December 16

What if?

I was talking to a friend one day about something I planned to do. Actually, I was worrying about how one particular person might react to what I intended to do.

"What if he doesn't handle it very well?" I asked.

"Then," my friend replied, "you're going to have to handle it well."

What ifs can make us crazy. They put control over our life in someone else's hands. What ifs are a sign that we have reverted to thinking that people have to react in a particular way for us to continue on our course.

What ifs are also a clue that we may be wondering whether we can trust ourselves and our Higher Power to do what's best for us. These are shreds of codependent ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and they signal fear.

The reactions, feelings, likes or dislikes of others don't have to control our behaviors, feelings, and direction. We don't need to control how others react to our choices. We can trust ourselves, with help from a Higher Power, to handle any outcome - even the most uncomfortable. And, my friend, we can trust ourselves to handle it well.

Today, I will not worry about other people's reactions or events outside of my control. Instead, I will focus on my reactions. I will handle my life well today and trust that, tomorrow, I can do the same.

You are reading from the book:

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

December 17

Our awesome responsibility to ourselves, to our children, and to the future is to create ourselves in the image of goodness, because the future depends on the nobility of our imaginings.
--Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

The world we live in depends on the responsible contributions each of us makes. And this world is just as good as are the many talents we commit ourselves to developing and offering. None of us is without obligation to offer our best to our family, friends, or strangers, if our hope is to live in a good world. The world can only be as good as each of us makes it.

Individually and collectively our power to mold the outer circumstances of our lives is profound. Our personal responses to one another and our reactions to events that touch us combine with the actions of others to create a changed environment that affects us. No action, no thought goes unnoticed, unfelt, in this interdependent system of humanity. We share this universe. We are the force behind all that the universe offers.

Whether I acknowledge the depth of my contribution is irrelevant. It is still profound and making an impact every moment and eternally.



You are reading from the book:

The Promise of a New Day by Karen Casey and Martha Vanceburg

December 18

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
--Marcus Aurelius

Anger shatters our calm. Some of us show it in loud bursts; others just quietly stew. Sometimes we feel angry inside but we still want to look kind and unperturbed, so our anger comes out sideways, hurting someone indirectly or in sneaky ways. We all have felt the pangs of regret after we said or did something in anger. We wish we could magically turn back the clock and undo the moment, gather up the pieces, and put them back together again.

No one can simply banish the basic human emotion of anger from his life. To be responsible, we must accept our anger. It arises from within us and handling it is our own responsibility, even when we are perfectly justified in feeling angry. We choose our way to express it. It is never responsible to say, "You made me angry, so it's your fault that I blew up."

After accepting our anger we strive to develop a space between the feeling and our actions. We learn to notice our feelings before they reach the explosion point. In that mental space we choose how to express them.

Today I will notice and accept my anger, than choose respectful ways to express it.

You are reading from the book:

Wisdom to Know by Anonymous

December 19

Reflection for the Day

There is no advantage, no profit and certainly no growth when I deceive myself merely to escape the consequences of my own mistakes. When I realize this, I know I'll be making progress. "We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us," wrote Thomas Merton in No Man Is an Island. "But we make ourselves true inside by manifesting the truth as we see it." Am I true to myself?

Today I Pray

May I count on my Higher Power to help me carry out the truth as I see it. May I never duck a consequence again. Consequence ducking became a parlor game for chemically addictive persons like me, until we lost all sense of relationship between action and outcome. Now that I am healing, please God, restore my balance.

Today I Will Remember

Match the act with the consequence.

You are reading from the book:

A Day at a Time (Softcover) by Anonymous

December 20

Listening well

Learning to really listen to another human being - beyond just his or her words - is critical to good communication. Valuable exchanges between human beings can occur only when each listens carefully to the other and tries sincerely to understand the other person's meaning. Much anger and frustration with others could be avoided if we truly understood one another.

Constant thoughts running through our minds is a form of talking, and we can't listen to another (including our Higher Power) if we are still talking.

Do I really listen?

