Today's Thought - April

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April 16

Asking for help is the first step to healthy living.

By admitting to our friends that we don't know what we should do about the many confusing, sometimes scary circumstances in our lives, we open the door for our Higher Power to reach us. That's often the way help comes to us. At times we'll open a book and an inspiring passage will jump out, or we'll wake up feeling as if God has answered us in our dreams. But more frequently and vividly, our help is in the gentle words of a friend.

Many of us postponed getting help because we dreaded asking for it. We thought that asking for help would make us look weak and uninteresting. We so wanted to be liked and admired that we pretended all was well, while in reality all was awful. It's a profound relief to share our burdens with other people. And the best part is, we'll get needed guidance.

I won't be afraid to cry "help" today. My Higher Power can help only if I'm open to it.

You are reading from the book:

A Life of My Own by Karen Casey

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April 17

I Am Who I Am

Sometimes we want to be someone else – anyone but who we are. We want to be someone who feels more free and at peace. We want to be someone who doesn't have to take medications day after day. We want to be free of the pain and loneliness our illness has brought us.

But whether we get what we want or not, what we need is to accept ourselves, our illness, a desire to become well, and the guidance of our Higher Power.

Today, do I accept myself, my illness, and the guidance of my Higher Power? Do I commit myself to recovery?

Thought for the Day

When I look within, I will discover that accepting myself and being myself are far more fulfilling that expected.

You are reading from the book:

A Restful Mind by Mark Allen Zabawa

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April 18

Watching a child acquire language, I realize, again, that naming things demystifies them.
--Mary Casey

Sharing with another our fears of starting a new job, ending a relationship, getting into therapy, or even joining a social club will help us keep the fear in perspective. Fears that go undiscussed have a way of growing and overtaking our lives. In time we find that because of our shame about being afraid, we have isolated ourselves from the very people who can help us.

All of us are afraid some of the time. Our fears, however, can be managed if we use the tools found in the fellowship. Sponsors, friends, and meetings are the channels for our release from fear. Naming the fear loosens its hold on us. And equally important, we discover that others understand our fear, for they have experienced something very similar. We are not unique. That knowledge makes it easier to reveal another fear, another time.

Perhaps the best gift I can give someone is talking about something I fear. Naming the fear will help me. Sharing it will help us both because of the bond we will feel.

You are reading from the book:

A Woman's Spirit by Karen Casey

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April 19

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us...
--Marcel Proust

Many of us have known people new to recovery who enter a Twelve Step program only to encounter an enormous crisis or difficulty. It's tempting at that point to question the mercurial nature of life, which sometimes inflicts blows when someone is already down. Difficulties do serve a purpose, though. It's often in such moments of struggle that people become aware of the reality of their life and begin to make difficult choices. It's also then that the fellowship of our recovery group shines, offering its collective experience, strength and hope to the addict in need.

Many of us have known someone who refused or was unable to hear the message being offered at our meeting. It takes wisdom, patience, and detachment to know when to reach out to someone, and how far to go. The respect we feel for that person's recovery process as well as the faith we have in our Higher Power and the Twelve Step program can help us do our part and then let go.

Life is a learning experience. I can learn the lesson of my life, but not someone else's.

You are reading from the book:

Answers in the Heart by Anonymous

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April 20

What is strength without a double share of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, burdensome proudly secure, yet liable to fall.
--John Milton

What do we mean when we say someone is strong? That they have big muscles? Can endure anything without getting tired, let alone giving up? Do strong people never bend? Never break?

Some of us are afraid to show weakness of any kind. We take our supposed strength as the central fact of our lives. Over time, we may even come to think of ourselves as indestructible. We imagine that everything - people, places, and things - can be pounded into place if we come on with enough force. One man at a meeting shared that he had been confined to a hospital bed after a serious heart attack. Since he had been forbidden exertion of any kind, he said he made himself get out of bed, walk across the room, and pick up a scrap of paper from the floor. Just to prove that he could, he said.

