Today is August 10, 2006 A Great Day for Recovery!
FAITH
"Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense and understanding." -- Martin Luther
An obstacle to my understanding the spiritual life was my intellectualization; my head was forever getting in the way of my heart. It was much easier to me to think rather than to feel; my faith was smothered by logic. My manipulating and controlling mind was stopping me experiencing the adventure of faith.
The poet in me grew as I began to trust others. God became alive in my confusion. The answer was in not having to have the answers. Today spirituality involves all the varied confusions and paradoxes of life that I have discovered in me and in others --- and it's okay.
Today the love I give and receive is beyond my wildest dreams, and I smile at the joy of my confusion.
May my head unite with my heart in the daily maze of life.
REDOUBLING OUR EFFORTS
To a degree, he has already done this when taking moral inventory, but now the time has come when he ought to redouble his efforts to see how many people he had hurt, and in what ways. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS , p. 77
As I continue to grow in sobriety, I become more aware of myself as a person of worth. In the process, I am better able to see others as persons, and with this comes the realization that these were people whom I had hurt in my drinking days. I didn't just lie, I lied about Tom. I didn't just cheat, I cheated Joe. What were seemingly impersonal acts, were really personal affronts, because it was people - people of worth - whom I had harmed. I need to do something about the people I have hurt so that I may enjoy a peaceful sobriety.
__________________
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.
As I journey through recovery, more and more I learn that accepting myself and my idiosyncrasies - laughing at myself for my ways - gets me a lot further than picking on myself and trying to make myself perfect. Maybe that's really what it's all about - absolute loving, joyous, nurturing self-acceptance. --Anonymous
Stop expecting perfection from yourself and those around you.
We do a terrible, annoying thing to others and ourselves when we expect perfection. We set up a situation where others, including ourselves, do not feel comfortable with us. Sometimes, expecting perfection makes people so uptight that they and we make more mistakes than normal because we are so nervous and focused on mistakes.
That does not mean we allow inappropriate behaviors with the excuse "nobody's perfect." That doesn't mean we don't have boundaries and reasonable expectations of people and ourselves.
But our expectations need to be reasonable. Expecting perfection is not reasonable.
People make mistakes. The less anxious, intimidated, and repressed they are by expectations of being perfect, the better they will do.
Striving for excellence, purity in creativity, a harmonious performance, and the best we have to offer does not happen in the stymied, negative, fear-producing atmosphere of expecting perfection.
Have and set boundaries. Have reasonable expectations. Strive to do your best. Encourage others to do the same. But know that others and we will make mistakes. Know that others and we will have learning experiences, things we go through.
Sometimes, the flaws and imperfections in ourselves determine our uniqueness, the way they do in a piece of art. Relish them. Laugh at them. Embrace them, and ourselves.
Encourage others and ourselves to do the best we can. Love and nurture others and ourselves for being who we are. Then realize we are not merely human - we were intended and created to be human.
Today, God, help me let go of my need to be perfect and to unreasonably insist that others are perfect. I will not use this to tolerate abuse or mistreatment, but to achieve appropriate, balanced expectations. I am creating a healthy atmosphere of love, acceptance, and nurturing around and within me. I trust that this attitude will bring out the best in other people and in me.
__________________
"LOVE" devoid of self-gratification, is in essence, the will, to the greatest good...of another.
That second passage helped me realize something about my amends. I did the vast majority of my main 9th step amands. And try to do the ones that each new day calls for. But there are 2 that I do not have the resiources to make right now. One of them is a 'who knows where this person is' type thing. The other is something that my sponsor has advised me would harm the person, and not to do it just to 'clear my own conscience'.
So I pray for these 2, from time to time, for God's Will for them, and also for them to have all the wondrous things in life that I would wish for myself.
