~ FORGIVENESS ~
While you're carrying the grudge, the other guy's out dancing.
Buddy Hackett
I have spent so much of my life wanting and, in my sickest moments, demanding amends from others. I truly have been treated poorly, wrongly and unfairly. But when I focus on how someone else owes me apologies and amends, I'm keeping myself in a negative attitude while trying to change someone else.One of the best parts of Twelve Step recovery for me has been to let go of these grudges. I work on forgiving people. It sounds wacky, but forgiving them (not forgetting) allows me to let it go. One way I can find forgiveness is to know they never asked themselves how they could make me miserable today. From there, I can wish them well. It has been an absolute blessing to let go of these things rather than waiting for these people to make amends to me.One day at a time...
I will remember that no one is intentionally doing harm to me. Forgiveness is a much more serene place.Rhonda H.
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Each Day A New Beginning
A complete revaluation takes place in your physical and mental being when you've laughed and had some fun.
—Catherine Ponder
Norman Cousins, in his book Anatomy of an Illness, describes how he cured his fatal illness with laughter. Laughter recharges our entire being; every cell is activated. We come alive, and full vitality restores us physically and emotionally. Many of us need both emotional and physical healing, but perhaps we've overlooked the times to laugh because we've been caught in a negative posture.
Unfortunately, negativity becomes habitual for many of us. However, it's never too late to turn our lives around, to laugh instead of complain. Choosing to see the bright side of life, to laugh at our mistakes, lessens our pain, emotional and physical. Laughter encourages wellness. It is habit-forming and, better yet, contagious. Bringing laughter to others can heal them as well.
We all want health and happiness in ourselves and others, and we can find it by creating it. The best prescription for whatever ails us may well be a good laugh.
Today I'll seek out those chances to dispense a little medicine.
—Catherine Ponder
Norman Cousins, in his book Anatomy of an Illness, describes how he cured his fatal illness with laughter. Laughter recharges our entire being; every cell is activated. We come alive, and full vitality restores us physically and emotionally. Many of us need both emotional and physical healing, but perhaps we've overlooked the times to laugh because we've been caught in a negative posture.
Unfortunately, negativity becomes habitual for many of us. However, it's never too late to turn our lives around, to laugh instead of complain. Choosing to see the bright side of life, to laugh at our mistakes, lessens our pain, emotional and physical. Laughter encourages wellness. It is habit-forming and, better yet, contagious. Bringing laughter to others can heal them as well.
We all want health and happiness in ourselves and others, and we can find it by creating it. The best prescription for whatever ails us may well be a good laugh.
Today I'll seek out those chances to dispense a little medicine.
From Each Day
a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey © 1982,
1991 by Hazelden Foundation.
Food For Thought
Decision
Someone has said that the hardest part of the OA program is making the decision to follow it. You can do just about anything once you make up your mind to do it! But the decision has to be firm and it must be the kind of commitment which involves our deepest self.
Many of us who are compulsive overeaters have spent our lives looking for an easier way to lose weight. We feel that there should be a magic solution somewhere, which will enable us to eat our cake and be thin at the same time. Our first reaction to the OA program is often one of dismay. It seems so drastic, and we protest that there must be an easier way.
The OA program is not easy. Life is not easy. Rather than solving the problems and difficulties in our lives, overeating multiplies them. We in OA have been offered a new way of life. Each of us decides every day - and many times every day - whether or not we will choose the new life.
May I decide to follow the program today.
Someone has said that the hardest part of the OA program is making the decision to follow it. You can do just about anything once you make up your mind to do it! But the decision has to be firm and it must be the kind of commitment which involves our deepest self.
Many of us who are compulsive overeaters have spent our lives looking for an easier way to lose weight. We feel that there should be a magic solution somewhere, which will enable us to eat our cake and be thin at the same time. Our first reaction to the OA program is often one of dismay. It seems so drastic, and we protest that there must be an easier way.
The OA program is not easy. Life is not easy. Rather than solving the problems and difficulties in our lives, overeating multiplies them. We in OA have been offered a new way of life. Each of us decides every day - and many times every day - whether or not we will choose the new life.
May I decide to follow the program today.
From Food for
Thought: Daily Meditations for Overeaters by Elisabeth L. ©1980, 1992
by Hazelden Foundation.
