More Recovery Readings - April

[bluidkiti]

April 26

You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
"The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never forget." "You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it." --Lewis Carroll
Crises come in many forms. When we are in the middle of any kind of crisis, we may feel like we have fallen into a deep hole. We may see no way out, and begin to feel hopeless and overwhelmed by the size and darkness of the hole.
Yet we are not alone. An animal caught in a hole would cry out until someone came along and helped it out. We, too, can call out for help--to our Higher Power and to the important people in our lives. We can learn to trust that, with the help of our friends and our Higher Power, we will be able to crawl out of our holes.
With trust, we will climb out of our crises and be healed with the passage of time. Such holes are a part of our landscape, yet every time we will be able to climb out and walk, leaving the darkness behind us.
What help can I ask for today?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
I drink not from mere joy in wine nor to scoff at faith - no, only to forget myself for a moment, that only do I want of intoxication, that alone. --Omar Khayyam
What has been our drug of choice? It may be alcohol. It may be sugar or gambling or dependent relationships. Some men have used anger, sex, sports, or the accumulation of money. Growing in this program, we learn there is a great brotherhood among us. Our problems have not been only with a certain substance or a given behavior. We have been seduced and trapped by a ritual of forgetting ourselves. If we hadn't found one way, we may have found another. In giving one up, we often found ourselves drawn to a new substitute.
Now we are learning to accept ourselves and to forget ourselves in healthier ways. We all need to move beyond the bounds of an oppressive ego. In our old style, we could not learn healthy releases because we were hooked on unhealthy ones. Now we are learning meditation, making friends, helping others, and letting go as ways to forget ourselves.
I pray for help today in staying away from self-destructive intoxications so I am able to learn healthy releases.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
. . . pain is the root of knowledge. --Simone Weil
We don't want pain in our lives. We dread the situations we anticipate will be painful. We probably even pray to be spared all painful experiences. But they come anyway, at times in profusion. And we not only survive the pain, we profit from it.
It seems that pain stretches us to our limits, generally forcing us to look for guidance from others, and it pushes us to consider new choices in our present situation. Pain is our common denominator as women, as members of the human family. It softens us to one another. It fosters empathy. It helps us to reach out and realize our need for one another.
New knowledge, new awareness, are additional benefits of accepting, rather than denying, the pain that accompanies life. This journey that we're on is moving us further and further along the path of enlightenment. We can consider that each problem, each crisis, is our necessary preparation for moving another step down the road.
I learn out of necessity. And when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Negativity
Some people are carriers of negativity. They are storehouses of pent up anger and volatile emotions. Some remain trapped in the victim role and act in ways that further their victimization. And others are still caught in the cycle of addictive or compulsive patterns.
Negative energy can have a powerful pull on us, especially if were struggling to maintain positive energy and balance. It may seem that others who exude negative energy would like to pull us into the darkness with them. We do not have to go. Without judgment, we can decide its okay to walk away, okay to protect ourselves.
We cannot change other people. It does not help others for us to get off balance. We do not lead others into the Light by stepping into the darkness with them.
Today, God, help me to know that I don't have to allow myself to be pulled into negativity - even around those I love. Help me set boundaries. Help me know its okay to take care of myself.


Positive energy attracts positive energy. Today my Higher Power continues to guide my growth so that I am more and more open. I am becoming free and unblocked and am attracting all that is good and right in my life. --Ruth Fishel

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Journey To The Heart

Change Is in the Air

Just as the world around us changes and evolves, so do the circumstances and situations in our lives. We live in a universe that is alive, vibrant, and constantly evolving. Change is the way nature, the universe, and the Divine move us through each period of our lives and into destiny. We are led to our next lesson, our next adventure. There’s no need to deny change, to fear it or fight against it. Change is inevitable. Just as the earth is constant motion and transformation, so are we.

Take your place in the universal dance, the universal rhythm. Allow change to happen. Work with it as your life unfolds. Sometimes change comes in one smashing moment like a volcanic eruption. Other times it happens more alowly, the way the winds and rain sculpt bridges out of canyons.

Learn to trust your body– its signs, signals, warnings, and excited proclamations. We let the gathering clouds warn us of impending storms, and we learn to study and predict tremors in the earth. In much the same way, our body can function as a barometer for our soul and its place in the constantly changing and evolving universe.

You are open now, more sensitive than you’ve been before. Change is coming. It’s here. You can feel it in the air. You can feel it in yourself.

Thank your body for helping you. Thank the universe for what it is about to do. Then thank God because change will bring you closer to love.

