Daily Reflections & Daily Readings

[MandiH]

July 11~Daily Reflections

A TURNING POINT

A great turning point in our lives came when we sought for humility as something we really wanted, rather than as something we must have.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 75

Either the A.A. way of life becomes one of joy or I return to the darkness and despair of alcoholism. Joy comes to me when my attitude concerning God and humility turns to one of desire rather than of burden. The darkness in my life changes to radiant light when I arrive at the realization that being truthful and honest in dealing with my inventory results in my life being filled with serenity, freedom, and joy. Trust in my Higher Power deepens, and the flush of gratitude spreads through my being. I am convinced that being humble is being truthful and honest in dealing with myself and God. It is then that humility is something I “really want,” rather than being “something I must have.”

From the book Daily Reflections.
Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

[MandiH]

July 11~Language Of Letting Go

Bring Any Request to God

Bring any request you have to God.

No request is too large; none too small or insignificant.

How often we limit God by not bringing to God everything we want and need.

Do we need help getting our balance? Getting through the day?

Do we need help in a particular relationship? With a particular character defect? Attaining a character asset?

Do we need help making progress on a particular task that is challenging us? Do we need help with a feeling? Do we want to change a self-defeating belief that has been challenging us? Do we need information, an insight? Support? A friend?

Is there something in God’s Universe that would really bring us joy?

We can ask for it. We can ask God for whatever we want. Put the request in God’s hands, trusting it has been heard, then let it go. Leave the decision to God.

Asking for what we want and need is taking care of ourselves. Trust that the Higher Power to whom we have turned over our life and will really does care about us and about what we want and need.

Today, I will ask my Higher Power for what I want and need. I will not demand—I will ask. Then I will let go.

[MandiH]

July 11~Today’s Gift

Always think of what you have to do as easy and it will become so. --Emile Corie

How we think about the activities before us is very important. If we think cleaning the garage is hard,
dirty, and no chance for fun, that’s just how it will feel. We’ll be tired before we even begin. However, if
we approach it like a treasure hunt, expecting to rediscover some long-forgotten treasures, we’ll enjoy the task. In fact, it will feel like a game.

The thoughts we carry in our minds determine whether our tasks are fun or not. What good fortune it is that we can control those thoughts. If we approach an assignment for school or a job believing that we’re able to do it, that it’s not too hard for us, we’ll finish with ease. Our thoughts determine our successes. In this way, our lives are in our own hands.

How much better can I make my life today?

[MandiH]

July 11~Each Day A New Beginning

I have listened to the realm of the Spirit. I have heard my own soul’s voice, and I have remembered that love is the complete and unifying thread of existence. --Mary Casey

The act of loving someone else brings us together, closes whatever the gap between us. It draws us into the world of another, making richer the world we call our own. Love is the great equalizer.

We no longer wish to conquer or dominate those whom we love. And our love for one increases our capacity for loving others. Love heals another, and love heals ourselves, both giving it and receiving it.

Love from another acknowledges our existence, assuring us that we do count, that someone else values our presence. It is human to need these reminders, these assurances. But our need for them is lessened each time we acknowledge another person in our midst.

Where love is absent, people, even in a crowd, feel alone, forgotten, and unimportant. No doubt we can each recall times of quiet desperation moments of alienation.

We must reach out to someone and send
thoughts of love to someone who may need to be remembered. Our loving thoughts for persons close and far away always reach their destination.

They do unify us.

Love is powerful. It can change the complexion of the universe. It will change the direction of my life.

[tailee17]

@MandiH

However, if
we approach it like a treasure hunt, expecting to rediscover some long-forgotten treasures, we’ll enjoy the task. In fact, it will feel like a game.

I have to change the bed sheets today. Maybe hoping not to find any treasures there.

[MandiH]

July 12~Daily Reflections

GIVING UP CENTER STAGE

For without some degree of humility, no alcoholic can stay sober at all. . . . Without it, they cannot live to much useful purpose, or, in adversity, be able to summon the faith that can meet any emergency.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 70

Why do I balk at the word “humility”? I am not humbling myself toward other people, but toward God, as I understand Him. Humility means “to show submissive respect,” and by being humble I realize I am not the center of the universe. When I was drinking, I was consumed by pride and self-centeredness. I felt the entire world revolved around me, that I was master of my destiny. Humility enables me to depend more on God to help me overcome obstacles, to help me with my own imperfections, so that I may grow spiritually. I must solve more difficult problems to increase my proficiency and, as I encounter life’s stumbling blocks, I must learn to overcome them through God’s help. Daily communion with God demonstrates my humility and provides me with the realization that an entity more powerful than I is willing to help me if I cease trying to play God myself.

