Topic~Challenges~Nov 29th-Dec 5th

[Celebration1994]

~What helps you to face challenges IN recovery without letting them become challenges TO your recovery?

[letgo]

Good Topic. My answer is very simple if not "boring", but working the steps and incorporating them into my daily Life, talking with other Alcoholics (I sometimes need perspective), Prayer and Faith. Also Time because I have a tendency to want to do something "now" and that is not always the right way forward. So waiting for the right answer or solution which I have learnt it is often the right thing for me to do.

[admin]

Originally Posted by Celebration1994

~What helps you to face challenges IN recovery without letting them become challenges TO your recovery?

God.

[Craig A.]

First and foremost is my connection to my Higher Power whom I choose to call God! Keeping it simple and stay in the day, having a good perspective on things. Talking with my sponsor and try to see if it is a good change or is it something I am trying to avoid. Someone once told me it's not the change that hurts it's the resistance to change that hurts! Sometimes I have to let the feelings out in order to see that it is good or to see why. The only thing that is constant in life is change, how true that is. God bless and thank you for being here!!!

[annalittlebit]

Absolutely It Is God---He brought me to recovery and is with me every second of every day!!!!!!!!

[rebosman_99]

Today I woke in my bedroom. My cat was knocking at my doorwanting to come in for somelove,a movie and possibly a snack... I went over to my computer and from cyberrecovery.net I read my daily meditations (my daily meds).
I noticed on my cpu stand the envelope that has all the papers for my biggest challenge in my life. I know that in the past this challenge has caused me much pain suffering hurt and loss.It's the court orders for me to finally be able to see my daughter. I have not seen her since April 10 2003.
I fell to my knee's and said God please if you see it fit for Christine to see her father then let it happen. That's when the miracle came to me. It is with me in all my challenges and it reminds me of where I came from and where I am going. That is my own memory. I do not regret the past or wish to close the door on it.
My memory reminded me of the many challenges I used to have. I would go behind stores in hope of refrigerator boxes to sleep in, always looking for free soup kitchens to warm my tummy and then going out and throwing it up cuz my system couldn't handle solids. I would go to churches and ask for money in exchange for the little help I could offer. Ect,ect......
Today I have goals and plans to achieve those goals. I am no longer the sorry chap that I once was and so I am not going to allow challenges to bring me down. Challenges are just another boundary that I must over come and with the help of my Higher Power (who usually does all the work for me. I just have to have the willingness to ask) and my support group I can get through the challenge and accept that it is as it should be at that very moment.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dealing with challenges
___http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/dealing_with_challenges.html
BY MAMMY
----------------------------------------------------------------------
'If you know the point of balance,
You can settle the details.
If you can settle the details,
You can stop running around.
If you can stop running around,
Your mind will become calm.
If your mind becomes calm,
You can think in front of a tiger.
If you can think in front of a tiger,
You will surely succeed.'
Mencius 372-289BC
Very few of us will come face to face with a real tiger as we go about our lives but everyone confronts challenges and obstacles of varying sizes and varying degrees of seriousness on a regular basis.
What's the ‘tiger' in front of you right now? Money or relationship difficulties? Coping with loss? A sense of unfulfillment?
Whatever it is, this ancient Chinese wisdom offers a way to deal with it. To succeed, it says, you need a calm mind. To achieve a calm mind you must stop running around. To stop running around you have to settle the details and to settle the details you need to know the point of balance.
To know the point of balance requires that you spend time looking within yourself connecting to the stillness and the silence. In this busy world it's easy to deny that there is stillness and silence in you - but it's there. Just as sure as you breathing in and out there is, deep within you, a place of complete peace beyond time and space where you are free to just be.
How do you get there?
Follow your breath.
Pay attention to it.
Slow it right down.
Be fully aware of each inhalation, each exhalation and the pauses between them.
With practice you will be thinking in front of tigers without a second thought!

[sonia n]

Good topic, for there is is only one word "GOD".

[gettinfree]

Thanks Terry for a great topic! Before recovery...I'd go at challanges with both feet...In recovery...With God...It's head first. I've never felt as free and fearless as I have become these last few months! Watch out world...Any Thing is possible. As long as I continue to honor my program (and that is the first challange) I won't use! If that were to go away...I'd become afraid again...Then I'd use again!......Love You All...Mike

[DavidNOLA]

Something that hit me like a pile of bricks during the holidays.
Only by talking about my problem(s) with other alcoholics do I overcome or deal with them.
During my years of white knuckling a program by myself, I didn't have the experience, strength and hope of fellow alcoholics.
And yes, God. .....could and would if he were sought.
Those words means so much to me.

And finally realizing why everyone says "keep coming back. it works if you work it!" at the end of a meeting. I think people picking up slip-chips on a regular basis has shown me that the daily reprieve will get us through everything we are faced with.

[clean42day]

I approach challenges as if they are opportunties for growth - = success or failure - are great teachers.....my job is to put in my best effort and to be a good student and not lose the lesson.

it is an the "attitude" and the approach that I "get to" - face challenges today...............

they don't come to defeat me - they come to develope me.

one of the spiritual principals in our program is COURAGE - and we have to live it into our lives.

light and love

Gail