For Today: June 13th

For Today:   June 13^th

Often we can help each other most by leaving each other alone; at other times we need the hand-grasp and the word of cheer.

Elbert Hubbard

Leaving a person alone is not necessarily rejection. It can be quiet support, silent understanding. Whoever has suffered can surely feel compassion for another’s pain.  In an active sense, there is often nothing to do. Sometimes words are easy & natural. At other times there is the hug, the open mind for listening without giving advice, without platitudes.  To say nothing is perhaps the hardest, most demanding response of all, but it can also be the most loving and respectful. To give the gift of silence in certain circumstances is to encourage a friend to feel those feelings.

For Today:  May I have the wisdom to know when to give words of cheer and comfort and when to give silent support.

It is quite difficult to stay silent while witnessing the suffering of another.  It somehow feels ‘right’ to say SOMETHING…..anything….in an effort to relive the sufferer in some small way. 

Sometimes I hear myself saying, “Don’t cry!” to my 18 year old daughter. Then I stop myself. Why SHOULDN’T she cry if she’s feeling pain or suffering??  I am powerless to stop HER from suffering, so telling her not to cry is the exact opposite of what I SHOULD be doing, which is NOTHING.  I can hold her WHILE she cries, smooth her hair & kiss her cheek, but that’s about ALL I should be doing.

I want to fix the world & everyone in it, but I know that’s impossible.  

Sometimes the best thing I can do is to shut my mouth.  Which is tough, because I have a BIG one!

When a loved one passes away, it’s hard to find just the right words to convey my sympathy……or to dig up just the right words to soothe the bereaved.-----because there ARE no ‘right words’, there IS NO real comfort I can give that person, and that’s the point of this OA reading today methinks.

We all have to be allowed to FEEL our feelings & process them for what they ARE, without someone trying to ‘fix’ us or spout out platitudes in an effort to soothe.

“This too shall pass” is a common OA saying, and, while it may sound like a platitude, I think it can be the BEST thing to say to someone when too many words only make matters worse.

For today, I pray to know WHAT to say and what NOT to say, and when TO say something, and when to keep my mouth SHUT!

For Today: June 12th

We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.
Isaac Bashevis Singer

Members of OA who practice the principles of the twelve-step program in their lives are said to "walk the way they talk."  Newcomers sometimes find it difficult to distinguish them from our brothers and sisters who merely "talk the talk."  There are some in the latter category who, by virtue of having lost weight, are thought to be authorities on the program.  They tell us how to eat, how to work the program, what to do about our problems; in short, how to live our lives.

To know what people really believe, we must look not at what they tell us but at what they do.  What is the sate of their personal relationships?  Is there some stability there, as a result of practicing the program of recovery, or are they leaving a trail of wrecked lives as they go?  These individuals are still sick, though they may be abstinent and maintaining normal weight.

For Today: I may fool myself and others by my talk, but my illness cannot be fooled.


******************************************************

As a compulsive overeater, I am a great manipulator.  I have told myself SO many lies over the past 40 years where food was concerned.......'just one won't hurt', 'you can eat sugar in moderation', 'you can be a normal eater, it just takes the 'right' diet', etc.  As a compulsive overeater, it's oftentimes impossible to sort the Bull from the Chit.

Staying true to the Program is what keeps things REAL for me.  My version of reality, and TRUE reality, can be two different things! Only the 12 steps keep me on track, only my Food Plan keeps me on track, and everything in between is most likely BS.

If I am tempted to make alterations to my Food Plan, I know it is the disease trying to take hold of me & make my decisions FOR me.

If I hear myself saying, "Just this once," I again know it's my disease trying to break out of its cage & take me back down the road to destruction.

When I take the actions I must take is when I am on track, peaceful & relaxed.

Losing weight & reaching goal is not necessarily "walking the walk."  Like this reading says, if I leave a trail of wreckage in my wake, I am not working my program properly, and it's just a matter of time before the weight starts piling on again.

The steps are my blueprint for living, not just for weight control.......

