Will Power and Choice

I attended a meeting this week and the topic was about will power and choice. It was a great meeting. Here are a few thoughts that came out of the meeting. By surrending our will power to a power greater than ourselves we get choices in return. There are several essentials to success, honesty, humility and selfless service. We must remember our powerlessness always. For me I remember my will power got me a seat at AA. The hardest thing for me to remember is that this is a life long journey that takes lots of practice. I learn a new tool and walk out the door expecting to be an expert.....kinda like someone who takes violin lessons for a week and expects orchestras to be calling by weeks end......just doesn't happen. Takes a life time to be accomplished at a skill. The biggest choice I have today is to keep life simple, to stay in the moment and to do the next right thing. If I chose to practice that everyday, life will be good. One member said they felt like life was a three step dance, that the program came to them in threes: I can't, He can, so I'll let Him; Honesty, Openmindedness, Willingness; Discover, Uncover, Recover; name it, claim it, change it; You're Eligable Too; Ass Saving Kit; Group Of Drunks; Good Orderly Direction; and finally...the Unholy Trinity: Me, Myself, and the Great I Am. I'm sure there are a ton more out there. Anyway, it was a powerful meeting for me and I hope I got a few of the highlights out there anyway.

Decisions

Today's Thought

You are reading from the book Twenty Four Hours a Day Hardcover (24 Hours).

A.A. Thought for the Day
Seventh, I can help other alcoholics. I am of some use in the world. I have a purpose in life. I am worth something at last. My life has a direction and a meaning. All that feeling of futility is gone. I can do something worthwhile. God has given me a new lease on life so that I can help other alcoholics. He has let me live through all the hazards of my alcoholic life to bring me at last to a place of real usefulness in the world. He has let me live for this. This is my opportunity and my destiny. I am worth something! Will I give as much of my life as I can to A.A.?

Meditation for the Day
All of us have our own battle to win, the battle between the material view of life and the spiritual view. Something must guide our lives. Will it be wealth, pride, selfishness, and greed or will it be faith, honesty, purity, unselfishness, love, and service? Each one has a choice. We can choose good or evil. We cannot choose both. Are we going to keep striving until we win the battle? If we win the victory, we can believe that even God in His heaven will rejoice.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may choose the good and resist the evil. I pray that I will not be a loser in the battle for righteousness.

Today. on several different occasions I was reminded about an important fact. I have choices today that I never had before. I am grateful for that fact. I often get caught up in life and forget my principals. I forget that I am not in charge anymore and that the decisions I make have to be based on a reliance on my Higher Powers will for me. That is the only way I can be assured that my decision is the right one. This reading really hit home in light of all that happened today. When I rely on my Higher Power then I am making my decision in the spiritual realm. When I forget that and let life influence my decisions I am coming from the materialistic realm. It is by maintaining a spiritual condition that I can keep the gift of sobriety I have been given, so it makes sense that my decision should be in the spiritual realm. I was reminded today that those things that I see as hurdles or obsticals my in fact be merely a lesson that my Higher Power means for me to learn from and that I am in fact suppose to go through them, not around them. Even though I struggled today and am emotionally drained I feel as though I am victorious today. I went through some tough stuff, but I learned so much about myself and the path to victory today.

Victim or Survivor?

Today's Thought

You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.

There are really only two ways to approach life--as victim or as gallant fighter--and you must decide if you want to act or react, deal your own cards or play with a stacked deck. And if you don't decide which way to play with life, it always plays with you.
--Merle Shain

Being the victim is, or was, uncomfortably familiar to many of us. Perhaps some of us are only now realizing we have choices, that we need not let life happen to us. Becoming responsible to ourselves, choosing behavior, beliefs, friends, activities, that please us, though unfamiliar at first, soon exhilarates us. The more choices we make, the more alive we feel. The more alive we feel, the healthier our choices.

Our aim is recovery. Recovering means participating fully in our lives. It means self-assessment and self-direction. It means trusting to move forward, step-by-step, choice-by-choice, knowing all the while that no thoughtful action can trouble us.

Many opportunities to make choices will present themselves today. The choices I make will satisfy me; they will move me toward my goal of recovery.

