Chipping Away at Defects of Character
 

I hope to post daily a defect of character that I need to work on in today.

Just for today, I will let go and let God. I can't make conditions and keep strings attached, I have to let go of the control and walk in faith and trust in my God.

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Just for today, I will continue to pray to let go of a resentment that keeps nagging at me. It hasn't grown, but it hasn't gotten gotten too much smaller either. :(

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Just for today, continued prayers to let go of my resentment, I couldn't sleep when I wanted to last night.

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Just for today, I pray for my discipline in my life. I pray to be more open to what is good for me, than the goodies I want in my life.

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Just for today, I will stay in today. I will replace fear with faith. Yesterday has gone. I can't change it, I can learn from it. My fears of yesterday, allow me to walk in faith today, and trust my God to lead me one day at a time into a better tomorrow.

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Just for today, I will trust more and worry less. I will let go and let God.

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Just for today, I will be a team player. I am so grateful for this group it has been a big part of my recovery for many years. When I can't be here, something is missing and I have a void in my life. I can't get out to meeting very often. Very few are wheel chair accessible. You are my home group.

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Just for today, I will nurture myself and get my needs met. I will practice self care. I can't give away what I don't have.

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Just for today, I pray for acceptance and ask for help with lowering the expectations I place on myself.

Just for today, I continue to pray and work on my lack of acceptance and what is in the moment. Because of it, I have been stuck and ended up rescheduling my doctor's appointment today.

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Just for today, I will be open to receive. I will give myself permission to take risks and allow myself to become vulnerable.

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Just for today, I will be open minded to other people's ideas and concepts. I will be pray for clarity, awareness, and an open mind. I pray for the removal of all blocks to be removed from me and anything that is detrimental to my mental, emotional, and spiritual growth be taken from me that I may grow in Spiritual awareness and enter into new Spiritual experiences.

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Just for today, I will loving and caring. Being indifferent and critical of another can be a form of abuse, to yourself and to others.

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Just for today, I will humbly ask for help. The weather has made my day unmanageable, and have had difficulty thinking through my pain, concentrating, sleeping, and have done the do things, but the pain hasn't gone away. I don't want to take a pill. I have taken what has been prescribed for today, used cold packs, my bean bath, and come on line to post to help detach from the pain. I have applied the Voltaren twice, so I just have to let go and let God. I am going off the computer when I do the prayer for the today and do a meditation and massage and leave the results up to my God.

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Just for today, I will give thanks. An attitude of gratitude will take me through any day, be it good or not not so good.

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Just for today, I will be honest with myself. I will remember to look in the mirror.

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Just for today, I will be open to help and learning new ways of dealing with the issues in my life. I will not play the victim and the martyr, I will accept that I am deserving of recovery and will reach out and ask for help.

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Just for today I will share with others. I will not isolate my spirit and allow my feelings to fester within me. I am only as sick as my secrets. I will let others know that they are not alone.

Just for today, I will give thanks to my God. I can see Him at work in my life. He has brought people back into my life and put new ones in. My life is enrich by His Love and Care and there are not enough hours in a day to give thanks for all that He does for me.

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Just for today, going to practice patience and tolerance. Going to bed and count sheep!

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Just for today, will live God-Centered instead of Self-Centered. I will try not to stay in the old rebellious self and insist on everything being my way. I will live in today, a turn each day over to my God and ask for His Good Orderly Direction each day. I won't stay stuck in old patterns and behaviours and be open to change and look and at the goodness for the whole, rather than my own self-centered wants and needs.

Just for today, I choose to carry the message of recovery to the alcoholic/addict who still suffers. Some days, that addict is me and I have to be open to listen and learn.

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Just for today, I pray for generosity of spirit. May I always be willing to give, to isolate blocks me from God. Greed is hoarding and wanting all for ourselves and not willing to share with others. It does not have to be money, time is an expensive commodity. What feeds one will feed two. Fear of doing without, not having faith that God will provide.

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Just for today, I will remember this is a program of practice, practice, practice. Each day is a new beginning.

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Just for today, I will reach out and ask for help. I just came to the realization that I may have a broken toe. As I said to my doctor today, "I no longer have to play the martyr or the victim, I can get help, I can ask for what I need. I don't always have to be in pain."