And, for today, I pray to work my program to the best of my ability, without lying to myself or leaving rubble in my wake!

For Today: June 11th

Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The spirituality of life cannot be explained by logic or science. Often I know something without knowing I know it. When I put logic aside, instinct shows me reality. Instinct cuts through arguments, clears away indecision and confusion.

For example, does the OA program try to reason me out of my compulsive behavior? No. It directs my attention, instead, to that jumble of instinct and emotion I call “gut level.” There is little logic or reason here, yet this is the self to which the program speaks.

For Today: I pray to recognize the limitations of logic and reason; to entrust to God the problems for which I cannot figure out solutions.

Every time I ignore my gut instincts about something, I live to regret it.  For some reason, it can seem ‘silly’ to rely on instincts…intuitions….we are a society that relies on science for ALL the answers.  Many answers, however, do NOT lie in scientific answers, as with compulsive overeating.

All the diet books on earth won’t help me when I have an overwhelming need to overeat. All the charts and graphs in the world won’t be able to gauge my success or failure with weight loss or weight maintenance…only a power greater than myself can do that!

When I focus on honing my intuitive abilities, I often surprise myself. For instance, when I wait for the elevator in the morning at work, I look at both doors and my mind tells me which one is going to open. 90% of the time I’m right! It blows me away every single time it happens. Of course, that’s just a 50-50 deal….but to be right on 9 out of 10 times tells me I AM cultivating my intuitive powers.

When I went to Goodwill last weekend, I was interested in finding a Marianne Williamson book to purchase. For some reason, I KNEW there would be one on the shelf, somewhere, I had NO doubt whatsoever. Within 5 minutes, I found it!  That was one of the oddest experiences of my life: that pure, 100% certainty that the book WOULD be there! That may sound minor, but to me, it was extraordinary! When I held the book in my hand, it felt like a little miracle to me.

Daily life IS full of little miracles, if I open my mind to recognizing them.

Spirituality breeds a better level of intuition, which then propels me to seek an even DEEPER level of spirituality.

When I am in touch with this side of myself, I am in closer contact with God & I have a better understanding of my purpose in life & what He has in mind for me!

When I open my heart to a new way of thinking, I see the world as a place with limitless possibilities, and for that, I am grateful!

For Today: June 10th

Patience is the best remedy for every trouble.
Plautus

Patience is not a virtue commonly found in obsessive/compulsive personalities. Waiting for something I want is not only hard; it often takes agonizing effort.

Thank God that this program gives me the resources with which I slowly cultivate patience. Whether I’m waiting for the (interminably red ) light to change or for a serious problem to be resolved, I have a new awareness of my anxiety and impatience---my racing heart and clenched fists. And I breathe a silent prayer, “Slow me down, God.”

For Today: The nuisances as well as the heavy burdens of my life are better taken care of if I don’t feel I have to rush to “do something” about them the minute they occur.

Impatience is my middle name. Only through OA have I learned how to wait; not to say that I’m ‘perfect’ at waiting….I’m just more aware of my impatience & more willing to ask God to help me relax!

As part of a diet website for 3 years, I see impatience everywhere, constantly, and it teaches me how we’re all exactly alike on this subject.  Expecting certain weight losses every day, being disappointed with the scale, fearing hunger & discomfort…it’s all part of the same disease of compulsivity/obsession.

We want what we want and we want it NOW. We’re like toddlers who hold their breath until they turn blue, stamping their feet for instant gratification. It’s no wonder we are only able to stay committed to a program for short periods of time!

Patience must be cultivated & coaxed along, it does not come about because I want it to. I have to use the tools in my OA toolbox to learn patience, the same way I’d study a textbook to learn a particular subject I am unfamiliar with. Patience, to me, is as unfamiliar as organic chemistry. 

Slowly but surely, I accept the fact that everything in my life happens in God’s time, NOT mine.  I can fight that fact & rage against the moon over it, but that will only worsen my situation instead of improving it.

One day at a time, I pray to cultivate more patience as I travel the road to heightened spirituality by working the steps.