Higher Power, help me be quiet enough within to listen to others today. By trying to understand another, let me learn something about myself.

You are reading from the book:

Day by Day - Second Edition by Anonymous

December 21

Nice guys finish last.
--Leo Durocher

Some of us are habitually victims, doormats, and "poor things." No matter what, we never say no. The more we practice being nice guys the less able we are to cope creatively. We place the blame, along with the responsibility, elsewhere.

Darlene modeled this for all of us at a recent meeting. She is well past fifty and has been divorced for twenty years. Yet she is still seeking sympathy for what her husband - and God -did to her. Twenty-five years ago she inherited fifty thousand dollars from her parents' estate. Bit by bit, as she said, her alcoholic husband spent it all. It wasn't that she gave it to him or failed to manage it herself, she explained. What happened was that he "just spent it all up. How could he do that?" The obvious, healthier question never occurred to her: How could she allow a sick person to eat up a small fortune?

The moral of the story is that being "too nice" isn't our problem.

Today, I will search my conscience for evidence of irresponsibility that I may have been filing under other names.

You are reading from the book:

Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty

December 22

Acceptance

When we have given our lives back to our Higher Power, we gradually learn to accept what happens to us as part of the plan. Most of us made a mess of trying to run our own lives. We are amazed at how much better things go when we acknowledge that the Power greater than ourselves is in control.

Every experience, the bad one as well as the good one, becomes an opportunity to learn and to serve. We may not like what it is that we are given to do or to feel on a particular day, but we learn to accept it as necessary for our growth. We can look back and see that we have learned even more from our failures than from our successes.

When we accept our lives and ourselves as part of God's creation, we are open to the work of God's spirit and love. Then positive change and growth become possible.

Teach me to accept Your will.

You are reading from the book:

Food for Thought by Elisabeth L.

December 23

To him, it was not the gift that mattered, but the giver.
--Walter de La Mare

In our material world today, we often get off track. We forget that what we really need in our lives is love and close friendships. It's too easy to take our relationships for granted. It's also too easy to take our sobriety for granted - the big gift of another chance at life.

For Christians, today marks the birth of Christ, the child who came to bring love and forgiveness to all. Whether we are Christian or not, as recovering people, we know that love and forgiveness do open the gates to new life. When we live in the light of our Higher Power - whether we call that power Jesus, Yahweh, Muhammad, Buddha, or Creator - we find ourselves living that new life.

Let each of us, in the name of our own Higher Power; spend this day in celebration of the new life we have been given.

Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, thanks for delivering new light into my life and giving me another chance. Teach me to live in the light of love and forgiveness. What a gift.

Today's Action

What gifts of love and forgiveness can I deliver to others today? What can I give from my heart that will bring someone light and joy? A smile and a hug? A phone call? An afternoon of conversation and play? I will remember to contact my sponsor today.

You are reading from the book:

God Grant Me... by Anonymous

December 24

That life is a fragile shell on the beach I have thought of before. This Christmas I am thinking big basic wonders as if I were just born.
--Naomi Shihab Nye

The big basic wonders about our origin, and that of the stars, must still occur to us all, even though we're grown up and knowledgeable about astronomy and human reproduction. The germination of a seed is still much more wonderful, in a strict sense, than the mere electronic marvel of a calculator that makes twelve thousand computations in a second.

Do we ever let ourselves simply wonder? Do we still open ourselves to the awe that filled us once, when we first realized the vast intricacies of the solar system or of human physiology?

Every great ritual surrounds a story that is wonderful: the presence of a god; the deliverance of a people; the transformation of life or death. It's appropriate that we should respond to them with a thrill of wonder. Wonder is a gift; it contains the germs of reverence and of knowledge.

Life is frail and intricate, and it contains everything I need for fulfillment.

