Recovery Meditations:
March 8th
POSITIVE THOUGHTS
“I’ve always believed that you can
think positive
just as well as you can think
negative.”
James Arthur Baldwin
What
did I think about before I was in recovery? I worried about what others thought
of me. I thought of what and when I could eat next. I picked apart the way
others' bodies looked, while being jealous of them. I didn't know that thinking
of negative things brought my energy level down. I thought self-discipline
meant disciplining myself -- which meant mentally beating myself up.
My
Higher Power has shown me a way of thinking that was new to me, but is age old
-- positive thoughts. Thinking positive brings me to a level of serenity. When
my mind wanders, I can bring it back. When I find myself obsessing over
something negative, I can work the first three steps with it. I am powerless
over negativity. I have a HP who can remove it from me. I choose to let my HP
direct my thoughts. And then let myself to think of something else.
One day at a time...
I choose to think positively. The
result is serenity.
Nancy F.
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Each Day a New Beginning
To create is to boggle the mind and alter the mood. Once the urge has surged, it maintains its own momentum. We may go along for the ride, but when we attempt to steer the course, the momentum dies.
—Sue Atchley Ebaugh
A sense of spiritual well-being warms us when we are selfless, when we step away from our obsessing egos, when we let our pure, unfettered desires direct our thoughts and our steps. Our egos may be keeping us caged in old behavior, old fears. Egos struggle for self-preservation; unfortunately, it's our old, unhealthy self the ego is preserving.
The Steps make it possible for us to unload our baggage from earlier days, baggage that intrudes on our perceptions of today's events. The Steps clear the path so we can move responsibly forward.
Living creatively is living in the thick of the flow, trusting the flow, spontaneously moving with the flow, not controlling the flow. We are Spirit-full when we let ourselves roll forward, resisting not, doubting not. And our greatest contributions will be discovered when our ego takes a rest.
My creativity awaits my discovery. It's there. I will release it from the clutches of my ego.
—Sue Atchley Ebaugh
A sense of spiritual well-being warms us when we are selfless, when we step away from our obsessing egos, when we let our pure, unfettered desires direct our thoughts and our steps. Our egos may be keeping us caged in old behavior, old fears. Egos struggle for self-preservation; unfortunately, it's our old, unhealthy self the ego is preserving.
The Steps make it possible for us to unload our baggage from earlier days, baggage that intrudes on our perceptions of today's events. The Steps clear the path so we can move responsibly forward.
Living creatively is living in the thick of the flow, trusting the flow, spontaneously moving with the flow, not controlling the flow. We are Spirit-full when we let ourselves roll forward, resisting not, doubting not. And our greatest contributions will be discovered when our ego takes a rest.
My creativity awaits my discovery. It's there. I will release it from the clutches of my ego.
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
"Normal" Eating
The idea that we will one day be able to eat spontaneously, like normal people, is a delusion. We compulsive overeaters tend to think that once we lose our excess pounds, we can go back to "normal" eating. Not so.
It is our experience that once a compulsive overeater, always a compulsive overeater. There is no way we will ever be able to eat spontaneously without eventually getting into trouble. When we reach our desired weight, we continue to eat three measured meals a day with nothing in between, and we continue to avoid entirely our personal binge foods.
When we accept our permanent need to abstain, when we accept the fact that we can never return to what we thought was normal eating, then we can stop making irrational attempts at experimentation which always fail. By accepting our disease and learning to live with it, we become sane and free. We see that our new eating plan is really very normal. It was the old compulsive overeating habit which was abnormal in the extreme.
Thank you, Lord, for sanity.
The idea that we will one day be able to eat spontaneously, like normal people, is a delusion. We compulsive overeaters tend to think that once we lose our excess pounds, we can go back to "normal" eating. Not so.
It is our experience that once a compulsive overeater, always a compulsive overeater. There is no way we will ever be able to eat spontaneously without eventually getting into trouble. When we reach our desired weight, we continue to eat three measured meals a day with nothing in between, and we continue to avoid entirely our personal binge foods.
When we accept our permanent need to abstain, when we accept the fact that we can never return to what we thought was normal eating, then we can stop making irrational attempts at experimentation which always fail. By accepting our disease and learning to live with it, we become sane and free. We see that our new eating plan is really very normal. It was the old compulsive overeating habit which was abnormal in the extreme.
Thank you, Lord, for sanity.
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
Surrender
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him.
—Step Three of Al-Anon
Surrendering to a Power greater than ourselves is how we become empowered.
We become empowered in a new, better, more effective way than we believed possible.
Doors open. Windows open. Possibilities occur. Our energy becomes channeled, at last, in areas and ways that work for us. We become in tune with the Plan for our life and our place in the Universe.
And there is a Plan and Place for us. We shall see that. We shall know that. The Universe will open up and make a special place for us, with all that we need provided.
It will be good. Understand that it is good, now.
Learning to own our power will come, if we are open to it. We do not need to stop at powerlessness and helplessness. That is a temporary place where we re-evaluate where we have been trying to have power when we have none.
Once we surrender, it is time to become empowered.
Let the power come, naturally. It is there. It is ours.
Today, I will be open to understanding what it means to own my power. I will accept powerlessness where I have no power; I will also accept the power that is mine to receive.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him.
—Step Three of Al-Anon
Surrendering to a Power greater than ourselves is how we become empowered.
We become empowered in a new, better, more effective way than we believed possible.
Doors open. Windows open. Possibilities occur. Our energy becomes channeled, at last, in areas and ways that work for us. We become in tune with the Plan for our life and our place in the Universe.
And there is a Plan and Place for us. We shall see that. We shall know that. The Universe will open up and make a special place for us, with all that we need provided.
It will be good. Understand that it is good, now.
Learning to own our power will come, if we are open to it. We do not need to stop at powerlessness and helplessness. That is a temporary place where we re-evaluate where we have been trying to have power when we have none.
Once we surrender, it is time to become empowered.
Let the power come, naturally. It is there. It is ours.
Today, I will be open to understanding what it means to own my power. I will accept powerlessness where I have no power; I will also accept the power that is mine to receive.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
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Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
Some of the experiences we go through are hard. We get heavy at times.
"I'm drowning in my grief," I told a friend after my son died. "It feels like I'm swimming across an ocean, and I'm getting tired."
When it's too difficult to keep swimming, float.
Action:
What's more irritating than someone condescendingly telling you to smile when you feel glum? Feel all your feelings. Don't let anyone tell you they're wrong.
"I reached in my pocket today and found joy, happiness, success and gratitude," a friend said one day when he called. At first I didn't know what he was talking about. Then I remembered. Awhile back, when he was going through a difficult time, I had given him four little stones, each one painted with one of those words.
It's important to believe in tomorrow. But give yourself the gift that keeps on giving. Believe in today.
Some of the experiences we go through are hard. We get heavy at times.
"I'm drowning in my grief," I told a friend after my son died. "It feels like I'm swimming across an ocean, and I'm getting tired."
When it's too difficult to keep swimming, float.
Action:
What's more irritating than someone condescendingly telling you to smile when you feel glum? Feel all your feelings. Don't let anyone tell you they're wrong.
"I reached in my pocket today and found joy, happiness, success and gratitude," a friend said one day when he called. At first I didn't know what he was talking about. Then I remembered. Awhile back, when he was going through a difficult time, I had given him four little stones, each one painted with one of those words.
It's important to believe in tomorrow. But give yourself the gift that keeps on giving. Believe in today.
You are reading from the book:
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