More Recovery Readings - May

[bluidkiti]

May 29

You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
The only people who never fail are those who never try. --Ilka Chase
A boy once asked his grandfather how he had become so happy and successful in his life. "Right decisions," replied his grandfather. The boy thought for a while and then asked a second question, "But how do you learn to make right decisions?" The grandfather answered quickly with a twinkle in his eye, "Wrong decisions!"
We, too, will learn from our "wrong decisions," our mistakes. Whenever we try anything, there is always the possibility of failure. We must learn to not let this keep us from trying. When we are willing to try, we have already conquered our fear. We can grow no matter what the outcome is.
What failure have I turned into success?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
We cannot approach prayer as we do everything else in our push button, instant society. There are no prayer pills or enlightenment capsules. --Janie Gustafson
Prayer is the relationship between each man and his Higher Power. Our approach to this relationship is guided by our understanding of God. How other men and women have prayed and related to God throughout history may guide us today.
Any relationship is a process, not a momentary event with an instantaneous outcome. It builds with repeated contact and dialogue. With give and take, prayer is our honesty encountering God and our openness hearing God expressed on God's terms. Like any relationship, prayer includes all our feelings - anger, fear, and mistrust, as well as generosity, goodwill, and gratitude. Gradually, we see the events of our lives through the wisdom and detachment our spiritual relationship provides.
I return now to my dialogue with God, asking only for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
Women sometimes gossip when they want to get close to people. --Joan Gilbertson
Feeling alone and lonely heightens our fears of inadequacy. In our alienation from others, paranoia grips us. We yearn to feel connection with someone, and gossip about another someone can draw two lonely people close. We are bonded.
We need a sense of belonging, every one of us: belonging to the neighborhood; belonging to the staff where we work; belonging to the group we call friends. Knowing that we do belong fosters the inner warmth that accompanies security, well-being. And our fears are melted.
The program's Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Steps guarantee that we'll feel the closeness we long for when we work them. Self-revelation strengthens our ties to the people we long to connect with Gossip loses its appeal when we know we share a closeness already. Mingling our vulnerabilities secures our closeness.
We need to be attentive to our judgments of others, be they verbalized in gossip or only savored in silence. These judgments act as barometers of our own self-image. Our security in knowing we belong, that we are one, relieves us of the need to judge others unfairly.
Loneliness pushes me to behavior that even compounds the loneliness. Real closeness will come when I talk about myself rather than someone else.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Powerlessness and Unmanageability
Willpower is not the key to the way of life we are seeking. Surrender is.
I have spent much of my life trying to make people be, do, or feel something they aren't, don't want to do, and choose not to feel. I have made them, and myself, crazy in that process, said one recovering woman.
I spent my childhood trying to make an alcoholic father who didn't love himself be a normal person who loved me. I then married an alcoholic and spent a decade trying to make him stop drinking.
I have spent years trying to make emotionally unavailable people be emotionally present for me.
I have spent even more years trying to make family members, who are content feeling miserable, happy. What Im saying is this: I've spent much of my life desperately and vainly trying to do the impossible and feeling like a failure when I couldn't. Its been like planting corn and trying to make the seeds grow peas. Wont work!
By surrendering to powerlessness, I gain the presence of mind to stop wasting my time and energy trying to change and control that which I cannot change and control. It gives me permission to stop trying to do the impossible and focus on what is possible: being who I am, loving myself, feeling what I feel, and doing what I want to do with my life.
In recovery, we learn to stop fighting lions, simply because we cannot win. We also learn that the more we are focused on controlling and changing others, the more unmanageable our life becomes. The more we focus on living our own life, the more we have a life to live, and the more manageable our life will become.
Today, I will accept powerlessness where I have no power to change things, and Ill allow my life to become manageable.


Today I will be gentle with myself as I meditate and look within. I will look at my inner self lovingly and without judgement as I find the blocks that have kept me stuck. --Ruth Fishel

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Journey to the Heart

Let the Past Slip Away

Gently, lovingly, leave past moments behind.

You can’t lose love. You don’t need to hang on so tightly. If the lesson has been learned, if it is time to move on, let the past slip away. Come into the present moment. Discover all that’s there for you. Clinging to the lessons, people, and feelings from yesterday will keep you tired, confused, and afraid.

Shed the tears that need to be shed. Feeling your grief will help you bring about your transformation.

Then say your good-byes. Be glad you had the experience you did. Be gratefu for all you’ve learned about yourself, about love. Then gently move into today.

Stop believing in loss. Start believing in life. Let the past slip away. Come gently into now.

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More language of letting go

Say when it’s time to seek shelter

There’s a saying that a boat may be safe when it’s in harbor, but that isn’t what boats were made for. But let’s not forget the value of safe harbors either. A wise sailor knows the limits of each boat and will seek shelter if the weather becomes more than it can bear.

