[bluidkiti]

May 4

Step by Step

"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." - Step Three

Today, have I surrendered my will and life to a higher power after having "made a decision ..." We are warned, "Selfishness - self-centeredness! That ...is the root of our troubles." Selfishness, easily identified in our Fourth Step, gives way to humility - the total surrender of self to the will of a higher power. The Third Step lays the foundation for the spiritual change that we work toward in subsequent steps, and change can be little or nothing if we do not first experience the humility of absolute surrender. And the predictable outcome if we hold onto our playing God with our own lives will be a slip or full relapse. How do I "take" my Third? "... (I)t is better to meet God alone than with one" other person, according to the Big Book because of the intensely personal and private relationship we have with the God of our understanding. Today, I do not take for granted the immense importance of Step Three and ask if I have humbled myself completely to seek my higher power's will instead of mine. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M.

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~ EASY DOES IT ~ (A Book of Daily 12 Step Meditations) ~

WINNING ATTITUDE

If I should lose, let me stand by the road and cheer as the winners go by.

~ Berton Bradley ~

If we are to be among the winners in the recovery from addiction and obsession, we must maintain the attitude of success. Winners in any 12 Step Program take fearless inventories, correct shortcomings, and willingly make amends. By taking charge of ourselves in this manner, we neither blame or credit others or events. With confidence and willingness, we hold ourselves responsible for our lives.

We take responsibility for our pre-Program faults and conduct. We can then count ourselves among those who, with the help of our Higher Power, can control compulsive and excessive behaviour. But we don’t do it with pride. We do it with humility and gratitude.

I will begin to lose hold of a winning attitude if I choose to leave spiritual growth to chance. I must make life happen, not let it happen to me.

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~ WISDOM TO KNOW ~ (More Daily Meditations For Men) ~

Working so hard for the rewards we want, we miss the gifts, already present, that God wants to give us.

~ Anonymous ~

We cannot win many of the good things in life; we can only receive them. It is like falling asleep. No one can will himself to sleep. If we could, there would be no such thing as a sleepless night. The harder we try, the more awake we become. We can only allow ourselves to fall asleep. We cannot create a sunny day or a beautiful sight in nature, but we can block them from our awareness. We cannot fall in love by force of will, but we can prevent it from happening by our willfulness or busy habits. Our raging appetites and anxious state of mind can drive us willy-nilly in search of satisfaction—while more profound gifts are already in our hands.

Many valuable gifts are available only if we stay open to receive them. A wise man grows past our society’s mainstream idea that anything worth having requires hard work. The ultimate truth is that God’s grace provides what we need. Our work is in learning how to let go and be receptive.

Today I will open myself to the gifts already in my hands.

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~ A WOMAN’S SPIRIT ~ (More Meditations For Women) ~

To hear how special and wonderful we are is endlessly enthralling.

~ Gail Sheehy ~

Sometimes we give in to others because we want affirmation. Belonging, however we define it, is important, and letting our own values slip often seems worth it. But there’s a downside to this acquiescence. When we relinquish our integrity, we deny our very selves. And then we doubt our worth.

For many of us, knowing we are special has to be learned. Our families may not have conveyed this much-deserved message, so getting it somewhere was superior to getting it nowhere. But now we have the opportunity to seek affirmation from all the right sources.

Coming to believe that our Higher Power considers us wonderful just as we are requires that we dispel our more critical, though comfortable, self- assessment. This is the first step in finding the acceptance we’ve always longed for.

I will remind myself that God makes no junk each time I doubt my value to those around me.

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~ TODAY I WILL DO ONE THING ~ (Daily Readings for Awareness and Hope) ~

I didn’t cause them and I can’t cure them

I used to feel frustrated and disappointed with myself after having symptoms of my psychiatric disorder. Sometimes I got drunk to take the edge off the symptoms. But when I woke up with a hangover, I felt guilty and ashamed. I felt as though I had had given up some control.

I still experience some of these feelings at times, but since I stopped drinking, my life feels more manageable. Learning about my dual disorder has also helped. While these two biological illnesses are not my fault, I am responsible for dealing with them: (a) I need to stay clean and sober; (b) I need to take my medication as prescribed by my psychiatrist; and (c) I need to attend a support group for my psychiatric issues and a Twelve Step group for my addiction. If I do these things, I will be taking good care of myself in dual recovery.

Today I will ask my higher power for self-acceptance and my psychiatrist for information about my illnesses.

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~ BODY, MIND, AND SPIRIT ~ (Inspiration and Support for Recovery) ~

There is no end to the width of God’s shoulders.

~ Bob Blaire ~

There is a story about a wise woman listening to the woes of a friend. The friend sadly reported her problems on the road to recovery and how stuck she usually felt. After an hour of listening to negativity, the wise woman said, “Remember, God hasn’t quit His job.”