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More Language Of Letting Go

Practice diplomacy

Taking care of ourselves doesn’t give us the right to be mean. Just because we’re telling the truth, we don’t need to tear people apart. Sometimes when we start to own our power after years–maybe a lifetime– of being timid and weak, we become overly aggressive trying to get our point across.

We can be honest with other people without being mean. We can be diplomatic in whatever we need to say, at least most of the time. And we usually don’t have to scream and shout.

I’ve learned a little trick along the way. The weaker and more vulnerable I feel, the more I holler and the meaner I react. The more truly powerful, clear, and centered I am, the quieter, gentle, and more loving I speak.

The next time you feel threatened or start to scream and yell, stop yourself. Take a deep breath. Deliberately speak more softly than you normally would.

You can speak softly and still carry a great big stick.

God, help me be a diplomat. Teach me how to own my power in a gentle, peaceful way.

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In God’s Care

Self-love is not opposed to the love of other people. You cannot really love yourself and do yourself a fovor without doing other people a fovor, and vice versa.
~~ Dr. Karl Menninger

Self-love is not the same thing as egotism. As recovering people we hated ourselves for so long that we were crippled by it. Learning to love ourselves again becomes a form of therapy – and appreciation for God’s creation. And the delightful thing we learn is that we don’t love ourselves without loving others, and we can’t love others without loving ourselves. How wonderful!

We can’t begin to love ourselves, however, without other people. People are essential, and so is God from whom all love flows. We are thankful for God’s love and ask God to teach us how to love others. And the more we practice doing loving acts for others, the more love we feel for ourselves.

I will practice loving myself today by loving others.

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Universal Feelings
Everything is Relative

by Madisyn Taylor

Pain is pain and yours is not greater than or less than anybody else's pain and deserves to be acknowledged as such.


Every day we hear stories of personal suffering and loss that far exceed our own. When we compare our situations to those of people living in war-torn countries or those who have lost their homes and livelihoods to natural disasters, it is tempting to minimize our own experiences of suffering. We may feel that we don’t have a right to be upset about the breakup of a relationship, for example, because at least we have food to eat and a roof over our heads.

While awareness of the pain of others in the world can be a valuable way to keep our own struggles in perspective, it is not a legitimate reason to disregard our own pain. Disparaging your feelings as being less important than other people's emotions leads to denial and repression. Over time, an unwillingness to experience your own feelings leads to numbness. It is as if our internal systems become clogged with our unexpressed emotions. This in no way helps other people who are suffering in the world. In fact, it may do just the opposite because when we devalue our own sorrow, we become impervious to the sorrow in others.

Fully experiencing our own hurt is the gateway to compassion toward other human beings. Feelings of loss, abandonment, loneliness, and fear are universal, and, in that sense, all feelings are created equal. Regardless of what leads us to feel the way we do, our comprehension of what it means to be human is deepened by our own experiences. Our personal lives provide us with the material we need to become fully conscious. If we reject our emotions because we think our experiences are not dramatic or important enough, we are missing out on our own humanity. We honor and value the human condition when we fully inhabit our bodies so we can experience and feel life fully. Accepting our emotions and allowing ourselves to feel them connects us to all human beings. Then, when we hear the stories of other people’s suffering, our hearts can resonate with understanding and compassion—for all of us. Published with permission from Daily OM

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

When I first came to The Program, I was stunned by the constant sound of laughter. I realized today that cheerfulness and merriment make for usefulness. Outsiders are sometimes shocked when we burst into laughter over a seemingly tragic experience out of the past. But why shouldn’t e laugh? We have recovered, and have helped others to recover. What greater cause could there be for rejoicing than this? Have I begun to regain my sense of humor?

Today I Pray

May God restore my sense of humor. May I appreciate the honest laughter that is the background music of our mutual rejoicing in our sobriety. May I laugh a lot, not the defensive ego-laugh which mocks another weakness, not the wry laugh of the self-put-down, but the healthy laugh that keeps situations in perspective. May I never regard this kind of laughter as irreverent. I have learned, instead, that it is irreverent to take myself too seriously.

Today I Will Remember

A sense of humor is a sigh of health.

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One More Day

Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
– Eric Hoffer

Our own simple words to others can brighten our day. Too often we are caught up in the personal miseries of our lives, too involved to reach out to other people. We have forgotten that other people have the same needs we do. So many times, because we are ill or old or hurting, we expect others to come to us. That’s not fair to them, and it’s not good for us.

Kind words and actions toward others can help us through the hard times. We can smile at the elderly man all alone in the grocery check-out line. We can talk to neighbors, thank the young man who courteously holds a door open, and reach out in dozens of other ways to the people who even briefly touch our lives. It’s good for them — and for us.

I will make an extra effort to reach out in kindness to my neighbors and friends.