For Today: June 9th

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.

William Hazlitt

Whether I want to improve my skill at tennis or jogging or the art of living, the experts all tell me the same thing: I must get out of my own way, stop thinking about how I’m doing.  The allegory of the centipede makes the point nicely: asked how it knew which of its hundred feet to use when, the creature found itself unable to move.

To perform any action self-consciously is to function under a handicap. Being natural, throwing myself into an activity without worrying about the outcome relieves me of distracting and counterproductive pressures. And isn’t that letting go and letting God?

For Today: I free myself to fulfill my potential by having my Higher Power take me off my hands.

Thinking back, I was raised to be self-conscious!  I was told to hold my stomach in at all times, I had to wear a girdle and a ‘minimizer’ bra as a teenager.  I was groomed to think in a self-conscious manner instead of conducting myself in a natural, as-I-am state of being!  I was trained to never let my slip show, and to put on a happy face in public, no matter what.  It was more important to put a happy face on things than to allow my feelings to be known.

I was trained to pretend.  To make-believe as if everything was great all the time. That outward appearance was all that mattered. 

When I got too fat at 12, I was sent off to Weight Watchers to fix that little problem.  But obviously, ‘that little problem’ wasn’t fixed but instead, grew larger as my compulsive overeating behavior was being established.

When I spoke my mind, I was told to stop doing that, that my personal life was nobody’s business.

There were secrets that had to be kept at all costs, because again, outward appearances had to be perfect.

I write this now, not in condemnation or to place blame on anyone, but to better understand how the compulsive overeater mentality was born.

I was trained to be distrustful of everyone; nobody on earth was worthy of trust & they were all jealous, envious, evil & out to get me.  The boogie-man was lurking at every turn, waiting to jump into an open bedroom window or, God-forbid, an unlocked door.

Danger was everywhere & people were all behind it, waiting to destroy my soul.

It’s no wonder I turned inward & toward food to comfort me, since life was so bad, so negative, and people were so ugly & hateful.

It’s taken me 50 years to change that way of thinking, to recognize it for what it is: sick & twisted; exactly opposite to the serene & joyous life God wants me to live!

Many years of convoluted thinking had to be reversed if I was to find recovery, and slowly but surely, I began to recognize that need through the Steps.

Living in fear & negativity breeds inner turmoil & a need to anesthetize reality, doesn’t it?

I had to change my concept of reality to find recovery & more importantly, to hold onto it. Oh, it’s easy enough to make temporary changes & delude myself into thinking they’re permanent, but, to make real & lasting changes, I had to change myself from the inside out.

I often say, to find & keep recovery, the only thing that has to change is everything. It becomes necessary to go back to the grass-roots of childhood to find where & how the toxic thinking started.

Unless I can find it, how can I change it? Unless I can figure out what caused it, I can’t fix it.

For today, I pray to keep an open, non-judgmental mind & manner of thinking. I pray to remember the only way out of something is through it, sober & sane, one day at a time.

For Today: June 8th

For Today:   June 8^th

Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.

Charles F. Kettering

Am I satisfied to be the way I am? I used to think the answer was No, but then why did I go right on being the way I always was, resisting change?  To my compulsive overeater way of thinking, my opinions seemed to be truth and I never dreamed of changing them.

But something happened. I found OA and was encouraged to have an open mind about some things. I did as I was told, and it brought me the gift of abstinence and an awakening to the presence of a Power greater than myself. The frontier I see before me today is limitless.

For Today: My first priority is keeping my mind open to know God’s will for me.

It would have been a lot easier to stay where I was than to do all the hard work it took to change.  No, I wasn’t satisfied with who I was and I did resist change. I thought my ideas were correct and unchangeable. As long as I kept that attitude alive, I killed off any chance I had to change & improve myself.

In order to find recovery, I had to give up everything I knew & thought. I had to embrace a whole new way of thinking so I could clean out the cob-webs that cluttered up my mind. Negative thinking, judgmental thoughts, self-pity and know-it-all-ism will keep compulsive overeating alive & well.