When we tackle all of life’s problems by ourselves, we quickly tire and get frustrated. We can usually measure our level of trust in our Higher Power by our physical and emotional condition. The more trouble we try to carry and fix ourselves, the more exhausted and frustrated we feel.

It is difficult to learn to trust Him enough to let Him help carry the load. But when we finally let go and turn over a problem, the clouds seem to open and the sun of hope shines on us again. And though it’s not something we learn to do all at once, in time we can see our slow and steady progress and feel our growing serenity and confidence.

Today let me trust my Higher Tower enough to share my burden. Let me turn one thing over.

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~ MORNING LIGHT ~ (Meditations to Begin Your Day) ~

One sits uncomfortably on a too comfortable cushion.

~ Lillian Heilman ~

After a long period of spring rain that keeps you indoors, you yearn for sunshine and fresh air, to be doing something other than sitting around the house. You want change. After several hours spent in front of the computer or the television, you are eager to do something different. You want change. After eating the same leftovers for three days, you want to eat something different. You want change.

Staying in one place for too long deprives you of challenges and new adventures. Change provides welcome relief from monotony. But add too much change, and you can become overwhelmed. That is why it is important to seek a balance in the changes you are making.

With balance, you can experience both times of monotony as well as times of challenge and activity. What you change and when you change is within your control. To ensure balance, remember that change is not accomplished in one day, but over an extended period of time. Consider ways in which you can devote time to making changes and times when you take a break so you can start anew. Welcome the changes you need to make and remember that without them, your life would be stagnant.

I welcome change but do not let it overrun my life.

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~ NIGHT LIGHT ~ (A Book Of Nighttime Meditations) ~

My father taught me that a bill is like a crying baby and must be attended to at once.

~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh ~

In the past, we may have faced our bills with denial or justification that we needed the things we had purchased. We may have abused credit cards so much that we are still paying for items we purchased months or years ago. And we may have problems today with spending more than we earn.

Many times material wants are based on emotional needs we don’t know how to satisfy. In the past we may have thought we could ease our pains and troubles by buying new clothes or a bigger stereo. Our emotional needs are still screaming for attention and it may be difficult to stop using material purchases as pacifiers.

Like the recovering alcoholic who avoids a drink, we must disregard temptations of credit cards, extravagant purchases, and borrowing. Material things provide only a temporary reprieve, they will not take away our emotions. Emotions can only be eased by things money can’t buy: time, love, faith, and understanding.

I don't need to buy anything to take away my feelings. I can attend to my feelings with the tools of the program.

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~ DAY BY DAY ~ (Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts) ~

Expressing love

Now that we’ve hit bottom and are starting over, clean and sober, we can finally see that without a Higher Power, without love, we are powerless. It’s what we’ve been seeking for ages—and it’s been here all along; we just couldn’t see it. We need a Higher Power. We need love.

It is the answer to our problems; it can change everything. (But we have so much trouble with it!) We’re afraid of love, and we fail to give the love we have to give. Yet every expression of love is sacred, nurturing.

Am I expressing my love?

Higher Power, help me to see my best self, to express it, and to see the best in others.

I will express the love within me today by

God help me to stay clean and sober today!

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~ IF YOU WANT WHAT WE HAVE ~ (Sponsorship Meditations) ~

Nobuddy ever fergits where he buried a hatchet.

~ KIN HUBBARD ~

Newcomer

There’s someone close to me who was always after me to quit my addictive behavior. Now that I’m in recovery, he’s angry at me all the time. Is this what I deserve for recovering?

Sponsor

The people who were in our lives when we were active in our addictions had much to be angry about. The damage we did was real. We were present physically, but we weren’t functioning fully. Many of us were self-centered and emotionally absent. Whether as partners or friends, parents or children, employees or employers, we couldn’t be depended on.

People around us learned not to count on us in certain ways, and those who didn’t reject us may have enabled our addictions by making excuses for us, rationalizing to themselves about our inadequacies, and shouldering more than their share of mutual responsibilities.

Now that we’re safely in recovery, the truth of what they’ve had to put up with may be more painfully obvious to them than before. The anger and hurt they’ve been keeping inside all this time may come spilling out of them.

Understanding that our addictive behavior has had an impact on others is a crucial part of our recovery. They have their own healing process to go through. We can’t hurry it or make it happen.

Today, I practice patience and compassion for all those who have been affected by my addiction.

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~ THE EYE OPENER ~

The reformed drunkard has simply corrected his former drinking abuses. With this single exception he is the same man with the same defects of character that marked his life in his drinking days.

In contrast, the real AA has experienced a revolutionary moral change. He has put the operation of his life into the care and under the direction of the God of his understanding. Not only has he corrected his drinking abuses but he has turned his entire life over to the care of Him who is the source of, and indeed is, Good.