I spent a long time being a victim and being played by life. It was a place of misery and pain. The insanity continued until the pain became so great that I was faced with a choice......life or death. The victim was trapped in a fatal addiction and inorder to live I had to become a survivor. My fear was so intense that at times I felt paralyzed by it. In the end when all was said and done I had to make the choice to take that step at the edge of the cliff and have faith that one of two things would happen.......there would be ground on which to stand or I would be given wings. It was the most difficult thing I have ever done. Once I took the step things began to fall into place. I am now a survivor. It is something I must remember to do ever day for it is so easy to return to the comforts of the vicitim. However, when I remain the survivor I can be happy, joyous and free. Working through the pain leads to tremendous gain. I am so grateful to my Higher Power for the strength to survive. It was there all along, all I had to do was ask for it, and have the courage to reach out and use it. I am also grateful to the folks who patiently and kindly held my hand and showed me the way.

Stress Management

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised
a glass of water and asked,"How heavy is this glass of water? "
Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.
The lecturer replied,"The absolute weight doesn't matter.
It depends on how long you try to hold it.
"If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem.
If I hold it for an hour,
I'll have an ache in my right arm.
If I hold it for a day,
you'll have to call an ambulance."
In each case, it's the same weight,
but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.
"He continued,"And that's the way it is with stress management.
If we carry our burdens all the time,
sooner or later,
as the burden becomes increasingly heavy,
we won't be able to carry on. "
"As with the glass of water,
you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again.
When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden. "
"So, before you return home tonight,
put the burden of work down.
Don't carry it home.
You can pick it up tomorrow.
Whatever burdens you're carrying now,
let them down for a moment if you can. "
"Relax; pick them up later after you've rested.
Life is short.
Enjoy it!

And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:
* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.
* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
* Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.
* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
* Never buy a car you can't push.
* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.
* Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
* The second mouse gets the cheese.
* When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
* You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
* A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

This was passed on by a friend today. It is so true. So often I hang onto the stress until I'm exhausted and I can't see straight. I'm gonna try setting it down for a while and see what happens.

Transforming Negative Energy

First we acknowledge that we harbor negative feelings. Instead of ignoring them, we become willing to take them into our inner being and accept them....

we call up our courage to respond in a different manner. We put the focus on ourselves and our feelings instead of the outside forces that have hurt us. We are creating a buffer zone that keeps us from acting out in a damaging way to the perpetrator, or retreating into fantasies and revenge.

The writer Malachy McCourt said, "Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die."

We take responsibility for handling our feelings and move on to the next step of transforming the energy We have been harmed once by the harm-doer;

We don't have to victimize ourselves by being held in thrall to our emotions.

When we have been the victims of harm, we isolate ourselves. We tend to curl up into a little ball of self-pity and separate ourselves from others.......there are many people who suffer as we suffer. We reach out to take them and to take in their feelings and send out healing to them. We reunite with the human race.

We are not depleting our energy, because it returns to us a hundred-fold.

Transforming the negative energy within ourselves paves the way to forgive the victimizer.

Taken from Heart of Forgiveness by Madeline Ko-I Bastis

This hit me very powerfully, especially since this past week has been a lesson in holding on to negative energy until it harmed me and those around me that I love the most. Just ackowledging my feelings is a huge step for me. I am spending time now just sitting with my feelings and ackowledging that they exist. I am slowly feeling so much better since I have made the choice to leave my place of isolation and join the human race.

Surrender

Today I will not manage or direct other people's lives, nor will I expect any other human being to fill my inner emptiness. I have the dignity, resources, and responsibility to fulfill my own life just as others have theirs. I will find my own sources of comfort, joy, and peace no matter what others do with their lives and free choices. by Liane Cordes

Honesty

Tributaries of Truth

This journey in this life, the way we all go, There's a predestined pattern, a definite flow. The truth is within us, provides us the boat. Variable individuals, determining our float. We sink or we swim, determined in our choices. Choice is the keyword, not forgetting inner voices. We tread and we dread, our futures with short view, Appropriate measures, truth, honesty in choose. Esteem is an issue for those who think grand. Esteem is an issue, for non-takers of stand. The float we maintain through these tributaries of life, The truth, no matter choices, will surface, end strife. However, life's journey, our view from above, Determined, predestination, our integrity and love.

by Therese Garcia


Quintessential Love

When there is honesty...When there is understanding...The willingness to sacrifice...When one does not take advantage of the goodnessof the other...In the absence of hate... vengeance... outrage...When there is compassion...When loyalty is free from betrayal...When love trancends material things...Then your love is pure...It is a Quintessential Love! ! !

by Roland B. Beltran

When I came to this program I asked how I was to work this program. I was told Honesty, Openmindedness and Willingness. Today I'm learning that my progress on the the road of happy detiny is directly proportionate to level of Honesty, Openmindedness, and Willingness I put into each and every action I take.