Daily Motivations 5-20-2010

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Today's Gift

It only takes one person to change your life - you. —Ruth Casey

Change is not easy, but it's absolutely unavoidable. Doors will close. Barriers will surface. Frustrations will mount. Nothing stays the same forever, and it's such folly to wish otherwise. Growth accompanies positive change; determining to risk the outcome resulting from a changed behavior or attitude will enhance our self-perceptions. We will have moved forward; in every instance our lives will be influenced by making a change that only each of us can make.

We have all dreaded the changes we knew we had to make. Perhaps even now we fear some impending changes. Where might they take us? It's difficult accepting that the outcome is not ours to control. Only the effort is ours. The solace is that positive changes, which we know are right for us and other people in our lives, are never going to take us astray. In fact, they are necessary for the smooth path just beyond this stumbling block.

When we are troubled by circumstances in our lives, a change is called for, a change that we must initiate. When we reflect on our recent as well as distant past, we will remember that the changes we most dreaded again and again have positively influenced our lives in untold ways.

Change ushers in glad, not bad, tidings.

From Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey ©

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

Walk in Dry Places

Gratitude

Gratitude is not natural.
"Nobody ever gave me a helping hand," a young alcoholic complained, having handed in prison. "My life has been one bad break after another."

While this person indeed had bad breaks, it's doubtful that he'd never been given a helping hand by somebody. If we have no gratitude, it's likely taht we don't ever recognize a helping hand when it is extended. We may have believed any assistance we took was our right, even resenting our benefactors.

The remedy for such immature thinking is a conscious effort to vultivate gratitude. IF we're not aware of feeling it, we can at least act as if we have it. Thank people for any favor, no matter how small. Express appreciation for the wonderful people around you. Give people praise at every opportunity. This will help start a current of gratitude that can be amplified in time. You'll come to recognize many helping hands.

Action for the Day: Today I'll be grateful and appreciative of everything in my life. I'll let gratitude build up in my life until I can feel it and others can sense that I have it.

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One Day At A Time

Freedom From Anger
I ran into a personal crisis that filled me with a raging and righteous anger.
As I fumed helplessly and planned to get good and drunk and show them,
my eye caught a sentence in the book lying open on my bed:
"We cannot live with anger." The walls crumpled -- and the light streamed in.
I wasn't trapped. I wasn't helpless.
I was free, and I didn't have to drink to "show them."
This wasn't "religion" -- this was freedom!
Freedom from anger and fear; freedom to know happiness,
and freedom to know love.
- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 206

Thought to Ponder . . .
Anger rules nothing except itself.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
A A = Avoid Anger.

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Daily Motivation

The power of your own possibilities
What if you could fully comprehend everything of which you're capable? You would never waste another moment of your precious time.

What if you could know how truly powerful you are? You would never again be reluctant to move forward.

You are the living expression of opportunity. Within you are countless magnificent achievements to be discovered and fulfilled.

Fear keeps those achievements unrealized, hidden from yourself and the world. Love will set them free.

Spend a moment in loving thankfulness for all that has brought you to where you are today. Peacefully let go of the resentment, doubt, disappointment, worry and fear.

Feel the power of your own possibilities. See that the best is yet to come, and joyfully begin to bring it to life.

-- Ralph Marston