To be happy one must risk unhappiness; to live fully one must risk death and accept its ultimate decision.
All of us, in confronting our powerlessness, have felt the truth of this paradox. If we truly admitted how far out of control our drinking was, would we be able to survive without alcohol? If we stopped caretaking, would we have any place in our relationships? If we let go of our food obsessions, would there be any pleasure left in life? Yet, we can see much of our behavior was destroying us. We had to let go of it to begin learning a better way of living.
We can face our powerlessness in very specific ways. Let us look at today's concerns as spiritual issues with lessons for us. Does an opportunity seem like a problem because of the risk involved? Are we frustrated because we cannot accept the limits of our control? We will face our powerlessness today in ways we cannot fully anticipate. When we are honest with ourselves and face it directly, we can take the risk of letting go.
Let me not be so tied to what I have or to what I want that I cannot lean on God's love and take a risk for growth
Being human is difficult. Becoming human is a lifelong process. To be truly human is a gift.
The processes of becoming more human, becoming a real person, and finding spiritual enlightenment are very similar. They require slow growth over time. We can only follow these paths in small steps, one day or one hour at a time. Many of us grew up in families with an addicted parent. We, too, went to great excesses and have been abusive to others and ourselves. Because of these problems, we developed a distorted outlook on life. Now we still demand quick and complete fixes for recovery.
Our program says, "Look to this day." It is a difficult path to learn, but we only take it in small steps. There are no instant fixes for any human being. Yet, when we surrender to the reality of life, we are given the gift of true humanity. We feel like real people, we love others, and we enjoy the pleasure of true contact with them.
I am grateful I can be a part of the process. Help me give up my drive to control it.
Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude.
Loneliness and solitude are very different things. When we're lonely, we feel sad about being alone. But when we're in solitude, we have ourselves and can be at peace. Many of us have had so much pain in our relationships that we often feel lonely. Or we may have been so frightened of being alone that now we avoid it like poison. All of us have known the pain of loneliness, even while we were surrounded by people.
Through solitude we can become more fully acquainted with ourselves, develop greater honesty, and deepen our spiritual development. Each day, as we spend time alone in meditation, we make conscious contact with God and join other men in spirit who also walk this path. Even in our solitude we are not alone.
In this quiet time, I reestablish peace within and find the spirit of my fellow men and women on a similar path.
There is no method or discipline or system of any kind that can ever command the spirit to be present.
To be receptive, we must not be so busy with what we can control that we fail to notice all the experiences, which are there for us. Our senses need to be open to see what is around us and hear what is in the air. We must breathe in the beauty and pain of life. When there is a message in our experiences, let us read it and not demand it fit our narrow, logical minds.
Today, I pray that I will be open to receive the spirit on its own terms.
Love doesn't just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
Our relationships are alive. We don't control them and neither do the other people involved. We certainly influence our relationships - and if we are aware, we see they also have their own yeast. Whether we are talking of a love relationship with our spouse, lover, children, friends, or parents, it is a very fluid and dynamic affair. If we are actively involved with the other person and give time and nourishment to the relationship, it will grow. But if we are passive and only waiting, the relationship will grow stale.
God speaks to us through other people. Our relationship with our Higher Power influences our relationships with all the people in our lives. Today we can nurture our relationships with time, tolerance, and honesty. In turn, we will be nourished.
May this day be one in which I give attention to those I love.
When you can't stand criticism you learn to be a perfectionist.
It's human to make mistakes and to feel incomplete. Perhaps if we were all smooth plastic printouts we could expect perfection of ourselves. Each man is actually a process. We are not things, but events - happenings - and the events are still unfolding. These are our creative spiritual adventures.
We have somehow learned that openness to criticism is dangerous. Perhaps we thought someone would not like us if we were wrong, or that we would get hurt or belittled. When we live with a relationship to our Higher Power, we can stand up for ourselves. A man has a right to make some mistakes! We grow more if we allow ourselves the leeway of simply being in process.
I will not ask to have the power of perfection. I will only ask that I not be alone in the process of living my life.
He who is outside the door has already a good part of his journey behind him.
When we see how far we've strayed from being the kind of men we wanted to be, we are overwhelmed by how far we have to go to get back on the track. Perhaps we see clearly for the first time how unfair we were or how much we hurt those we love. Maybe we see how pervasive our compulsions are in our lives and how much we missed.
That is when we are most ready to do the work of recovery and become most spiritual. It is helpful at those times to remember that this program is a journey. Although at times the distance seems overwhelming, all of us are on the path. As long as we live, we never reach a point where we can stop growing. The important thing is, we are on the path, and we have a good part of our journey behind us. Once begun, outside the door, we are progressing like all our brothers and sisters in the program.
To be happy one must risk unhappiness; to live fully one must risk death and accept its ultimate decision.
