The Right Path

Today's Thought

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

A.A. Thought for the Day

We come now to A.A. fellowship. It is partly group therapy. It is partly spiritual fellowship. But it is even more. It is based on a common illness, a common failure, a common problem. It goes deep down into our personal lives and our personal needs. It requires a full opening up to each other of our inmost thoughts and most secret problems. All barriers between us are swept aside. They have to be. Then we try to help each other get well. The A.A. fellowship is based on a sincere desire to help each other get well. The A.A. fellowship is based on a sincere desire to help the other person. In A.A. we can be sure of sympathy, understanding and real help. These things make the A.A. fellowship the best that we know. Do I fully appreciate the depth of the A.A. fellowship?

Meditation for the Day

The Higher Power can guide us to the right decisions if we pray about them. We can believe that many details of our lives are planned by God and planned with a wealth of forgiving love for the mistakes we have made. We can pray today to be shown the right way. We can choose the good, and when we choose it, we can feel that the whole power of the universe is behind us. We can achieve a real harmony with God's purpose for our lives.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may choose aright today. I pray that I may be shown the right way to live today.

I am experiencing growing pains right now. Lots of change is happening, more is being revealed, and the pains of moving toward healing are with me. It is difficult to see the path right now. I am relying on prayer and the guidance of a Higher Power and my fellowship right now. I have that knot in my stomach and that feeling that I want to run. They are not overwhelming me however. I have a sense of calm despite all that. I have a feeling this time that hasn't been there much in the past. That feeling is a sense of strength, of knowing that it will be okay and the path will appear eventually.....in the meantime I will have plenty of help along the way. It is strange to be here, as it is very unfamiliar, yet it is a relief to be able to make a choice to rely on my faith instead of letting fear be my guide.

Higher Power

Beneath all the ceremony, and all of the knowledge I gained from books, there was a frightened, wounded little girl. She was in total control of my life, and I had yet to find my adult identity. I didn't have a clue about what to do next.

Yes, I prayed, but I was really begging God to help me. I was not communing with the Higher Power within me. I was asking a big God out there to save me from myself, like he had saved me from my Grandma. God cannot help you unless you are very clear about what it is that you want. God will not help you if you don't believe you are worthy of help. Yes, I was meditating. But when you live in fear meditaating becomes an opportunity for your mind to play tricks on you. You get momnentarty glimpse of what you could be. However, since you don't believe in yourself because you don't understand your own power, you dismiss the insights you gain through meditation. Before that I was meditaing about my problems rather than medidtating on the solution. One day I was staring out the window when I heard a voice, "What do you want?"

"You've got to take the good times and the bad times. You've got to be willing to do it for free. If you have the desire and the skill, you will never allow yourself to believe in failure, you're gonna make it." I knew that my message was from God, I didn't know what to do about it, but I knew it was for me.

Taken from "Yesterday, I Cried" by Iyanla Vanzant.

This reading was a loud voice in my head. It wasn't until I was clear about what it was that I wanted that this whole God thing started to work for me. I had been through the gammet of addictive substances and life styles trying to fill this hole inside of me, to make myself feel better. I spent a lifetime trying to change and make myself into a better person with things amd people. When I came to the realization that I am already whole and complete, exactly as God wants me to be, lacking nothing and needing no one other than my God did that hole begin to fill. As it did, I became clear about what I wanted. I wanted to be free, joyous, serene. Before me lay a spiritual pathway and all I need to do was grab on to the hand out stretched to me and begin on that pathway and I would be free, joyous and serene. Along the way I have strayed from that one thing I wanted and have suffered pain, setbacks and losses. So long as I allow them to remind me of the next right thing to get back on that path all is well. I had to accept myself for who I am and believe that I was good. I had to quit trying to be something I'm not....most of all a God myself. When I rememer that goods things come my way. So long as I remember I am not God I will be given the tools and te right people to make it through anything that comes my way.....good, bad or otherwise. I'm reminded tonight of a song I just love..."What if God was one of us...." I have found that my Higher Power really does come to me through other people....and if I am openminded and willing to listen he will answer my every question.

Property

Today's thought is:

Property Lines

A helpful tool in our recovery, especially in the behavior we call detachment, is learning to identify who owns what. Then we let each person own and possess his or her rightful property.

If another person has an addiction, a problem, a feeling, or a self-defeating behavior, that is their property, not ours. If someone is a martyr, immersed in negativity, controlling, or manipulative, that is their issue, not ours.

If someone has acted and experienced a particular consequence, both the behavior and the consequence belong to that person.

People's lies, deceptions, tricks, manipulations, abusive behaviors, inappropriate behaviors, cheating behaviors, and tacky behaviors belong to them, too. Not us.

People's hope and dreams are their property. Their guilt belong to them too. Their happiness or misery is also theirs. So are their beliefs and messages.

If some people don't like themselves, that is their choice. Their choices are their property, not ours. What people choose to say and do is their business.

What is our property? Our property includes our behaviors, problems, feelings, happiness, misery, choices, and messages; our ability to love, care, and nurture; our thoughts, our denial, our hopes and dreams for ourselves. Whether we allow ourselves to be controlled, manipulated, deceived, or mistreated is our business.

In recovery, we learn an appropriate sense of ownership. If something isn't ours, we don't take it. If we take it, we learn to give it back. Let other people have their property, and learn to own and take good care of what's ours.

Today, I will work at developing a clear sense of what belongs to me, and what doesn't. If it's not mine, I won't keep it. I will deal with myself, my issues, and my responsibilities.

You are reading from the book:

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

A friend sent this to me and it was perfect for me. I need to really look at a certain relationship in my life. The property lines have become very blurred. I am owning things that don't belong to me, as the other party involved is doing the same thing. I have allowed myself to be controlled, manipulated, deceived and mistreated. Rather than learning an appropriate sense of ownership and not taking that which doesn't belong to me, I have done the very same things in return to make myself feel better. It is time to be responsible and give back that which is not mine, as well as, make sure my behaviors are in line with God's will for me.

PS Happy Birthday Mable!

Transformation

Asking to be forgiven for our past is a good way to begin the process of transformation. We have already taken the first steps by becoming aware of the harm we have done, accepting responsibilty for our actions, and then becoming intimate with the dark side of our nature that causes harm. We have even felt remorse and made amends. That may take care of the past, but now it's time to look to the present and future. Unfortunately just because we regret something hurtful that we've done doesn't mean that we'll never repeat the action.

Taken from Heart of Forgiveness by Madeline Ko-I Bastis