June 16

“Listen and learn”: It’s a slogan that becomes more useful the more we use it.

It’s not easy to admit that we don’t listen well. We may appear to be listening when we’re deep in conversation, but how much do we really hear? There is a big difference between listening and hearing.

From Twelve Step meetings and the sponsors and friends we acquire here, we have many opportunities to get the help we need, but we have to be willing first to listen and then to really hear what they tell us. Learning comes from hearing.

What is it that we need to hear at these meetings? We need to hear that it’s possible to go on with our lives and be happy, even if the addict is still using. We need to hear that it’s possible to let go of trying to control other people and live our lives only. We need to hear how others have done an inventory and have begun to look honestly at themselves instead of others for a change. And we need to hear of the relief that comes with forgiveness. Over time we’ll learn many more things. This is only a beginning, but it’s a good place to start.

I know others will be sharing messages I need to hear today. God, help me be willing to listen, hear, and learn.

Today's reading is from the book A Life of My Own, Meditations on Hope and Acceptance

June 17

To protect and to serve are the core of the warrior’s credo. Society has always needed and honored this powerful energy—from Roman soldiers to ancient samurai, frontier sheriffs to modern-day military special forces. Highly solution focused, with a fierce determination to find a way through any obstacle, the warrior archetype represents the best of the human spirit. When bolstered by an inner quest to consciously expose, rather than blindly defend, one’s weaknesses, a warrior’s power can be highly transformative.

The exploration of warrior energy is useful in so many different facets of our lives, especially during our most challenging moments. When our sobriety is threatened, or we are confronted by a serious health or financial crisis, we can summon our inner warrior’s courage, endurance, and strength. The way of the warrior asks us to not only test our physical limits, but to develop the mental clarity, emotional stability, and spiritual awareness we need in order to surrender our personal needs for a higher cause. There is a martial arts tradition that reminds us that once we achieve the rank of black belt—which takes years—we are finally “ready to learn.”

I can skillfully use the powerful energy of my inner warrior to positively move forward in my life.

Today's reading is from the book Cornerstones, Daily Meditations for the Journey into Manhood and Recovery

June 18

Letting Go of Guilt

“There’s a good trick that people in dysfunctional relationships use,” said one recovering woman. “The other person does something inappropriate or wrong, then stands there until you feel guilty and end up apologizing.”

It’s imperative that we stop feeling so guilty. Much of the time, the things we feel guilty about are not our issues. Another person behaves inappropriately or in some way violates our boundaries. We challenge the behavior, and the person gets angry and defensive. Then we feel guilty.

Guilt can prevent us from setting the boundaries that would be in our best interests, and in other people’s best interests. Guilt can stop us from taking healthy care of ourselves.

We don’t have to let others count on the fact that we’ll always feel guilty. We don’t have to allow ourselves to be controlled by guilt—earned or unearned! We can break through the barrier of guilt that holds us back from self-care. Push. Push harder. We are not at fault, crazy, or wrong. We have a right to set boundaries and to insist on appropriate treatment. We can separate another’s issues from our issues, and let the person experience the consequences of his or her own behavior, including guilt. We can trust ourselves to know when our boundaries are being violated.

Today, I will let go of my big and little guilty feelings. Light and love are on my side.

Today's reading is from the book The Language of Letting Go, Daily Meditations on Codependency

June 19

I got fed up with rewarding my illness. It cost me too much.

~Marvin H.

To reward something indicates that we value it. The payoff represents our hope that the same thing will happen again. Rewards are encouragements for repeat performances.

Unaware, we can very easily reward our own illness. We do it by simply acting out our old, destructive habits and patterns—by keeping them with us, by practicing them. The more we act them out, the less aware we become.

We reward illness when we feel afraid and then let that feeling halt our action. When we allow our shame to get the upper hand by getting into unrealistic expectations, we reward illness. When our low self-esteem nudges us into relationships that can only end in heartbreak, or when we allow unacceptable behavior to go unchallenged, we are rewarding illness.

We don’t need to pay the high cost of feeding the disease by repeating these self-defeating patterns. We’ve paid enough for defeat; it’s time to invest in success.

Today, I will throw my energy into positive redirection. Nothing I do today will cater to my illness.

Today's reading is from the book Days of Healing, Days of Joy, Daily Meditations for Adult Children

June 20

Looking for beauty

It is important that we look for beauty. There are beautiful things in the world each and every day, if we only know how to see.

In recovery, in serenity, beauty is everywhere—even in pain and suffering—if we only know how to see.