From the book Daily Reflections.
Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

[MandiH]

July 12~Language Of Letting Go

Letting Go of Fear of Abandonment

“Where are you, God? Where did you go?”

So many people have gone away. We may have felt so alone so much. In the midst of our struggles and lessons, we may wonder if God has gone away too.

There are wondrous days when we feel God’s protection and presence, leading and guiding each step and event. There are gray, dry days of spiritual barrenness when we wonder if anything in our life is guided or planned. Wondering if God knows or cares.

Seek quiet times on the gray days. Force discipline and obedience until the answer comes, because it will.

“I have not gone away child. I am here, always. Rest in me, in confidence. All in your life is being guided and planned, each detail. I know, and I care. Things are being worked out as quickly as possible for your highest good. Trust and be grateful. I am right here. Soon you will see, and know.”

Today, I will remember that God has not abandoned me. I can trust that God is leading, guiding, directing, and planning in love each detail of my life.

[MandiH]

July 12~Keep It Simple

Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed.—Irene Peter

Our life changed a lot when we stopped drinking and using other drugs. But this is only a start. We need
to go further.

Our old attitudes can kill us, even if we aren’t drinking or drugging any more. This is called a “dry drunk.”

If we’re on a dry drunk, we’ve changed the way we act without changing the way we think.

Our program shows us how to change the way we think. And we change how we treat ourselves and
others. We learn to live a new life based on love and care.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me guard against my old attitudes. Help me keep changing.

Action for the Day: I’ll list four ways I’ve changed because I’m sober. I’ll list four ways I haven’t changed yet.

[MandiH]

July 13~Daily Reflections

HUMILITY IS A GIFT

As long as we placed self-reliance first, a genuine reliance upon a Higher Power was out of the question. That basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek and do God’s will, was missing.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 72

When I first came to A.A., I wanted to find some of the elusive quality called humility. I didn’t realize I was looking for humility because I thought it would help me get what I wanted, and that I would do anything for others if I thought God would somehow reward me for it. I try to remember now that the people I meet in the course of my day are as close to God as I am ever going to get while on this earth. I need to pray for knowledge of God’s will today, and see how my experience with hope and pain can help other people; if I can do that, I don’t need to search for humility, it has found me.

From the book Daily Reflections.
Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

[MandiH]

July 13~Language Of Letting Go

God as We Understand God

God is subtle, but he is not malicious.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

Recovery is an intensely spiritual process that asks us to grow in our understanding of God. Our understanding may have been shaped by early religious experiences or the beliefs of those around us. We may wonder if God is as shaming and frightening as people can be. We may feel as victimized or abandoned by God as we have by people from our past.

Trying to understand God may boggle our mind because of what we have learned and experienced so far in our life.

We can learn to trust God, anyway.

I have grown and changed in my understanding of this Power greater than myself. My understanding has not grown on an intellectual level, but because of what I have experienced since I turned my life and my will over to the care of God, as I understood, or rather didn’t understand, God.

God is real. Loving. Good. Caring. God wants to give us all the good we can handle. The more we turn our mind and heart toward a positive understanding of God, the more God validates us.

The more we thank God for who God is, who we are, and the exact nature of our present circumstances, the more God acts in our behalf.

In fact, all along, God planned to act in our behalf.

God is Creator, Benefactor, and Source. God has shown me, beyond all else, that how I come to understand God is not nearly as important as knowing that God understands me.

Today, I will be open to growing in my understanding of my Higher Power. I will be open to letting go of old, limiting, negative beliefs about God. No matter how I understand God, I will be grateful that God understands me.

[MandiH]

July 13~As Bill Sees It

The Obsession and the Answer, p. 194

The idea that somehow, some day, he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

[MandiH]

July 13~Keep It Simple

A brother may not be a friend, but a friend will always be a brother. —Benjamin Franklin

Many of us come from families that aren’t very healthy for us. Many families have lots of love but aren’t able to show it. Maybe our parents argued or drank to much. When we share our recovery with them, they may not seem happy with us. They may be doing the best they can, but they don’t understand our new way of life.