Many of us are more like this man than we care to admit. May we, like him, become willing to accept our strength as our weakness, if that is the case.

Today, let me accept my very real and human limitations.

You are reading from the book:

Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty

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April 21

Living new lives

If we thank our Higher Power each day for the problems in our lives, we will find that we can live and cope with them. And if it is our Higher Power's will, our problems will be transformed in ways we cannot comprehend. We don't fully understand our lives.

If we become willing to let our Higher Power handle each situation in its way, we will see that we are living ourselves into new ways of being. We will experience a freedom and joy that we could not have understood in our old ways of thinking and being.

We cannot think ourselves into a better life; we must live each day into better thinking.

Am I living myself into a new life?

Higher Power, I am grateful for the problems in my life; they help me change myself into a new being.

You are reading from the book:

Day by Day - Second Edition by Anonymous

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April 22

Possibilities and miracles are one and the same.
--Anonymous

Many of us have seen happiness as a goal we couldn't find. When we were children, we were taught that "life is a hard row to hoe." We carried that over into our adult lives.

Seize the day - We let too many of our days just slide by. None of those hours can be replaced. Why worry over past failures if there is a victory to win? Why keep thinking about our faults when we could be practicing virtues instead?

Seize the day - Hold each moment tight and look at each one with wide-open eyes and mind. They are our lives, special to each of us. The moments pass swiftly into memory. Let those memories be good ones, filled with joys large and small.

Yesterday's unhappiness can't be changed, but today's happiness is my own responsibility.

You are reading from the book:

Easy Does It by Anonymous

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April 23

Each day is a new start. Each moment is a beginning.

We do not have to wait until Monday to get back on the program or clean a closet or tackle a difficult report. We do not have to wait until tomorrow morning, either. Now is the moment to stop, to make a phone call, to begin whatever project we have been putting off.

There is no way we can change what we did five minutes ago, nor can we predict what will happen half an hour from now. We can only deal with now.

By doing what needs to be done right now, we make the most of each present moment. As long as we are alive, we are always free to begin again. Instead of following an old, worn out habit, make a fresh start this moment on the rest of your life.

Give me grace, Lord, to begin again.

You are reading from the book:

Food for Thought by Elisabeth L.

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April 24

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
--Henry Ford

To be a friend involves risk. Friends confront each other when it's needed, but they do it out of love and with compassion. All of us need a friend who will tell us when we are acting out of line, when we are "not able to see the forest for the trees." Friends are there for us in the struggles – rooting us on, maybe teasing us a bit, helping us get past the difficulties and eventually helping us find the gift embedded in them. Friends risk upsetting us, if it means we may become better people.

We need to be grateful for these people. Theirs is not always an easy job. Many of us have big egos; we don't want to be told that we are wrong. However, friends keep seeing the best in us, even when we aren't acting our best. Theirs will be the faces we see when we look back at our lives, especially at the times of crisis and challenge.

Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, help me be a friend, and help me be grateful for my friends.

Today's Action

Today I will work to bring out the best in those around me, even if that means saying the hard things. If I must confront someone, I will only do it if I can do it with love and compassion.

You are reading from the book:

God Grant Me... by Anonymous

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April 25

Trust

An attitude of helpful expectancy can serve me very well today. My Higher Power has my day in His hands. Whatever happens, it will go most smoothly, and I will feel best about myself, if I am open to what the day brings, and at peace with whatever it holds for me.

I can give my best if I do not get bogged down in hurt, anger, and resentment. Instead, I'll try to trust in my Higher Power. I'll have faith that good will come my way.

Help me today to be flexible and willing in my work. . . Help me to learn trust in a new way.

You are reading from the book:

Help for Helpers by Anonymous

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April 26

I want to change things. I want to see things happen. I don't want just to talk about them.
--John Kenneth Galbraith

Newcomer

I feel as if I should be doing so much more than just staying in recovery and going to meetings. And yet, when I have free time, I'm not accomplishing much these days. I go to a meeting and then to coffee – "the meeting after the meeting," I've heard it called – and I get home and feel too tired to do any more. When I have a big block of time, I don't know how to use it. I feel confused and discouraged.

