QUESTION???

[MajestyJo]

Have you had a spiritual awakening?

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

In Al-Anon, we strive for an ever-deeper understanding of these Steps, and pray for the wisdom to apply them to our lives.

Have had many spiritual experiences. The first was before coming into the rooms of recovery when I walked down the hall at the YWCA and knew the girl was talking about me when she said, "I don't want to be liker HER down the hall." I asked myself, "Am I really that bad? The answer was, "Yes, I am, and picked up the phone and asked for help from the Social Worker at the Y.

Many more have followed but that was the one that got me on the road to recovery. I have felt the Hand of my God touch me many times. There has been so much healing and so much awareness, that I never cease to thank Him for His Grace and the many miracles He has chosen to give me. I can only express my gratitude by sharing with others what has been so freely given to me.

written in 2009

[MajestyJo]

One of the big spiritual awakening for me was sitting at a meeting and sharing on Step Two. When I came into recovery, I was sure I knew who God was, I had been raised with Him all my life, after all I taught Sunday School (I was 16). I came into recovery at the age of 49 and here I am at the age of 74. I realized that I didn't know who God was and proceeded on a Spiritual Quest, which I still do today. I also realized that I had been totally insane, and one day at a time, God and I are still working on that one.

[MajestyJo]

Keep It Simple
September 9

One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears—by listening to them.
—Dean Rusk

We hate being told what to think. We like to make up our own minds. It helps to talk things out with another person who, listens to us. Someone who care what we think.

We can give this respect to others. We can listen their point of view. We can try to understand them and care about what they think.

When we do this, others start to care what we think too. We share ideas. The ideas get a little more clear. They change a little. We get a little closer to agreement. We both feel good.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me know when to listen and when to talk today. Work for me and though me. Thanks.

Action for the Day: Today, I’ll look for chances to listen to others when I really want to talk. I’ll say, “Tell me more about that.” And I’ll listen.

Some may not think so, but there has been an odd occasion when I have gone to a meeting and said, "I will pass today, I am hear to listen." Not many times, because I feel that my primary purpose is to carry the message of recovery. It is important for me to share what worked for me. When I share, the words take order and as I vocalize them, I can see where I am at, or if I am off the wall. I appear to find myself there more often then I like, so I am grateful that I only have to deal with one days feelings, situations, experiences, challenges, and perceptions.

Do you listen when others are sharing or are you busy in your own head trying to figure out what you are going to say when it is your turn, instead of being in the moment and sharing what your God wants you to hear?

[MajestyJo]

[MajestyJo]

DAILY OM

Stronger For It
Mending A Broken Heart

Heartbreak happens to all of us and can wash over us like a heavy rain. When experiencing a broken heart, our ethereal selves are saturated with grief, and the overflow is channeled into the physical body. Loss becomes a physical emptiness, and longing is transmuted into a feeling that often cannot be put into words. Mending a broken heart can seem a task so monumental that we dare not attempt it for fear of damaging ourselves further. But heartbreak, like all emotions, falls under the spell of our conscious influence.

Often the pain that wounds us most deeply also leaves the most enduring mark upon us. The shock that becomes the tender, throbbing ache of the heart eventually leads us down the path of enlightenment, blessing our lives with a new depth and richness.

Acknowledging heartbreak's impermanence by no means dulls its sting for it is the sting itself that stimulates healing. The pain is letting us know that we need to pay attention to our emotional selves, to sit with our feelings and be in them fully before we can begin to heal. It is said that time heals all wounds. Time may dull the pain of a broken heart, but it is fully feeling your pain and acknowledging it that will truly help you heal. Dealing with your heartache in a healthy way rather than putting it off for tomorrow is the key to repair. Gentleness more than anything else is called for. Most important, open yourself to the possibility of loving, trusting, and believing again. When, someday soon, you emerge from the cushion of your grief, you will see that the universe did not cease to be as you nursed your broken heart. You emerge on the other side of the mending, stronger for all you have experienced.

What do you think?

