Daily Motivation 1-25-11

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Today's Gift

The time of discipline began. Each of us the pupil of whichever one of us could best teach what each of us needed to learn. —Maria Isabel Barreno

"When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears." Life's lessons often come unexpectedly. They come, nevertheless, and they come according to a timeframe that is Divine. As we grow emotionally and spiritually, we are readied for further lessons for which teachers will appear. Perhaps the teacher will be a loving relationship, a difficult loss, or a truant child. The time of learning is seldom free from pain and questioning. But from these experiences and what they can teach us, we are ready to learn. As we are ready, they come.

We all enjoy the easy times when the sailing is smooth, when all is well, when we are feeling no pain. And these periods serve a purpose. They shore us up for the lessons which carry us to a stronger recovery, to a stronger sense of ourselves. To understand that all is well, throughout the learning process, is the basic lesson we need to learn. All is well. The teacher is the guide up the next rung of the ladder.

Let me be grateful for my lessons today and know that all is well.

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
 
Finding a Higher Good____Handling Trouble.
There are times when things just don't work out, despite our best efforts. Even in sobriety, we can have business or marriage failures, accidents, sicknesses, or trouble in holding a job. Sobriety is no guarantee that things will always work out according to our expectancies.

 

But no disappointment or failure has to throw us or cause permanent distress. It is some comfort to remember that the meeting of the first two AA members came out of a business failure, not a success.  On many occasions, a disappointment or a setback can actually give a person the insight and understanding needed for a new, more successful effort.

We do not, of course, want to rationalize failure. We should also accept responsibility when failure has been the result of negligence or wrong action on our part.  Nevertheless, as we continue to seek and to follow our Higher Power's guidance, w will find the course of our lives that fits our needs and capabilities.  There is a higher good in everything. Even our drinking was indirectly beneficial in pushing us toward AA and the program's healing principles.

 

Action for the Day: I will not waste time today brooding over mistakes or losses. I'll know that my Higher Power is in charge of my life and can turn liabilities into assets and defeats into victories.

 

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One Day At A Time

 

Habits
Our drinking/using was connected with many habits -- big and little.
Some of them were thinking habits, or things we felt inside ourselves.
Others were doing habits -- things we did, actions we took.
In getting used to not drinking/using, we have found that we needed new habits
to take the place of those old ones. . .

After we spent a few months practicing these new, sober habits
or ways of acting and thinking, they became almost second nature to most of us,
as drinking/using used to be. Not drinking/using has become natural and easy,
not a long, dreary struggle.
- Living Sober, p. 1

Thought to Ponder . . .
Habits are like cork or lead -- they tend to keep you up or hold you down.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
A A = Achieve Anything.

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Daily Motivation

 

Feel the splendor

 

There is plenty of time, for there is now and you have it all available to you. There is nothing to regret, for the past is now finished.

Any anxiety you feel is only speculation about what has never happened yet. Let go of what is not even real, and give your grateful attention to the opportunity that is now.

 

Elevate your wishes and plans about someday into action you take on this day. Your dreams come to life the moment you begin to move toward them.

 

Fill this moment with effort and purpose, with wonder, kindness, joy and love. You are precisely as rich as you imagine and allow yourself to be, so choose to be extraordinarily rich at all times.

 

Keep yourself grounded in what's truly important. Then you'll have the courage to move gracefully beyond what's familiar and create new value.

 

Right now is when you're gloriously alive, aware and able to feel the incomparable splendor that is life. Remind yourself of all you have, and you'll transform it into even more.

 

-- Ralph Marston