Recovery Meditations: November 2nd

~ TODAY ~

Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could;
some blunders and absurdities have crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely
and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Ralph Waldo Emerson


For a long time I went through therapy, dealing with the past. But working the Steps has helped me to focus on today. What happened is over. It is my choice how I allow it to affect my life now. When I cannot seem to let the past go, I have to remind myself that I need only to let God have the past. Yesterday is beyond my ability to change. Today is my charge.

Today I write before I eat compulsively. Today I give service to others in recovery. Today I choose to not eat compulsively and to seek all the support I can find to hold to that choice. I put aside yesterday, reflecting on the lessons learned. Like a hiker looking ahead to mark the next point on the trail, I look to the future that is stretching out before me. But it is today that I act. Today I do not worry about what I have not done, but rest in the knowledge that I have done what is before me to be done. Day after day will add up to recovery, to serenity, to living.

One Day at a Time . . .
is all the time I have within my control so I choose to live in the now.

~ Tassy~

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Sitting around, discussing the past in therapy, only keeps me rooted IN the past instead of in the NOW.  What's done is done.  All I have is this very moment; which is all that's real.  Yesterday is a memory, and memories are just images of what once WAS real.  Tomorrow is a hallucination because it isn't here yet. 

For ages I lived for tomorrow, 'when I'd be thin & life would be perfect'.  I was either dieting to GET thin, or eating out of disappointment over the fact that life WASN'T perfect when I WAS thin!!  Subconsciously, I chose to stay fat so I could blame all of my problems on my body size.  If I could blame my fat for being miserable, then I didn't have to deal with reality & change myself from the inside out. Yo yo dieting was my reality for 40-some years, although I wasn't sure WHY.  Now, thanks to the OA program, I know 'why.'

For today, I will use the tools in my toolbox BEFORE I take that first compulsive bite.  For today, I choose to stay in the reality of the moment, where I AM enough, and life is good.  For today, I refuse to dwell in the past or the future, but savor the beauty of the moment instead.