OA is a program of action. I have to get busy doing & then find my thoughts to be changing in the process.

Finding my lost spirituality has helped me immensely, in every aspect of my life. When I let go & let God is when I can keep my mind open & receptive instead of closed off & rigid.

For today, I am grateful to say I am satisfied to be the way I am!  While I plan to continue growing in the program, I can honestly say that today, right now, life is grand!

For Today: June 7th

All the knowledge that I possess, everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What I read in books others can read. How I respond to the world is mine alone. This is not a program of searching after facts, but of looking within, attending to my spiritual needs. It is my spirituality which nurtures all that is uniquely me. The twelve steps open my heart, free my mind and release my God-given potential for the peaceful enjoyment of just being. 

After ignoring the spiritual part of me for so long, it is an adventure to discover it exists and to spend part of my day exploring its reaches.

For Today: Whether my progress in working the program is fast or slow---and it's mostly slow---ther eis one thing I know I'll find: hope.

************************************************

What I've found in OA cannot be found in books, charts, graphs or scales. It cannot be measured by knowledge or statistics of any kind. There is no mathematical formula that can be utilized to find inner peace & abstinence. It comes from God and from working the steps the best of my ability.

My compulsion/obsession to overeat is lifted by working my program of spirituality and that is the miracle I witness on a daily basis with OA.

The changes I'd like to see do not happen overnight. The process is slow & ongoing, and every day I make new discoveries about myself & my journey of spirituality. I face problems with a new determination and a sense of peace that prevents me from feeling overwhelmed by the details.

Before OA, I lived in the details of life, worrying over them, sweating the small stuff on a daily basis. Nowadays, I have a better understanding of the 'big picture' which allows me to let go of the details and to live in the moment.

When I do the footwork, and let God do the rest, I can live a peaceful and happy life, one day at a time.

For today, I pray to stay open to hearing God's message for me & to continue taking the steps that lead me to a better life.

For Today: June 6th

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

Hermann Hesse

If I were completely self-accepting, and at peace with myself, I would not be disturbed by another’s words or actions. When I examine my dislike of certain individuals, I am startled to find that the characteristics I am least tolerant of are those I hate in myself. It is particularly upsetting to discover that I can feel this way even toward someone very close to me---a spouse, a child, a dear friend.

Progress in the OA program of recovery gives me increasing self-acceptance and a growing tolerance of others. I know, however, that perfect acceptance at all times is not possible. What is possible is to grow in understanding and in the ability to acknowledge my feelings.

For Today: I freely admit that certain persons arouse strong feelings in me, but I do not have to act on those feelings.

************************
I struggle with this concept; that I dislike in others what I dislike about myself.  My mother drives me stark-raving mad. Why? Because she is constantly worrying & wringing her hands, to the point of obsession.  Her negativity is constant & chronic.  OK, while I myself AM an OCD type person, I make a point of NOT worrying myself or others to death. I have worked very diligently to become a positive person, and to discard my negative way of thinking. Of course, I attribute this attitude to OA & the plan of recovery. 

So, to some degree, I don’t agree with this idea.

To another degree, however, I understand it.

When someone at work is acting petty or gossipy, I DO see that ugly quality in myself & I dislike it. So, what I see in THEM is what I hate in ME.

While I do have more tolerance for others with regard to certain behaviors, what I struggle with is tolerance for others exhibiting behaviors I myself have overcome.

If I can overcome negative behaviors, shouldn’t they be able to overcome their negative behaviors?

This is an area that I obviously need to work on…..:) 

I am making progress, not seeking perfection.

For today, I ask God to help me develop more tolerance for others, regardless of their behavior, and regardless of whether I agree or disagree with it, and regardless of whether I like it or not.

I recognize the fact that it has taken me a LONG time to get to where I am today, and that others’ may not yet have put in their time or effort.

Where I am today is NOT where I expect others to be.

For today, I pray for the willingness to put my expectations aside & to be more accepting of EVERYONE, including myself.