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Just for today, I will let go of all self-centered thoughts and behaviours. This morning I woke up again in a lot of pain. I found some anger and resentment and some oh woe is me, not again. Then this voice crept in and said, "You aren't the only one feeling this way, others are feeling this way." I got out my Sacred Path Cards by Jamie Sams and one of the cards that came up the South Shield (Innocence Inner Child). This card is two fold for me, healing old hurts of my own and issues concerning my son. I know my son has been hurting, just starting back to work, and so stopped and said a prayer for him and asked for his healing and ask for help for him and that he get what he needed in today. I picked up the phone rang his cell, didn't leave a message, but he has call display, and when he calls me back, I am going to offer him my foot bath, it is too heavy for me to lift on my own. What we need for ourselves we offer up to others and pray that we can all share God's Goodness.

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Just for today, I will not only be grateful, I will show it.

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This sounds like accepting versus self justification. I always seemed to feel the need to justify why I did something and just couldn't seem to accept that I had a right to just do and be.

I took things personally and I felt it was a slight against me and I felt like I had to explain myself. I just couldn't let it go and be, I had to get all defensive, get my back up and either mouth off or go off in a snit. Glad I don't have to go there any more, doesn't mean I don't, but don't remember the last time I did. I am grateful for a HP who I can take my defects of character to and ask for help to have them removed.

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Just for today, I will practice patience. My computer is playing games and giving me a hard time.

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Stubborn«»Willing

I can certainly identify. I had a difficult time posting on the site today. I had hoped to go to my Al-Anon meeting, and had many plans for today, but I had to be willing to let go and do what I needed to do for my health. I wanted to be stubborn and not come home and just fight the pain and ignore it, but it wouldn't go away.

I didn't have the right inhaler with me. I had to take a time out and sit on a bench and do a little prayer and meditation. I was going to go to the hairdressers, but tomorrow is another day.

My sister called me yesterday and I called her back but couldn't talked to her. Along with that stubborn willingness, I need acceptance. I forgot it was her birthday until I was talking to her. I am glad that I listened to the voice that told me to return her call instead of being stubborn and letting her call again because she never left a message. Not sure if that would be stubborn or just being in a snit, no matter what you call it, not a very nice place to be, feeling bad or not.

I turned my day over and asked for help. Again, praying for the willingness to be willing. Willing to be other than to where I was at, which was not a very good place. I got stressed just taking my blood pressure. I went back down after dinner to take it again and stressed myself more. When I came home, I recognized the fear and had to turn it over, and the pain lessened and I was able to finish posting. I will to will God`s Will for me in today.

Greed/Generous

Greed, taking and not willing to give back. They say if we aren't willing to give our sobriety away, we lose it. Generosity, the willingness to give to others. I found that by giving, I got back many times over. Not always from the same source, but my life was enriched as a result of being of service to others.

We all have different gifts. They are all special in their own way. They are made more special when shared with others. I firmly believe that I would not be sober in today, if I had not got involved in service early in recovery, first in my group, later in the fellowship, and then out of the rooms and into the community.

Just for today, I have an honest desire to stop drinking. My primary purpose is to carry the message of recovery. I am responsible when anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help. I am only half a handshake.

Self-Pity/Self-Forgetting

Self-forgetting is good. As I said to a friend on the phone tonight, I can't let my pain rule my life. I have to do the do things, and if I don't, then I have to pay the consequences. I am given freedom of choice. If I hurt for two day, there is generally a good reason for it. I probably did something that was best left undone. If I don't have the acceptance, I stay stuck, no matter what it is. That applies to all areas of my life.

My sister use to get dramatic and place her palm outward on her forehead and say, "Oh woe is me!" We can be so hard done by sometimes, but I have found that when I feel this way, my God sends me someone who is much worse off than me.

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Just for today, I will remember to stay in the moment. It is not a 2-4 hour a day program, it is 24 hours.

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Anger/Self-Control

Anger is danger for sure. I sometimes don't realize it is there because I can still shut down, which is a good indicator that there is something I am angry or resentful about.

It is good to express it in a healthy way. A good indicator was always my mouth. When I listen to what my mouth is saying, it is often a real give-a-way to the fact that I am angry. It is like I should type in CAPS.

