Each Day a New Beginning
Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to oneās own values in the person of another. --Ayn Rand
The struggle to love one another may be a daily one for us, and it is made more difficult because we are still stumbling in our attempts at self-love. Many of us have lived our whole adult lives feeling inadequate, dull, unattractive, fearing the worst regarding our relationships with others.
But this phase, this struggle, is passing. We see a woman we like in the mirror each morning. We did a task or a favor yesterday that we felt good about. And when we feel good about our accomplishments, we look with a loving eye on the persons around us. Self-love does encourage other love.
Self-love takes practice. Itās new behavior. We can begin to measure what we are doing, rather than what we havenāt yet managed to do, and praise ourselves. Nurturing our inner selves invites further expression of the values that are developing, values that will carry us to new situations and new opportunities for accomplishments, and finally to loving the woman who looks back at us every morning.
Self-love makes me vulnerable and compassionate towards others. Itās the balm for all wounds; it multiplies as itās expressed. It can begin with my smile.
Honesty gets us sober, tolerance keeps us sober.
āBill W.
āTo be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.ā
āGeorge MacDonald
āThe principles you live by create the world you live in; if you change the principles you live by, you will change your world.ā
āBlaine Lee
āMany a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away hunger.ā
āSt. Basil
Each Day a New Beginning
The pure relationship, how beautiful it is! How easily it is damaged, or weighted down with irrelevanciesānot even irrelevancies, just life itself, the accumulations of life and of time. --Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Many of us are presently rebuilding old relationships and searching for new ones, ones that we hope we can protect. We canāt survive without relationships, some intimate, some close, some casual. And we discover ourselves through our relationships with others.
The purity of a relationship is directly proportional to the undivided attention we both give to those shared moments, hours, experiences, to being there with one another. This communion with another is the celebration of life and God that quickens hearts and ushers in serenity.
Each day I can look for those chances to give myself wholly. And gifts will abound.
Life is like a taxi. The meter just keeps a-ticking whether you are getting somewhere or just standing still.
āLou Erickson
I am committed to reading the morning and evening planning and review pages of the BB daily for a while. I have a little time in my pocket now, and like pocket money, itās beginning to feel like more than it is. I am now in a grace period, the one Raymond Carver called his āsecond lifeā. Sobriety. Still held by constraints of mortality, though, so I want to live rooted in the present, spiritually guided, rather than driven by emotions. Memento mori, lest we forget. Forgetting who we are and whatās at stake being the very definition of the road to relapse.
Keep It Simple
You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself.āEthel Barrymore
There was a time when we wouldnāt let anyone laugh at usāeven ourselves. We had to much shame. We had to much pain. We took the world too seriously. If we laughed it was at othersānot at ourselves. Over time , real honest laughter returns to us. Laughter is a way of accepting ourselves as human. To be human means we can make mistakes. It means we can lighten up. It also means growing up. And growing up means being happy with all of who we areāeven parts of us that may seem odd or funny. If we canāt laugh at ourselves, we shut ourselves off from the world. We shut ourselves off from the parts of us we need to accept. Am I willing to accept the fact that Iām human.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, You made laughter. Help me us it to make my life easier. Help me accept all of me a funny mistake Iāve made.
Action for the Day: Today, Iāll share with someone close to me a funny mistake Iāve made.
NA Just For Today
āInsides Outsidesā
āOur real value is in being ourselves.ā
Basic Text p. 101
As we work the steps, weāre bound to discover some basic truths about ourselves. The process of uncovering our secrets, exposing them, and searching our characters reveals our true nature. As we become acquainted with ourselves, weāll need to make a decision to be just who we are.
We may want to take a look at what we present to our fellow addicts and the world and see if it matches up with what weāve discovered inside. Do we pretend that nothing bothers us when, in truth, weāre very sensitive? Do we cover our insecurities with obnoxious jokes, or do we share our fears with someone? Do we dress like a teenager when weāre approaching forty and are basically conservative?
We may want to take another look at those things which we thought āwerenāt us:ā Maybe weāve avoided NA activities because we ādonāt like crowds!ā Or maybe we have a secret dream of changing careers but have put off taking action because our dream āwasnāt really rightā for us. As we attain a new understanding of ourselves, weāll want to adjust our behavior accordingly. We want to be genuine examples of who we are.
Just for today: I will check my outsides to make sure they match my insides. I will try to act on the growth I have experienced in recovery.
Forgiveness is the way to true health and happiness. By not judging, we release the past and let go of our fears of the future. In so doing, we come to see that everyone is our teacher and that every circumstance is an opportunity for growth in happiness, peace and love. --Gerald G. Jampolsky
Walk in Dry Places
There are no coincidences
Guidance
Hereās an exercise that can strengthen your belief in a Higher Power: Review your life for seemingly insignificant things that were actually major turning points. A chance meeting, for example, may have resulted in an astonishing career opportunity for lifelong romance. Such surprises come to everybody, and people often wonder what their lives would have been like without these ācoincidences.ā
The founding of AA also seemed to be a series of coincidences and chance happenings. The message reached Bill W. by a circular route, and then an unexpected business opportunity took him to Akron, Ohio, where he finally met Dr. Bob. The unusual aspect was that Akron just āHappenedā to have stalwart members of the Oxford Group, the same fellowship that had helped Bill W.
People with strong spiritual foundations in AA have come to see these happenings not as coincidences but as the guidance of a Higher power. This Higher Power wasā¦and isā¦ continuously working through inspired people.
Weāll find similar chance happenings for good in our own lives. We donāt control them except by keeping our own house in order. This assures us that the outcome of any " coincidence" will be favorable.
Iāll carry on my activities today without trying to second-guess what my Higher Power has in mind for me. At the same time, Iāll know that a superior intelligence is directing my affairs in wonderful ways.
This one hit me hard! Thank you for your postings.
You are very welcome 
Walk in Dry Places
Accepting Risk
Facing Reality.
Like it or not, life seems to have certain risks that just canāt be avoided. Alcoholics are not really comfortable with risk-taking. This is especially true in situations that include risk of rejection, risk of defeat, or risk of loss.
If we try to get through life without accepting some risk, however, weāre simply not being realistic. The refusal to accept risk may also mean that we miss wonderful opportunities in the process.
What should we do? We should face risk intelligently and with spiritual preparation. FIRST, we do everything possible to reduce risk in any situation (thus making it a ācalculated riskā). THEN we pray for guidance and inspiration (but not a certain outcome). FINALLY, we do our very best to succeed in the situation, whether itās a courtship, a job search, competition in sports, or whatever.
We might surprise ourselves by succeeding more times than we fail. But even in temporary failure, we gain if we follow through in accepting reasonable and necessary risks.
Iāll exercise prudence and good judgment in all my undertakings today, but I wonāt expect to be able to āplay it safeā in everything. As a human being, I have to take risks in life.
āEven if youāre on the right track, youāll get run over if you just sit there.ā
āWill Rogers
āNo act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.ā
āAesop