[bluidkiti]

November 12

Daily Reflections

MORNING THOUGHTS
Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still
sick.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 164

For many years I pondered over God's will for me, believing that perhaps a great
destiny had been ordained for my life. After all, having been born into a specific faith,
hadn't I been told early that I was "chosen"? It finally occurred to me, as I
considered the above passage, that God's will for me was simply that I practice Step
Twelve on a daily basis. Furthermore, I realized I should do this to the best of my
ability. I soon learned that the practice aids me in keeping my life in the context of the
day at hand.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

I am less critical of other people, inside and outside of A.A. I used to run people
down all the time. I realize now that it was because I wanted unconsciously to build
myself up. I was envious of people who lived normal lives. I couldn't understand why
I couldn't be like them. And so I ran them down. I called them sissies or hypocrites.
I was always looking for faults in the other person. I loved to tear down what I
called "a stuff shirt" or "a snob." I have found that I can never make a person any
better by criticism. A.A. has taught me this. Am I less critical of people?

Meditation For The Day

You must admit your helplessness before your prayer for help will be heard by God.
Your own need must be recognized before you can ask God for the strength to meet
that need. But once that need is recognized, your prayer is heard above all the music
of heaven. It is not theological arguments that solve the problems of the questing
soul, but the sincere cry of that soul to God for strength and the certainty of that
soul that the cry will be heard and answered.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may send my voiceless cry for help out into the void. I pray that I may feel
certain that it will be heard somewhere, somehow.

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As Bill Sees It

High and Low, p. 314

When our membership was small, we dealt with "low-bottom cases"
only. Many less desperate alcoholics tried A.A., but did not succeed
because they could not make the admission of their hopelessness.

In the following years, this changed. Alcoholics who still had their
health, their families, their jobs, and even two cars in the garage,
began to recognize their alcoholism. As this trend grew, they were
joined by young people who were scarcely more than potential
alcoholics. How could people such as these take the First Step?

By going back in our own drinking histories, we showed them that
years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking
even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a
fatal progression.

12 & 12, p. 23

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Walk In Dry Places

The importance of maintenance.
Fortitude
In praising their success with AA, people sometimes overlook the importance of maintenance. AA not only helps us achieve sobriety, but it can also help us maintain our sobriety for a lifetime.
Members often touch on this matter when they admit that they were able to sober up hundreds of times, but didn't know how to stay sober. It is staying sober that makes all the difference between life and death for us.
Our tools for staying sober___ for maintaining our sobriety___ are the simple ones that put us back on our feet in the first place. We continue to admit that we're alcoholics and need the help of fellow members and our Higher Power. We also continue to attend meetings and to carry the message. We remind ourselves that we're never out of the woods permanently, no matter how much our lives improve.
I'll take the routine steps today that are needed for the maintenance of my sobriety. Doing this will help protect me from the terrible consequences of returning to drinking.

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Keep It Simple

It may be those who do most, dream most.---Stephen Leacock
Daydreaming gives us hope. It makes our world bigger. Daydreaming can be part of doing Step Eleven. As we meditate, we daydream. Through our daydreaming, we get to know ourselves, our spirit, and our Higher Power. What special work can we do? Our dreams can tell us.
There is time to work and time to dream. Daydreaming helps us find the work our Higher Power wants us to do.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, please speak to me through my daydreams.
Action for the Day: I’ll set aside time to daydream. I will look into a candle flame, at picture, or out a window, and let my mind wander.

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Each Day a New Beginning

Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are
also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in
the imagination. --Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
Our minds mold who we become. Our thoughts not only contribute to our
achievements, they determine the posture of our lives. How very powerful
they are. Fortunately, we have the power to think the thoughts we
choose, which means our lives will unfold much as we expect.
The seeds we plant in our minds indicate the directions we'll explore in
our development. And we won't explore areas we've never given attention
to in our reflective moments. We must dare to dream extravagant,
improbable dreams if we intend to find a new direction, and the steps
necessary to it.
We will not achieve, we will not master that which goes unplanned in our
dream world. We imagine first, and then we conceive the execution of a
plan. Our minds prepare us for success. They can also prepare us for
failure if we let our thoughts become negative.
I can succeed with my fondest hopes. But I must believe in my potential
for success. I will ponder the positive today.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

THERE IS A SOLUTION

That the man who is making the approach has had the same difficulty, that he obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, that he has no attitude of Holier Than Thou, nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured—these are the conditions we have found most effective. After such an approach many take up their beds and walk again.

pp. 18-19

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

Gratitude In Action

The story of Dave B., one of the founders of A.A. in Canada in 1944.

