Daily Motivations 7-12-2010

Monday, July 12, 2009

Today's Gift

If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet. —Isaac Bashevis Singer

Many of us have the habit of taking a negative outlook on whatever comes along. We don't believe things will work out for us; we don't think we will have a good day; we can't accept our friends' warm feelings. To follow this gloomy path is a strange distortion of faith - it is faith in the negative. Any forecast, whether hopeful or pessimistic, is a step into the unknown. So why do we choose the dark one?

We get a payoff for our pessimism, which keeps us hooked. It creates misery, but serves our demand for control. There is more risk in being open to something positive because we cannot force positive things to occur. We can only be open to them and believe in the possibility. But when we predict the negative and expect only bad things, we squelch many good things or overlook them. Then we say, "I knew it would be this way," and in our misery we satisfy our self-centered craving to be in charge. When we surrender our need to be in control, we are more open and welcoming of the good things that come our way.

Today. I will be open to the good that is around me.

From Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men ©

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Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Keep It Simple

Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed.---Irene Peter

Our life changed a lot when we stopped drinking and using other drugs. But this is only a start. We need to go further. Our old attitudes can kill us, even if we aren't drinking or drugging any more. This is called a "dry drunk." If we're on a dry drunk, we've changed the way we act without changing the way we think. Our program shows us how to change the way we think. And we change how we treat ourselves and others. We learn to live a new life based on love and care.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me guard against my old attitudes. Help me keep changing.

Action for the Day: I'll list four ways I've changed because I'm sober. I'll list four ways I haven't changed yet.

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One Day At A Time

Fantasy

The more I drank and/or used, the more I fantasized everything.
In my mind's eye I played and replayed scenes
in which I was plucked magically from the bar where I stood nursing a drink
and was instantly exalted to some position of power and prestige.
I lived in a dream world. AA led me gently from this fantasizing to

embrace reality with open arms.
~ Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 559

Thought to Ponder . . .
Alcohol and Drugs gave me wings to fly, then it took away the sky.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
S O B E R = Son Of A Bitch, Everything's Real.

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Daily Motivation

On higher ground

You can see much farther from the top of the mountain than you can from the lowest point in the valley. So raise your perspective, and climb that mountain.

Raising your perspective will enable you to see many more possibilities. And you'll be able to move more effectively toward them.

When you're on the same level as your problems, those problems can seem overwhelming. Yet when you raise yourself just a little bit above those problems, the picture changes dramatically in your favor.

You may feel tempted to try and push the problems down to a lower level, but that will not work. The challenges and obstacles are what they are, and it does no good to pretend any differently.

A much more effective strategy is to accept the situation for what it is, and then to raise yourself above it.

Visualize how you would think, how you would feel, and what you would do if you were at a higher level of awareness and effectiveness.

Then, live out that vision and think those thoughts, feel those feelings, take those actions. Rise above the challenges, and from the perspective of higher ground, move successfully beyond them.

-- Ralph Marston