For Today: June 5th

For Today:  June 5^th

It is indeed from the experience of beauty and happiness, from the occasional harmony between our nature and our environment that we draw our conception of the divine life.

George Santayana

Nowhere in my life has my Higher Power been more evident than in relieving me of compulsive overeating, in giving me the OA program of recovery.   If I was not a believer when I came to OA, I am a believer now. I was, and still am, powerless over food.

I came to OA with just enough hope to try, there was nowhere else to go, nothing left to do. I gave up my will and was relieved of obsession. Today, I  trust more than I did yesterday, and I will trust more tomorrow than I do today.

For Today: How grateful I am for the concept of God as I understand God. Only with faith in a Power greater than myself am I not afraid to enjoy what is beautiful, and to be happy.

Rock bottom is a place of despair & hopelessness…..the point I had reached when I came to OA & found 

abstinence. I had nothing left to lose by then, as I had tried everything on earth to lose weight & I could never keep it off.

OA was my last chance.

Only when I was willing to give up MY way & to admit my powerlessness over food was I able to find & hold onto abstinence.

I can’t do this alone. I need God’s help & guidance, I need support from my fellow compulsive overeaters, and I need a food plan to keep me on track.

To say that OA has been a miracle for me is a gross understatement.  My obsession with food has been relieved by God & He has enabled me to stay committed, one day at a time, to my food plan.  That very food plan is what helped me find sanity & balance in my otherwise chaotic world where I demanded perfection from myself.

For today, I am thankful for OA, for my Higher Power, and for a program that’s given me my life back.

For Today: June 4th

Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons.

Aristotle

I believe that people do the best they can do, but do I include myself in that philosophy?  Or do I have higher standards for myself and berate myself because I cannot live up to them? I believe in treating people well, but do I give myself the same consideration or are my self-judgments harsh and deprecating?  I believe in being fair to others, but am I fair to myself or do I give myself little credit in the relentless need to be perfect? What I believe must be for all people, including myself.

For Today: I am not basically different from most people so, just as I would not demand perfection of others, I do not demand it of myself. I am as loving, tolerant and understanding of myself as I am of other compulsive overeaters.

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Sigh.

I DO have a different set of rules in place for myself than I have for others! I am WAY harder on myself than I would ever THINK of being on other people.  If I make a mistake, I tend to judge myself harshly & consider myself a failure, a mistake, a freak of nature.

This sort of skewed thinking is what leads me to the ‘all or nothing’ mentality, where I tell myself OH YOU SCREWED UP SO JUST KEEP SCREWING UP, THAT’S ALL YOU’RE GOOD FOR.

That’s nonsensical behavior & keeps my disease of compulsive overeating ALIVE instead of putting it into the cage where it belongs.

Extreme behavior goes with the territory of compulsive overeating & that’s what OA helps me work on: changing that extreme behavior to one of moderation, understanding, compassion, empathy & self-acceptance.

If I make a mistake, I acknowledge it, apologize for it when appropriate, and move PAST it. I will never be a perfect person & that’s quite alright. Nowadays, it’s more important for me to stop dealing with extremes entirely than it is to strive towards an unattainable goal of ‘perfection.’ 

For today, I will treat myself as I treat others; I will treat myself fairly & compassionately & I will not demand something from MYSELF that I wouldn’t demand from others.

For Today: June 3rd

The strength of man consists in finding out the way in which God is going, and going in that way too.

Henry Ward Beecher

God’s way is a path of spiritual principles that make my life work under any conditions. I know that, but once I have good abstinence and weight loss, it is tempting to rest on my laurels and ignore the suggestion to continue seeking spiritual recovery. Like others before me, sooner or later I discover that God’s way does not end with abstinence and weight loss or even with regular attendance at meetings. The recovering compulsive overeaters who have what I want are, without exception, working the twelve-step program on a continuing basis and practicing its spiritual principles in everything they do.

For Today: Am I confused or undecided? I can find direction by taking steps three & eleven.

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When I forget to pray for guidance from God is when I find myself struggling with abstinence. It's quite easy to 'rest on my laurels' and ignore the suggestion to seek deeper spiritual recovery.

