Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Today's Gift
We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin. —Andre Berthiaume
The masks people wear are as varied as those who wear them, but their purpose is quite simple. We wear masks to hide our real faces from those around us and even from ourselves. There are seductive masks, innocent masks, hero masks, tough person masks, oddball masks, lone wolf masks, and many more. Sometimes we want to take on another identity so others won't see our insecurities. Or we think taking the form of someone else will give us power over others, or they will like us better, or we can escape ourselves.
The cost of wearing a mask is not getting a chance to develop our real personalities. What masks are we attached to? Are we willing to give them up in the interest of our spiritual growth?
May I have the courage to drop my phony masks in order to grow stronger in self-knowledge.
From Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men ©
From: Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation - Thought for the Day http://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/recovery/thought-for-the-day
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Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Keep It Simple
When I meet people or get in a new relationship, I start putting all these repressive restrictions on myself. I cant have my feelings. Cant have my wants and needs. Cant have my history. Cant do the things I want, feel the feelings Im feeling, or say what I need to say. I turn into this repressed, perfectionistic robot, instead of being who I am: Me. --Anonymous
Sometimes, our instinctive reaction to being in a new situation is: Don't be yourself.
Who else can we be? Who else would you want to be? We don't need to be anyone else.
The greatest gift we can bring to any relationship wherever we go is being who we are.
We may think others wont like us. We may be afraid that if we just relax and be ourselves, the other person will go away or shame us. We may worry about what the other person will think.
But, when we relax and accept ourselves, people often feel much better being around us than when we are rigid and repressed. Were fun to be around.
If others don't appreciate us, do we really want to be around them? Do we need to let the opinions of others control our behavior and us?
Giving ourselves permission to be who we are can have a healing influence on our relationships. The tone relaxes. We relax. The other person relaxes. Then everybody feels a little less shame, because they have learned the truth. Who we are is all we can be, all were meant to be, and its enough. Its fine.
Our opinion of ourselves is truly all that matters. And we can give ourselves all the approval we want and need.
Action for the Day: Today, I will relax and be who I am in my relationships. I will do this not in a demeaning or inappropriate way, but in a way that shows I accept myself and value who I am. Help me, Higher Power, let go of my fears about being myself.
From: Bluidkiti's Alcohol and Drug Addictions Recovery Help/Support Forums
Daily Recovery Readings - http://www.bluidkiti.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=2
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One Day At A Time
Resentments
Selfishness -- self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.
Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that in some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.
So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making.
- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 62
Thought to Ponder . . .
Resentment is like acid, eating away at the vessel it is stored in.
AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
S W A T = Surrender, Willingness, Action, Trust.
From: AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net)
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Daily Motivation
Excerpt of The Daily Motivator
Who you truly are
by Ralph Marston
The best, most effective, most genuine person you can be is yourself. There are plenty of things you can learn from others. There are numerous qualities you can admire in others and adapt for yourself.
Yet when the greatest challenges face you, when you reach for the most ambitious and meaningful goals, you need every ounce of integrity and commitment you can muster. Those can come only from being and expressing the person you truly are.
It takes confidence and faith to be yourself. No one has ever been you before, so you’re forging into uncharted territory. That territory can often be difficult to traverse.
The rewards are worth the challenges. You have the opportunity to create what has never been created, to make a profound and positive difference in your own special way. No one but you can do it like you can.
Anyone can be successful, and yet no one becomes successful in exactly the same way as anyone else. Be who you truly are and you’ll become the best that you can be.
From The Daily Motivator website at http://greatday.com/
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