More Recovery Readings - February

[bluidkiti]

February 20

You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
I have often thought morality may perhaps consist solely in the courage of making a choice. --Leon Blum
Sometimes, trying to do the right thing isn't easy because it isn't what we want to do. For instance, we may want to sneak a cookie to take to bed with us, or we may want to stay out late. But is that the right thing to do?
One way to tell is to think how we'll feel after we've done it. Will we be happy, or will we feel guilty because we know in our hearts it is wrong? On the other hand, how would we feel if we resisted the temptation? Perhaps we'd feel great because we'd know in our hearts we'd done the right thing. And don't we deserve to feel good about ourselves? Of course we do!
How wonderful it is that our feelings can help us do the right thing when we're in doubt.
Will I have the courage to follow my true feelings today?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how. --Friedrich Nietzsche
Our sense of purpose in life is not fixed in concrete. It changes from youth through all the stages of life. Often in the transitions to a new growth stage we are most confused. In the chaotic life created by our own addictive or codependent thinking, all meaning collapses around us. At these times we wonder, "What is the point?" "Does anything really matter?"
We receive a why for our existence by participating in the whole of this world. We are sons, or fathers, or husbands, or brothers, or friends to very specific people - and to the rest of our community, extending to all of creation. Our sense of purpose may change when life circumstances change. We get married, for instance, and then say, "Now what?" Or a child is born, or a parent dies, or we become disabled. Each time we may be confronted again with the questions. Being open to contact with our world, keeping our barriers down so we stay in touch, restores our awareness of purpose.
May I continue to respond to the changing phases in life - and be open to the renewal of purpose, which is here for me.


You are reading from the book The Language Of Letting Go.
Our Path
I just spent several hours with someone from my group, and I feel like I'm losing my mind. This woman insisted that the only way I would make progress in my program was to go to her church and succumb to her religious rules. She pushed and insisted, and insisted and pushed. She's been in the program so much longer than I have. I kept thinking that she must know what she's talking about. But it didn't feel right. And now I feel crazy, afraid, guilty, and ashamed. --Anonymous
The spiritual path and growth promised to us by the Twelve Steps does not depend on any religious belief. They are not contingent upon any denomination or sect. They are not, as the traditions of Twelve Step programs state, affiliated with any religious denomination or organization.
We do not have to allow anyone to badger us about religion in recovery. We do not have to allow people to make us feel ashamed, afraid, or less than because we do not subscribe to their beliefs about religion.
We do not have to let them do it to us in the name of God, love, or recovery.
The spiritual experience we will find as a result of recovery and the Twelve Steps will be our own spiritual experience. It will be a relationship with God, a Higher Power, as we understand God.
Each of us must find our own spiritual path. Each of us must build our own relationship with God, as we understand God. Each of us needs a Power greater than ourselves. These concepts are critical to recovery.
So is the freedom to choose how to do that.
Higher Power, help me know that I don't have to allow anyone to shame or badger me into religious beliefs. If they confuse that with the spirituality available in recovery, help me give their issue back to them. Help me discover and develop my own spirituality, a path that works for me. Guide me, with Divine Wisdom, as I grow spiritually.


Today I will be aware not to judge myself when I feel less than perfect. I am beginning to love myself just as I am and that feels so nice. --Ruth Fishel

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Journey to the Heart

Spread Your Wings and Fly

I sat on the ground on a dirt road that wandered off a main highway in Idaho. I leaned against a tree and watched a mother eagle and her babies in a nest overhead. She fussed as she protected them, watching me closely, responding with her call to any noise she heard. She was very protective now, but someday it would be time to push them out of the nest. It would be time to teach them to fly.

Many of us have been pushed out of the nest. Something unexpected happened, and our world changed. We may have fought valiantly to get back in the nest, to return to the safety of life as we knew it. But life had pushed us out. We had no choice but to flap our wings and learn to fly the best we could.

See how magical this time has been? See how much you’ve learned? With all our fears and resistance, it has still been a grand and powerful time. You flailed around a bit, wondering who to trust. You tried to trust others, then found that didn’t work. Finally you understood. The very lesson you were learning was that of trusting yourself.

You were learning to listen to and trust your inner voice. You were learning to open your heart. Despite all your fears, you have done a grand job. Look how much you’ve changed.

See all the powers you’ve gained? You’ve opened up to your healing powers, your creative powers,too. You know and sense things in a way that used to seem beyond reach and now seems both magical and commonplace. Your instincts and intuition are finely tuned. Your inner voice is clear. And despite all your fears about being abandoned, you now see how much you are loved.

When life pokes and prods you, it’s not punishment or abuse. You’re being pushed out of the nest. Spread your wings and take flight. See how well you can fly.

