[bluidkiti]

June 15

You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
Bad moments, like good ones, tend to be grouped together. --Edna O'Brien
Once in a while, we have days when we think the whole world is against us. A parent has reprimanded us, a brother broke our new game, or the teacher at school disciplined the whole class. We sometimes let our thoughts center on a cluster of bad moments and forget the good moments of the day.
We shouldn't forget about the two ducks we fed part of our sandwich to, the friend who made us laugh, or the gym teacher who praised the whole class. Deciding to think about these good moments can allow our spirits to rise and make the bad moments fade away.
After all, if life were all good moments, we would take them for granted. Let us accept the bad ones gratefully, then, as opportunities to appreciate the good.
What good moments can I remember right now?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
A father is a thousand schoolmasters. --Louis Nizer
We carry our fathers within us in ways we may not notice. When we do notice this in our thoughts and actions, we can use this relationship as a source of strength. When we hear a critical mental message saying we didn't perform well enough, is it a father's voice? When we feel a sense of strength and peace, are we in touch with our childhood knowledge of fatherly love? When we doubt our ability to get along with any woman, are we relying on what we learned in our childhood homes?
Perhaps we can recast our father-son relationship in adult terms. Were our fathers too removed from our lives for us to know them? Maybe we can see now that a father's love was there but was overshadowed by the demands of survival or by a misguided life. If we are forever seeking our fathers' approval, we may need to find the ways in which they are truly human and imperfect like us. Making peace with them - whether face to face or in the memory of a relationship - empowers us with their strengths and grants us the adulthood we deserve.
I will make peace with my father in my mind, and his strength and that of his father will be a well-spring, in my life.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
For many years I was so flexible I didn't know who I was, and now that I'm discovering who I am, I think "OK, I know where I stand on that issue. Now on to the next one." But I have to remind myself that all issues are interrelated--no one is separate.
--Kathleen Casey Theisen
Today flows from yesterday, the day before, the day before that. Tomorrow repeats the pattern. What we are given on any one day will have its beginning in the past and its finale in the future. No incident is isolated entirely; no issue is self-contained.
Maturity is being able to let go of outgrown attitudes, stifling opinions, no matter how good and right they were at one time. Our egos often get too attached to some of our opinions, and new ideas can't filter in. Some will try to get our attention today. We are ready for new growth. The choice not to hamper it is ours to make.
The opinions we held certain yesterday may not be adequate to the problems of today. They need not be. They served us well. They are not for naught.
Today's issues need today's fresh responses. I will be unafraid. Today flows from yesterday, the day before, and the day before that. Tomorrow follows suit.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Competition Between Martyrs
"Yes, I know your spouse is an alcoholic, but my son is an alcoholic, and that's different. That's worse!"
My pain is greater than yours!
What an easy trap that can be for us. We are out to show others how victimized we have been, how much we hurt, how unfair life is, and what a tremendous martyr we are. And we won't be happy until we do!
We don't need to prove our pain and suffering to anyone. We know we have been in pain. We know we have suffered. Most of us have been legitimately victimized. Many of us have had difficult, painful lessons to learn.
The goal in recovery is not to show others how much we hurt or have hurt. The goal is to stop our pain, and to share that solution with others.
If someone begins trying to prove to us how much he or she hurts, we can say simply, "It sounds like you've been hurt." Maybe all that person is looking for is validation of his or her pain.
If we find ourselves trying to prove to someone how much we've been hurt or if we try to top someone else's pain, we may want to stop and figure out what's going on. Do we need to recognize how much we've hurt or are hurting?
There is no particular award or reward for suffering, as many of us tricked ourselves into believing in the height of our codependency. The reward is learning to stop the pain and move into joy, peace, and fulfillment.
That is the gift of recovery, and it is equally available to each of us, even if our pain was greater, or less, than someone else's.
God, help me be grateful for all my lessons, even the ones that caused me the most pain and suffering. Help me learn what I need to learn, so I can stop the pain in my life. Help me focus on the goal of recovery, rather than the pain that motivated me into it.


It is exciting to know I am in charge of my life today. God gives me all the faith and courage I need to be present and aware in each moment and the wisdom to see what needs to be done. --Ruth Fishel

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Journey To The Heart

It’s Okay to Not Know

Sometimes we don’t know what we want, what’s next, or what we think our lives will look like down the road. That’s okay. If the answer is I don’t know, then say it. Say it clearly. And be at peace with not knowing.

Sometimes the reason we don’t know is that what’s coming is going to be very different from anything we’ve experienced before. Even if we knew, we couldn’t relax to it because it’s that new and that different. It’s a surprise.

Sometimes the reason we don’t know is that it would be too difficult, too confusing for us right now. It would take us out of the present moment, cause us to worry and fuss about how we could control it or what we have to do to make it happen. Knowing would make us afraid. Put us on overload. Take us away from now.

Sometimes our souls know, but it’s just not time for our conscious minds to know yet. Sometimes knowing would take us out of the very experience we need to go through to discover the answer we’re looking for. And sometimes the process of learning to trust, the process of going through an experience and coming to trust that we will ultimately discover our own truth, is more important than knowing.