Sponsor

This point in recovery is a time to be especially gentle with ourselves. When we look back at how we were feeling and what we were doing just before we entered recovery, we can see that "just staying in recovery and going to meetings" is a major change. To be free from our addictive behavior, to keep a commitment to a program of recovery – this is nothing short of a total revolution in our lives. We have made a commitment to live, not to punish ourselves for not doing it faster and more perfectly.

"The meeting after the meeting" is not a waste of time. It's important to get to know our peers in recovery. We can learn from one another, support one another. The changes we're experiencing are mirrored back to us by others who are undergoing similar transformations. It gives us experience, too, at being with people without the "help" of our addictive substance or behavior.

We don't have to worry about wasting time in early recovery. It is a miracle that we can simply be.

Today, I let myself be.

You are reading from the book:

If You Want What We Have by Joan Larkin

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April 27

The person who is bored in the modern world shows that he is in no full sense a member of it.
--Brand Blanshard

Enthusiasm doesn't just happen to us. It's an attitude that is either fostered or hindered by our decisions about what we'll bring to our experiences from the most mundane to the momentous. This is true either throughout the day at hand or throughout our life. Deciding to be enthusiastic for a project comes easily when we've made up our mind to simply enjoy being alive.

Gratitude for the many blessings that recovery has brought even further heightens our enthusiasm for living. We all know people who are bored with their jobs, who withdraw from social involvement. Most of these people have lost touch with their fundamental sense of gratitude for what life has given them.

The power to enjoy life fully, to bring enthusiasm to whatever we do, is within our grasp. In fact, it's within our own mind.

I'll be as enthusiastic as I am grateful today.

You are reading from the book:

In God's Care by Karen Casey

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April 28

You can feel only your own feelings, not another person's.

Having empathy for those we love, and being able to share their joys and sorrows, is part of our nature as warm, caring human beings. Taken to an extreme, however, too much empathy can mean that we lose our boundaries as emotionally separate individuals. When that happens, nobody wins.

We're responsible for our own feelings. If we're too deeply involved in another person's emotional state, we may not be truly aware of our own feelings. If we take on someone else's response to a situation, we lose our own in the process.

In any situation, particularly one that is highly charged with negative emotions, we need to maintain a sense of self. If we allow ourselves to be swept up in the anger, fear, grief, or despair of someone close to us, we become less capable of giving help and support. Emotional maturity is one of the goals of recovery. We progress toward it as we differentiate how we feel from how another person appears to feel.

I can respect the feelings of others without making them my own.

You are reading from the book:

Inner Harvest by Elisabeth L.

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April 29

Moving fast is not necessarily the same thing as going somewhere.

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If you are waiting for your ship to come in - you may have already missed the boat.

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Courage is fear that has said its prayers.

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Faith is our greatest gift. Sharing it with others is our greatest responsibility.

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The first step in overcoming mistakes is to admit to them.

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The best way to multiply happiness is to divide it.

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Try the program for 90 days. If not satisfied we will be glad to refund your misery.

You are reading from the book:

Keep Coming Back Gift Book by Meiji Stewart

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April 30

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
--Fyodor Dostoevsky

The primary requirement for our recovery is honesty. In order to grow in honesty we first needed to see how we had lied to others and to ourselves. This was not as easy as it first appeared. Our lies to ourselves kept us so fully in the dark that we did not know we were lying. We sometimes told "sincere" lies because we honestly did not distinguish the truth within ourselves. For so long we had preferred dishonest rationalizations, and we had come to believe them.

The spiritual life of this program is based upon experience. What we feel, what we see and hear, is what we know. When we simplify our lives and base the truth upon our experiences, we slowly cleanse ourselves of the lies we told ourselves. With this kind of honesty comes an inner peace with ourselves in which we can say, "I know myself."

Today, I will accept my experience as a simple message of truth.

You are reading from the book:

Touchstones by Anonymous