DAILY RECOVERY READINGS FOR MEN
 

Thursday, August 1, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

The great artist is the simplifier.
—Henri Amiel

Just as an artist creates through simplification, so a man's recovery process grows and deepens as he simplifies his life. This isn't easy to do in our fast paced and high-powered world. We have often complicated a problem by our way of thinking. Sometimes we take pride in how complex we can make something seem. We look for hidden meanings when the truth is on the surface. We give long explanations for our actions when none is called for. We suspect a person's motives when taking him at face value loses nothing. We take on a battle when we could just as well let it pass.

Most of us don't think of ourselves as artists. Yet we are each given a profound, creative opportunity - to fashion a meaningful and worthwhile pattern in our lives. As we seek to do the will of God today, it is as if we are taking a lump of clay and creating an image from it.

As I go about today's activities, may I find ways to make it a simple and creative expression.

Friday, August 2, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing.
—Bill Cosby

Things are not always as they seem, even with us. Sometimes we get settled into a routine in our program. We are beyond the early struggles with detachment and sobriety. We have encountered many of the benefits of recovery. We attend our meetings and we know the words and ideas of the program. Although it all looks good on the outside, when we're honest with ourselves, we know our spirit has gone flat. This is a serious situation and needs our attention.

When the inside feeling does not match our outside appearance, we need to become vulnerable again. We need to talk about how we really feel. Maybe little secrets we have been holding have deadened our program. Perhaps we haven't admitted a pain in our life. Maybe we have been seduced by the power of looking good and have traded away the genuineness of being known by our friends. The renewal of this program is something we feel from within, and we can continue to be renewed.

I pray my eyes will be open to see and my program will stay alive and genuine.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude.
—Henri J. M. Nouwen

Knowing our loneliness and admitting it to us is the beginning of a spiritual path for many men. Today we are on a spiritual journey. We already have the means to translate the pain of our loneliness into a deeper spiritual dimension. Most men in this program came in deeply aware of their feelings of isolation. Now, with the companionship of our Higher Power, we can spend time alone and use it for spiritual growth. As we develop a relationship with ourselves and deepen our knowledge of our Higher Power, our loneliness transforms into solitude.

In this quiet moment today, we can be more accepting of ourselves than we were in the past. We admit loneliness has caused us pain, but now we can see that it also can lead us to our deeper self where we find serene solitude. This change is a movement into the spiritual world.

Thanks to God for the solitude I have found in my life.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

The craftsman does not always build toward a prior vision. Often images come in the process of working. The material, his hands - together they beget.
—M. C. Richards

We awaken in the morning, and the day is an un-built creation. We have some ideas about what we will accomplish today. But our Higher Power also has some things in mind, which are not yet part of our consciousness. We have lived long enough to know that every day brings surprises. We know in advance we will be frustrated in some of our desires, and we may be helped or advanced in others. But what about the totally unexpected? Will we even notice the subtle opportunities? Will we see an opportunity for a friendly conversation? Do our plans unwittingly prevent other possibilities from intruding?

When we hold loosely to our daily plans, we are more open to knowing the will of our Higher Power. Then each day is a spiritual process. It becomes a combined creation of our Higher Power and our own consciousness.

Today, I will hold my own plan loosely so that I can continue to be open to the healing powers of God.

Monday, August 5, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

The whole problem is to establish communication with one's self.
—E. B. White

We are like many-faceted gemstones. Each side represents a different aspect of us. We have our emotional sides with different feelings and responses. We have our competencies and strengths, hopes and desires, destructiveness and negativity, self-doubts and resentments. We also possess a drive for power and knowledge, a desire to serve, and a wish to connect with others.

Our spiritual masculinity requires that we know our many sides. We need a working relationship with our thoughts and feelings so they can be appreciated, accepted, and understood. When we tell our story in a meeting, we let others know us, and we get to know ourselves better. When we are spontaneous in what we say or do, we communicate with ourselves. We discover ourselves through meditation, journal writing, playfulness, physical activity, and conversations with others. In that way we become more honest.

Today, I will use my lines of communication with myself and become more self-accepting and more honest.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing.
—Rabindranath Tagore

We seek balance in our lives. The greatest sign of unmanageability in our past was the unbalanced lives we led. This is no easy lesson to learn. We are inclined to grasp for a single answer, thinking we now have the key insight to a happier way of life. As men, many of us have pursued our happiness in work with little time for anything else. Perhaps, for some, the singing and playing we have done were part of our addiction or participating with someone else in their addiction. This makes it feel dangerous or frightening now to be playful in recovery.

