traffic.
By contrast, our generosity and welcoming responses nourish the spirit within us and create a good environment for our growth. Sometimes giving does not come easily. We have a more generous spirit when we are in touch with our ultimate vulnerability. All of life is fragile, and we need each other to have a good life. We can truly hold onto nothing but ourselves. Giving what we can of our time, our energy, and our goods, helps create the kind of world we want to live in.
Today, I will look for ways to be generous with those I share this world with.
You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
The balance between mind and spirit comes hard for me. The eternal split. Two entities, perfectly aware and yet perfectly unwilling to cooperate. --Mary Casey
The program directs our spiritual growth, a human aspect that had atrophied, if ever it had existed, for most of us before abstinence. And the process of developing our spiritual nature is painstaking. Living by our wits, or the fervent application of "situational analysis" had been our survival tools for months or years.
To return repeatedly to the old tools for quick solutions to serious situations is second nature. Learning to rely on spiritual guidance for solutions and to use it to sharpen our analytical focus takes patience and continual effort.
Within our spiritual realm we find our connection to God. We have been given the wisdom; all the knowledge we need is at our fingertips. The confidence to move ahead and offer our special talent to others comes from our Spirit. We are all that we need to be. Our mind and our Spirits, in concert, can tackle any challenge and succeed.
My mind and my Spirit can become compatible entities with the development of my trust in each. Knowledge plus courage can move mountains. I have been given both.
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Controlling Versus Trust
There was a time in my life when I felt so afraid of and overwhelmed by the very act of living that I actually wanted to make out a schedule for each day of my life for the next five years. I wanted to include all the chores I had to do, when I would do them, even when I would schedule relaxation. I wanted to get some order into what felt overwhelming. I wanted to feel like I was in control. --Anonymous
Controlling is a direct response to our fear, panic, and sense of helplessness. It is a direct response to feeling overwhelmed, and to distrust.
We may not trust ourselves, our Higher Power, the Plan, the Universe, or the process of life. Instead of trusting, we revert to control.
We can approach this need to control by dealing with our fear. We deal with fear by trusting - ourselves, our Higher Power, the love and support of the Universe, the Plan, and this process we call life and recovery.
We can trust that when things don't work out the way we want, God has something better planned.
We can trust ourselves to get where we need to go, say what we need to say, do what we need to do, know what we need to know, be who we need to be, and become all we can become, when we are intended to do that, when we are ready, and when the time is right.
We can trust our Higher Power and the Universe to give us all the direction we need.
We can trust ourselves to listen, and respond, accordingly.
We can trust that all we need on this journey shall come to us. We will not get all we need for the entire journey today. We shall receive today's supplies today, and tomorrow's supplies tomorrow. We were never intended to carry supplies for the entire journey. The burden would be too heavy, and the way was intended to be light.
Trust in yourself. We do not have to plan, control, and schedule all things. The schedule and plan have been written. All we need to do is show up.
The way will become clear and the supplies will be amply and clearly provided, one day at a time.
Trust, my friend, in today.
Today, I will trust that I will receive all I need to get me through today. I will trust that the same shall happen tomorrow.
I can accept whatever I am feeling today. Without resistance my feelings pass and I am then open to experience whatever is next. --Ruth Fishel
Once in a while I can't help but think that I should be able to go back and drink or use again. After all, I have been clean and sober for a long time, and I know all about addiction and what to watch out for. But this kind of crazy thinking will only get me in trouble. I must remember that I am an alcoholic and an addict. It is important that I remind myself that I have a disease each day. I must remember all the times I tried to control my use but failed. I must remember that I can still fall back into the trap of denial.
Somewhere along the way I went too far. I went past the point of no return. I am not really sure when that happened, but I am convinced that I not only passed it but went far past it. I cannot ever go back. I need to remind myself that I already had enough and then some. I know that I cannot go back. My only choice is to move forward in recovery. Have I stopped looking back?
Meditations for the Heart
Somewhere along the line I read the story called, "Footprints in the Sand." I was very impressed with this story because I suddenly realized the number of times that God carried me. By all rights I should have been dead. The number of close calls I had was astounding. But by the grace of God I walk though life today. Even in recovery I am amazed at how many times my Higher Power carries me through the difficult times and struggles I still face. Sometimes I forget just how close my Higher Power is. I need to remember that God is always near and freely gives me what I need. My job is only to improve my conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will and the power to carry that out. Do I believe that a Higher Power will help me along the way?
Petitions to my Higher Power
God,
Sometimes I can still get mixed up with crazy thinking. Help me to recognize when I stray from the path of healthy thinking, and redirect me so I can continue on this path of recovery. Help me to recognize all the times that I am helped by Your power. Walk with me this day, for I never know when I will need Your help.
Amen.