Trust was a big issue for me. I had been hurt so many times by so many people, it was hard to open up and share with others. I had shut down and shut off for so long that it was difficult to recognize my feelings for what they were and identify them correctly. Break ups in today triggered those in the past that I had never grieved over.

The 12 Steps are applicable to all areas of my life. Relationships are just as much of an addiction as alcoholism. When you feel like you can't do without one, you go looking for more! We get into another relationship without properly grieving the last one. We take the sins of the first one into the second one, and heaven help the guy/gal who is #3.

[MajestyJo]

MountainWings A MountainWings Moment
#4260 Wings Over The Mountains of Life

If You Could Kick...
===========

If you could kick the posterior of the person who has hurt you the most,

...you wouldn’t be able to sit down for six weeks.

~John Hagee~

For so many years I beat myself up. I was my own worst enemy. It took a long time to get self-honesty and to stop pointing my finger at others and look at myself. Then I beat myself up even more. I had to learn to forgive myself as well as others in order to heal.

So true have been my own worst enemy for years. Was talking in laundry yesterday to a church lady and said to her, "So often I have to get out of the way so my God can work through me, instead of around me or over me."

[MajestyJo]

This was posted on another site.

Tools I used in addition to yours was the phone. It was important to pick it up in good times and bad times to get in the practice of getting out of myself and asking for help.

The literature was a God given gift. Not just the Big Book and 12 & 12, but the daily meditation books. I like the ones with all the emotions listed at the back so I could look up all the reading pertaining to a feeling. It was hard for me to label them and give them a name because I had stuffed for so many years. I often just picked up a book (AA, NA, Al-Anon, Hazelden, the Bible, etc. said the Serenity Prayer, and then just opened the book and read what was in front of me. It works.

I always liked the saying, "God answers knee-mail." In today, I use that for heavy duty stuff because I don't do getting down on the knees very well. Before it was lack of surrender, in today it is old age.

There were many gifts along with the detachment. Setting boundaries, the ability to be honest, the principles behind the Steps and the Traditions.

The holidays are a good time to make sure my toolbox is full and up-to-date.

[MajestyJo]

My tool box in today, is trying to remember the lessons learned along the way on my recovery journey. The words of wisdom that I have heard from others and the food to fill my spirit that I find in the literature.

We can do what I can't do alone. If I am just listening to the sound of my own voice, then I am probably doing something wrong.

[MajestyJo]

What Step has been the most important tool in your recovery?

I am still of the mind, it is the Step 1, 2, 3 Waltz, I can't, my God can, just for today, I choose to let Him.

Steps 10, 11, and 12 are maintenance Steps. I need that daily inventory, I need that contact with my Higher Power, and I need to get involved in service, if I don't give it away, I don't get to keep my recovery. I need that spiritual defense against that first drink/drug.

[MajestyJo]

Expectations of Others

It is our job to identify our needs, and then determine a balanced way of getting those needs met. We ultimately expect our Higher Power and the Universe - not one particular person - to be our source.

It is unreasonable to expect anyone to be able or willing to meet our every request. We are responsible for asking for what we want and need. It's the other person's responsibility to freely choose whether or not to respond to our request. If we try to coerce or force another to be there for us, that's controlling.

There's a difference between asking and demanding. We want love that is freely given.

It is unreasonable and unhealthy to expect one person to be the source for meeting all our needs. Ultimately, we will become angry and resentful, maybe even punishing, toward that person for not supporting us as we expected.

It is reasonable to have certain and well defined expectations of our spouse, children, and friends.

If a person cannot or will not be there for us, then we need to take responsibility for ourselves in that relationship. We may need to set a boundary, alter our expectations, or change the limits of the relationship to accommodate that person's unavailability. We do this for ourselves.

It is reasonable to sprinkle our wants and needs around and to be realistic about how much we ask or expect of any particular person. We can trust ourselves to know what's reasonable.

The issue of expectations goes back to knowing that we are responsible for identifying our needs, believing they deserve to get met, and discover an appropriate, satisfactory way to do that in our life.

