Compassion is ... a spirituality and a way of living and walking through life. It is the way we treat all there is in life - ourselves, our bodies, our imaginations and dreams, our neighbors, our enemies... Compassion is a spirituality as if creation mattered. It is treating all creation as holy and as divine... which is what it is.
—Matthew Fox
In our search for growth, serenity, and contentment, we can start at a very practical level. Simply treat ourselves, inside and out, and everything around us in a respectful and caring way. Many people have not learned how to do that. Some of us have learned to accept abuse and pain, or to be tough and abusive.
We can learn about being in a healthy relationship, about befriending ourselves and others and all of creation. With practice, we will learn more and more about having compassion. As we do, our self-centeredness and our self-pity will fall away.
Today, I will be compassionate toward each of the details of creation, and practice acceptance both within and outside myself.
From Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men ©
Honesty
The Rewards of Honesty
Sometimes we think that honesty is simply too painful and demanding---- all sacrifice with no gain. If we are completely honest with ourselves, however, the results can only be positive. What are the advantages of being entirely honest about our motives and feelings? One benefit is that we never will have to face the disillusionment and humiliation that come from self-deception. Surely we had enough of that while drinking.
Honesty also speaks for itself. People know intuitively when a person is completely honest, and they are drawn to that person because of it. An honest AA member-one who has truly faced personal faults---- also becomes an example to others.
The honest person has self-respect and a clear conscious. In real honesty, there is no inner struggle to keep up appearances or to pretend we are anybody except ourselves. Honesty makes us comfortable rather than pained, relaxed rather than anxious, and decisive rather than confused. These are rich rewards for people who once lived in the false world of alcoholism and addiction.
Prayer for the Day: I'll try to be honest in all things today. In any case, I will at least be honest with my self about my true motives and feelings.
Communication
From the beginning, communication in AA has been no ordinary transmission
of helpful ideas and attitudes. It has been unusual and sometimes unique.
Because of our kinship in suffering,
and because our common means of deliverance are effective only
when constantly carried to others, our channels of contact
have always been charged with the language of the heart.
- The Language of the Heart, p. 243
Thought to Ponder . . .
An open heart is never a lonely one.
AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
H O P E = Heart Open; Please Enter.
Your own odds
In many of the things you attempt, the odds will be against you. Fortunately, the odds don't really matter.
After all, the odds were very much against you ever being born in the first place. And yet here you are.
Whether it is with your health, your wealth, your relationships, or anything else, the odds don't determine your results. Your thoughts, actions, words, focus, commitment and persistence are what create the results you get.
You can control those things, no matter what the odds might be. Pay no attention to the odds, and direct your focus toward doing whatever is necessary to get where you wish to go.
The odds do not take your level of determination into consideration. So when it comes to what you intend to do, those odds really don't have much meaning.
Step forward, take action, and keep going until you reach the goal you've chosen to reach. Make your own odds, and put them one hundred percent in your favor.
-- Ralph Marston
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