I am angry that I can't get rid of the swelling, not only in my feet and ankles, but in my whole body. I made cranberry tea, took cranberry pills (juice has too much sugar), drink water and am on a fluid pill. It is the swelling and pain in my feet that has kept me off the computer. They go up like balloons if I sit too long.

My control has to come from my Higher Power.

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Perceptive/Judgmental

So many times I forget that this is a disease of perception, and when I do, I find myself to be very judgmental. Not just of myself, but of others too.

I have often had to pray for inner truth and understanding and clarity of a situation, knowing that often I can see things as I would like them to be, rather than living in reality.

Many times, I have gone to read something and had blurred vision, not being able to see the words clearly on the page in front of me.

Many times, I go to speak something and my voice is crackly and I have a frog in my throat, and or start coughing.

Many times, I have started sneezing and get stuffed up when I am in denial about my own knowingness and don't want to 'smell' or seek out the truth.

This is knowingness on a metaphysical basis and has stood me in good stead over the last few years to become honest with myself.

think this is another thing that is right and wrong. I need to make good judgement for myself. I need to know what is good for me. What I don't have a right to do is pass my judgement onto others.

A certain amount of judgment is need for self-care, setting boundaries, self-worth and self-respect. I need to do onto others as I would do onto myself.

I use to beat myself up for being judgmental and making judgments of any kind. It stems from a false sense of pride, insecurity, and lack of trust in myself.

Prompt/Procrastinating

Ironically, I didn't want to post this. Was here earlier and came back to find a topic and this one glared at me.

I have been very lax in getting my laundry and dishes done and always seem to be washing only to dirty more. Tonight I made banana muffins after I came home from my group, which made more dishes still.

Living in the day, in the moment I don't think is procrastinating. Being in the moment and ignoring and putting off what is in front of you most certainly is. I always say, "If I don't see it, it doesn't happen!" All too often, I seem to have a blind eye.

As a rule I am always early, I see being late as being disrespectful. Lately, I seem to be late for everything! :(

Stubborn/Willing

Cancer is a terrible disease that eats away the body, mind, and spirit, just like our disease of alcoholism. Fortunately for us, we have daily reprieve through the use of the 12 Steps and the fellowship of AA and other programs.

I often have to pray for the willingness to be willing, when I find myself caught up in my own stubborn ways. I always have to remember Thy Will, not mine be done. So often, I find that God and I are not always on the same page.

Self-Pity/Self-Forgetting

Grief isn't a short process that you can do and get it over with. It has many stages.

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Self pity can be very isolating in and of itself. I remember hearing this phrase "Get off the cross, we need the wood" and thinking, "How sacrilegious!"

We need to acknowledge our feelings and allow ourselves to feel in order to be able to let go. It isn't just the death of a loved one, it also happens when there is change in our life and we don't recognize the symptoms because we don't recognize them as something that you THINK you should be grieving over. i.e. A change in job, a new home, a friend moves away, a favourite TV show cancelled, and the list goes on and on. Life on life's terms, many times I found things that I had to drink over and so many times, I drank to someone else's life without thought of my own, or because it was all about me, me, me, what about me.

I found the phrase, "What would Jesus do?" helpful in coming to a decision. It is always better to get out of self and help someone else.

Honesty/Dishonesty

Remember recovery is a process and it is one day at a time. It is good to do Steps 4-9 on big issues in our life. I also do them when something from my past comes up and confronts me in today. I don't feel a Step 10 is big enough to encompass all, as it often involves others as well as myself, even if it happened, in my case 60-70 years ago.

As I like to say, "If I remember to take my God with me, how can things go wrong?" I found Step 5 to be very freeing.

Sometimes when things come up, it means the blanket of denial has been removed and I can finally get true self-honesty. In so many cases with me, I had buried things so deep, that it took them a while to surface. As I have shared before, when I quit smoking at 7 years sober, I found a lot of underlying emotions that I had never dealt with. They were the same emotions in the beginning 4th & 5th Steps, but a lot of abandonment, sadness, resentments, rejections, and blessing that I didn't see as such at the time, because when I blank out feelings, I blocked out the good as well as the not so good. I can't connect with my Higher Power when I have those barriers up.

Just for today I will work on being relaxed and letting things heal on my body. This should also allow me to quit thinking about my pain and look for others in pain to comfort.