Even More Recovery Readings and Meditations - February

[bluidkiti]

February 12

Step by Step

Today, trust and have faith in the program more a fear of relapsing and tempting fate with “just one.” Instead of the emotional and physical demands of running ahead of the threat to sobriety, I will expend them on the faith, trust, confidence and safety of the program. In AA, I have been given the simple steps of surrender, action and service, and each is stronger than my preoccupation with fear of losing what I have gained. Today, AA is stronger than my alcoholism, and I have no reason other than insecurity to fear anything. Today, I will acknowledge the power of recovery. And our common journey continues. Step by step. – Chris M.

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

LET GO, LET GOD

WILL POWER = Our WILL-ingness to us a HIGHER POWER.

~ Anonymous ~

One of the greatest decisions any of us ever made concerned our Third Step. This decision seemed to go against everything we wanted to do. We all know so well that every time we tried to manage our own lives, we produced misery and heartache. Human beings seem created to fight the decision in Step Three, very hard for us to make, was one of the greatest decisions we ever made.

When we did our Third Step, we merely embraced the truth. When we decided to let God be God, we were able to participate in the plan. Whenever we let go and let God, we become a player on a team that will always win.

When what I knew in the past was mostly failure, the decision to let God’s will become mine continues to make sense.

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

Growing old is not growing up.

~ Doug Horton ~

We have all met men who seemed very wise and strong for their age and other men who seemed immature and stuck in a boyish mind with an aging body. So we ask, what is a truly grown-up man? We think of masculine values we admire, such as strength, courage, the ability to think for oneself, wisdom, self-respect, and a sense of balance and proportion in one’s actions and relationships.

Many of us have felt that we never really grasped the key to what adult masculinity was all about. We could play the role, and we could make it look pretty good, but we didn’t feel in our hearts that it was ours. By walking the daily path in which we get to know ourselves from the inside, and by learning to stay true to ourselves, we develop a true self. Our true self is, by definition, no longer trapped in boyhood. We have found our inner gyroscope, and from that comes the sterling feeling of authenticity that we wouldn’t trade for anything.

Today I am grateful for the wisdom and strength of character that is growing within.

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

Each day is a “workshop.” Let’s remember to keep our minds and hearts open so we won’t miss our opportunities.

~ Dudley Martineau ~

Looking at every day as a workshop for more productive or rewarding living eases the dread of new or unfamiliar circumstances. Developing the belief that we will be given exactly what we need to learn will change how we meet every twenty-four hours.

Before recovery we expected life to be hard. Our jobs often felt like drudgery. Our families seldom gave us the affirmation we longed for. Friends were unavailable. What we felt we deserved and sought, we often didn’t find. That was then. This is now.

It’s a simple change in perspective to come to believe that we are given what we need from our jobs, our families, our friends, every day. Accepting this belief will influence the outcome of every experience. Our lives will never seem the same.

I paid my dues for today’s workshop by becoming abstinent. What I will learn is up to me.

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

It is an honor to be supportive

It’s an honor (and a gift) when a friend calls for support. As I listen, I am reminded of my own stages of recovery—what I’ve felt, experienced, learned.

And when I listen deeply—when I am fully present—I can see myself in the speaker and realize that in my own right, I have more to learn. I have come to see that recovery is discovery—a wondrous experience of becoming open to whatever life brings.

I will welcome and respect any call for support as a chance to learn more about recovery—as a “teacher.”

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

A soft answer turneth away wrath…

~ Proverbs 15:1 ~

There is nothing wrong with anger. Anger tells us we need to pay attention, that something’s happening to us. But we may need to learn new ways of expressing anger. We need to take responsibility for our feelings and use “I” statements to tell others how we feel without putting other people on the defensive.

Expressing anger in a healthy way is a skill, and we can learn it. As with all skills, it will take practice to develop new ways of expressing our anger. But we can learn to be assertive, not aggressive, even when we’re angry. Our recovery program can teach us ways to let go of anger, and can help us learn new healthy ways of telling loved ones how we really feel and what we need.

