More Recovery Readings - April

[bluidkiti]

April 17

You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
If your heart catches in your throat ask a bird how she sings. --Cooper Edens
The idea of your heart getting caught in your throat and then asking a bird how she sings may seem silly. It is, but being silly is sometimes exactly what we need. Instead of always trying to figure out the lumps in our throats, we can learn how to sing with them.
Birds sing all day. Their songs are lighthearted and playful. And they bring us color along with their songs. We have all stopped to notice a special bird outside the window. A bird song can be a lullaby. It can be laughter. We need these things in our lives, too. By playing and laughing, we change the lumps in our throats to songs.
What sadness can I turn into song today?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
It is extraordinary how extraordinary the ordinary person is. --George F. Will
At our meetings, we often hear stories of the courage of ordinary people and their triumph against great odds. When we hear of a person's life being restored, we are witnesses to miracles. Our friends are heroes and so are we. As a man describes his passage from insanity to recovery, we are moved. Whenever we are truly open to knowing the people around us, whether at a meeting or in getting to know a neighbor, we will see heroism. It is amazing that when we get to know most people, and hear what their lives have been like, we find so much to admire and respect. It is a privilege to have such friends. It is amazing that they are so abundant when we open ourselves to them. God truly does speak to us through others.
I am grateful when I think about the extraordinary people around me and the courage in each of them. I am grateful to be among them.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
I can stand what I know. It's what I don't know that frightens me. --Frances Newton
Fear of the unknown, often referred to as free-floating anxiety, catches up to us on occasion. But it needn't. The program offers us strength whenever we need it, and faith diminishes all fear. It is said that fear cannot exist where there is faith.
We have many days when we feel strong, in touch with our higher power, able to meet all situations. On those days, we are seldom conscious of how our faith is guiding us. But the hours of fear that we experience on other days make us aware of faith's absence. There is a simple solution: We can reach out to a friend. We can be attentive to her needs, and the connection to God will be made.
Shifting our focus, from self-centered fears to another person's needs, offers us a perspective on our own life. It also offers us a chance to let God work through us. Our own faith is strengthened each time we offer our services to God and to a friend in need. What may frighten us seems less important the closer we are to the people in our lives.
When I touch someone else, God touches me in return.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Taking Care of Ourselves
We often refer to recovery from codependency and adult child issues as self care. Self care is not, as some may think, a spin off of the me generation. It isn't self-indulgence. It isn't selfishness - in the negative interpretation of that word.
Were learning to take care of ourselves, instead of obsessively focusing on another person. Were learning self-responsibility, instead of feeling excessively responsible for others. Self care also means tending to our true responsibilities to others; we do this better when were not feeling overly responsible.
Self care sometimes means, me first, but usually, me too. It means we are responsible for ourselves and can choose to no longer be victims.
Self care means learning to love the person were responsible for taking care of - ourselves. We do not do this to hibernate in a cocoon of isolation and self indulgence; we do it so we can better love others, and learn to let them love us.
Self-care isn't selfish; its self-esteem.
Today, God, help me love myself. Help me let go of feeling excessively responsible for those around me. Show me what I need to do to take care of myself and be appropriately responsible to others.


Today I choose to think positive and loving thoughts. I know that if I do this I will feel loving and positive and create a positive and loving world for those around me. --Ruth Fishel

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

Journey To The Heart

Listen to the Voice of Your Heart

Cultivate the art of listening to your intuition, your inner voice. This is the guidance of your heart. It’s a voice that speaks differently from the one in your head. The heart whispers softly, the head prattles loudly.

The head has an agenda for our lives. It chatters away boldly, but its vision is limited. It leaves no room for the mysterious workings of the universe, nor does it take into account the side trips we need to get where we’re going, where our souls need to go. It’s the voice that says, This is the way it’s going to be.

The heart, the inner voice, speaks differently. Sometimes it whispers. Sometimes it pulls. Sometimes it pushes. It’s spontaneous, in the present moment, and often a surprise. The heart takes into account what has to be done and the best way to do that. The heart takes emotions into account– the way things feel, the way you feel, the wisdom of your soul. The heart leads us into and through the lessons we’re here to learn.

Cultivate your inner voice. Practice listening to the whispers of your heart. Practice trusting your intuition, what you really feel, what you really know. Practice until that voice is the one that you hear.

Be patient. Be gentle. Let yourself learn to hear the gentle and trustworthy words of your heart.

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

More Language Of Letting Go

Keep your balance

Sometimes, our legitimate needs and wants run amuck.

