More Recovery Readings - July

[bluidkiti]

July 20


You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
It is terribly amusing how many different climates of feeling one can go through in a day. --Anne Morrow Lindbergh
When we travel by canoe down a river we can notice the changes that take place. In one spot the river is wide and the water moves slowly. Around the next bend the river narrows and the current speeds up. Ahead of us we see rapids waiting to test our skill.
Our feelings can also change as quickly as the river. We may have times in our day when we feel good about ourselves. Then, all of a sudden, someone may tease us about something. We begin to feel like the scared canoeist shooting the rapids for the first time. How wonderful it is to know that we are never given a test we can't handle, that everything that happens in our lives is for the sake of our growth, and that we are watched over at all times by God.
How can I use today's obstacles for my own growth?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
Without solitude there can be no real people.... The measure of your solitude is the measure of your capacity/or communion.
--John Eudes
If we listen in those moments when we hear a message from ourselves, we become true men - real human beings. The message comes in our solitude, when our defenses against truth are set aside. It comes popping out without our planning it. Our solitude is a relationship with ourselves, and it might occur in silent meditation, or driving down the street, or during a dinner conversation. The message might be a painful truth like, "You just acted like a small child," or a frightening fact like, "You are deeply loved by another person."
Letting another person know what messages we are getting in solitude helps us deal with the messages. As we accept our imperfections and make peace with ourselves, we increase our sense of solitude. We become real men, full partners in relationships and in our communities.
Today, I will welcome solitude. When the messages from myself are painful or frightening, I will be gentle with myself.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our Creator--our very self-consciousness--is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. --Annie Dillard
Getting outside of ourselves, moving beyond our own egos, opens the door to real communication with the people we'll meet today. We have to learn to look with loving appreciation into the soul of that person or child who stands before us. We have to practice being concerned with their needs before our own, and in time our concern will be genuine. The separation between us will exist no more.
This division from others, the barrier that keeps us apart, comes from our individual insecurities. We have grown accustomed to the quick comparisons of ourselves with those we meet. Either inferior or superior we determine them to be, and thus ourselves. Whatever gifts we have to offer each other are left unwrapped, at least for now.
Let's come together, truly together, with someone we've been holding off until now. We can trust that the people who have come into our lives are there by design. We are equal to them, and they to us. We need what they have to offer us, and their growth needs our gifts, too.
I will appreciate the design of my life today. I will draw myself close to the day.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Letting Go of Resistance
Do not be in such a hurry to move on.
Relax. Breathe deeply. Be. Be in harmony today.
Be open. There is beauty around and in us today. There is purpose and meaning in today.
There is importance in today - not so much in what happens to us, but in how we respond.
Let today happen. We learn our lessons, we work things out, we change in a simple fashion: by living our life fully today.
Do not worry about tomorrow's feelings, problems, or gifts. Do not worry about whether we can trust life, our Higher Power, or ourselves tomorrow.
Everything we need today shall be given to us. That is a promise - from God, from the Universe.
Feel today's feelings. Solve today's problems. Enjoy today's gifts. Trust yourself, life, and your Higher Power today.
Acquire the art of living fully today. Absorb the lessons, the healing, the beauty, the love available to us today.
Do not be in such a rush to move on. There is no hurry. We cannot escape; ;we only postpone. Let the feelings go; breathe in peace and healing.
Do not be in such a hurry to move on.
Today, I will not run from my circumstances, my feelings, or myself. I will be open to others, Higher Power, my life, and myself. I will trust that by facing today to the best of my ability, I will acquire the skills I need to face tomorrow.


Today I am reaching out to those who love and support me. I am letting go of my ego and self-centeredness so that I can make space to take in love and support and ideas from others. --Ruth Fishel

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Journey To The Heart

Value Your Connection to Creativity

For years, I had been storing my son’s clothing, some of his favorite articles, in boxes in the garage. I didn’t want to let go of the clothes, yet I had no use for them. One day an idea came. I was talking to a woman enthralled with quilting, with fabrics, textures, and the art of creating quilts. She was talking about how she was making a quilt out of her family’s old blue jeans, because it created a use for the fabric and gave them a blanket that held the energy and memory of their experiences. It wasn’t just a quilt. It became a special comfort quilt because of the energy the fabrics held.

That’s when the idea came. My son had died years ago. His physical presence was no longer here. But the clothes held the memories of his physical presence and the energy of his spiritual presence. I could make them into a quilt, one that would cherish his memory and give me comfort.

How do we get our ideas? From other people. From certain triggers in the world, the universe. From our imagination. We are connected to creativity. It’s a force in the universe, an energy that runs through us. If we’re connected to ourselves, our intuition will guide us to what to do and when to do it. If we love ourselves enough to act confidently and joyfully on that guidance.

Value your connection with creativity. Embrace your imagination. The universe will show you how, teach you how, help you along the way.

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More Language Of Letting Go

Take down those walls

Frank was a happily married man, or so he thought. Then one day, his wife of ten years came home and told him that she didn’t feel like being married anymore. “I love you. I’m just not in love with you,” she said, walking out the door.

Frank was devastated. He got mad at his wife, mad at his church, and mad at God. He got mad, and he stayed that way. He fumed and generalized. He decided that all women must be this way and sooner or later anyone who got too close would hurt him.

Many of us experience hurt in life. It comes with the game.

It’s okay to hurt, to be angry, even to be bitter for a while. But no one is interested in hearing our lost love story ten years after it happened.

We even get sick of hearing it, ourselves.