I know the Fellowship of A.A. doesn't offer any guarantees, but I also know that in the future I do not have to drink. I want to keep this life of peace, and tranquility that I have found. Today, I have found again the home I left and the woman I married when she was still so young. We have two more children, and they think their dad is an important man. I have all these wonderful things--people who mean more to me than anything in the world. I shall keep all that, and I won't have to drink, if I remember one simple thing: to keep my hand in the hand of God.

p. 199

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Ten - "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it."

As we work the first nine Steps, we prepare ourselves for the adventure of a new life. But when we approach Step Ten we commence to put our A.A. way of living to practical use, day by day, in fair weather or foul. Then comes the acid test: can we stay sober, keep in emotional balance, and live to good purpose under all conditions?

p. 88

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Apprehend God in all things, For God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God
and is a book about God. Every creature is a word of God! If I spent enough time with the
tiniest creature--even a caterpillar -- I would never have to prepare a sermon, so full of
God is every creature.
--Meister Eckhart

"There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself."
--Erich Fromm

"A day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work."
--John Lubbock

"When shall we live if not now?"
--M. F. K. Fisher

"With each sunrise, we start anew."
--Anonymous

"You never know what you can do till you try."
--William Cobbett

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

RELIGION

"It is the test of a good religion
if you can joke about it."
-- G. K. Chesterton

Today I am able to joke with God and about God. I am able to laugh at me swinging
incense at a candlestick and then swinging the incense at the Bishop! I smile at the
determined seriousness of choirboys who receive communion while at the same time
sticking chewing gum under the arm rail. I chuckle at the embarrassment of the
baptism family when the baby pulls the plug out of the font and the holy water
drains away.

Today I am able to laugh at God and His Church it joyously reflects man's
imperfection but at the same time reminds him of his glory.

God, I contemplate You laughing at our pompous piety.

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"Your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
Matthew 6:8

Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find
satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given
him -- for this is his lot. Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and
enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work -- this is a gift of
God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with
gladness of heart.
Ecclesiastes 5:18-20

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Daily Inspiration

Write down who you think you are and then write down who you want to be. Lord, help me realize that with little effort I can be who I want to be and give me the determination and will power to blossom.

Prayer is the best preparation for the day. Lord, although I don't know all that I will need for today, give me clarity and wisdom and remove from my path that which I am yet not strong enough to bear.

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NA Just For Today

Our Own Story

"When we honestly tell our own story, someone else may identify with us."
Basic Text p. 95

Many of us have heard truly captivating speakers at Narcotics Anonymous conventions. We remember the audience alternating between tears of identification and joyous hilarity. "Someday," we may think, "I'm going to be a main speaker at a convention, too."

Well, for many of us, that day has yet to arrive. Once in awhile we may be asked to speak at a meeting near where we live. We might speak at a small convention workshop. But after all this time, we're still not "hot&hot; convention speakers - and that's okay. We've learned that we, too, have a special message to share, even if it's only at a local meeting with fifteen or twenty addicts in attendance.

Each of us has only our own story to tell; that's it. We can't tell anyone else's story. Every time we get up to speak, many of us find all the clever lines and funny stories seem to disappear from our minds. But we do have something to offer. We carry the message of hope - we can and do recover from our addiction. And that's enough.

Just for today: I will remember that my honest story is what I share the best. Today, that's enough.

pg. 330

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You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
No life is so hard that you can't make it easier by the way you take it.
--Ellen Glasgow
Jimmy and Karen were out catching insects for their science class. Jimmy
had caught a gray moth and Karen a monarch butterfly.
"My moth sure isn't very pretty," Jimmy said as he looked at the two
insects. "Now I'll have to catch something else."
"Oh, but it is," said Karen. "See what a fat body your moth has compared
to my butterfly, and it's got fuzzies on its wings."
"You're right," said Jimmy, beginning to smile at his moth. "I was
almost going to let him go."
How many times in the past have we taken just a quick look at something
before rejecting it? Often, simply because a thing isn't quite what we
expected, we don't give ourselves a chance to discover what it is that
makes that thing beautiful. There is a secret beauty in everything, even
ourselves. When we take the time to seek it out in other people and
things, especially those that have disappointed us, that beauty is
reflected in us, too.
Can I find the beauty in something common today?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
An ideal is a man's portrait of his better self. --Louis Binstock
When in training for athletics, we use a daily routine to reach a peak
condition. We stretch; lift weights, run, and do special conditioning to
develop our bodies and skills for that big day of competition. It's hard
work. Sometimes we hate it, but at other times we do it just because it
feels so good. Then when the day of competition comes, we can depend on
that practice. At a crucial moment there's not time to think about how
we will respond. We just do it the way we learned and use our physical
ability to carry us through.
In this program we go to our meetings, we work the Steps on a personal
level, we develop a relationship with our Higher Power, and we keep in
touch with our sponsor. Some days we may wonder if it's worthwhile, but
most of the time the process is full and rewarding in itself. We make
progress toward the ideal although we never achieve perfection. When the
challenges or threats to our sobriety come, we have our conditioning
within the program to carry us through.
In this day ahead I will remember that I am building myself to peak
condition. I will be faithful to my "training program."