You are reading from the book:

The Promise of a New Day by Karen Casey and Martha Vanceburg

December 25

Celebration is a forgetting in order to remember. A forgetting of ego, of problems, of difficulties. A letting go.
--Matthew Fox

A holiday presents us with an opportunity to practice the letting go of this program. This is a special day to set aside our work and our routines, to put our problems and burdens on the shelf. Let us join with others who are also letting go on this day and celebrate. Maybe we can learn from them how they do it.

We may have been too compulsive on past holidays to celebrate. Or perhaps our holidays are clouded with painful memories. We might miss loved ones or we may recall disappointments for the chaos of earlier holidays. There is no need for perfection in our celebration. We can have some tension, or pain, and yet set it aside as we join with others for a special day.

Today, I will set my ego aside and let go of the usual things in my life in order to reach out to others and participate in celebration.

You are reading from the book:

Touchstones by Anonymous

December 26

The best things in life are appreciated most after they have been lost.
--Roy L. Smith

Humankind has made such great technological progress, developing marvelous tools and instruments to make our life easier, that it is hard to imagine the struggles our ancestors endured. We are so used to these protective and labor-saving devices that we take them for granted. We fail to appreciate them.

So it is with our loved ones, our fellow workers, our friends, and acquaintances. We are so used to the help, the cooperation, the moral support, and the love we get from them that we may take them for granted. And then we wonder why our relationships don't always go smoothly. What if we were to show them a little appreciation? What if we were to ask God to bless them?

Today I will give thanks to my Higher Power for the people around me and tell them, one by one, how much I appreciate them.

You are reading from the book:

In God's Care by Karen Casey

December 27

It only takes one person to change your life - you.
--Ruth Casey

Change is not easy, but it's absolutely unavoidable. Doors will close. Barriers will surface. Frustrations will mount. Nothing stays the same forever, and it's such folly to wish otherwise. Growth accompanies positive change; determining to risk the outcome resulting from a changed behavior or attitude will enhance our self-perceptions. We will have moved forward; in every instance, our lives will be influenced by making a change that only each of us can make.

We have all dreaded the changes we knew we had to make. Perhaps even now we fear some impending changes. Where might they take us? It's difficult accepting that the outcome is not ours to control. Only the effort is ours. The solace is that positive changes, which we know are right for us and other people in our lives, are never going to take us astray. In fact, they are necessary for the smooth path just beyond this stumbling block.

When we are troubled by circumstances in our lives, a change is called for, a change that we must initiate. When we reflect on our recent as well as distant past, we will remember that the changes we most dreaded again and again have positively influenced our lives in untold ways.

Change ushers in glad, not bad, tidings.

You are reading from the book:

Each Day a New Beginning by Karen Casey

December 28

It took me a long time to realize that when I hate somebody it doesn't hurt them. Only me.

*****

Call your sponsor before, not after, you take your first drink.

*****

Nothing is so bad that relapse won't make it worse.

*****

I can't handle it, God. You take over.

*****

You cannot think your way into right actions.
You have to act your way into right thinking.

You are reading from the book:

Keep Coming Back Gift Book by Meiji Stewart

December 29

Be Patient with Everyone
--from writings by St. Francis de Sales

Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself . . . do not be disappointed by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage.

How are you to be patient in dealing with your neighbor's faults if you are impatient in dealing with your own?

They who are worried by their own shortcomings will not correct them.

All positive progress comes from a calm and peaceful mind.

You are reading from the book:

The 12 Step Prayer Book Volume 2 by Bill P. and Lisa D.

December 30

A.A. Thought for the Day

When we came into Alcoholics Anonymous, were we desperate? Were we so sick of ourselves and our way of living that we couldn't stand looking at ourselves in a mirror? Were we ready to try anything that would help us to get sober and to get over our soul-sickness? Should I ever forget the condition I was in?

Meditation for the Day

In the new year, I will live one day at a time. I will make each day one of preparation for better things ahead. I will not dwell on the past or the future, only on the present. I will bury every fear of the future.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that God will guide me one day at a time in the new year. I pray that for each day, God will supply the wisdom and the strength that I need.

You are reading from the book:

Twenty-four Hours a Day for Teens by Anonymous