Daily Reflections
October 1
LEST WE BECOME COMPLACENT
It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 85
When I am in pain it is easy to stay close to the friends I have found in the programs. Relief from that pain is provided in the solutions contained in A.A.’s Twelve Steps. But when I am feeling good and things are going well, I can become complacent. To put it simply, I become lazy and turn into the problem instead of the solution. I need to get into action, to take stock: where am I and where am I going? A daily inventory will tell me what I must change to regain spiritual balance. Admitting what I find within myself, to God and to another human being, keeps me honest and humble.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
October 1
A.A. Thought For The Day
A.A. will lose some of its effectiveness if I do not do my share. Where am I failing? Are there some things I do not feel like doing? Am I held back by self-consciousness or fear? Self-consciousness is a form of pride. It is a fear that something may happen to you. What happens to you is not very important. The impression you make on others does not depend so much on the kind of job you do as on your sincerity and honesty of purpose. Am I holding back because I am afraid of not making a good impression?
Meditation For The Day
Look to God for the true power that will make you effective. See no other wholly dependable supply of strength. That is the secret of a truly effective life. And you, in your turn, will be used to help many others find effectiveness. Whatever spiritual help you need, whatever spiritual help you desire for others, look to God. Seek that God’s will be done in your life and seek that your will conforms to His. Failures come from depending too much on your own strength.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may feel that nothing good is too much for me if I look to God for help. I pray that I may be effective through His guidance.
Walk In Dry Places
October 1
Thinking about Blame.
Inventory.
Which is worse: blaming ourselves or others for things that go wrong? A better question might be, Is anyone to blame?
We’re really better off, in 12 Step living, to begin dropping the idea of placing blame for our thinking altogether. Even is someone’s responsibility for a mistake or wrong is fully evident, we get nowhere by pointing the finger at him or her. What often happens, in fact, is that the person becomes defensive… just as we do… And retreats into denial or anger.
Another problem is that placing blame quickly becomes the sticky business of taking another person’s inventory. Let’s leave such matters to courts and prosecutions and focus instead on solving our own problems.
I’ll not waste time today thinking about who’s to blame. My focus will be on what can be done for general improvement.
Keep It Simple
October 1
Continued to take personal inventory
-First half of Step Ten
Step Ten tells us to keep looking at who we are. We ask ourselves, “Is what I’m doing okay?”
If it is, then we take pride in the way we acting. If not, we change our behavior. Step Ten keeps us in the right direction.
Throughout time, wise persons have told us to get to know ourselves. Step Ten helps us do this.
We become our own best friend. A true friend tells us when we’re doing right and when we’re messing up. Step Ten is our teacher. Even when we want to pretend we don’t know right from wrong, Step Ten reminds us that we do know. Step Ten is our daily reminder that we now have values—good values.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, Step Ten is a lot of work. Keep me working. Help me form a habit. Let this habit be called “Step Ten.”
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll continue to take a personal inventory. I will list what is good about me today and what I don’t like.
“How things look on the outside of us depends on how things are on the inside of us.”
–Parks CousinsI shall continue to believe. In hope there is faith, miracles do happen, in God I trust.
–ShelleyTime is my most precious resource, I choose to use it wisely and to cherish each moment, sober.
–BobI have a choice, I do not have to accept unacceptable behavior.
–ShelleyWhatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
–Ralph Waldo EmersonSome people make the future; most wait for the future to make them.
–Cited in The Best of BITS & PIECESThere is a choice you have to make, In everything you do. And you must always keep in mind, The choice you make, makes you.
–UnknownYou can preach a better sermon with your life than you can with your lips.
–Unknown
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
October 1
LAUGHTER
“We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can.”
– Will Rogers
When I first heard recovering alcoholics laughing, I thought I was in the wrong place. I was angry that they treated the disease so lightly. Then slowly I began to see that laughter is part of joy — a deep joy that comes from personal healing. Laughter is spiritual because it is a positive response to life. It is the noise of optimism.
And there is so much in life to laugh about — not only the funny things we did, but also the “humor” that abounds in living. How funny is our self-righteousness! How amusing we are in courtship. How ridiculous we appear when we pretend to be serious and “in charge”.
Laughter is the conversation of angels.
Let me see the miracle of humor in the gift of life — and let me be prepared to share it.
Daily Inspiration
October 1
Don’t give up because your best has not yet been achieved. Lord, take away my doubts and give me courage to accept my opportunities.
Often times that which we find difficult is that which teaches. Lord, may I always be able to see the good that comes from even my trials.
A Day At A Time
October 1
Reflection For The Day
We can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely. We can be all by ourselves and still feel happy and content. What makes the difference? We feel lonely if we look to other people for something they really can’t provide. None else can give us peace of mind, an inner sense of acceptance, and serenity. And when we find ourselves alone, we needn’t feel lonely. God is with us; His presence is like a warm shawl enfolding us. The more we’re aware of ourselves as beloved by God, the more we’re able to feel content and secure — whether we’re with others or when alone. Am I experiencing a sense of God and His love at all times and in all places?
Today I Pray
May I understand that we each have our own kind of loneliness — whether we are young and friendless, old and kept waiting by death, bereft, left, running away, or just feeling out of it in a crowd. May my loneliness be eased a bit by the fact that loneliness is, indeed, a universal feeling that everyone knows first hand — even though some lives seem more empty than others. May I — and all the lonely people — take comfort in the companionship of God.
Today I Will Remember
Shared loneliness is less lonely.
One More Day
October 1
Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows.
