Recovery Meditations: April 2nd
~ Love ~
There is only one happiness in life ... to love and be loved.
George Sand
It took me many, many years to really and truly discover what turned out to be something that I have yearned for all of my life. That "something" was love ~ both the ability to love and to accept love.
As a child, I felt I had to achieve to be loved and, in the process of achieving, lost a great deal of my childhood. This carried over to adulthood and thus began the years of doing what was expected of me (or so I thought) in order to be loved, valued and respected.
Recovery has taught me so much about myself and about love. One of the greatest truths I have learned about myself and my ability to love is that for me to love someone, it is not necessary that they love me back. My loving someone else never depends on their loving me ... but how wonderful it is when they do.
One Day at a Time . . .
Let me realize that love is something that just happens ... I can't make it happen ... and I can't stop it from happening.
~ Mari ~
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Each Day a New Beginning
Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
—Amelia Earhart
We have learned from experience that a wave of peacefulness washes over us after we have successfully finished a task that was difficult to face. Courage has its reward. However, from time to time, and from task to task, we find we need the reminder that peace will come once the loose ends have been tied by us.
Our search for peace was desperate and unending in past years. Our fears overwhelmed us more often than not. Courage was seldom displayed. Tasks were often left half done or not done at all. Challenges went unmet. And peace eluded us.
We are so lucky that the program found us, and that we found the program! We are looking forward, at last, with the courage that trusting a higher power has given us. Peace is ours, now and always, as we go forth with the strength of the program to bolster us. New jobs, new friends, new situations may still elicit our old fears. But their hold on us is gone. We have learned that we face nothing alone. What relief that simple truth brings.
Courage is one of the program's gifts. I will have courage to go forward: to meet the new day, to handle whatever confronts me. Peace is coupled with courage, now and forever.
From Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey © 1982, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.
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—Amelia Earhart
We have learned from experience that a wave of peacefulness washes over us after we have successfully finished a task that was difficult to face. Courage has its reward. However, from time to time, and from task to task, we find we need the reminder that peace will come once the loose ends have been tied by us.
Our search for peace was desperate and unending in past years. Our fears overwhelmed us more often than not. Courage was seldom displayed. Tasks were often left half done or not done at all. Challenges went unmet. And peace eluded us.
We are so lucky that the program found us, and that we found the program! We are looking forward, at last, with the courage that trusting a higher power has given us. Peace is ours, now and always, as we go forth with the strength of the program to bolster us. New jobs, new friends, new situations may still elicit our old fears. But their hold on us is gone. We have learned that we face nothing alone. What relief that simple truth brings.
Courage is one of the program's gifts. I will have courage to go forward: to meet the new day, to handle whatever confronts me. Peace is coupled with courage, now and forever.
From Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey © 1982, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.
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Food for Thought
Food Is Not God
Though we may not have admitted it, food was probably the most important thing in our lives when we were overeating. How many times did our relationships with family and friends suffer because of our slavery to our appetites? How often did we hurt those we loved by placing our craving above their needs?
Instead of loving God first, most of us . . .
Though we may not have admitted it, food was probably the most important thing in our lives when we were overeating. How many times did our relationships with family and friends suffer because of our slavery to our appetites? How often did we hurt those we loved by placing our craving above their needs?
Instead of loving God first, most of us . . .
From Food for Thought: Daily Meditations for Overeaters by Elisabeth L.
©1980, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation.
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The Language of Letting Go
Facing Our Darker Side
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
—Step Four of Al-Anon
By the time we get to the Fourth of the Twelve Steps, we are ready to face our darker side, the side that prevents us from loving others, from letting others love us, and from enjoying life and ourselves. The purpose of Step Four is not to make ourselves feel worse; our purpose is to begin to remove our blocks to joy and love.
We look for fears, anger, hurt, and shame from past events - buried feelings that may be affecting our life today. We search for subconscious beliefs about others and ourselves that may be interfering with the quality of our relationships. These beliefs say: I'm not lovable . . . I'm a burden to those around me . . . People can't be trusted . . . I can't be trusted . . . I don't deserve to be happy and successful . . . Life isn't worth living. We look at our behaviors and patterns with an eye toward discerning the self-defeating ones. With love and compassion for ourselves, we try to unearth all our guilt - earned and unearned - and expose it to the light.
We perform this examination without fear of what we shall find, because this soul searching can cleanse us and help us feel better about ourselves than we ever dreamed possible.
God, help me search out the blocks and barriers within myself. Bring what I need to know into my conscious mind, so I can be free of it. Show me what I need to know about myself.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
—Step Four of Al-Anon
By the time we get to the Fourth of the Twelve Steps, we are ready to face our darker side, the side that prevents us from loving others, from letting others love us, and from enjoying life and ourselves. The purpose of Step Four is not to make ourselves feel worse; our purpose is to begin to remove our blocks to joy and love.
We look for fears, anger, hurt, and shame from past events - buried feelings that may be affecting our life today. We search for subconscious beliefs about others and ourselves that may be interfering with the quality of our relationships. These beliefs say: I'm not lovable . . . I'm a burden to those around me . . . People can't be trusted . . . I can't be trusted . . . I don't deserve to be happy and successful . . . Life isn't worth living. We look at our behaviors and patterns with an eye toward discerning the self-defeating ones. With love and compassion for ourselves, we try to unearth all our guilt - earned and unearned - and expose it to the light.
We perform this examination without fear of what we shall find, because this soul searching can cleanse us and help us feel better about ourselves than we ever dreamed possible.
God, help me search out the blocks and barriers within myself. Bring what I need to know into my conscious mind, so I can be free of it. Show me what I need to know about myself.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie
©1990, Hazelden Foundation
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Today's thought from Hazelden is:
Unless our desire for human compassion is stronger than our desire to be right, to be secure or to belong, love will elude us.
--Marsha Sinetar
Knowing we are loved is what most of us crave. For brief moments we feel it; then it eludes us once again. Why does it slip through our fingers so quickly? One way of attracting the love we desire is to be willing to love others. What we give to others comes back to us. Unfortunately, we may give judgment, impatience, or anger far more often than we give love.
We can learn to give compassion. First we need to make the decision to be compassionate. Then we need to act as if we're comfortable doing this. When we have practiced it awhile, we'll discover that giving love and receiving the love we crave is within our grasp.
I will feel loved when I give love away. I don't need to be right today. I need to be loved.
You are reading from the book:
A Woman's Spirit by Karen Casey
Unless our desire for human compassion is stronger than our desire to be right, to be secure or to belong, love will elude us.
--Marsha Sinetar
Knowing we are loved is what most of us crave. For brief moments we feel it; then it eludes us once again. Why does it slip through our fingers so quickly? One way of attracting the love we desire is to be willing to love others. What we give to others comes back to us. Unfortunately, we may give judgment, impatience, or anger far more often than we give love.
We can learn to give compassion. First we need to make the decision to be compassionate. Then we need to act as if we're comfortable doing this. When we have practiced it awhile, we'll discover that giving love and receiving the love we crave is within our grasp.
I will feel loved when I give love away. I don't need to be right today. I need to be loved.
You are reading from the book:
A Woman's Spirit by Karen Casey
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