Each Day a New Beginning: December 19th

My singing is very therapeutic. For three hours I have no troubles--I know how it's all going to come out.
—Beverly Sills

Have we each found an activity that takes us outside of ourselves? An activity that gives us a place to focus our attention? Being self-centered and focused on ourselves accompanies the illness we're struggling to recover from. The decision to quit preoccupying on ourselves, our own struggles with life, is not easy to maintain. But when we have an activity that excites us, on which we periodically concentrate our attention, we are strengthened. And the more we get outside of ourselves, the more aware we become that "all is well."

It seems our struggles are intensified as women. So often we face difficult situations at work and with children, alone. The preoccupation with our problems exaggerates them. And the vicious cycle entraps us. However, we don't have to stay trapped. We can pursue a hobby. We can take a class, join a health club. We can dare to follow whatever our desire - to try something new. We need to experience freedom from the inner turmoil in order to know that we deserve even more freedom.

Emotional health is just around the corner. I will turn my attention to the world outside myself.

From Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey © 1982, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.

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To stay self-absorbed is to stay rooted in the disease of compulsive overeating. Those who struggle the most are those who cannot see past the tips of their own nose.

If I want to be free of my disease & to stay in recovery, I will focus my attention AWAY from myself. I will develop a hobby or pursue an interest that enables me to give back..........to get out of my own way and to occupy my time without self-indulgence.

If I stay imprisoned in my own mind, I stay sick.  For today, I will turn my attention to the world outside myself.

For today, I will stay in Recovery.