Sometimes it’s time to nurture our pain. Sometimes it’s time to get over it and get back in the game.

We all fall. Most people change their minds. We all make mistakes.

We don’t have to let a bad experience in life prevent us from having positive experiences in the future. Walls are indiscriminate. While they may protect us from being hurt again, they’ll also prevent us from experiencing joy.

God, help me let go of self-sabotaging attitudes formed in a moment of hurt. Open me to the beauty that awaits when I approach life with an open heart.

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In God’s Care

The answer to personality problems is found in a quiet return to Godlike thinking.
~~Science of Mind, magazine

When we’re edgy and critical or perhaps feeling inadequate or depressed, we’ve lost our atonement with God. And when acting the way God would have us act is no longer our priority, our character defects once again emerge and, in time, grow ever more numerous.

We can make the simple decision to always check out our proposed behavior against the behavior we know is from God. When we remember to think of God first before proceeding, we avoid unnecessary conflicts; we refrain from consciously hurting anyone; we manage to take our experiences restfully, moment by moment.

There’s really no mystery to having a rewarding and peaceful life. Those we notice who do, have likely made a more frequent companion of God than we. The decision to work more on our own friendship with God is an easy one to make.

I will act according to God’s wishes today and in the process, strengthen our friendship.

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Day By Day

Making a decision

We made a decision, a decision to try this program because all else had failed. (We still doubted it would work, but we were desperate.) This decision was made mostly on hope and a belief. At first, it did not reflect belief in a Higher Power but belief in other people.

When we make a decision to do whatever is necessary, our belief can grow. It can grow to a point where no power on earth can shake our foundation. And from this foundation we can, in turn, offer hope to others in need. We can plant in them the same seeds of belief that made it possible for us to be clean and sober.

Is my belief growing?

Higher Power, help me stay strong in the program and help others who need to establish roots.

Today I will renew my commitment to the program and its members by

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Food for Thought

Turning Toward the Light

Plants, as they grow, automatically turn toward the light. People can choose between light or darkness. The OA program is available to us, but we may choose whether or not we will follow it. Our Higher Power is also available to us, if we choose to seek His will.

Before we found OA, we wandered around in the darkness of compulsive overeating. Now that we see glimmers of light, we need to turn ourselves in the direction from which the light is coming. Working the program requires taking the time and effort to change our routine. The light is here, but we need to turn away from darkness and open ourselves to it.

As we examine ourselves in the light that comes from our Higher Power through OA, we begin to see more clearly where we should make changes and how we may find health and peace.

Grant us grace to turn toward Your light.

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Changing Roles
As We Ebb and Flow through Life

by Madisyn Taylor

We all change throughout life trying new and different things, but the core of who we really are remains the same.


As we bob and weave with the ebb and flow of life our roles change, but our true self remains constant. As spiritual beings having a human experience, we go through many aspects of humanity in one lifetime. Living in the material world of opposites, labels, and classifications, we often identify ourselves by the roles we play, forgetting that these aspects shift and change throughout our lives. But when we anchor ourselves in the truth of our being, that core of spirit within us, we can choose to embrace the new roles as they come, knowing that they give us fresh perspective on life and a greater understanding of the lives of others.

As children, we anticipated role changes eagerly in our rush to grow up. Though fairy tales led us to believe that “happily ever after” was a final destination, the truth is that life is a series of destinations, mere stops on a long journey filled with differing terrain. We may need to move through a feeling of resistance as we shift from spouse to parent, leader to subordinate, caregiver to receiver, or even local to newcomer. It can be helpful to bid a fond farewell to the role that we are leaving before we welcome the new. This is the purpose of ceremonies in cultures throughout the world and across time. We can choose from any in existence or create our own to help us celebrate our life shifts and embrace our new adventures.

Like actors on the stage of the world, our different roles are just costumes that we inhabit and then shed. Each role we play gives us another perspective through which to understand ourselves and the nature of the universe. When we take a moment to see that each change can be an adventure, a celebration, and a chance to play a new part, we may even be able to recapture the joyful anticipation of our youth as we transition from one role to the next. Published with permission from Daily OM

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

“It is the privilege of wisdom to listen,” Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote. If I try as hard as I can to cultivate the art of listening — uncritically and without making premature judgments — chances are great that I’ll progress more rapidly in my recovery. If I try as hard as I can to listen to the feelings and thoughts expressed — rather than to the “speaker” — I may be blessed with an unexpectedly helpful idea. The essential quality of good listening is humility, which reflects the fact that God’s voice speaks to us even through the least of most inarticulate of His children. Does a holier-than-thou attitude sometimes close my mind to the shared suggestions of others?

Today I Pray

May my Higher Power keep me from being “holier-than-thou” with anyone whose manner or language or opposite point of view or apparent lack of knowledge turns me off to what they are saying. May I be listening always for the voice of God, which can be heard through the speech of any one of us.

Today I Will Remember

Hear the speech, not the speaker.

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One More Day

We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.
– John F. Kennedy

Regardless of our situation, we all need to hope. When we were young we were in a hurry all the time. Every problem needed a quick solution. And our anticipated futures were completely untarnished by adult viewpoints.

Sometimes, what we mislabel as a fear of dying might really be regret that we haven’t led a full enough life. We know now what is reasonable and what i snot. We understand where we are in our lives and accept that ideal situations may not come to pass. We have learned that we must come to terms with who we are and what we can do. We have learned that we are okay just as we are today.

I have come to terms with where I am in my life. My fears will not hold me back anymore.