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are
also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in
the imagination. --Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
Our minds mold who we become. Our thoughts not only contribute to our
achievements, they determine the posture of our lives. How very powerful
they are. Fortunately, we have the power to think the thoughts we
choose, which means our lives will unfold much as we expect.
The seeds we plant in our minds indicate the directions we'll explore in
our development. And we won't explore areas we've never given attention
to in our reflective moments. We must dare to dream extravagant,
improbable dreams if we intend to find a new direction, and the steps
necessary to it.
We will not achieve, we will not master that which goes unplanned in our
dream world. We imagine first, and then we conceive the execution of a
plan. Our minds prepare us for success. They can also prepare us for
failure if we let our thoughts become negative.
I can succeed with my fondest hopes. But I must believe in my potential
for success. I will ponder the positive today.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Timing
Wait until the time is right. It is self-defeating to postpone or
procrastinate; it is also self-defeating to act too soon, before the
time is right.
Sometimes, we panic and take action out of fear. Sometimes, we take
untimely action for revenge or because we want to punish someone. We act
or speak too soon as a way to control or force someone to action.
Sometimes, we take action too soon to relieve feelings of discomfort or
anxiety about how a situation will turn out.
An action taken too soon can be as ineffective as one taken too late. It
can backfire and cause more problems than it solves. Usually, when we
wait until the time is right - sometimes only a matter of minutes or
hours - the discomfort dissolves, and we're empowered to accomplish what
we need to do.
In recovery, we are learning to be effective.
Our answers will come. Our guidance will come. Pray. Trust. Wait. Let
go. We are being led. We are being guided.
Today, I will let go of my need to control by waiting until the time is
right. When the time is right, I will take action.


When I find my now full of yesterday's feelings, I can ask for God to
remove them. I can pray to turn them over to a power greater than myself
so that they will lose their power for me. I know longer need to hold on
to memories which create feelings that make me upset or unhappy. --Ruth
Fishel

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Journey to the Heart

Wash Old Pain Away

“I don’t know what’s going on,” a woman told me, “but lately memories of the past have been coursing through me like a river. I see scenes from my life, then the feelings appear– old pains, old hurts, old wounds. Nothing is triggering this that I can tell. It’s just happening spontaneously.”

We walk around with old wounds, old hurts– remnants of other times, ancient times, in our lives. We may be aware of these old feelings, fully conscious they’re there and why. Or we may only have partial awareness, a lingering sense that there’s some hurt within, without a clue as to its source. We may get a glimpse of it when we open our eyes in the morning and notice something deep inside aches, but we don’t know why. Or we may not be conscious of the pain or it’s connection to a particular event. The pain is hidden away, deep within our soul.

It has become time to cleanse the past.

Let the feelings come to the surface and pass through your consciousness. Let memories emerge as they will. You aren’t going back to your past. What’s happening is normal. Your heart is finding a way to heal.

Clear away the past. Let the river of life wash old pains away. Feel the feelings until the river runs clear.

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More Language Of Letting Go
November 12, 2012
Use your connections

As I glanced through the pages of a writer’s magazine one morning, I realized how important this magazine had been in my life. When I began writing back in the late seventies, I had no writer friends. I was on my own with a dream and a sketchy one at that. But by reading this monthly magazine aimed at aspiring writers, I knew I wasn’t alone. Other people had done what I wanted to do, they had started where I was at. This magazine was an important part of my believing I can.

