“Ask not what your country can do for you
but what you can do for your country.”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
***************************************At one of the first program functions I ever attended, there were a large number of pots and pans that needed to be washed in the kitchen. My sponsor told me that we were going to go in there and wash all those dirty pans. When I asked why, she said, “Because this stuff keeps us abstinent.” That was good enough for me. Service is essential to my recovery. As our primary purpose states, “we carry the message to the compulsive overeater who still suffers.” The essence of my program is that of committing to service.Since then my service in program has been of paramount importance to me, so I sponsor and serve at the group and Intergroup levels, I attend all events I can, and I am in service at most of the meetings I attend. I encourage sponsees to serve their fellow sufferers also and ask them to sponsor newcomers as soon as they have worked Steps One through Three. This action gets them working on Step Four as well.One of my favorite ways to give service is to be available to talk to newcomers by telephone. As our responsibility pledge states, “Always to lend the heart and hand to all who share my compulsion, for this I am responsible.” A commitment to service is as vital to my recovery as are my commitments to abstinence, working the Steps and a daily food plan. These components mesh together and give me purpose I never had before.One Day at a Time . . .
I will find a way to be helpful
to others in program.
~ Jill C.
Each Day A New Beginning
I like my friend for what is in her heart, not for the way she does things.
—Sandra K. Lamberson
We find good in situations, experiences and people when we look for it. Generally we find just what we expect to find. The power attaching to our attitudes is awesome. Often it is immobilizing; too seldom is it positive.
We each create the personal environment that our soul calls home, which means that at any moment we have the power to change our perspective on life, our response to any particular experience and most of all, our feelings about ourselves. Just as we will find good in others when we decide to look for it, we'll find good in ourselves.
We are such special women, all of us. And in our hearts we want joy. What the program offers is the awareness that we are the creators of the joy in our hearts. We can relinquish the past and its sorrows, and we can leave the future in the hands of our higher power. The present is singular in its importance to our lives, now.
Behavior generally reveals attitudes, which are of the mind and frequently in conflict with the heart. I will strive for congruence. I will let my heart lead the way. It will not only find the good in others, it will imitate it.
—Sandra K. Lamberson
We find good in situations, experiences and people when we look for it. Generally we find just what we expect to find. The power attaching to our attitudes is awesome. Often it is immobilizing; too seldom is it positive.
We each create the personal environment that our soul calls home, which means that at any moment we have the power to change our perspective on life, our response to any particular experience and most of all, our feelings about ourselves. Just as we will find good in others when we decide to look for it, we'll find good in ourselves.
We are such special women, all of us. And in our hearts we want joy. What the program offers is the awareness that we are the creators of the joy in our hearts. We can relinquish the past and its sorrows, and we can leave the future in the hands of our higher power. The present is singular in its importance to our lives, now.
Behavior generally reveals attitudes, which are of the mind and frequently in conflict with the heart. I will strive for congruence. I will let my heart lead the way. It will not only find the good in others, it will imitate it.
From Each Day
a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey © 1982,
1991 by Hazelden Foundation.
Food For Thought
Getting Honest with Ourselves
The day we realize that we are and always will be compulsive overeaters and that we can permit ourselves no deviousness when it comes to food - that is the day when we begin to take the OA program seriously. Half measures do not work. Lingering exceptions in the back of our minds will defeat us. Beginning the program with the idea of quitting when we have lost a certain number of pounds will not bring success.
Nothing short of an honest, wholehearted commitment to abstinence and the OA program will give us the ability to stop eating compulsively. If we think we can get away with small deviations here and there, we are deluding ourselves. Our disease is progressive, and unless we take the steps outlined in the program, it will eventually destroy us.
If we are not honest with ourselves, we are divided, weak, and sick. Getting honest means getting strong and well.
May I be directed by the truth.
The day we realize that we are and always will be compulsive overeaters and that we can permit ourselves no deviousness when it comes to food - that is the day when we begin to take the OA program seriously. Half measures do not work. Lingering exceptions in the back of our minds will defeat us. Beginning the program with the idea of quitting when we have lost a certain number of pounds will not bring success.
Nothing short of an honest, wholehearted commitment to abstinence and the OA program will give us the ability to stop eating compulsively. If we think we can get away with small deviations here and there, we are deluding ourselves. Our disease is progressive, and unless we take the steps outlined in the program, it will eventually destroy us.
If we are not honest with ourselves, we are divided, weak, and sick. Getting honest means getting strong and well.
May I be directed by the truth.
From Food for
Thought: Daily Meditations for Overeaters by Elisabeth L. ©1980, 1992
by Hazelden Foundation
The Language of Letting Go
Accepting Our Best
We don't have to do it any better than we can - ever.
Do our best for the moment, and then let it go. If we have to redo it, we can do our best in another moment, later.
We can never do more or better than we are able to do at the moment. We punish ourselves and make ourselves feel crazy by expecting more than our reasonable best for now.
Striving for excellence is a positive quality.
Striving for perfection is self-defeating.
Did someone tell us or expect us to do or give or be more? Did someone always withhold approval?
There comes a time when we feel we have done our best. When that time comes, let it go.
There are days when our best is less than we hoped for. Let those times go too. Start over tomorrow. Work things through, until our best becomes better.
Empowering and complimenting ourselves will not make us lazy. It will nurture us and enable us to give, do, and be our best.
Today, I will do my best, and then let it go. God, help me stop criticizing myself so I can start appreciating how far I've come.
We don't have to do it any better than we can - ever.
Do our best for the moment, and then let it go. If we have to redo it, we can do our best in another moment, later.
We can never do more or better than we are able to do at the moment. We punish ourselves and make ourselves feel crazy by expecting more than our reasonable best for now.
Striving for excellence is a positive quality.
Striving for perfection is self-defeating.
Did someone tell us or expect us to do or give or be more? Did someone always withhold approval?
There comes a time when we feel we have done our best. When that time comes, let it go.
There are days when our best is less than we hoped for. Let those times go too. Start over tomorrow. Work things through, until our best becomes better.
Empowering and complimenting ourselves will not make us lazy. It will nurture us and enable us to give, do, and be our best.
Today, I will do my best, and then let it go. God, help me stop criticizing myself so I can start appreciating how far I've come.
From The
Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
Today's Gift
—Thom Klika
It takes both sun and rain to make a rainbow in the sky. The rainbow is a rare and beautiful thing - each color brilliant beside the other. Rain falls to earth like the tears we all shed sometimes. Sunlight shines like the happiness we find inside when we feel peaceful.
The colors of the rainbow are like all the different feelings we have. Let's say red is anger and green is fear and orange is joy and violet is contentment. All these feelings create a whole person, in the same way that all these colors make the whole rainbow. We become more colorful people as we learn to express all our emotions.
A person who is learning to share feelings radiates the same kind of beauty as a rainbow in the sky.
Who can I share a feeling with today?
From Today's
Gift: Daily Meditations for Families ©1985, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.
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