The Work-In: Daily Motivation 4-29-2021

 Thursday, April 29, 2021

Today's Gift

Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear and superstition. --Bernard Beckett

The inner magician knows that getting comfortable with uncertainty is a very useful skill. We are, in fact, dancing an eternal tango with the unfamiliar. Those many moments on our life journey when the universe does not seem to be aligned with our vision can be painful and obstructive. And it can be overwhelming when we’re faced with a big life decision. Thoughts of a new job, the next step in a relationship, moving to a new place, a big health decision, or the leap of committing to be a parent can paralyze us. These large choices can unearth lots of fear and unfinished business—and sometimes push us back into our dysfunctional patterns.

There are very specific steps that can help us to get unstuck. The first is to honor and accept uncertainty as our teacher. Uncertainty accompanies our most dogged attempts to figure things out. Not knowing what to do happens so often in life, we’d think everyone would get good and more relaxed about inhabiting our uncertain lives. A really common barrier to life’s flow is that most of us repeatedly respond to uncertainty with fear and withdrawal rather than curiosity and openness.

I will start to notice how I normally react to uncertainty in my life.

From the book Cornerstones, Daily Meditations for the Journey into Manhood and Recovery ©

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

I've never started a fight, but I never pulled back from a fight either. --Billy Martin

Sometimes we walk around with chips on our shoulders. We're like a tightly wound spring ready to jump at the slightest trigger, when other times we would let the same event go unnoticed. We even say self-righteously, "I didn't start it." Now that we are becoming more responsible for ourselves, we are owning our part in relationships. Maybe we have a problem with being like a spring ready to jump. When we are like that, we are difficult to live with or be around.

We can change by getting in touch with our pain. We need to explore our feelings. Perhaps we need to be honest with ourselves about low self-esteem, about feelings of loneliness or fear. Then we must talk with another person or our group about our feelings and continue to talk about them. In this way we become reconciled to ourselves and to our friends around us.

Action for the Day: Higher Power, help me accept my own pain, and help me be tolerant of my friends' mistakes.

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

Spiritual Experience
Most of our experiences are what the psychologist William James
calls the "educational variety" because they develop slowly over a
period of time. Quite often friends of the newcomer are aware of
the difference long before they them are their self. They finally realize that they
have undergone a profound alteration in their reaction to life; that such
a change could hardly have been brought about by their self alone.
- Alcoholics Anonymous, (Appendix II) p. 567

Thought to Ponder
A spiritual awakening is our greatest gift.

AA-related 'Alconym'
B E S T = Been Enjoying Sobriety Today

From: AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) http://www.aa-alive.net/index.html

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Daily Motivation

Embrace today

by Ralph Marston

Today will give you things you need, and many of them you won’t like. Take them anyway and be thankful, because you’re sure to eventually find great use for them.

Today will ask you to put forth some effort, make some sacrifices, and suffer a little unpleasantness. Eagerly do what’s asked of you and tomorrow you’ll thank yourself for the trouble.

If you let it, today will build your skills and increase your strength. Today will drop challenges on top of you, and in those challenges you can find great value.

Today is potential, promise, possibility. Today is tedious, frustrating, confusing.

Today is precisely where you’ll find life, your life. And today is where you can add new levels of richness to life by the way you choose to live it.

Today is not perfect, yet it is filled with everything you have and all you can be. Embrace today and all it encompasses as if it’s the most important thing you can do, because it is.

From The Daily Motivator website at http://greatday.com/