We can find ways to have more balance in our lives. Spiritual vitality grows when we make room in our day for lighthearted play as well as the serious tasks.

I pray for guidance from my Higher Power to help me find a balance in my life today.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

We love because it's the only true adventure.
—Nikki Giovanni

In loving, we meet ourselves. As we have become more honest, we no longer make excuses about our relationship problems. We can't blame our troubles on our partner. Our problems with love were often because we didn't know how to be close or we didn't dare to be.

When we let ourselves engage in this adventure, we meet many obstacles - things we can't control, and sometimes we want to quit right there. We have arguments and disappointments as well as good feelings. But what adventure is without difficulty or surprises? Part of the reason for choosing new experiences is to confront forces outside our control. A relationship is a dialogue. Only if we stay with it through the frustrations, express our deepest feelings openly, and listen to our partner, do we achieve a new level of understanding and confidence in the relationship. Then deeper levels also open within ourselves.

Today, I will let honesty guide me in this adventure of my love dialogue.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It's amazing how it cheers one up to 'shred oranges and scrub the floor.
—D. H. Lawrence

Focusing on pain or having difficulties can put us in a rut, and we neglect the other things in our lives. A simple task like making marmalade can be a brief vacation. We change our thought patterns when we change activities. The simple action of doing something pleasant might inject a new feeling into our outlook. Sharing a problem with a friend may be all we need to see it more clearly or let it go. Moving from busy physical activity to a few moments of quiet contemplation creates an inner balance. A problem that seems overwhelming at night may be met with new insight and new energy after a night's rest.

We don't have to continue feeling like victims of circumstance or remain stuck with a nagging problem. Just like changing the subject of a conversation, we can change the subject of our attention for a time. When we do, we regain our sense of hope and change our responses.

Today, I will give myself a break when I become caught or obsessed with a problem.

Realized I was doing this, said a prayer, a friend phoned me, she had been on holidays. She was an answer to prayer, I really need to talk to her and it allowed me to see what was happening in my life and put it into it's proper perspective. She is not in recovery, but her husband has about 40 years of sobriety in AA. When I let go, the solution appeared, she wasn't the solution, she opened the door to the solution and my clarity of thought.

Friday, August 9, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

We must embrace the absurd and go beyond everything we have ever known.
—Janie Gustafson

We have stepped beyond the limits of our former life and accepted the possibility of the unknown. Many of us have always tried to be rational, to trust only what we could understand or reason through. That attempt served the part of us that lusted for control and power, but it kept us from unknown possibilities and dreams.

When we decide to be less controlling, we begin to believe in possibilities we didn't allow before. That is how we let God influence our lives. Perhaps we don't see a reasonable way to a more satisfying job, but we can be open to surprising possibilities. We may see nothing we can do to overcome our compulsions, but we pray for God to remove our shortcomings in God's way, and already we have a new attitude.

God, give me the courage to step into the unknown, the absurd, and experience the awakening of my spirit.

Love this, I have found that a little bit of crazy is still okay, and much better than the insanity of when I was using. I try to put in a smile or a chuckle into the day, in my life and here on the site.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

According to the teachers, there is only one thing that all people possess equally. This is their loneliness.
—Hyemeyohsts Storm

Many of us have tried to find a way to outwit our loneliness, or to escape its truth. We have learned that we cannot. As fathers looking at our children we may wish to spare them this pain. As men with our mates, we have dreamed of an ideal connection where all loneliness was dispelled.

We can't obliterate loneliness. But we can learn to accept and deal with it. There is no need to compulsively cover all traces and all reminders that we are alone. We can accept this universal truth. We are alone, but so is everybody. We can make true contact with each other out of our aloneness. True intimacy with another man or woman comes out of first seeing our separateness, and then bridging the gap.

Today, I accept the feeling of loneliness as part of life. I can make contact with my brothers and sisters, knowing we are all in the same condition.

