For Today: March 11th

For Today: March 11^th

When old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed within its wonders.

Rabindranath Tagore

What new territories have opened up for me since I came to OA? Abstinence is a country whose beauty and variety I could not have imagined in my most indulgent dreams.  Here, I am at peace with myself and with the world.  I am free of food obsession, self-obsession and other forms of mental enslavement. My words and actions reflect a balanced, rational mind, free of delusion. Dependence on a Power outside myself has released me from the whims and caprices of a hollow independence. Without erasing the past or ignoring the future, I am living in and enjoying every minute of the present.

That is the new vista that opened up for me when I came to OA and let myself be persuaded to give up old answers, old ways of thinking and acting.

The new melody in my heart is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.

For Today: The process of recovering in OA is a journey from which I never want to return. I am open to the vistas that unfold today.

I’ve spent most of my life driven by obsession. How does a person get through the day without excess food or drink?? Why couldn’t I be a normal eater, too? Why did I have to obsess over a cake; obsess over what to eat or not eat? Obsess over my body size & my appearance? Why couldn’t I be one of the lucky ones who ate whatever they wanted AND maintained a slim figure?

I was trying to be something I wasn’t; somebody I could never BE. I was living in that fantasy land where compulsive overeaters & addicts in general thrive. Where else can obsessions stay alive but in a fantasy world?

When I decided to live For Today, for the next 24 hours, only THEN was I able to stop wishing for what could never BE.

Only THEN was I able to stop living in yesterday or tomorrow & focus on the NOW. When I lived in the throes of obsession, I thought I was so fiercely independent. What I WAS was seriously deluded and dependent on substances to give me joy. Joy must come from simplicity & lack of excess; joy can only thrive without obsessive thinking.

But, how would I STOP that obsessive thinking? By finding Abstinence & keeping hold of it, that’s how.

Through restriction comes freedom.  By avoiding sugar & trigger foods, my obsession is removed & that allows me the freedom to LIVE instead of to exist within the confines of obsession/addiction.

For today, I pray that I may choose the way of the spiritual life. I pray that I may live today with faith & hope & love, instead of Addiction. 

  For today, I pray to be relieved of obsession & to be filled with all the promise of freedom that Abstinence brings with it.