-----
NA Just For Today
October 14
The End Of Loneliness
"With the love that I am shown in Narcotics Anonymous, I have no excuse for loneliness."
Basic Text p. 262
Addiction is a lonely disease. We may be surrounded by people but, sooner or later, our addiction drives a wedge between us and even our closest loved ones. Many of us are driven to Narcotics Anonymous by a desperate loneliness.
Though we may approach the rooms of NA with caution and suspicion, we are welcomed with a hug, a smile, and a warm "keep coming back." This may be the first place where we have felt welcome in a long, long while. We watch other members talking and laughing, leaving the meeting in groups for more talk at the local coffee shop. We wonder if we, too, could become a part of this loving bunch.
Our pattern of isolation can make it difficult for us to join in. Over time, however, we begin to feel "a part of" rather than "apart from." Soon, when we walk into the rooms, we feel at home. We begin to make friends and our lives start to change.
NA teaches us how to overcome our isolation. Through our first tentative friendships formed in our home group, we start to find that making friends isn't hard. A sense of belonging comes when we share ourselves with others.
Just for today: I am thankful for the friendships my Higher Power has given me in NA. Because of them, I am lonely no more.
-----
October 14 - Daily Feast
Contentment happens when our emotions give place to common things that in other times can draw little attention. It is releasing a deep inner peace that heals sadness and lifts a sagging spirit. Contentment is an intensely personal thing, adjusting to different people in its most effective way. It rides a shaft of sunlight to put on the gray bark of a tree, or it rises from laughter, deep and kind. It is nearly always unexpected and settles as softly as a bird lights on a limb. It is a remarkable fact that we simply let contentment happen. Socrates called it a natural wealth, but most have called it a miracle.
~ Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. ~
CHIEF STANDING BEAR - SIOUX, 1800s
'A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II' by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
Elder's Meditation of the Day - October 14
"Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth and the Great Silence alone!"
--Ohiyesa (Dr. Charles A. Eastman), SANTEE SIOUX
The most important thing we can do during the course of the day is pray in the morning. There is a special time in the morning that has great power. This is the exact time the sun is rising. During the rising of the sun, everything on the Earth is waking up. Animals, plants, birds and humans will be blessed at the rising of the sun. This is a special time to help us prepare for the day. During this time we ask the Creator to bless our day. We ask Him to guide us, to protect us and to give us courage to overcome the day's obstacles. Doing this everyday will give us knowledge of God's will for us.
Grandfather, Grandmother, guide my path. Let my thinking be guided by You.
*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
When there's thinking to be done a person does well to have a little private retreat.....a place where there's no worry that any minute someone will interrupt. And the very ease of knowing that here is a little time to do nothing but just think.
Except that I must carefully direct those thoughts so never to let them roam to things that serve only to disturb. But where does one find a place these days that affords a time alone?
It doesn't take much room to think. Some have little special places hidden from view.....a hillside maybe.....a sunny spot along a path.....a closet not so large.....a park bench.....or they may even take a drive.
But that place that is always available to us id that place within our own selves. This is the secret place within the heart where desires are stored. And no matter what we do, where we go, thoughts are productive.
Here is where thankfulness is stored.....here is where love is born.....here is where the very life of life is built and rebuilt. This is our retreat when there's thinking to be done.
-----
Daily Relationship Reading
As I spend more time in this relationship, I might be noticing that some of the things I found so attractive earlier have become irritating. And worse, I and my S\O are exact opposites in many more ways that I ever realized. One is usually late, the other punctual; one is cautious, the other takes risks at the drop of a hat; one constantly worries, the other doesn't seem to care about anything; one watches money scrupulously, the other spends it with little thought. And so on.
Each of us defends our way of doing things, and it gets aggravating and frustrating when my SO seems to refuse to see my viewpoint, and how right I am.
If I take the time to step back for a moment though, often I'll get a sudden flash of insight. For example, I saw that my caution was actually a fear of risk, because in the past I took what I thought was a safe risk, and got hurt very badly. My SO had the opposite experience - they got hurt in the past by trying to play safe.
What we discover is that each other's behavior triggers the same fear and deep hurt we both experienced long ago. Once we see our old, deep wounds more clearly, we can begin healing them, by talking about them fully with each other, and getting outside insight when we need to.
Just for Today
Today I'll take a few moments to think about how my SO's behavior aggravates me at times, and see what treasures my frustration can teach me about myself. If I won't learn my lessons, what gives me the right to try and teach my SO?
Search your own heart. What pains you in others may be in yourself also. - John Greenleaf Whittier
-----
You are reading from the book Food for Thought.
Surrender
Continuing to take the first three Steps enables us to become increasingly surrendered to our Higher Power. Our goal is to let our egotistical selves be dissolved in a greater Self, so that the Higher Power lives through us. The loss of ego frightens us and attacks our illusions of self-sufficiency.