Seeking out new experiences, meeting new people, living life to its fullest is one of the best reasons for being alive. The purpose of recovering from addictions and learning to take care of ourselves isn’t to keep us stuck perpetually in therapy. It’s to free us to live our lives. But we need to be aware of our limits. And there is no reason to put yourself into a situation of unnecessary risk.

Only you can be the judge of that in your life. We each have different levels of freedom and similar but unique needs. A strong ocean liner can weather much stronger storms than a small powerboat. You may be able to withstand more or less pressure than someone else. Push your limits occasionally; that’s how we grow and change. But know what those limits are, and be willing to seek shelter when the storms come.

You are not alone. Whether through meditation or prayer; secular or religious support groups. Twelve Step or self-help meetings, a harbor exists in which you can ride out the storms and remain strong to sail the exciting waters of life another day.

Do you know where your harbors are? Lives are meant to be lived, so live yours as fully as you can. But remember that you cannot live fully when you’re recovering from storm damage. Be bold, but be safe.

God, help me be aware during times of stress that a safe harbor exists.

Activity: List your safe harbors. Examples of this might be friendships that are completely safe and supportive, support groups, prayer, meditation, and places of worship. How often do you need to connect with these harbors to keep yourself in good shape? Be aware that when you go through periods of stress and distress– and these times appear frequently in our lives– you might need to seek extra shelter to keep yourself safe from the storm.

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Opening the Door
Fighting Against Our Gifts

by Madisyn Taylor

To stop fighting your natural gifts listen to your internal voice and respond to the knocking universe at the door.


As human beings we often have a tendency to fight against using our natural gifts. Many stories of success start with an individual who is ignoring the call of his or her inborn abilities. There are many possible reasons for this resistance, from fear that the calling will be too difficult to a disbelief in the very work one is being asked to do. We may feel too small, too distracted by other people’s ideas about what we should do, or too uninformed. Whatever the case, the resistance to actualizing ourselves has very concrete consequences, and many of us have been called out of hiding by an illness or a twist of fate that unequivocally dismantled our resistance. In other the words, the universe knocks, and if we don’t answer it knocks louder.

For example, if you are meant to be a psychic or a medium, and you aren’t using that gift, you may get headaches. If you are meant to be a healer and are trying to be a lawyer, you may have trouble getting or keeping a job. This doesn’t mean that you can’t still be a lawyer, but perhaps integrating your gifts into your work is what is calling you. On the other hand, you may simply feel an underlying anxiety that you are not on the right path, doing the right thing. Pay attention to this feeling, and ask for guidance from the universe, being open to all its communications, from subtle internal yearnings to powerful dreams. As you begin to risk opening the door to your natural gifts, your life situation may shift in a powerful way. However, you may find that small steps in the right direction, such as taking a class or setting aside one night a week to paint or write, is enough for now.

The first step on the journey to our calling in life is to listen to our internal voices and respond to the knocking universe at the door. As we do, the symptoms and anxieties that have haunted us will fade into the background, replaced by opportunities, both big and small, to open the door to what we are truly here to do. Published with permission from Daily OM

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

When we fist reached The Program and for the first time in our lives stood among people who seemed to understand, the sense of belonging was exhilarating. We felt that the problem of isolation had been solved. We soon discovered, however, that while we weren’t alone any more, in a social sense, we still suffered many of the old pangs of anxious apartness. Until we had talked with complete candor of our conflicts, and had listened to someone else do the same thing, we still didn’t belong. Step Five was the answer. Have I found through the Fifth step the beginning of true kinship with my fellows and God?

Today I Pray

May God help me learn to share myself, my attributes and my failings, not just as I take the Fifth Step but in a continuing give-and-take process with my friends. May I cultivate an attitude of openness and honesty with others, now that I have begun to be honest with myself. May I remember who I used to be — the child in a game of hide-and-seek, who hid so well that nobody could find her/him and everyone gave up trying and went home.

Today I Will Remember

I will be open to friendships.

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One More Day

There is a period of life when we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside.
– Pearl Bailey

We have a tendency to hold on to those dreams, goals, and images we had when we were young. When we accept the reality of what our lives have become — good or bad — we are finally adult.

It’s far easier to accept external realities than our deeper, more personal internal realities. Accepting that we are never going to be tall or agile or rich is simpler than admitting that we are selfish or angry or unkind. Perhaps the external things are easier because there is nothing we can do to change them, and we resist admitting to character defects because those can be changed. We may not like what we see, but if we swallow that bitter pill we are able to change.

I will ignore my fear and admit to the good and bad within me. This gives me the freedom to change.