Links |
Join |
Forums |
Find Help |
Recovery Readings |
Spiritual Meditations |
Chat |
Contact |
10-04-2013, 12:52 PM | #6 |
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 70,587
|
October 5
Daily Reflections YESTERDAY'S BAGGAGE For the wise have always known that no one can make much of his life until self-searching becomes a regular habit, until he is able to admit and accept what he finds, and until he patiently and persistently tries to correct what is wrong. 12 & 12, p. 88 I have more than enough to handle today, without dragging along yesterday's baggage too. I must balance today's books, if I am to have a chance tomorrow. So I ask myself if I have erred and how I can avoid repeating that particular behavior. Did I hurt anyone, did I help anyone, and why? Some of today is bound to spill over into tomorrow, but most of it need not if I make an honest daily inventory. ************************************************** ********* Twenty-Four Hours A Day A.A. Thought For The Day Do I have any hard feelings about other group members or for any other A.A. group? Am I critical of the way a group member thinks or acts? Do I feel that another group is operating in the wrong way and do I broadcast it? Or do I realize that all A.A. members, no matter what their limitations, have something to offer, some good, however little, that they can do for A.A. in spite of their handicaps? Do I believe that there is a place for all kinds of groups in A.A., provided they are following A.A. traditions, and that they can be effective even if I do not agree with their procedure? Am I tolerant of people and groups? Meditation For The Day "The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth and even forever more." All your movements, your goings and comings can be guided by the Unseen Spirit. Every visit to help another, every unselfish effort to assist, can be blessed by that Unseen Spirit. There can be a blessing on all you do, on every interview with one who is suffering. Every meeting of a need may not be a chance meeting, but it may have been planned by the Unseen Spirit. Led by the Spirit of the Lord, you can be tolerant, sympathetic, and understanding of others and so accomplish much. Prayer For The Day I pray that I may be led by the spirit of God. I pray that the Lord will preserve my goings and my comings. ************************************************** ********* As Bill Sees It A Higher Power for Atheists, p.276 "I have had many experiences with atheists, mostly good. Everybody in A.A. has the right to his own opinion. It is much better to maintain an open and tolerant society than it is to suppress any small disturbances their opinions might occasion. Actually, I don't know of anybody who went off and died of alcoholism because of some atheist's opinions on the cosmos. "But I do always entreat these folks to look to a 'Higher Power'--namely, their own group. When they come in, most of their A.A. group is sober, and they are drunk. Therefore, the group is a 'Higher Power.' That's a good enough start, and most of them do progress from there. I know how they feel, because I was once that way myself." Letter, 1962 ************************************************** ********* Walk In Dry Places What can Sobriety Bring? Living Sober The single goal of staying sober is so all-important in AA that side benefits are often overlooked. There is even a tendency to warn members about the hazards of attaching importance to anything except sobriety. But we do have to become responsible people in all things, not just sober people. We can expect real sobriety to bring the confidence and well-being we expected from the bottle, but never received. Sobriety is not likely to give us the equivalent of the euphoria we got from drinking, but a great sense of well-being based on realistic expectations is more satisfying than the ridiculous mental states we sought in drinking. Living the right kind of life will bring its own rewards. .Alone with staying sober today, I'll meet all my responsibilities to my family and friends. Sobriety does not promise miracles, but it does bring a good life. ************************************************** ********* Keep It Simple It is often easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them---Adlai Stevenson It easy to talk about our values. But when the clerk at the store gives extra change my mistake, those values get put to the test. It feels good to read about spirituality in a comfortable chair at home. But when we get stuck in a traffic jam, it’s hard to live by our values. That’s why practicing our program daily helps. Practice prepares us for the tough times. Maybe we’ll feel like drinking or using other drugs once a year. Maybe we’ll only get the wrong amount of change once a year. But if we live our values daily, we’ll be ready when the hard times come. Remember: “It’s not enough to talk the talk. You have to walk the walk.” Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me live this program each day. Help me “walk the walk.” Action for the Day: Today, I’ll do a Step Ten, Taking an inventory tells me if I’m living up to my values. ************************************************** ********* Each Day a New Beginning Sometimes I think I'm the luckiest person in the world. There's nothing better than having work you really care about. Sometimes I think my greatest problem is lack of confidence. I'm scared, and I think that's healthy. --Jane Fonda We each vacillate between feeling confident on some days, lucky on others, and yet frequently scared on others. It's very human to vacillate. We need not be anxious because our emotions refuse to stand still. Changing emotions are part of the process of normal living. And changing emotions reflect an involvement with the moment. Situations do touch us, as they should. They do invite responses, as