If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn't like me, I've got to get out.
How much acceptance is enough for us? Do we feel one person's criticism undermines the acceptance of 199 others? Do we get so focused on one person's negative response to us that we cannot hear the positive? If we are unable to accept criticism from others, it becomes a sink without a plug, draining away all the positives we naturally have in our life.
As we become spiritual men, we're able to detach from negative and critical messages. We must still hear them. We must still listen to their messages because we can learn from them. But we can separate ourselves from the negative message. We can make a mistake. Someone can dislike us. But we do not give up our places as equal, worthwhile men for any reason.
God, I pray for your support when my own strength to stand up for myself falters.
Forgiveness is another word for letting go.
Learning forgiveness - both granting it to others and accepting it for ourselves - is one of the primary means of a man's spiritual recovery. Many of us, after entering this program, are plagued with strong feelings of guilt. We have finally become accountable, and we see our lives in a new perspective. We long for a chance to undo our mistakes. Many men carry guilt for years as if they deserved to be punished. Our recovery program tells us to let go.
Simply going through the motions of forgiving or accepting forgiveness will not get us very far. We must squarely face our feelings and tell someone so we are no longer alone with our guilt. Then, if there is the possibility for repair without further hurt, we must make repair. In this concrete way we can be genuinely forgiven and fully accept forgiveness. When a man has a spiritual experience like this, he matures and gains the ability to forgive others.
I am grateful for the relief of being forgiven and letting go of past mistakes. I will genuinely let go of my guilt and resentment.
Men are doomed to live in an overwhelmingly tragic and demonic world.
Life is difficult. We never reach the point where our path is free of obstacles and hardships. And regardless of how much we grow, how faithful we are to our program, nothing changes the fact that death is still there for us. As painful and hard as it is, life also is deeply meaningful and worthwhile when we submit to its reality and live in a spiritual way.
After we stop living in denial and accept the hard facts about life, we see that we need each other. We need relationships to stay sane. We need to pull together and support one another the way people do in difficult times. Rugged individualism isn't always good for real people in the real world. We need relationships so we can celebrate and make music and encourage one another. We need relationships so we can laugh and make jokes and tell our personal stories. And we need to stand together to oppose the destructive forces around us.
God help me learn to have relationships with my brothers and sisters.
Anxiety is that range of distress, which attends willing what cannot be willed.
There are hundreds of ways in which men try to will things that cannot be willed. We will to sleep; we will to have others like us; we will to have sexual virility. In all these things, the force of our will does not work because what we want is not controllable. They come to us as an outcome of many factors - when the situation is right - when we have become ready for them.
When we could not let go, when we did not know how to turn our life and our will over to the care of God, we became more and more anxious. Then we turned to our addictive or codependent escapes from anxiety and willfulness. It is the folly of our age to try to take charge of everything. We are following a more peaceful and more successful way. We are doing our part and receiving the benefits that come to us.
The will of my Higher Power has a loving purpose and is far wiser than I.
You should not have your own idea when you listen to someone.... To have nothing in your mind is naturalness. Then you will understand what he says.
A man who is mistrustful and self-centered has difficulty listening to someone else. Perhaps a woman we are close to wants to be understood by us. But we do not hear her on her own terms because we are so intensely involved with our own shame. So we react to our feelings of guilt rather than really hearing what she wants to say about her experience. Or we may be so worried about who has control that we fail to receive the information we are being given. Then we respond with "Yes, but..."
True learning comes - like true intimacy - when we have an open mind. As we detach ourselves, separate from our own ego, we hear the other person better and grow more intimate.
May I learn to set aside my own self-centeredness. Today, I will grow more if I set my ego aside when others are talking to me.
One ought, each day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if possible, speak, a few reasonable words.
A spiritual man can nourish his growing spirit through enriching and beautiful experiences. Such experiences might be quiet meditation, reading something, which provides ideas to ponder, conversation with a friend, or listening to music. Men have been taught to focus on things more than on people, on goals and achievement, and we neglect to provide ourselves with nourishment for our minds and souls.
Life's experiences include joy and beauty and pain and grief. If we are uplifted every day by beauty in its many forms, we are strengthened and carried along to meet the tougher parts of our day. We may need to push some other things aside to have it. Perhaps some jobs can wait until tomorrow, and we can linger over a meal with our loved ones. Maybe mowing the lawn or fixing the car isn't as important as a half-hour of good music. Do we make space for nourishing moments in each day?
I am grateful for the beauty all around. Help me keep life more balanced so I can receive the spiritual nourishment it provides.
It was football time, apple time, harvest time, hunting time, and school time. Footsteps quickened. It was exciting to be in transition. It seemed more like the beginning of something than like the end of it.
Some days seem filled with the exciting energy of change. They are like walking on a bridge from one time period to the next. In the fall, our senses are filled with messages of change. Trees tell us it is happening. So do football games, and the cool chill in the morning air.
As summer wanes and winter approaches, we may need to grieve for what we leave behind before greeting what comes next. The changes we experience in recovery bring similar responses. We grieve the loss of our old friends, the bottle, the food binge, the romantic thrill, or the excitement of gambling or spending. We are able to grieve our losses because we accept them. We have chosen them. Now we move to the next season of our lives.
As I experience the circle of seasons outside me, I am grateful for the ongoing flow of change within.