Here is where we can be grateful for our disease. If we were not convinced of our helplessness in the face of our obsession with food, we would not be desperate enough to surrender to a Higher Power. Only after we have tried and failed over and over again in our battle with compulsive overeating are we willing to accept the OA program.
We surrender in order to stop eating compulsively. We gain infinitely more than we had expected. Not only does our Higher Power give us abstinence from compulsive overeating, but more than that He gives us Himself. No longer do we live as an isolated, weak self, but in us lives the Power of the universe.
May we surrender completely to Your power.
-----
You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances. --Julia Soul
Do we avoid making new friends because we're scared they won't like us? Do we get embarrassed when we make a mistake and avoid trying again? When we get our feelings hurt, do we think we're bad, or that something is wrong with us?
Being scared or shy or hurt are all part of being alive. When we try to stay away from painful feelings, we keep ourselves from having many wonderful adventures. If we're afraid to meet new people, we may never have any close friends. If we stop trying when we're embarrassed, we may never learn a better way of doing things. And if we don't share our hurt feelings, we may never find out that everyone else has the same feelings we have.
What can I try again today that I failed at yesterday?
You are reading from the book Touchstones.
No man is more cheated than the selfish man. --Henry Ward Beecher
When we're selfish, we close off the channels of exchange with others. Not only are we grabbing and holding all the goods or attention we can get, but we are denying others the possibility of sharing with us in the benefits. We may be selfish in material goods, but there are many other ways too. Some of us expect our spouses to meet our needs while we make little effort to meet theirs. Some of us discover our selfishness as we drive, refusing to yield a position to another car or getting furious if we lose a place in heavy traffic.
By contrast, our generosity and welcoming responses nourish the spirit within us and create a good environment for our growth. Sometimes giving does not come easily. We have a more generous spirit when we are in touch with our ultimate vulnerability. All of life is fragile, and we need each other to have a good life. We can truly hold onto nothing but ourselves. Giving what we can of our time, our energy, and our goods, helps create the kind of world we want to live in.
Today, I will look for ways to be generous with those I share this world with.
You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
The balance between mind and spirit comes hard for me. The eternal split. Two entities, perfectly aware and yet perfectly unwilling to cooperate. --Mary Casey
The program directs our spiritual growth, a human aspect that had atrophied, if ever it had existed, for most of us before abstinence. And the process of developing our spiritual nature is painstaking. Living by our wits, or the fervent application of "situational analysis" had been our survival tools for months or years.
To return repeatedly to the old tools for quick solutions to serious situations is second nature. Learning to rely on spiritual guidance for solutions and to use it to sharpen our analytical focus takes patience and continual effort.
Within our spiritual realm we find our connection to God. We have been given the wisdom; all the knowledge we need is at our fingertips. The confidence to move ahead and offer our special talent to others comes from our Spirit. We are all that we need to be. Our mind and our Spirits, in concert, can tackle any challenge and succeed.
My mind and my Spirit can become compatible entities with the development of my trust in each. Knowledge plus courage can move mountains. I have been given both.
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Controlling Versus Trust
There was a time in my life when I felt so afraid of and overwhelmed by the very act of living that I actually wanted to make out a schedule for each day of my life for the next five years. I wanted to include all the chores I had to do, when I would do them, even when I would schedule relaxation. I wanted to get some order into what felt overwhelming. I wanted to feel like I was in control. --Anonymous
Controlling is a direct response to our fear, panic, and sense of helplessness. It is a direct response to feeling overwhelmed, and to distrust.
We may not trust ourselves, our Higher Power, the Plan, the Universe, or the process of life. Instead of trusting, we revert to control.
We can approach this need to control by dealing with our fear. We deal with fear by trusting - ourselves, our Higher Power, the love and support of the Universe, the Plan, and this process we call life and recovery.
We can trust that when things don't work out the way we want, God has something better planned.
We can trust ourselves to get where we need to go, say what we need to say, do what we need to do, know what we need to know, be who we need to be, and become all we can become, when we are intended to do that, when we are ready, and when the time is right.
We can trust our Higher Power and the Universe to give us all the direction we need.
We can trust ourselves to listen, and respond, accordingly.
We can trust that all we need on this journey shall come to us. We will not get all we need for the entire journey today. We shall receive today's supplies today, and tomorrow's supplies tomorrow. We were never intended to carry supplies for the entire journey. The burden would be too heavy, and the way was intended to be light.
Trust in yourself. We do not have to plan, control, and schedule all things. The schedule and plan have been written. All we need to do is show up.
The way will become clear and the supplies will be amply and clearly provided, one day at a time.
Trust, my friend, in today.
Today, I will trust that I will receive all I need to get me through today. I will trust that the same shall happen tomorrow.
I can accept whatever I am feeling today. Without resistance my feelings pass and I am then open to experience whatever is next. --Ruth Fishel