From time to time, we all need connections to help us believe. If we’re beginning recovery from an issue like codependency or chemical dependency, our group meetings help us believe I can. If we’re learning a new skilll, like skydiving or flying a plane, sometimes talking to someone that can remember what it felt like to be unsure, awkward, and unskilled goes much further than talking to someone that can only remember being in mastery of the craft.

One day at the drop zone, I grabbed a man who had jumped out of an airplane over ten thousand times. “I’m so scared each time I jump,” I said. “Is it normal to be that afraid?” This skydiving professional– who was so assured and respected– looked at me and smiled. “I was so frightened my first one hundred jumps that I couldn’t even breathe!”

When you’re trying to believe you can, whether it’s believing you can stay sober for the next twenty-four hours, learning to take care of yourself, being a single parent, being in a good relationship, learning to write, learning to type, or learning to jump out of a plane, make good solid connections to people, places, and things that help you believe I can.

And if you run into someone who’s walking a path that you’ve already walked, remember and share how it felt in the beginning so they can come to believe,too.

God, thank you for sending me the connections I need. Let me be of service whenever possible by being honest and speaking from my heart so I can be a good connection, as well.

Activity: Make a list of your connections. What are the areas in your life where you want to believe you can do it? Examples might be sobriety, taking care of yourself, being a single parent, learning to write, learning to be in a relationship, going through a divorce, surviving the loss of a loved one, getting your finances in order, or learning to speak a new language. Once you have your list of I can’s, list in detail your present or potential connections for coming to believe. For instance, in recovery from chemical dependency, your connections might include your Twelve Step groups, the Big Book, a daily meditation book, a counselor, some recovering friends, and a medallion you received– whether it’s for one hour or one day. If you’re learning a new skill, such as writing, your connections might include a teacher, a friend, a book that’s particularly helpful and encouraging, a magazine, and a piece of writing you’ve already done that either has been published or received good responses from friends. This list is solely to help you believe you can. Once you have your connection lists written, use them whenever you need a big dose of I can.

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An Invitation to Comfort
Creating a Serene Home

Your home is your oasis. Through your efforts, your house or apartment can become both a private sanctuary and a welcoming, serene, and healthy place to live in and visit. An organized and comfortable home can have a calming effect on you, your family, and guests, as well as be your personal escape from the rest of the world. Creating this nurturing space isn’t difficult. Even a household that includes young children or multiple animals can be a serene and peaceful place. In just a few minutes, you can make a number of changes that can turn your home into a safe and comfortable haven that you can be proud to share with your loved ones and friends.

One way to fill your house or apartment with calming energy is to imbue it with a peaceful ambiance that nurtures all five senses. Soft lighting and soothing colors like blue, purple, and green can make a space feel warm and inviting, while pleasant and calming aromas such as lavender and vanilla can positively affect moods. Peaceful sounds, such as running water in a fountain or gentle chimes can uplift and clear the space, while clearing clutter and making the most of open space can ease internal turmoil and dispel negative feelings. The physical objects in your home as well as your home itself can retain the energy of previous owners or creators. You can give your household’s energy a lift by visualizing white light surrounding our home, symbolically sweeping out residual energy, or smudging your home with cleansing sage.

The changes you make to your home can be as unique as you are and may involve utilization of space, lighting, new furniture, decorating, feng shui, or ritual. But what you do is not as important as being clear in your intention to set up your household as a soothing and refreshing place to be. Make your home a place of comfort, and you will feel nurtured and cared for whenever you are there. Published with permission from Daily OM

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

There are few “absolutes” in The Program’s Twelve Steps. We’re free to start at any point we can, or will. God, as we understand Him, may be defined as simply a “Power greater”; for many of us in The Program, the group itself was the first “Power greater.” And this acknowledgment is relatively easy to make if a newcomer knows that most of the members are sober and otherwise chemically-free and he isn’t. This admission is the beginning of humility. Perhaps for the first time, the newcomer is at least willing to disclaim that he himself — or sh3e herself — is God. Is my behavior more convincing to newcomers than my words?

Today I Pray

May I define and discover my own Higher Power. As that definition becomes clearer and closer to me, may I remember not to insist that my interpretation is right. For each much find his or her own Higher Power. If a newcomer is feeling godless and alone, the power of the group may be enough for now. May I never discredit the power of the group.

Today I Will Remember

Group power can be a Higher Power.

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One More Day

Life is the enjoyment of Emotion, derived from the past and aimed at the future.
- Alfred, Lord Whitehead

Life sails by much more quickly than we expect it to. When our children were young, it seemed as if endless years stretched ahead for us to nurture and teach them; suddenly they are in college, or married with children of there own.