Every morning when I wake up, and every night before I go to sleep, I thank God for another day of abstinence & sobriety. I repeat the 3rd step prayer:

God I offer myself to Thee

To build with me

And to do with me as Thou wilt.

Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy will.

Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy power,

Thy love,

And Thy way of life.

May I do Thy will always.

When I work the 12 steps to the best of my ability, and when I keep those principles foremost in my mind & my behavior, is when I am most at peace within myself.

When I ask God to guide me, He always does.

When I get to feeling I can do this on my own is when I MOST need to get back to my spiritual roots.

For Today: June 2nd

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced---Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it.

John Keats

What do the OA sayings and “program talk” mean to the compulsive overeater I am trying to twelfth-step?  Probably very little, though it may depend on the person’s state of readiness to hear and assimilate.

But would it have meant anything to me, in the throes of my disease, to hear that “Nothing tastes as good as abstinence feels”?  I had to be abstinent to experience that surpassing sense of well-being and the joy of finally treating myself with love.

The pain of compulsive overeating is real only to those who have experienced it, and the quality of recovery in OA is real only to those who are abstaining and working the program.

For Today: There is no reason to be discouraged if newcomers express doubt that the recovery they see will happen for them. Their experience of the disease is propelling them toward experiencing recovery.

Getting abstinent requires a leap of faith. I cannot experience abstinence and all its joys unless I get abstinent. Only then am I able to finally see & feel the freedom that comes along with it.

I can’t think myself into a new way of acting;

I have to act myself into a new way of thinking.

If I am unable to give up the momentary pleasures that come with eating to excess, how can I expect to uncover the joys that come along with not eating to excess?

This is where Willingness comes into play big time. When I pray for the willingness to give up the excess is when the miracle begins to unfold.

Being active on a weight loss website for the past 3 years has taught me about denial & what it looks like. The vast majority of people are unwilling to give up their disease to rely on God to show them a better way. To say it’s not disheartening & discouraging is untrue. 

When the student is ready, the teacher appears. Until then, all the OA sayings & slogans in the world fall on deaf ears because compulsive overeaters are unwilling to do what must be done in order to find Recovery.

I speak my truth in OA meetings & on the weight loss website, and pray for others to want what I have. OA is a program of attraction and so, my serenity may attract others who are seeking it.

For today, I hope to set an example for others who are struggling with abstinence, so they can see what abstinence looks & feels like. If they want it for themselves, I pray to help them achieve it.

For Today: June 1st

It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality

Max Beerbohm

Ask me to name one outstanding quality about myself, and I will hem and haw, knowing deep down that my best self-appraisal is unreliable. It seems safer to be derogatory than complimentary, to criticize rather than praise. Perhaps it is habit that leads me in that direction. Often I am not conscious of my reproachful thoughts until they are clearly on the surface. Then I turn them over to my Higher Power, ask to have them removed so I may be free to live fully, without either arrogance or false modesty.

For Today: For an honest, balanced view of myself, I take a few moments in which I free my mind of everything except God’s love for me.

When I was overweight, I was very fond of putting myself down…..before someone else could. If I made some derogatory remark about myself, then I was putting into words what others were probably thinking.

And so, the habit of putting myself down was born.

If I was so unlovable, so fat, so reprehensible, then  life itself pretty much stunk. Where was the good? The honest? The beautiful? 

Living in a state of chronic negativity breeds hopelessness. 

OA has taught me a new way to live, to love myself no matter what my body may look like or weigh at any given time. Losing weight has been the process that allowed me to stop considering myself as a body & to start considering myself a soul, as God intended.

When I let go & let God, and surrender my powerlessness over food, I can live a happy, joyous & free LIFE, one day at a time.

Who knew that restricted food intake & the willingness to follow a food plan would result in me learning to love myself? I have finally grasped the ‘glass is half full’ mentality instead of the ‘glass half empty’ mentality I lived with forever.

For today, I am grateful for my food plan & I pray for the willingness to follow it, one day at a time, for LIFE!