they should. And our responses will reveal our emotional involvement, as they should. We can cherish the variety of our emotions. They enrich us. But they may also create problems, if they go unchecked. We need to maintain a balance. Confidence, certainly desirable, can become overconfidence and thus complacency. Confidence needs humility to temper it. Fear makes us cautious, and that's good; but too much can immobilize us. Being in charge of our emotions makes them work for us. Emotions can energize me and keep me involved with the moment. They can also control me. It's my decision to be in charge. ************************************************** ********* Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Chapter 5 - HOW IT WORKS Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. we asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery: 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than our-selves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. pp. 59-60 ************************************************** ********* Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Step Twelve - "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs." In Step Eight, we continued our housecleaning, for we saw that we were not only in conflict with ourselves, but also with people and situations in the world in which we lived. We had to begin to make our peace, and so we listed the people we had harmed and became willing to set things right. We followed this up in Step Nine by making direct amends to those concerned, except when it would injure them or other people. By this time, at Step Ten, we had begun to get a basis for daily living, and we keenly realized that we would need to continue taking personal inventory, and that when we were in the wrong we ought to admit it promptly. In Step Eleven we saw that if a Higher Power had restored us to sanity and had enabled us to live with some peace of mind in a sorely troubled world, then such a Higher Power was worth knowing better, by as direct contact as possible. The persistent use of meditation and prayer, we found, did open the channel so that where there had been a trickle, there now was a river which led to sure power and safe guidance from God as we were increasingly better able to understand Him. pp. 108-109 ************************************************** ********* Give and forget. Receive and remember. When you give of yourself, you receive more than you give. --Antoine De Saint-Exupery Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul. --Henry David Thoreau Prosperity depends more on wanting what you have than having what you want. --Geoffry F. Abert "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." --Melody Beattie "The more you recognize and express gratitude for the things you have, the more things you will have to express gratitude for." --Zig Ziglar When a person habitually thinks optimistically and hopefully, they activate life around them positively and thereby attract positive results. Positive Thinking sets in motion positive and creative forces and success flows toward you! --Norman Vincent Peale *********************************************** Father Leo's Daily Meditation PRIDE "The books I haven't written are better than the books other people have." -- Cyril V. Connolly Today I still have to grapple with pride, vanity and conceit. Today, thanks to God and my spiritual program, I am not so preoccupied with self, but the old tapes can still be heard: "Thank God I am not as stupid as her." "I am blessed in not being like those people." "I suppose everybody in the room is looking at me." Pride is still a big obstacle because it keeps me isolated from people. It emphasizes the difference between me and the world, rather than the commonality. Pride keeps me a prisoner of my ego and develops that cruel and sadistic streak in my nature that I know exists. Pride stops me being grateful because it keeps me too focused on what I am doing and I miss the beauty and splendor of my life. Pride keeps my nose pushed against the picture so I cannot see the portrait! I can only change this "proudful" attitude by talking about it. The way for me to grow is to "dump it" . . . today. May I find me in the people I meet and share with. ************************************************** ********* "I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you." Genesis 17:7 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Philippians 4:4-5 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:12-13 ************************************************** ********* Daily Inspiration God will give you today, no more than you can handle today. It is when you choose to add yesterday's and tomorrow's troubles to it that it becomes too much to carry. Lord, help me remember that it is only right now that I can find all that I am looking for. Take time to learn from the mistakes of others. We don't have time to make all of them ourselves. Lord, guide me onto paths that lead me to You.
__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
The Following 8 Users Say Thank You to bluidkiti For Sharing: |
Bookmarks |
Tags |
daily recovery readings, recovery |
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 24 (0 members and 24 guests) | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
More Recovery Readings - October | bluidkiti | Daily Recovery Readings | 30 | 10-30-2013 07:53 AM |
Daily Recovery Readings - September | bluidkiti | Daily Recovery Readings Archive | 40 | 09-29-2013 11:53 AM |
Daily Recovery Readings - June | bluidkiti | Daily Recovery Readings Archive | 29 | 09-14-2013 11:38 AM |
Daily Recovery Readings - August | bluidkiti | Daily Recovery Readings Archive | 36 | 08-31-2013 11:07 PM |
DAILY RECOVERY READINGS FOR MEN | MajestyJo | Daily Recovery Readings Archive | 31 | 08-31-2013 05:30 PM |