Recovery
Meditations: October 28th
Home
“My home is not a
place, it is people.”
Lois McMaster Bujold
I’ve spent most of my adult life feeling very alone in the
world. My disease of compulsive overeating separated me from others due to my
isolation, embarrassment and shame. I was always the outsider looking in at
others.
It wasn't until I walked into a twelve step meeting that I
found a home for myself. Here these people knew me, heck they WERE me. Whatever
I thought, whatever I felt, and whatever I had done in my life, so had others
in OA. I am accepted in my totality. OA is the only place where I feel truly
safe and at home. I am not alone anymore. The entire twelve step fellowship is
on my side ~ and what a great feeling that is!
One day at a time...
I will make OA my
home.
~ Cindi L.
********************************************
Each Day A New Beginning
—Mirra Komarovsky
Discovering who we are is an adventure, one that will thrill and sometimes trouble us and will frequently occupy our thoughtful reflections. We are growing and changing as a result of our commitment to the program. And it's that process of commitment that heightens our self-awareness.
We learn who we are by listening to others, by sensing their perceptions of us, by taking an honest, careful inventory of our own behavior. The inner conversations that haunt us while we're interacting with others are poignant guidelines to self-knowledge, self-definition. Just when we think we've figured out who we are and how to handle our flaws, a new challenge will enter our realm of experiences, shaking up all the understandings that have given us guidance heretofore.
It is not an easy task to discover who we really are. It's an even harder job to love and accept the woman we discover. But too many years went by while we avoided or denied or, worse yet, denounced the only person we knew how to be. The program offers us the way to learn about and love fully the person within. Nor will we find the way easy every day. But there's time enough to let the process ease our investigation.
I will be soft and deliberate today as I listen to others and myself.
From Each Day
a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey © 1982,
1991 by Hazelden Foundation.
Food For Thought
Breaking abstinence may be an attempt to go home emotionally. Since we associate food, and especially certain foods, with early experience, we may turn to food when we crave the emotional support of home.
Perhaps our early home life did not provide the emotional support and security we needed, causing us to attach a false significance to the food, which we were given. The habit of turning to food and eating as a substitute for love, acceptance, and security may be deeply ingrained in our psyche. We may have come to depend on food instead of people to satisfy our emotional needs.
The problem is, of course, that food is not a satisfactory substitute for love and acceptance. However much we eat, the emotional satisfaction will be only temporary and soon disintegrate into despair and self-hatred. The home we crave can best be built here and now by working the OA program and loving the people our Higher Power gives us to love today.
May I realize that food is not home.
From Food for
Thought: Daily Meditations for Overeaters by Elisabeth L. ©1980, 1992
by Hazelden Foundation.
The Language of Letting Go
The Eleventh Step asks us to meditate as a route to improving our conscious contact with God.
Meditation is different than obsessing or worrying. Obsession and worrying are fear connections. Meditation means opening our mind and our spiritual energy to the God connection.
To connect with God, we need to relax as best we can and open our conscious and subconscious mind to a Higher Consciousness - one that is available to each of us.
In the busyness of our day and life, it may seem like a waste of time to slow down, to stop what we're doing, and take this kind of break. It is no more a waste of time than stopping to put gas in our car when the tank is almost empty. It is necessary, it is beneficial, and it saves time. In fact, meditation can create more time and energy than the moments we take to do it.
Meditation and prayer are powerful recovery behaviors that work. We need to be patient. It is not reasonable to expect immediate answers, insight, or inspiration.
But solutions are coming. They are already on the way, if we have done our part - meditate and pray - and then let the rest go.
Whether we pray and meditate first thing in the morning, during a coffee break, or in the evening is our choice.
When our conscious contact with God improves, our subconscious contact will too. We will find ourselves increasingly tuned in to God's harmony and will for us. We will find and maintain that soul connection, the God connection.
Today, I will take a moment for meditation and prayer. I will decide when and how long to do it. I am a child and creation of God - a Higher Power who loves to listen and talk to me. God, help me let go of my fears about whether or not You hear and care. Help me know that You are there and that I am able to tap into the spiritual consciousness.
From The
Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
I often think I'm not doing enough with my life. I paint, I golf, I dabble, but is that enough?
--Abby Warman
Nobody can answer the question posed by Abby but ourselves. The point is, are we content? If we hesitate even a moment before replying, perhaps we need to reconsider how we're spending our time.
The solution to fulfillment is simple: Express only love to the others in our lives. It's not what we do, ever, but how we do it. If focusing on giving only love and acceptance to others gives us pleasure, could we want for anything more?
There is nothing anyone can do that's more important than helping another person feel loved or forgiven, if that's called for. Whether we are working or merely at play, our opportunities are unending. We'll know we have done enough if we have welcomed them.
Today I can offer love to someone quite easily. Both of us will be rewarded.
I often think I'm not doing enough with my life. I paint, I golf, I dabble, but is that enough?
--Abby Warman
Nobody can answer the question posed by Abby but ourselves. The point is, are we content? If we hesitate even a moment before replying, perhaps we need to reconsider how we're spending our time.
The solution to fulfillment is simple: Express only love to the others in our lives. It's not what we do, ever, but how we do it. If focusing on giving only love and acceptance to others gives us pleasure, could we want for anything more?
There is nothing anyone can do that's more important than helping another person feel loved or forgiven, if that's called for. Whether we are working or merely at play, our opportunities are unending. We'll know we have done enough if we have welcomed them.
Today I can offer love to someone quite easily. Both of us will be rewarded.
You are reading from the book:
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