Anger needs expression. Without expression it builds, it simmers, it stockpiles, it blurts out sideways through sarcasm or whining, it ferments into resentment. With practice, however, we can make anger an ally instead of an enemy.

Today help me find a healthy way to express my anger.

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

There are no victims, only volunteers.

~ Anonymous ~

Are you a volunteer for pain and negativity? If you are uncomfortable talking to a constant complainer, do you make yourself accessible, or do you avoid that person? If someone asks you to do something that makes you un-comfortable, such as attending a party where you know there will be drinking or using, do you say yes or no? If someone tells you a tale of woe, do you try to match the story with your own heartbreak? If someone asks, “How are you?” do you put on a sad-sack face and share all the things in your life that make you feel unhappy?

When you volunteer for pain and negativity, you continually place yourself in situations that perpetuate them. So rather than stay in an uncomfortable situation, leave. Excuse yourself from conversations or activities with those whose words or actions bring you down. Strive to respond positively, rather than negatively, to others. Seek out people who are centered and optimistic and who have inspiring things to say. Seek out the positive in all that you do, and you will find that you no longer want or need to be a volunteer for negativity!

Today I will choose to participate in helpful, positive, and up- lifting experiences. Such things can provide more comfort and joy in my life.

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

Be aware of yourself and validate your experience. Pay attention to your world, to what’s happening, and why. . . . Feel your strength. Value it, and use it.

~ Alexandra G. Kaplan ~

To truly exist in the here and now, we need to feel ourselves in the present. We need to enter each moment without the excess baggage of the past, nor the anticipation of the future.

How do we think or feel in the present? Take away thoughts of other times and we may feel lost and confused. It takes time to learn to live in the present and to trust it. We need to learn that, for as long as we’re in the present, we exist. We are.

Imagine the moment as a brand new car. All we need to do is open the door, hop in, and drive away. For that moment, our thoughts will not be focused on cars we used to own or on those we’re going to buy in the future. Instead, for that moment, we are in the here and now. That’s how each of our moments can be: fresh and clean and exciting.

I can sit in the driver’s seat and experience each moment as it occurs. Therein lies my strength.

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

Living today

Sometimes we expect so much so fast that we become nervous wrecks. Expecting answers for tomorrow’s or next week’s problem is not living today.

If we have a problem today, let us retake the Third Step, offer the problem to our Higher Power for an answer, and practice patience with the future.

Can I work on just today’s problem?

Higher Power, help me live one day at a time and to accept your answers when you send them.

My plan for working on today’s problem is

God help me to stay clean and sober today!

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

When God wants to he what is not God, man comes to be.

~ KARL RAHNER ~

Newcomer

I listened to a long reading from the AA Big Book that was all about atheists and agnostics, and how, if they expect to stay in recovery, they have to recognize the evidence that God exists. I didn’t find the God argument very convincing. Sometimes I think that the program literature is incredibly illogical and old-fashioned.

Sponsor

Yes, there are days like that. I, too, have sat in meetings saying, “No, no, no” to everything that I heard said about God. Though I may resist certain ideas, it helps me to remember that this isn’t a debating society. I don’t have to agree with everything I hear, but I’m not in this program to make intellectual arguments against the existence of a Power greater than myself. The intellect I’m so proud of today neither prevented me from engaging in addictive behavior nor led me to recovery. I’m here to address my addiction, and my path is the path of my spirit.

Each of us knows what our own experience of a Higher Power is. We don’t find this Power through argument—our own or anyone else’s—but through going deep within. We know that when we entered recovery, we surrendered our heavy task of trying to be God. Our egos are no longer in charge.

Today, I don’t have to be my own Higher Power.

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~ THE EYE OPENER ~

From the beginning of recorded history man has had his difficulties to overcome. In fact, history is a recording of these ordeals.

We, of this highly mechanized age, have turned our problems over to bigger and bigger machines to do our work for us. We have raised economic efficiencies to the point where we can provide all our needs and luxuries by easy work in just a few days a week. We are going soft.