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More Language Of Letting Go

Take a side road

Adventures don’t begin until you get into the forest. That first step in an act of faith.
–Micky Hart

We were driving along highway 166 in central California on another road trip. The trip had been a long one, started on the spur of the moment, as they usually are, and now we were anxious to get back home. Then we– Andy, Chip, and I– all saw it: a small road leading up into the mountains behind an open gate. It wasn’t on the atlas. The road turned to dirt. Cows lounged on the path and we had to wait for them to move out of the way. The GPS (Global Positioning System) got lost. The path degraded. We hit a patch of black mud and the truck struggled for a moment. Chipster gunned the motor and we leapt ahead.

“Think we should turn around?” he asked.

“No, this road must go somewhere,” said Andy.

“Aaaah,” I said.

We came to a small lake in the middle of the path.

“You can make it,” said Andy, rolling up his window.

“Aaaah,” I said.

Chip switched into four-wheel drive and gunned the motor. Muddy water poured in through the open sunroof.

Much later– after we moved rocks out of the way, splashed through more puddles, saw stunning views from a high ridgeline, and drove far too close to the edge of the cliff– we came across an old man pushing a bicycle up the road. We asked, “How much further is it to get out of here?”

“Well,” he replied, “how far in have you come?”

“We didn’t come in this way.”

A puzzled look crossed his face. “How did you get here then?”

“We drove over the ridge.”

He shook his head in disbelief and walked on.

Ten miles later we came to another gate. The cell phone started to work again.

The GPS decided that we were still on the planet after all.

Sometimes, we find the biggest adventures when we deviate from the map and drive through the gate into new territory just to see where it goes.

God, help me remember that I don’t have to follow the map all the time. Give me the spirit of adventure. Bring a little woohoo into my life.

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Learning from the Big Picture
Cycle of Life

by Madisyn Taylor

While we are on earth we are all human beings in different phases of our lives and soul development.


As we walk through the world, the people we encounter appear so different from one another. We see babies, old men, pregnant women, and teenaged boys. We know couples on the verge of marriage and lonely widows. We interact with toddlers and the terminally ill. As different as each person seems, they are all living the human experience. They are just at different places in the cycle that begins with birth and ends with death. Every phase of the cycle of life has its gifts and its challenges. Each stage is temporary and ultimately gives way to a new phase. This ephemeral quality makes each phase precious, because it will never last.

One of the wonderful qualities possessed by babies and young children is that they are unaware that a cycle of life even exists. They simply are present to wherever they happen to be right now, and they don’t give much thought to the past or future. Being around them reminds us of the joy that comes from living fully in the moment. On the opposite end of life’s cycle are our elderly role models. They are a reminder that each phase of life should be treasured. Time does pass, and we all change and grow older.

Being aware of the cycle of life and our place in it makes us wiser. As we develop a true appreciation for the phase we are in, we can savor it more. A new mother going through a difficult time with her infant can more easily embrace her challenges because she knows that her child will grow up, and she will long for this time again. Difficult and challenging periods are inevitable, but – like everything that is a part of the cycle of life – they are temporary. When we are fully engaged with life, we get to savor and grow from each phase, and we are ready for the next one when it arrives. Fully embracing wherever you are in the cycle of life is the very essence to happiness. Published with permission from Daily OM

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

We are often told in The Program that “more will be revealed.” As we are restored to health and become increasingly able to lve comfortably in the real world without using chemicals, we begin to see many things in a new light. Many of us have come to realize, for example, that our arch enemy, anger, comes disguised in many shapes and colors: intolerance, contempt, snobbishness, rigidity, tension, sarcasm, distrust, anxiety, envy, hatred, cynicism, discontent, self-pity, malice, suspicion, jealousy. Do I let my feelings get the best of me?

Today I Pray

May I recognize that my anger, like dancer at a masquerade, wears many forms of many faces. May I strip off it’s several masks and know it for what it is.

Today I Will Remember

Anger wears a thousand masks.

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One More Day

This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense and imbibes delight through every pore.
– Henry David Thoreau

We carry the memory of a soft spring rain within us even in a dry season. We remember the pungent fragrance of new mow grass, the chirping of crickets, the singing of birds.

Such memories are important to us, but we’re increasingly determined to also create new ones. It takes some planning on our part to get out, but we know the experience is worth the effort. Our mobility maybe limited, or we might not be living in a place where we can commune with nature as easily as we did when we were younger. But we’re creative and find the joy of outdoors, on the stoop of our building or on a park bench. Zoos, nature preserves, and public parks give us a areas for today’s enjoyment and tomorrow’s memories.

My illness imposes real limitations upon me; I will not impose artificial ones upon myself.