Each day must be lived to its fullest, for we shall never be able to recapture it again. The memories we create today can enrich the present, and even the future years. Making good memories serves us well.

It is our wish to fully enjoy life and if we can’t, to attempt to correct those problems which keep us from fully enjoying what we do have. Than we can once again look to a full and wonderful future.

I will work to deal with those facts of my life which cause me pain.

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Food For Thought

Don't Anticipate

We wear ourselves out unnecessarily when we spend our energy anticipating the future rather than living in the present. To anticipate bad things is obviously detrimental to our serenity. It is also needless, since most of the things we worry about never happen. Even if some of them do occur, it is easier by far to deal with real disasters than with imagined ones.

Anticipating future satisfactions can also be detrimental to our serenity. If we are living for an event or condition, which is yet to come, we are not completely alive to what is here now. We may build up some future pleasure in our minds to such an unrealistic pitch that the actual event is bound to be disappointing.

Accepting the here and now is what ensures our sanity and our serenity. Reality is never more than we can manage, with the help of our Higher Power. It is our anticipation of the future, which is unreal and dangerous.

May I live today and leave the future to You.

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One Day At A Time

~ Hitting Bottom ~
My life closed twice before its close.
Emily Dickinson

Doesn't every addict, sooner or later, face some kind of incomprehensible end to something they hold dear, all because of their addiction?

I certainly did. In my late thirties, in the plum Ivy League job that was the envy of all those I'd gone to graduate school with, I was fired. The fact was, though I'd tried to put a good face on it, I was up to my eyebrows in my disease of compulsive overeating and was consequently seriously depressed. Or was I seriously depressed and consequently...?

No matter. I had been in a hole the width and depth of which I could not overcome. Day after day I would sit in my office with the door closed, work piled on my desk, unable to make headway. I had done this for over a year. Then the ax fell, and there I was, a depressed, overweight workaholic without work.

Fortunately for me, by this time I had already found program, and although I was a newcomer of only six months, I knew enough that I was lucky to have lost my job. Although I would never have quit it, it would have eventually led to the loss of my health and sanity, what was left of them. I was in that important and prestigious job for all the wrong reasons, but mainly as a balm to my tiny and broken self-esteem.

The fact was, the healing for my self-loathing wasn't in a fancy title or professional honors. It was in the spiritual life and the recovery of mind, body, heart, and spirit that I found in program.

I learned for myself that hitting bottom is not the end. I let my Higher Power into my life, and it was the beginning of a more honest and worthy way of living.

One day at a time... . . .
I turn my life over to my Higher Power to make of it what She will. It makes every day a good day.
~ Roberta ~

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. we are not fighting it, neither are avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition. - Pgs. 84-85 - Into Action

Hour To Hour - Book - Quote

This is your second chance in life and although the suggestions are easy, the footwork is not. You must surrender on a daily basis, go to 90 meetings in 90 days and do what the clean and sober people tell you. It may take all the strength you have, but it won't take more then you have.

Let me use every ounce of energy I have to stay clean and sober and not waste it on ways to convince myself to use or drink.

Being with Life

Today, I allow myself just to be with life. Somehow, it doesn't have to prove anything to me or give me any more than I already have to be okay. The lessons I have learned through working through all that blocks my forgiveness have taught me that I can face my most difficult feelings and still come home to a place of love and acceptance. Life is always renewing itself; nothing lasts, good or bad, and that is just the way it is. It is enough today to enjoy my coffee, to take a walk, to appreciate the people in my life. I can rest in a quiet sort of understanding that this is what it's all about; all the searching turned up such an ordinary but beautiful thing.

I am enraptured with the ordinary.
- Tian Dayton PhD

Pocket Sponsor - Book - Quote

Each person you meet is in a specific stage of their life, a stage you may have passed through or not yet reached. Judging them by your standards and experience is therefore not only unfair, but could lead to unnecessary anger and frustration. (P 135, Alkiespeak)

I practice tolerance by putting up with those I'd like to put down.

"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

Nothing makes a person more productive than the last minute.

Time for Joy - Book - Quote

When I find my NOW full of yesterdays feelings, I can ask for God to remove them. I can pray to turn them over to a power greater than myself so that they will lose their power for me. I no longer need to hold on to memories which create feelings which make me upset or unhappy.

Alkiespeak - Book - Quote

Life is fragile - Handle with prayer. - Unknown origin.