We can be alone in a crowd, for me it was learning to be alone with me, without having to look for outside people, places and things to fill up my space.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

I'd like to get away from earth awhile and then come back to it and begin again.
—Robert Frost

Do we think it's weak to need a break? Do we ignore the need to recharge our batteries? Responsibility for our own lives requires us to recognize the need to restore our energy. Maybe our former escape from the world was by using food, or drugs, or spending money, or sexual release, or preoccupation with another person.
Now, since we are developing the ability to be with ourselves, we can take a break from the world and come back restored. This meditation time generates more energy for our lives. Recreation with friends, a walk, a movie, or a concert does the same. Taking responsibility to get away is a good cure for self-pity and exhaustion.

Today, I will be aware of my need to restore my energy.

One of the reasons that I walked downtown yesterday, it helps my circulation. I tend to forget that when my feet hurt, it is because it isn't getting the energy it needs, or I am doing to much and need that break. I have neuropathy, gout, and pseudo gout, as a result of abusing food for many years and not making healthy choices.

Monday, August 12, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

It is a terrible, an inexorable law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own: in the face of one's victim, one sees oneself.
—James Baldwin

Acting totally in our self-interest is shortsighted and foolishly simple. Attacking another person or another nation reflects upon us like a mirror. When any person is undermined, the human race is diminished in some measure. And humanity is our family.

Sometimes we see a reflection of ourselves in someone else and fail to recognize it. What we hate most in another may well be what we hate in ourselves. Knowing this can be useful. Perhaps our teeth are set on edge when we think about an ex-wife, or father, or former friend, or a religious or racial group. How are we like that person or group? What do they cause us to face within ourselves? When we stop diminishing the other person we may still not like him or her, but we can come to terms with ourselves. We learn to live and let live.

God, help me engage in the brotherhood of my own family and with all people - and to see my own face, even in my enemy.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity. People who do not experience self-love have little or no capacity to love others.
—Nathaniel Branden

We cannot hang on to feelings of shame and guilt and still hope to become better people. How did these feelings begin? If we were treated badly by people, we need to be honest about what happened so we can resolve it and move on. Have we perpetuated our feelings by acting disrespectfully ourselves? Then we need to take a thorough inventory of our wrongdoings, admit them, make repairs, and let them go.

We may wallow in shame because facing it feels too frightening. Often, we believe our shame is greater than that of others. This belief is usually untrue and grandiose. It's part of how we isolate ourselves. We don't have to face it alone. We have the help of other men and women who can listen to our pain and tell us about their experiences.

Today, may I find the courage to face my shame and assert my right to self-esteem.

Like these readings, we tend to forget that we have a masculine and feminine side. I did a meditation one time, and it said, "Your female side is languishing. It broke me up, was never too fond of frilly and fussy things. The end of the week, a friend in recovery brought me clothes that she could no longer wear. She had put weight on and I had lost it. They contained dresses and skirts. ;) Our masculine side is our survivor side, and in today, I don't want to just survive, I want to live.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.
—Hugh Mulligan

We show self-respect in how we choose to spend our time. Do we give tasks the time required for our best efforts? Or do we feel unworthy of quality work? Do we have a right to stop working and just play? Are we worth spending time with - just ourselves, or do we feel meaningful time is only spent with others? Are we worth caring enough about to enjoy bathing, grooming, or getting haircuts? Do we care enough about ourselves to see a dentist or a physician when needed?

Choices about how we use our time are basic ethical and creative choices. Beyond self-respect and care, we need to put time into our day for nourishing and enriching our spirits. We do that by reading something thoughtful or meaningful, talking to a friend about the events and feelings of our lives, listening to music, fixing a pleasant meal, exercising, and giving unpaid time and energy to worthwhile causes.

I am grateful for the gift of another day, and I will live it creatively and respectfully.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

You are reading from the book Touchstones

A man's life is what his thoughts make it.
—Marcus Aurelius

How do we think about ourselves? Do we feel unattractive? Do we feel we aren't masculine enough? Do we doubt our ability to perform our roles as friends, husbands, or fathers? Such thoughts are common among men. There is no problem in having them; they are normal to some extent. But what we do with our thoughts - how we think about what we think - makes a big difference in our lives.

When we think we are odd or different from other men for feeling this way, we become more self-centered. When we don't stand up for our rights as men to have our doubts and weaknesses, we become even more weak and doubting. When we don't talk about our thoughts and feelings to other men, we become isolated and lonely. We have a right to feel insecure and to know we have weaknesses. We become stronger men by accepting our doubts. They may still cause some pain but they have lost their power to control us. Just as a repaired seam can be stronger than the original, what was our weakness becomes our strength.