How good am I at seeing all the beauty there is to see?

Higher Power, help me to use my recovery, my new vision, to see beauty.

Today I will practice looking for beauty in…

Today's reading is from the book Day by Day, Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts

June 21

If the will remains in protest, the individual needs to ask, “Is there something in me that is a cause of, or contributes to, my paralysis?”

~Rollo May

Trusting only our will is one of the characteristics of addiction. In our addiction, we used our will in a misguided way to try to deny the past or even change it. We used our will to try to control ourselves and others. Willpower, as such, has no place in recovery. Working a Twelve Step program helps us change the way we use our will.

The more we realize that a Higher Power’s will is operating in our lives, the more we can use our will as it should be used—to make the efforts necessary to carry out God’s will for us. This takes us out of the past and into the present. Facing the past honestly, rather than applying our will to reinforce our version of the past, puts us firmly in the present, living today only.

The past is over. I will find God’s will for me in what happens to me today.

Today's reading is from the book Answers in the Heart, Daily Meditations for Men and Women Recovering from Sex Addiction

June 22

Playing God

He was like the cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.

~George Eliot

Ego and conceit are familiar words to all of us. Self-centered and ego-inflated obsessions created the idea within our confused minds that we could control everyone and everything. We in recovery refer to that as “trying to play God.”

The world’s great men and women credit their successes to the realization that they could not rule all of humankind. Those who never learned went down in disaster, as history proves.

The lives of the great remind us that we can make our lives inspiring and leave footprints in the sands of time. We only need to follow their example of choosing to be trusted servants rather than arrogant tyrants.

Our program teaches us that spiritual growth comes mainly from working in a simple manner with others as a team, all with a single purpose.

One of the elementary reasons why I am told to work at my conscious contact with my Higher Power is so that I can stop the mistake of trying to play God.

Today's reading is from the book Easy Does It, A Book of Daily Twelve Step Meditations

June 23

Seize the opportunity by the beard, for it is bald behind.

~Bulgarian proverb

Through laziness or inattention, we often miss opportunities to grow. Maybe we don’t play our hunches or listen to our intuition. Maybe we see an opportunity, but fail to act because we’re not sure it’s what we ought to do. An opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream has appeared, but we don’t trust our good fortune. A chance has come to use our talent to help someone, but we don’t know how the person will handle it, so we do nothing.

And we rationalize. We decide it’s a frivolous impulse, a whim that’s not worth our attention. We decide it couldn’t be our Inner Guide.

God seldom takes us by the scruff of the neck and pulls us to our next destination. God provides the opportunities; it’s up to us to seize them. God talks to us; it’s up to us to listen.

Today I’ll be on the lookout for God’s opportunities.

I will help myself grow today.

Today's reading is from the book In God's Care, Daily Meditations on Spirituality in Recovery

June 24

l realized a long time ago that a belief which does not spring from a conviction in the emotions is no belief at all.

~Evelyn Scott

From pillar to post we bounced, most of us not knowing what we actually believed about nearly any situation before getting to this program. Perhaps we believed what was most convenient at the time because of the people we were with. And maybe we jumped the fence quickly when in a new setting. Values were sometimes talked about but not defined, and certainly not adhered to.

It's difficult to develop a strong sense of self, to have a very secure self-image when the parameters offered by a value system are lacking. Our values define who we are. They offer us direction when making choices. They quietly demand that we behave responsibly. Living in concert with our values brings peace to our souls.

Gone are the days when we rode first one fence and then another, never knowing what side of any issue we honestly believed in. The program has offered us a plan for living, a plan that erases the many uncertainties, the inner turmoil of past years.

Today will have a clarity about it that l can appreciate. I know who I am. I know what I believe. All I need do is act accordingly.

Today's reading is from the book Each Day a New Beginning, Daily meditations for Women

June 25

Man’s real home is not a house but the road, and life itself is a journey to be walked on foot.

~Bruce Chatwin

We often say that one of our main needs in life is security. We want to be able to predict and control how things will play out. The problem with this view is that even when we gain more control, it doesn’t generally make us feel deeply secure. If we accept security as our goal, we are soon on an endless search for more. A much wiser goal is to walk the road of life, accepting that it is always insecure. Happiness isn’t found by pursuing happiness, and a sense of security isn’t found by grasping for more security. They are both found by indirect means.

We find security by making peace with our insecurity and by trusting our Higher Power to care for our lives. We find happiness by taking on work that has meaning beyond ourselves.

Today, I will walk on foot the journey that has meaning and value, and I’ll accept the insecure feelings that are part of life.

