Thursday, December 7, 2017
Today's Gift
If we have ever gone to school with a black eye, we know how embarrassing it can be. We feel self-conscious and ill at ease. Friends come up to us one after another to ask how we got it. We may want to stay away from people until the eye is better. All of us have things about ourselves we have a hard time accepting. It doesn't have to be as unusual as a black eye. We may think we're too big, too little, too slow, not good readers, not good looking enough, or not popular enough.
We may need to talk about these things with someone else, so these bits of ourselves we don't accept won't limit our freedom to grow. By talking to another, we may find those traits aren't noticed by anyone but ourselves. We may also find that what we once thought of as weak points can be turned to strengths.
Our Inventory
If we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we have written down a lot.
We have listed and analyzed our resentments. We have begun to comprehend their
futility and their fatality. We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness.
We have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men,
even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people.
- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 70
Thought to Ponder
We are prisoners of our own resentments.
Forgiveness unlocks the door and sets us free.
AA-related 'Alconym'
A A = Altered Attitudes
The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live. --Mortimer Adler
In some areas of our lives we are right on target. Our level of maturity is exactly as it should be, and we are going through the stages that people of our age ought to be going through. In other areas, this is not so. We are complex people, irregular, uneven. In all of us there are areas fixated in some emotional ice age, areas that have not felt the freeing warmth of the sun.
We cannot expect ourselves to move forward all at once. Not only is it okay to move slowly - it's often the only way it can be. Confusion, conflict, or pain may have caused us to let our memories or feelings be frozen safely away. This has been a long process, and we can allow ourselves more time to heal. The task now is not to deny or hide from these changes, but to have confidence that the healing warmth of the program will reflect on all areas of our lives and help make us whole.
I am thankful I am given both time and patience in which to continue my growth.
From the book Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty. ©
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
Only people who have joyfully accepted themselves can take all the risks and responsibilities of being themselves. --John Powell
Only people who have joyfully accepted themselves can take all the risks and responsibilities of being themselves. --John Powell
If we have ever gone to school with a black eye, we know how embarrassing it can be. We feel self-conscious and ill at ease. Friends come up to us one after another to ask how we got it. We may want to stay away from people until the eye is better. All of us have things about ourselves we have a hard time accepting. It doesn't have to be as unusual as a black eye. We may think we're too big, too little, too slow, not good readers, not good looking enough, or not popular enough.
We may need to talk about these things with someone else, so these bits of ourselves we don't accept won't limit our freedom to grow. By talking to another, we may find those traits aren't noticed by anyone but ourselves. We may also find that what we once thought of as weak points can be turned to strengths.
Action for the Day: I will turn one weakness to a strength today.
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
Our Inventory
If we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we have written down a lot.
We have listed and analyzed our resentments. We have begun to comprehend their
futility and their fatality. We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness.
We have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men,
even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people.
- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 70
Thought to Ponder
We are prisoners of our own resentments.
Forgiveness unlocks the door and sets us free.
AA-related 'Alconym'
A A = Altered Attitudes
From: AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) http://www.aa-alive.net/index.html
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Daily Motivation
Excerpt of The Daily Motivator
Change and endure
by Ralph Marston
Seek change, embrace change, encourage change. At the same time be wary of change, careful about how you make it.
Change exists at the heart of life, forming the very definition of life. Yet there is more to life than mere change.
Life has meaning, beauty, worth because it can transcend change. There is an essential, treasured part of you that is the same as it ever was, and will always be.
Life changes and at the same time, endures. As such, in that glorious contradiction, there is nothing else like it.
Seize opportunities to change, to grow, improve, move forward. At the same time, refuse to compromise those fundamental, enabling values on which your life is built.
Change, but not just for the sake of change. Change in order to better express the meaning, the purpose, the essence that is always you.
Seek change, embrace change, encourage change. At the same time be wary of change, careful about how you make it.
Change exists at the heart of life, forming the very definition of life. Yet there is more to life than mere change.
Life has meaning, beauty, worth because it can transcend change. There is an essential, treasured part of you that is the same as it ever was, and will always be.
Life changes and at the same time, endures. As such, in that glorious contradiction, there is nothing else like it.
Seize opportunities to change, to grow, improve, move forward. At the same time, refuse to compromise those fundamental, enabling values on which your life is built.
Change, but not just for the sake of change. Change in order to better express the meaning, the purpose, the essence that is always you.
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