We can have the love we wanted, but it might not come from our family. We can choose healthy friends to be our new “family.” Some friends may seem like the sister or brother we always wanted.
A sponsor can give us advice we never got from our parents. We can have a full, healthy “family life”
after all.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me choose good friend who will help me to be the best that I can be.

Action for the Day: The best way to have a friend is to be a friend. What will I do today to be a friend.

[MandiH]

Reflecting on these last two readings today, to me, they went hand in hand.

The obsession I had to control my drinking was EXHAUSTING. But it was “normal” for my family, so I hated the idea of not drinking again. Even though it killed my dad at age 45 and my aunt at age 56.

I’ve had to learn and accept that my family is not truly healthy. They have all done the best they could with where they are, just like I did. But as I stepped out of perpetuating this disease and did something different, it caused a lot of strain in my family who choose to stay on that path. They did not want me to stop drinking.

I’ve had to accept that distance and stay true to my own path for the first time in my life. It was lonely. Isolating. Frustrating. I wanted to control it at first have them be more like me…then I started working the program and found freedom. I found new people I can really share this way of life with. When I need advice on something, I call my sponsor-not my mom. I need to stay on the beam and do things in a different amd healthier way.

But, I can also love my family and show up differently by learning this new way of life. I can have love, tolerance, acceptance, get my ego out of the way and just show up in the best way I am learning how to instead of being super mired into the muck I used to live in with them. And it’s beautiful.

I’m grateful for this new way of life as it truly gives me what and who I need, even if it’s not what I first envisioned. And I’m extremely grateful for those I’ve discovered in my recovery and new way of life.

[LAB]

Thank you for sharing all this. I can echo many of the same sentiments in my family.

I don’t call my
mom to ask advice or share problems. I do speak with her every week and I’m learning to work on good boundaries in that. I’ve been sad and angry about that. I need to flip that to gratitude for the best friend I have, for my siblings, my grown sons, and my husband. I’m rich in support.

Getting sober and working on this is challenging. I’m grateful to be able to do this.

I wish you peace.

[MandiH]

July 14~Daily Reflections

A NOURISHING INGREDIENT

Where humility had formerly stood for a forced feeding on humble pie, it now begins to mean the nourishing ingredient which can give us serenity.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 74

How often do I focus on my problems and frustrations? When I am having a “good day” these same problems shrink in importance and my preoccupation with them dwindles. Wouldn’t it be better if I could find a key to unlock the “magic” of my “good days” for use on the woes of my “bad days?”

I already have the solution! Instead of trying to run away from my pain and wish my problems away, I can pray for humility! Humility will heal the pain. Humility will take me out of myself. Humility, that strength granted to me by that “power greater than myself,” is mine for the asking! Humility will bring balance back into my life. Humility will allow me to accept my humanness joyously.

From the book Daily Reflections.
Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

[MandiH]

July 14~Language Of Letting Go

We Are Lovable

Even if the most important person in your world rejects you, you are still real, and you are still okay.

— CODEPENDENT NO MORE

Do you ever find yourself thinking: How could anyone possibly love me? For many of us, this is a deeply ingrained belief that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Thinking we are unlovable can sabotage our relationships with co-workers, friends, family members, and other loved ones. This belief can cause us to choose, or stay in, relationships that are less than we deserve because we don’t believe we deserve better. We may become desperate and cling as if a particular person was our last chance at love. We may become defensive and push people away. We may withdraw or constantly overreact.

While growing up, many of us did not receive the unconditional love we deserved. Many of us were abandoned or neglected by important people in our life. We may have concluded that the reason we weren’t loved was because we were unlovable. Blaming ourselves is an understandable reaction, but an inappropriate one. If others couldn’t love us, or love us in ways that worked, that’s not our fault. In recovery, we’re learning to separate ourselves from the behavior of others. And we’re learning to take responsibility for our healing, regardless of the people around us.

Just as we may have believed that we’re unlovable, we can become skilled at practicing the belief that we are lovable. This new belief will improve the quality of our relationships. It will improve our most important relationship: our relationship with our self. We will be able to let others love us and become open to the love and friendship we deserve.