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~ The 12 STEP PRAYER BOOK ~ (A Collection of Favorite 12 Step Prayers and Inspirational Readings) ~

HAPPINESS

Happiness is not a matter of good fortune or worldly possessions. It’s a mental attitude. It comes from appreciating what we have, instead of being miserable about what we don’t have. It’s so simple−yet so difficult for the human mind to comprehend.

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~ AROUND THE YEAR WITH EMMET FOX ~ (A Book of Daily Readings) ~

NO VENGEANCE

“Hatred ceases not with hatred,” said the Light of Asia, enunciating this great cosmic truth many centuries earlier, and the Light of the World put in the forefront of his teaching because it is the cornerstone of man’s salvation.

This doctrine of “resist not evil” is the great metaphysical secret. To the world it sounds like moral suicide, the feeblest surrender to aggression; but in the light of the Jesus Christ revelation it is seen to be superb spiritual strategy. Antagonize any situation, and you give it power against yourself; offer mental non-resistance, and it crumbles away in front of you.

Jesus gives no instructions for details of external conflict, and so the references here to suing at law, to coat and cloak, to lending and borrowing, to turning the other cheek, are illustrative and symbolical of mental states, and are not to be taken in the narrow literal sense. We cannot to often remind ourselves that if the thought is right, the deed cannot be wrong. No teacher could ever say that a given act must necessarily be right at any time, because the play of circumstances in human life is too hopelessly complicated for any such prediction.

If, when someone is behaving badly, you will imediatelly switch your attention from the human to the Divine, and concentrate upon God, or upon the real spiritual self of the person in question, you will find that his conduct will immediately change. This is the true revenge.

Delay beloved, avenge not yourselves . . . for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord (Romans 12:19)

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~ A DEEP BREATH OF LIFE ~ (365 Daily Inspirations for Heart-Centered Living) ~

Swimming Naked

Few is the number of those who think with their own minds and feel with their own hearts.

~ Albert Einstein ~

One day a friend and I set out to swim au naturel in the mountain pools near my home. Soon after we arrived, a few people showed up. I should probably put my bathing suit on, I thought. These people may find my nudity offensive. Then I thought, But I was here first. Besides, most people swim naked here. I’ll just carry on as I am and trust that everyone will be fine.

A short time later, a family showed up. Now I should really put my suit on, I thought. But we were here first, I remembered. Kids usually go naked anyway. I’ll just trust that everyone will be okay with it. Half an hour later, a tour group arrived. Off the mini-van the Japanese poured, camcorders rolling. Now I really better get dressed, I figured. By this time, however, I was enjoying myself immensely. If they don’t like it, that’s their problem, I reasoned. Besides, I was here first. So went the day. Everyone else wore swimsuits, but they seemed fine with us being naked, and we all enjoyed ourselves. When we finally left, I felt a deep sense of peace.

Do you have the courage to swim naked even when others are wearing their suits? I am not referring to being physically naked; it is infinitely more important to be spiritually naked—to be who you are, whatever you are, where you are, and to act from a sense of inner vitality rather than social accommodation.

Give me the courage to be what I am. In the presence of Your love, I have nothing to hide and everything to celebrate.

Who and what I am is enough.


*****

The Eye Opener

The reformed drunkard has simply corrected his former drinking abuses. With this single exception, he is the same man with the same defects of character that marked his life in his drinking day.

In contrast, the real AA has experienced a revolutionary moral change. He has put the operation of his life into the care and under the direction of the God of his understanding. Not only has he corrected his drinking abuses, but he has turned his entire life over to the care of Him who is the source of, and indeed is, Good.

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Around the Year with Emmet Fox

No Vengeance

“Hatred ceases not with hatred,” said the Light of Asia, enunciating this great cosmic truth many centuries earlier, and the Light of the World put it in the forefront of his teaching because it is the cornerstone of man’s salvation.
This doctrine of “resist not evil” is the great metaphysical secret. To the world it sounds like moral suicide, the feeblest surrender to aggression; but in the light of the Jesus Christ revelation it is seen to be superb spiritual strategy. Antagonize any situation, and you give it power against yourself; offer mental nonresistance, and it crumbles away in front of you.
Jesus gives no instructions for details of external conduct, and so the references here to suing at law, to coat and cloak, to lending and borrowing, to turning the other cheek, are illustrative and symbolical of mental states, and are not to be taken in the narrow literal sense. We cannot too often remind ourselves that if the thought is right, the deed cannot be wrong. No teacher could ever say that a given act must necessarily be right at any time, because the play of circumstances in human life is too hopelessly complicated for any such prediction.
If, when someone is behaving badly, you will immediately switch your attention from the human to the Divine, and concentrate upon God, or upon the real spiritual self of the person in question, you will find that his conduct will immediately change. This is the true revenge.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves . . . for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord (Romans 12:19)