More Recovery Readings - April

[bluidkiti]

April 13

You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
If I have freedom in my life, And in my soul am free, Angels alone that soar above Enjoy such liberty. --Richard Lovelace
When a cow decides to stop nursing her calf, she isn't rejecting it. She knows it's time for the calf to be on its own. Although the calf might feel rejected and puzzled at first, it soon adapts to its new independence and freedom.
When we feel rejected, it's useful to remember that whatever has caused us to feel this way might have nothing to do with us. It might be a reflection of what's happening with someone else, or just the end of a natural stage in life, as with the calf.
When we understand that others' actions toward us come from their own feelings, and that we don't cause their feelings any more than they control ours, we can free ourselves from a little bit of fear and self-hate. We can see what seems to be rejection as an open door, with our freedom on the other side.
What rejections have set me free?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
Just be what you are and speak from your guts and heart - it's all a man has. --Hubert Humphrey
Some of us have doubted our inner voice so completely that we abandoned it totally. Many of us have discovered in recovery that by our denial we had violated our inner voice with lies, even to ourselves. Now we question whether we can trust our instincts, and we may not know what we feel.
Masculine spiritual recovery is a return to our guts and our heart. Standing up and speaking from our hearts may be difficult at times, but our self-respect rises as we do. That is where we go for our final decision-making. We develop better reception for the inner voice as we live this program. We accept that we are never absolutely right. We continue with humility, knowing we may be wrong and listening to others and our Higher Power. Yet we must live with our choices.
I will seek the courage to be faithful to my own instincts.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
It seems to me that I have always been waiting for something better - sometimes to see the best I had snatched from me.
--Dorothy Reed Mendenhall
Gratitude for what is prepares us for the blessings just around the corner. What is so necessary to understand is that our wait for what's around the corner closes our eyes to the joys of the present moment. We have only the 24 hours ahead of us. In fact, all we can be certain of having is the moment we are presently experiencing. And it is a gift to be enjoyed. There is no better gift just right for us than this moment, at this time.
We can, each of us, look back on former days, realizing that we learned too late the value of a friend or an experience. Both are now gone. With practice and a commitment to ourselves, we can learn to reap the benefits of today, hour by hour. When we detach from the present and wait for tomorrow, or next week, or look to next year, we are stunting our spiritual growth. Life can only bless us now, one breath at a time.
I can live in the present if I choose to. Gentle reminders are often necessary, however. I will step into my life, today. It can become a habit, one I will never want to break.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Communication
Part of owning our power is learning to communicate clearly, directly, and assertively. We don't have to beat around the bush in our conversations to control the reactions of others. Guilt producing comments only produce guilt. We don't have to fix or take care of people with our words; we cant expect others to take care of us with words either. We can settle for being heard and accepted. And we can respectfully listen to what others have to say.
Hinting at what we need doesn't work. Others cant read our mind, and they're likely to resent our indirectness. The best way to take responsibility for what we want is to ask for it directly. And, we can insist on directness from others. If we need to say no to a particular request, we can. If someone is trying to control us through a conversation, we can refuse to participate.
Acknowledging feelings such as disappointment or anger directly, instead of making others guess at our feelings or having our feelings come out in other ways, is part of responsible communication. If we don't know what we want to say, we can say that too.
We can ask for information and use words to forge a closer connection, but we don't have to take people around the block with our conversations. We don't have to listen to, or participate in, nonsense. We can say what we want and stop when were done.
Today, I will communicate clearly and directly in my conversations with others. I will strive to avoid manipulative, indirect, or guilt producing statements. I can be tactful and gentle whenever possible. And I can be assertive if necessary.


It is beautiful to know that I am the creator of how I think and feel today, that I can choose my now. Today I choose to feel joy and I will do all that I have to do to make that possible. --Ruth Fishel

*******************************************

Journey To The Heart

Give Freely of What You’ve Been Given

Learning not to overcare, overgive, and overdo are the lessons of the past. We have learned them, learned them well. There was a time when we needed to monitor our giving because we were giving compulsively, almost addictively, with no thought to what felt right in our heart, with no understanding of loving ourselves. But that was yesterday.

This is now. We can trust ourselves to know when it’s time to stop or when our giving has become destructive. We can trust ourselves to know when it’s not our job to give, because now we are connected to ourselves, listening to ourselves, on track.

Give freely of your time, your heart, your joy, your wisdom. Share your experiences, your strength, your hope. Share your weaknesses as well as your strengths. Share your money, your gifts, your laughter. Share your hope. Share yourself.

Give freely of what you’ve been given, and the universe will provide you with exactly what you need. Give freely and the universe will give freely to you.