The Language of Letting Go
Fear
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and. you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again; you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fear can be a big stopper for many of us: fear of fragility, fear of failure, fear of making a mistake, fear of what others might think, fear of success. We may second-guess our next action or word until we talk ourselves out of participating in life.
"But I failed before!" "I can't do it good enough!" "Look at what happened last time!" "What if.. .?" These statements may disguise fear. Sometimes the fear is disguising shame.
After I finished the first two chapters of a book I was writing, I read them and grimaced. "No good," I thought. "Can't do it." I was ready to pitch the chapters, and my writing career, out the window. A writer friend called, and I told her about my problem. She listened and told me: "those chapters are fine. Stop being afraid. Stop criticizing yourself. And keep on writing."
I followed her advice. The book I almost threw away became a New York Times best seller.
Relax. Our best is good enough. It may be better than we think. Even our failures may turn out to be important learning experiences that lead directly to - and are necessary for - an upcoming success.
Feel the fear, and then let it go. Jump in and do it - whatever it is. If our instincts and path have led us there, it's where we need to be.
Today, I will participate in life to the best of my ability. Regardless of the outcome, that makes me a winner.
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and. you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again; you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fear can be a big stopper for many of us: fear of fragility, fear of failure, fear of making a mistake, fear of what others might think, fear of success. We may second-guess our next action or word until we talk ourselves out of participating in life.
"But I failed before!" "I can't do it good enough!" "Look at what happened last time!" "What if.. .?" These statements may disguise fear. Sometimes the fear is disguising shame.
After I finished the first two chapters of a book I was writing, I read them and grimaced. "No good," I thought. "Can't do it." I was ready to pitch the chapters, and my writing career, out the window. A writer friend called, and I told her about my problem. She listened and told me: "those chapters are fine. Stop being afraid. Stop criticizing yourself. And keep on writing."
I followed her advice. The book I almost threw away became a New York Times best seller.
Relax. Our best is good enough. It may be better than we think. Even our failures may turn out to be important learning experiences that lead directly to - and are necessary for - an upcoming success.
Feel the fear, and then let it go. Jump in and do it - whatever it is. If our instincts and path have led us there, it's where we need to be.
Today, I will participate in life to the best of my ability. Regardless of the outcome, that makes me a winner.
From The
Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
Love is a positive feeling and if one cultivates this feeling in their life, they will surely free themselves from any unbalanced condition that surrounds them.
--Syd Banks
Anger, whether unfocused or triggered by a troubling experience or a hostile person, discolors our perspective through an afternoon or a full day, perhaps even a week. Our understanding of events is always directly related to the attitude we've chosen to harbor. No situation or person, however difficult, has the power to steal away our happiness without our passive consent.
So willingly we humans adopt negative attitudes. With grandiose egos, we resent rain pouring on our picnic plans or a friend's illness canceling an engagement. Our choices for actions, feelings, or attitudes are far greater than those we habitually turn to. And it's likely we know love least of all. But just as anger breeds more anger, love cultivates more love, and each life that's touched by love profits from it.
When we make a decision to practice love unconditionally - loving ourselves, our neighbors and co-workers, even the snarling strangers sharing our traffic jam, we'll quickly experience the miracle of love in our own lives.
Love is a positive feeling and if one cultivates this feeling in their life, they will surely free themselves from any unbalanced condition that surrounds them.
--Syd Banks
Anger, whether unfocused or triggered by a troubling experience or a hostile person, discolors our perspective through an afternoon or a full day, perhaps even a week. Our understanding of events is always directly related to the attitude we've chosen to harbor. No situation or person, however difficult, has the power to steal away our happiness without our passive consent.
So willingly we humans adopt negative attitudes. With grandiose egos, we resent rain pouring on our picnic plans or a friend's illness canceling an engagement. Our choices for actions, feelings, or attitudes are far greater than those we habitually turn to. And it's likely we know love least of all. But just as anger breeds more anger, love cultivates more love, and each life that's touched by love profits from it.
When we make a decision to practice love unconditionally - loving ourselves, our neighbors and co-workers, even the snarling strangers sharing our traffic jam, we'll quickly experience the miracle of love in our own lives.
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