Today, I will strive for reasonable expectations about getting my needs met in relationships.

Do I project expectations on to others who are not capable of meeting them?

[MajestyJo]

"The voice of our original self is often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people’s expectations."

-- Julie Cameron

Many of us unconsciously believe that we’re unworthy or defective. We adopted this belief very early in our lives when the people we looked up to disapproved of our demands, wishes and behaviours. We concluded that we had to learn to be good.

Unfortunately, ‘being good’ usually meant giving up our own differences or uniqueness. We learned that we might get the love we wanted if we acted and felt like others wanted us to.

If we seek true joy and connection with life, we now need to remove these artificial masks and express our deep authentic nature.

Higher Awareness

This quote was so me growing up, all those old tapes playing in my head. I was a 'bad' girl because I didn't conform to the norm. I didn't feel and think or act the way I was told a good little girl, mother, daughter, wife, friend, etc. should be.

It was seeing as myself as different so therefore, I was wrong, I was nothing and I was a bad girl because I could never meet the expectations of others or my own because I had placed the bar so high.

The role playing had to stop, the masks had to come off and the wall had to come down. I had to allow myself to be vulnerable and learn to trust the process and know that my Higher God had my Higher Good in mind and would lead and direct each day to a better way of life.

I learned to lower the bar, not take on the expectations of others, and learn to find my own truth and what was right for me.

[MajestyJo]

As it says in the Big Book, the higher my acceptance, the lower my expectations. It is hard to accept what you don't know. I accept that I don't know and that I shouldn't speculate and draw negative energy to me. Just be in the moment, accept what is, and life moves on.

I know I don't have to like it in order to accept it. It is just hard to decide my feelings when they are shadowed by what I would call doubt. Not in God, perhaps in myself, wondering if I have the courage and strength to go through what ever is ahead. I have had prayer from a lot of people, I would like to think that whatever happens, it will be alright, whatever way it turns out. When I do my meditation, I have asked what I needed, and I keep getting the word "courage" and for that I know the strength comes from my God and the people in my life.

a few seconds ago QuoteEditlikePost Options Post by majestyjo on a few seconds ago
So many times I project expectations onto other and I measure it with my own yard stick. So often they are not capable of meeting them, and they feel like I am putting them down and calling them stupid.

When I put expectations on myself and I can't meet them, I feel stupid and less than for not measuring up.

All we are asked to do is try.

[MajestyJo]

Shared with a Dart's driver today about having a resentment against someone in Al-Anon who told me that I was responsible for my own happiness. It did not go over well, even though I was in recovery. A sure sign that I had a lot of issues to deal with.

Letting go of resentments, anger, and sadness is all part of the grief process we go through.

[MajestyJo]

Being in Control

Don’t you just love being in control? But don't you find that the more you try to control everything, the more stressed and out of control you feel?

How about, trying to curb the urge to control? Do as much as you can to make things happen. But know when to loosen up, let go a little and relax into the flow of life.

unknown to me
So many people are under the illusion that they can control their life and the get into the if only, if they, if he, etc.

I hear people in recovery say they can only control themselves. Powerless over alcohol means I can't control it. Alcohol and drugs are but a symptom of my dis-ease, the problem is me. When I try to control others, I have to realize that I don't have the power. When I want control of myself, I have to surrender to the program, turn things over to my Higher Power, and in doing so, I am empowered to do what I need to do for myself in today.

When I think I am in control, that is when I know I need to let go and let my God.

[MajestyJo]

Do you do change well?

Ironically, since my two falls, I have had a lot more pain to deal with. My biggest change is not being able to do what I use to do, in the way I would like to do it.

I wasn't able to go to see my sister today. I wasn't able to make the pie I wanted to bake. I never got any laundry done this weekend as I had planned to do, with no thought of doing it tomorrow.

Sometimes, change is about changing things in the day, it doesn't have to be about things in the past. It is about doing what I need to do for myself in today.