Today, God, help me be aware of and release any self-defeating beliefs I have about being unlovable. Help me begin, today, to tell myself that I am lovable. Help me practice this belief until it gets into my core and manifests itself in my relationships.

[MandiH]

July 14~Each Day a New Beginning

Through spontaneity we are reformed into ourselves. Freed from handed-down frames of reference, spontaneity becomes the moment of personal freedom when we are faced with a reality, explore it, and act accordingly. --Viola Spolin

Living in the here and the now opens up untold possibilities for new growth. Our inner self is enticed in new directions when our attention is fully in the present.

When our minds are still on last night’s argument
or tomorrow’s board meeting, we wear blinders to the activity at hand. And God, as our teacher and
protector, resides in this experience, in the hearts of these people present.

Every single moment has something for us. Maybe a new piece of information. A piece that solves a
problem that’s been puzzling us. Perhaps a chance to make a new friend, one who will be there in a time
of need.

Letting go of yesterday frees us. We need not be burdened. It is gone. Our lives could be eased, so much, if we kept our focus on the experience at hand, where the problems we ponder have their solutions.

Always.

I will greet today, skipping, smiling, ready for the answers, the truths, the directions meant only for me. The wonders of today will bless me.

[LAB]

@MandiH

Letting go of yesterday frees us. We need not be burdened. It is gone. Our lives could be eased, so much, if we kept our focus on the experience at hand, where the problems we ponder have their solutions.

This is my work now, at this stage of my life.
Carefully and with focus, I know I can learn to do this.
I wish you peace!

[MandiH]

July 15~Daily Reflections

PRIDE

For thousands of years we have been demanding more than our share of security, prestige, and romance. When we seemed to be succeeding, we drank to dream still greater dreams. When we were frustrated, even in part, we drank for oblivion. Never was there enough of what we thought we wanted.

In all these strivings, so many of them well-intentioned, our crippling handicap had been our lack of humility. We had lacked the perspective to see that character-building and spiritual values had to come first, and that material satisfactions were not the purpose of living.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 71

Time and again I approached the Seventh Step, only to fall back and regroup. Something was missing and the impact of the Step escaped me. What had I overlooked? A single word: read but ignored, the foundation of all the Steps, indeed the entire Alcoholics Anonymous program – that word is “humbly.”

I understood my shortcomings: I constantly put tasks off; I angered easily; I felt too much self-pity; and I thought, why me? Then I remembered, “Pride goeth before the fall,” and I eliminated pride from my life.

From the book Daily Reflections.
Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

[MandiH]

July 15~Language Of Letting Go

Family Buttons

I was thirty-five years old the first time I spoke up to my mother and refused to buy into her games and manipulation. I was terribly frightened and almost couldn’t believe I was doing this. I found I didn’t have to be mean. I didn’t have to start an argument. But I could say what I wanted and needed to say to take care of myself. I learned I could love and honor myself and still care about my mother—the way I wanted to—not the way she wanted me to.

— ANONYMOUS

Who knows better how to push our buttons than family members? Who, besides family members, do we give such power?

No matter how long we or our family members have been recovering, relationships with family members can be provocative.

One telephone conversation can put us in an emotional and psychological tailspin that lasts for hours or days.

Sometimes, it gets worse when we begin recovery because we become even more aware of our reactions and our discomfort. That’s uncomfortable, but good. It is by beginning this process of awareness and acceptance that we change, grow, and heal.

The process of detaching in love from family members can take years. So can the process of learning how to react in a more effective way. We cannot control what they do or try to do, but we can gain some sense of control over how we choose to react.

Stop trying to make them act or treat us any differently. Unhook from their system by refusing to try to change or influence them.

Their patterns, particularly their patterns with us, are their issues. How we react, or allow these patterns to influence us, is our issue. How we take care of ourselves is our issue.

We can love our family and still refuse to buy into their issues. We can love our family but refuse their efforts to manipulate, control, or produce guilt in us.

We can take care of ourselves with family members without feeling guilty. We can learn to be assertive with family members without being aggressive. We can set the boundaries we need and want to set with family members without being disloyal to the family.

We can learn to love our family without forfeiting love and respect for ourselves.

Today, help me start practicing self-care with family members. Help me know that I do not have to allow their issues to control my life, my day, or my feelings. Help me know it’s okay to have all my feelings about family members, without guilt or shame.

Quoted from the app The Language of Letting Go.