We want something so badly– for instance our spouse sobering up, or that job, or that woman or that man– that we begin to obsess and dwell. We take ourselves out of that place of balance and end up in a no-win tailspin.

It’s not that what we want and need is bad for us. It’s just that right now, what we want isn’t, obviously, taking place. Don’t take it out on yourself by judging yourself wrong. Don’t take it out on your needs by telling yourself you shouldn’t have any.

Relax. Come back to center, to that clear, balanced place.

Don’t let your needs and desires run away with you. Yes, passion is great stuff. Identify what you want. Then let it go. And ask God what your lesson is.

Today, I will come back to balance with any need or want that seems to be controlling my life. Instead of dwelling on it, I’ll give it to God and focus on taking care of myself.

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

In God’s Care

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
~~Albert Schweitzer

Throughout our life we’ve been influenced by other people’s behavior and opinions. Many of us were influenced by very poor examples in earlier years. And we may have to pray for help rather than continuing to follow those poor examples now. But all around us are people who are healthy, loving, and honest. We are invited to emulate their behavior.

Acting As If can help us develop new behaviors. We may not feel very comfortable reaching out to a program newcomer or making conversation with someone we’ve just met, but we can do it. And in time, with practice, we’ll discover we’ve added a positive dimension to our character, one that influences the lives of other people who struggle just like us. All of us, Acting As If in positive ways, offer wonderful examples of behavior change. We reinforce our own changes, and each others every time we are thoughtful before we act.

With my Higher Power’s help, I will be a good example for someone today.

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

Raising Our Consciousness
Stepping out from Where We Were

by Madisyn Taylor

We cannot gain a sense of power in our lives while identifying ourselves as a victim.


Albert Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew.” A Nobel Prize winner, Albert Einstein’s scientific theories transformed the world’s understanding of the universe and its workings, so we can believe that these words come from his personal experience and helped him to explore both science and life itself. He offered us an example of what can be learned by looking deeply into nature to reach a deeper understanding of all life and by following our ideas to their logical conclusions in our minds before acting upon them in the world.

When we apply this quote to our lives, we can see that we cannot create abundance by staying in a consciousness of poverty, nor can we gain a sense of power in our lives while identifying ourselves as a victim. Situations begun from anger or fear can have little chance of reaching a state of peace and trust unless someone involved can conceive of that possibility and act upon it. We need to find ways to step outside of our limited understanding in order to seek a bigger picture. One way to do this is to shift our perspective to see the situation from another’s point of view and ideally the perspective of all others involved. Even if we can’t truly know another’s motivations, by imagining what they might be, we open ourselves up to numerous possibilities and an expanded vision. This alone can shift our feelings of anger to compassion and the desire for a positive solution for all involved.

Once we have opened our mind to greater possibilities, we can connect to our higher self for inspired solutions. From the peace at our center, we gain distance from our emotions to connect to intuitive wisdom that offers us understanding of the underlying causes and the inspiration needed to guide our steps in a new direction. Albert Einstein showed us the impact that can be made when we raise our consciousness and allow ourselves to imagine the possibilities. Published with permission from Daily OM

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

A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

The Program teaches me to remain on guard against impatience, lapses into self-pity, and resentments of the words and deeds of others. Though I must never forget what it used to be like, neither should I permit myself to take tormenting excursions into the past — merely for the sake of self-indulgent morbidity. Now that I’m alert to the danger signals, I know I’m improving day by day. If a crisis arises, or any problem baffles me, do I hold it up to the light of the Serenity Prayer?

Today I Pray

I pray for perspective as I review the past. May I curb my impulses to upstage and outdo the members of my group by regaling them with the horrors of my addiction. May I no longer use the past to document my self-pity or submerge myself in guilt. May memories of those miserable earlier days serve me only as sentinels, guarding against hazardous situations or unhealthy sets of mind.

Today I Will Remember

I cannot change the past.

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

One More Day

The Great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know how to live to purpose.
– Montaigne

When we undergo any crisis, it’s quite common for self-esteem to take a plunge. If life seems to hand us one crisis after another, our feelings of self-worth may vary from day to day. Once we get used to the newest change (perhaps this time it is diminished health) we begin to realize that only we are capable of nurturing ourselves.

We can solve some of our problems by setting new, more realistic goals, goals that we can reach successfully. Then our damaged self-esteem can start to become whole once again.

I am capable of taking better care of myself by setting challenging goals and by doing things I love to do.