No wonder, then, that when a problem confronts us we try to escape it by hiding in a bottle. We try to escape the seriousness of living, forgetting that when life ceases to be serious it will become a joke—at our expense.

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~ WALK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG BOOK ~ (Official & Unofficial Sloganeering From the 12 Step Programs) ~

1) Feelings are not facts.

2) Denial is not a river in Egypt, but you can drown in it.

3) Grateful alcoholics don’t drink, and drinking alcoholics aren’t grateful.

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

On Awakening

God, please direct my thinking, especially move it from self-pity, dishonest and self-seeking motives.

As I go through the day and face indecision, please give me the inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision. Make me relax and take it easy; don’t let me struggle. Let me rely upon Your inspiration, intuitive thoughts, and decision instead of my old ideas.

Show me all through the day what my next step is to be and give me whatever I need to take care of each problem. God, I ask You especially for freedom from self-will and I make no requests for myself only. But give me the knowledge of Your will for me and the power to carry it out in every contact during the day.

As I go through this day, let me pause when agitated or doubtful and ask You for the right thought or action. Let me constantly be reminded that I am no longer running the show, humbly saying many times each day, “Thy will be done” and agreeing that it is.

I will then be in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. I will be more efficient. I won’t be burning up energy foolishly as I was when trying to run life to suit myself. I will let You discipline me in this simple way. I will give You all the responsibility and all the praise.

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

OUR DAILY BREAD

In speaking of the “bread if life,” Jesus calls it our daily bread. The reason for this is very fundamental—our contact with God must be a living one. It is our monetary attitude that governs our being.

. . . behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2)

The most futile thing in the world is to seek to live upon a past realization. The thing that means spiritual life to you is your realization of God here and now.

Be thankful for yesterday’s experience, knowing that it is with you forever in the consciousness that it brought about, but do not lean upon it for a single moment for the need of today. The manna in the desert is the Old Testament prototype of this daily nourishment. The people wandering in the wilderness were told that they would be supplied with manna from heaven every day but they were on no account to try to save it up for the morrow. When, notwithstanding the rule, some of them did try to live upon yesterday’s food, the result was pestilence or death.

So it is with us. The art of life is to live in the present moment, and to make that moment as perfect as we can by the realization that we are the instruments and expression of God Himself.

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

Sweet Success

Disappointments are the hooks upon which God hangs his victories.

~ Anonymous ~

Let me tell you about a man who was plagued by defeat. In ’31 he failed in business and declared bankruptcy. In ’32 he lost an election for the legislature. In ’34 his business failed again, and he declared bankruptcy a second time. The following year, his fiancee died. The year after that, he suffered a nervous breakdown. Two years later, in ’38 he was defeated in another election. In ’43 he ran for the U.S. Congress and lost. In ’46 he made another bid for a seat in Congress, and he was defeated. In ’48 he ran again for Congress, and again he lost. Seven years later, he entered a race for the U.S. Senate, and he was defeated. In ’56 his name was placed on the ballot for the Vice Presidency of the United States, and he lost the election. In ’58 he ran for the Senate and lost again.

In ’60—1860— he was elected President of the United States. His name was Abraham Lincoln. In spite of an incredible string of setbacks, he went on to become one of the greatest statesmen of history. He said, “You can–not fail unless you quit.”

The greatest victories are those we must persevere to accomplish. It is rare that great people just show up on the planet shining in glory. Often the most powerful world-change agents grow through experience and adversity. As a young lawyer, Mahatma Gandhi was literally laughed out of court when he became tongue-tied while arguing a ten-dollar case. Later he was thrown off a South African train because his skin was dark. Gandhi went on to become one of the greatest human liberators of the 20th century.

Eat defeat for breakfast. Do not let setbacks put you off; instead, use them as springboards to the success you desire. Only those who are willing to go the distance can taste the sweetness of victory.

Help me to not be put off by setbacks. Give me the strength to go all the way.

I succeed because I make up my mind to emerge victorious.