–Henry David Thoreau
Solitude is the time we choose to be alone, but it becomes loneliness when we believe we have no choice. When we are lonely, we feel trapped in a web of isolation.
Lonely people are caught in a trap with only themselves for company. There can be a difference between loneliness and aloneness — or solitude.
We are finding ways to create solitude from loneliness. We strive to fill our lives with meaningful experiences such as work, family, hobbies, and relationships with friends. As we enrich our lives with these activities, our alone time becomes solitude — a peaceful time to withdraw from the world and into thoughts, prayers, and meditation.
A moment of solitude today can enrich and replenish me.
One Day At A Time
October 1
The Fear of Failure
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”
–Seneca
I was full of excuses: “I can’t start a food plan. Won’t it be the same as a diet? I’m a free spirit! I don’t like such restrictions! If I can’t do something perfectly, why should I even start? I do it perfectly, or I don’t do it at all! I have gone too far to ever go back to being anywhere near healthy. I don’t have time to plan my Food. I am young. I have plenty of time to worry about taking off the weight!”
These were my favorite excuses. Underlying all the excuses was the fear of failure. I did not know that true failure comes about by not ever having tried. My life circumstances never got better by ignoring my problems with food. Ignoring my condition began to complicate every aspect of my life.
This moment I have a choice. I dare to choose in the next few moments even one small thing that I can do to make my life better or more healthful.
One day at a time …
If I cannot think of anything, I will pause and ask my Higher Power to help me learn to choose.
~ January K.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
October 1
“So don’t be afraid.
What we left behind,
leave it back there.
Try to do some good.
Let’s try to take a step,
try to think something good.”
–Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA
Every day is a new day. Sometimes we make mistakes.
We do not need to carry these mistakes along with us.
Take the lessons and leave the mistakes behind.
Look forward to today.
Today we can do something good.
Today we can have good thoughts.
Today we can think kind, uplifting thoughts about ourselves.
Today I will think good about …
My Creator, today I ask You to direct my thoughts.
Today’s Gift
October 1
Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Everything in nature contributes to something else – like the hundred-year-old tree that stood tall until a wind storm. The protection it gave to thousands of birds and squirrels it now gives to insects and fungi. As it slowly decays, it nourishes the ground, and from the enriched soil grows several other trees. We human beings are part of this eternal cycle, our ideas and actions enriching those around us and influencing generations yet to come. Being part of this vast plan gives us comfort, and faith that everything that happens is meant to be. Our hearts fill with joy with the knowledge that we are needed; just as every tree is needed.
How do I fit into nature’s plan today?
The Language Of Letting Go
October 1
Be Who You Are
In recovery; we’re learning a new behavior. It’s called Be Who You Are.
For some of us, this can be frightening. What would happen if we felt what we felt, said what we wanted, became firm about our beliefs, and valued what we needed? What would happen if we let go of our camouflage of adaptation? What would happen if we owned our power to be ourselves?
Would people still like us? Would they go away? Would they become angry?
There comes a time when we become willing and ready to take that risk. To continue growing, and living with ourselves, we realize we must liberate ourselves. It becomes time to stop allowing ourselves to be so controlled by others and their expectations and be true to ourselves – regardless of the reaction of others.
Before long, we begin to understand. Some people may go away, but the relationship would have ended anyway. Some people stay and love and respect us more for taking the risk of being whom we are. We begin to achieve intimacy, and relationships that work.
We discover that who we are has always been good enough. It is who we were intended to be.
Today, I will own my power to be myself.
Touchstones Meditation For Men
October 1
It was football time, apple time, harvest time, hunting time, and school time. Footsteps quickened. It was exciting to be in transition. It seemed more like the beginning of something than like the end of it.
—Paul Gruchow
Some days seem filled with the exciting energy of change. They are like walking on a bridge from one time period to the next. In the fall, our senses are filled with messages of change. Trees tell us it is happening. So do football games, and the cool chill in the morning air.
As summer wanes and winter approaches, we may need to grieve for what we leave behind before greeting what comes next. The changes we experience in recovery bring similar responses. We grieve the loss of our old friends, the bottle, the food binge, the romantic thrill, or the excitement of gambling or spending. We are able to grieve our losses because we accept them. We have chosen them. Now we move to the next season of our lives.
As I experience the circle of seasons outside me, I am grateful for the ongoing flow of change within.
Daily TAO
October 1
SOLITUDE
There are no ancients before me,
No followers behind:
Only the vastness of heaven and earth
On this mountain terrace.
Though heaven may know the ultimate,
Joy or sorrow is our own will.
We stand alone in this life. No one lives our life for us. Neither drug nor sorcery can remove us, even for a moment, from our own life. We can deny it, but it is useless: We are here alone, to engage every precious moment according to our wills.
The precedents of the ancients may be helpful, but in the end they are only references. The thought of those who will follow after us is likewise merely a consideration. What matters is being, pure being. Accept who you are. Be who you are.
If there are gods in the heavens, maybe they know the future. As a human being, I can only say that the future is yet to be made. Let us go forth and make it, but let us make it as beautifully as we can. The degree of elegance is determined by our will and the perfection of our own personalities. Therefore, do not sigh over misfortune or adversity. Whether you are happy or sad is entirely up to you.
Daily Zen
October 1
When you look, it is formless;
When you call, it echoes.
It is the great Dharma commander,
Transmitting the sutras
Through precepts of mind.
As saltiness in water,
Transparency in color,
Surely it is there,
But its form is invisible;
The Mind King is also thus,
Residing in the body.
– Master Fu (497-569)