The process of moving from what we don’t know to what we are to learn is a process that can be trusted. It’s how we grow and change. It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to let ourselves move into knowing. The lesson is trusting that we’ll know when it’s time.

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More Language Of Letting Go

Live in harmony

When I began practicing aikido– a martial art based on nonresistance and harmony– I discovered how much resistance I still had. The more I tried to relax and practice, the more resistance I experienced. I lived, moved, breathed, worked, lived, and loved from a place that was not relaxed.

My immediate reaction to any feeling I had was, “Oh no. I can’t feel that.”

My first reaction to any problem that arose was, “No, this can’t be taking place.”

If someone disagreed with me, I responded with an attack or by trying to force my will.

And if I had a task to do, I prepared myself by getting tense and afraid.

One of the biggest challenges and biggest rewards we can discover in our lives is to live in harmony with ourselves and the people in our world. We do this by learning to tell oursleves, “Just relax.”

From that relaxed place, which some call surrender, we’ll tap into our true power. We’ll know how to deal with our feelings. We’ll be guided into what to do next.

God, show me the areas of my life where I’m in resistance. Help me let go and learn to consciously relax as I go through my life.

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Day By Day

Being different

Some of us feel so different that we think no person or group could help us or even understand us. We feel alone and isolated. Whatever these differences are they can be lessened by concentrating on the purpose common to us all: we are learning to live a life free of alcohol or other drugs by connecting with a power greater than ourselves.

Our Higher Power does not want us to be alone. It would help if we would accept that we are all more alike than defferent. It would help if we could recognize the love that is available to us in our brothers and sisters. Are we looking for what we have in common, or are we looking for ways to be alone and different?

Do I realize that our common purpose can outweigh all differences?

Higher Power help me feel connected by looking for what I share with my fellow members.

Today I will overlook all differences or look for what we share in…

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In God’s Care

There is nothing the body suffers the soul may not profit by.
~~George Meredith

Adversity comes in many forms, and it is sure to come to everyone. This might seem unfair to those of us who are recovering and trying to live our faith. But it helps us to know there is some benefit in everything we experience.

God’s help is always available to us, but sometimes it seems we seek God’s help only when we are in physical or emotional pain. When we were in the grips of our addictions, we thought nothing good could come from the suffering. Yet, it is common to hear our friends in the program say how grateful they are for the experience because it brought them to where they are now. God always shows us the way out of adversity and makes it an occasion for growth – if we are willing to listen to God.

Adversity that comes my way can be an opportunity to learn.

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Giving Away Power
Repressing the Inner Voice

by Madisyn Taylor

We can avoid giving away our power on a daily basis by listening to our own voice of knowing.


In many ways, we are taught from the time we are children to give away our power to others. When we were told to kiss and hug relatives or friends of the family when we didn’t want to, for example, we were learning to override our inner sense of knowing and our right to determine for ourselves what we want to do. This repression continued, most likely, in many experiences at school and in situations at work. At this point, we may not even know how to hold on to our power, because giving it away is so automatic and ingrained.

To some degree, giving our energy to other people is simply part of the social contract, and we feel that we have to do it in order to survive. It is possible to exchange energy in a way that preserves our inner integrity and stability. This begins in a small way: by listening to the voice that continues to let us know what we want, no matter how many times we override its messages.

Other examples of how we give away our power are buying into trends, letting other people always make decisions for us, not voting, and not voicing an opinion when an inappropriate joke is made. But with not giving our power away we must also be aware of the opposite side, which is standing in our power but being aggressive. Being aggressive is a form of fear, and the remedy is to let our inner balance come back into play.
As we build a relationship with our power, and follow it, we begin to see that we don’t always have to do what we’re being asked to do by others, and we don’t have to jump on every trend. All we have to do is have the confidence to listen to our own voice and let it guide us as we make our own decisions in life and remember the necessity for balance. Published with permission from Daily OM

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

Learning how to live in peace, partnership and brotherhood — with all men and women — is a fascinating and often very moving adventure. But each of us in The Program has found that we’re not able to make much headway in our new adventure of living until we first take the time to make an accurate and unsparing survey of the human wreckage we’ve left in our wake. Have I made a list of all persons I have harmed, as Step Eight suggests, and become willing to make amends to them all?

Today I Pray

May God give me the honesty I need, not only to look inside myself and discover what is really there, but to see the ways that my sick and irresponsible behavior has affected those around me. May I understand that my addiction is not — as I used to think — a loner’s disease, that, no matter how alone I felt, my lies and fabrications spread our around me in widening circles of hurt.

Today I Will Remember

Lies spread to infinity.

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One More Day

Not the power to remember, but the power to forget is a necessary condition for our existence.
– Sholem Asch

To live happily in a relationship we can not repeatedly dredge up the past, using it as a brickbat to pound another human being into submission. Yet we all have a tendency to do just that. “I told you so,” and “You should have listened when I gave you advice,” and “You were wrong” are phrases we may catch ourselves uttering.

We can learn to give up that final piece of control, that part which attempts to manipulate another human being with guilt. We can’t change another human being. Our willingness to forgive errors, large and small, will mark our own personal growth. Forgiveness is in our own self-interest; we aren’t free until we forgive.

Today, I will let go of one grudge. As I grow in understanding, I will grow in forgiveness.