Today's reading is from the book Stepping Stones, More Daily Meditations for Men

June 26

AA Thought for the Day

As we became alcoholics, the bad effects of drinking came more and more to outweigh the good effects. But the strange part of it is that, no matter what drinking did to us—loss of our health, our jobs, our money, and our homes—we still stuck to it and depended on it. Our dependence on drinking became an obsession. In AA, we find a new outlook on life. We learn how to change from alcoholic thinking to sober thinking. And we find out that we can no longer depend on drinking for anything. We depend on a Higher Power instead. Have I entirely given up dependence on drinking?
Meditation for the Day

I will try to keep my life calm and unruffled. This is my great task, to find peace and acquire serenity. I must not harbor disturbing thoughts. No matter what fears, worries, and resentments I may have, I must try to think of constructive things until calmness comes. Only when I am calm can I act as a channel for God’s spirit.
Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may build up instead of tear down. I pray that I may be constructive and not destructive.

Today's reading is from the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day, A Spiritual Resource with Practical Applications for Daily Life

June 27

We, too, the children of the earth, have our moon phases all through any year; the darkness, the delivery from darkness, the waxing and waning.

~Faith Baldwin

Let us think, for a moment, about the changes of the moon. In the beginning of its cycle, it is just a sliver in the darkness. Each night it grows larger until it reaches its full size. When the moon is full and rising, its orange glow fills the sky. All night its gentle light brightens everything it touches.

But this fullness is only part of the life of the moon. For a while it grows smaller, then turns its dark side toward us before reappearing as a sliver and growing again to fullness.

We are children of the earth, and we have our different moods and phases, too. There will be periods of darkness when we try to find our way by the light of the stars. Again and again we will grow to our full size, only to fade and grow again in a new way.

How does God light my way, even in dark times?

Today's reading is from the book Today's Gift, Daily Meditations for Families

June 28

Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.

~Bertrand Russell

In recovery we learn to give up hate. We must stand for justice, not for hate. We must learn to respect people. They, in turn, will respect us in most cases. We begin to see how important it is to give up hate—if we want others to care for us.

Hate is often one of our secrets. Hate is found deep in our hearts and minds. It eats at our souls. It hurts our spiritual growth. Sometimes people are public about their hate. There are even dangerous groups based on hate. But, the most dangerous hate is the private and unspoken. Do I have public hates? Do I have secret hates?
Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, search my heart and show me any hates I have. Help me rid myself of them.
Action for the Day

I’ll list any people, nations, or creeds I hate. I will put in work to remove these feelings of hate. I’ll pray for these people, nations, or creeds.

Today's reading is from the book Keep it Simple, Daily Meditations for Twelve Step Beginnings and Renewal

June 29

Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.

~Italian proverb

Much of our time has been spent saying, “I’m not good enough for that job,” “She’s too good for me,” or “I don’t deserve that compliment.” Sometimes we have been very status-conscious because underneath we felt unworthy. Many of us have taken either superior or inferior roles with everyone we’ve dealt with. We ended up with no one who could be our peer or our friend.

True humility occurs when we stop shaming or inflating ourselves and begin accepting ourselves as no worse and no better than anyone else. Then all people are our peers. At our meetings, our powerlessness puts us all in the same box. In the sight of God, we are all equal—and the status games that used to seem so important are ultimately silly.

Today, I will remember we are all brothers and sisters in the sight of God.

Today's reading is from the book Touchstones, A Book of Daily Meditations for Men

June 30

Compassion is the ability to see how it all is.

~Ram Dass

Compassion means caring about other people. When we remember to ask others how it is for them—right now—that is compassion. We listen. We “Live and let live.” We keep on caring. We try to understand. We accept.

As compassionate people we accept each other, even though we all see things in different ways. We have different ideas about spirituality, family life, and politics. We have different things happening in our lives that bring us joy or pain. We are in different times of our lives—being students, being parents, being together with another person, being alone, learning what to do with our strength and energy, or learning how to survive our weakness and depression.

When we see these differences, we learn to give to others when we can. We learn to ask for help when we need it. We learn to listen to others, to be there for them. And we learn to share our troubles and let them be there for us. That’s how compassion works.
Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, let me be there for others today with compassion. Help me to treat others with the same dignity and compassion that you treat me.
Today's Action

When I hear about other people’s troubles today, I will really listen, treat them with compassion, and say a little prayer for them.

Today's reading is from the book God Grant Me, More Daily Meditations from the Authors of Keep It Simple