*******************************************

More Language Of Letting Go

Let yourself make mistakes

There are times we don’t know which way to proceed or what to do next. We can become so blocked and stymied trying to figure it out that we just sit and spin our wheels. In those situations, the solution may involve making some choice– even if it turns out to be the wrong one.

Ideally, we can meditate on our choices and one way will feel right and clear, and the other won’t. But in those times when we can’t get clear, sometimes we have to give things a try. Take that job. Move into a condo. Date that woman. If it’s a mistake, you can correct it as honestly, quickly, and humbly as you can.

You don’t have to live life as perfectly as you think. Sometimes it takes making a mistake in order for us to get clear.

God, help me let go of perfectionism. Help me give myself permission to live.

*******************************************

Getting Unstuck
From Getting Unstuck On-line Course

by Pema Chodron

The following is an excerpt from the "Getting Unstuck" on-line course. If you would like to enroll in the course, click here.


Each of us gets hooked in habitual ways of seeing the world, but how we respond to these situations will in large part determine how much peace and freedom we experience in our lives.

Once we learn to recognize when we’re caught, and our own unique styles of getting hooked, we then have the opportunity to do something different, to choose a fresh alternative.

Positive Groundlessness and the Three Difficult Practices

The first difficult practice is noticing when you get hooked, when you get caught in a habitual pattern which causes you to suffer. Pema explains that, with some practice, you can catch on to this rather quickly and begin to clearly notice when you are hooked. Further, we learn that getting hooked, in and of itself, is not actually a problem; it is quite natural and arises spontaneously in all of us. There is no suffering inherent in the hooking itself, Pema explains, but only in how we respond to it.

The second difficult practice is: do something different. This practice is much more difficult to catch on to, Pema teaches, and goes against the grain of our conditioning and habits. This practice is also referred to as “choosing a fresh alternative.” Through this practice, we begin to explore the interruption of the momentum which keeps our suffering alive. In the face of this “being hooked”, we often speak and act in ways which only serve to strengthen our habits of resentment, anger, blaming others, and so forth, which just entrench us in patterns that make us more and more unhappy.

The third and final difficult practice is making this exploration a way of life. The notion here is that this is not just a one-time thing where you notice you’re hooked, choose a fresh alternative, and then it’s all over. These patterns are something that will continue to arise in our experience, leaving us with dozens or hundreds of opportunities each week to notice the various ways we get caught in the momentum of our habitual responses to life’s challenges.

We also learn about the teaching of “positive groundlessness.” When we notice that we’ve been hooked, we find it very difficult to relax into the experience and to stay open and unbiased, simply experiencing the rawness of what is there. In this space we see that there is truly nothing to hold onto-- no bias, no preference. On the one hand, this experience is quite terrifying, this reality of no ground underneath our feet, no fixed reference point or view in which we can hang out in. But this groundlessness is also filled with “positive” qualities, such as wide open vastness, limitlessness, and extraordinary potential. Published with permission from Daily OM

*******************************************

A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

Any number of addicted people are bedeviled by the dire conviction that if they ever go near The Program — whether by attending meetings or talking on-tune with a member — they’ll be pressured to conform to some particular brand of faith or religion. They don’t realize that faith is never an imperative for membership in The Program; that freedom from addiction can be achieved with an easily acceptable minimum of it; and that our concerts of a Higher Power and God — as we understand Him — afford everyone a nearly unlimited choice of spiritual belief and action. Am I receiving strength by sharing with newcomers?

Today I Pray

May I never frighten newcomers or keep away those who are considering coming to The Program by “laying on them” my particular, personal ideas about a Higher Power. May each discover his or her own spiritual identity. May all find within themselves a link with some great universal. Being or Spirit whose Power is greater than theirs individually. May I grow, both in tolerance and in spirituality, every day.

Today I Will Remember

I will reach, not preach.

*******************************************

One More Day

Tears are summer showers to the soul.
– Alfred Austin

All our lives, we have been told that time would heal all wounds – and that if time couldn’t then the doctor would.

There are few things which may feel as final as a diagnosis of chronic illness. Chronic means forever — and we can never hardly conceive of a problem that will never go away. We may find ourselves crying over and over again, and wonder if the tears will ever end.

For many of us, our tears were how we began to grieve. Grief was how we started to heal ourselves emotionally from the burden of “forever.” The tears we shed helped cleanse our thoughts and bodies so we could move on to live the rest of our lives. Today, our grief and weeping will help us continue to grow.

I can let myself shed the purifying tears that well up in my heart. They will help me move on with my life.