Change

How many of us would presume to declare, "Well, I'm sober, and I'm happy. What more can I want, or do? I'm fine the way I am."
 

  We know that the price of such self-satisfaction is an inevitable backslide, punctuated at some point by a very rude awakening. We have to grow or else deteriorate.
 

For us, the status quo can only be for today, never for tomorrow. Change we must; we cannot stand still.

 

Bill W., April 1961c. 1967 AAWS, As Bill Sees It, p. 25

Thought to Consider

Backsliding begins when knee-bending stops

C H A N G E

Can Helping Attract New Gifts and Energy?

The Power of Love

Love is the best motivation. When we are plugged in to our Higher Power, we are plugged in to love. It flows through us like a current, energizing our sluggish hearts and minds.
As we work the Steps of this program, we are given increased ability to love. By turning over our lives and our wills, we become receptive to the love which surrounds and sustains us. By taking inventory and being ready to have our character defects removed, we are able to get rid of old ways of thinking and acting which have been blocking out love.

Relationships

Our relationships are alive. We don't control them and neither do the other people involved. We certainly influence our relationships - and if we are aware, we see they also have their own yeast. Whether we are talking of a love relationship with our spouse, lover, children, friends, or parents, it is a very fluid and dynamic affair. If we are actively involved with the other person and give time and nourishment to the relationship, it will grow. But if we are passive and only waiting, the relationship will grow stale.

I will let myself be human today

Requesting help. Admitting we are wrong. Owning our mistake in either a big or small matter. Asking for another chance or someone's love. All very difficult to do, and yet necessary if we are to grow. The difficulty is our pride, the big ego. We think, "We need to always be right. If we're wrong, then others may think less of us, look down on us, and question our worth." Perfectionism versus worthlessness.

If we are not perfect (and of course we never are), then we must be worthless. In between these two points on the scale is "being human." Our emotional growth, as women (men), is equal to how readily we accept our humanness, how able we are to be wrong.

Not alone

How many of us gave ourselves away trying to fix painful childhood longings? We thought if we were good boys, good men, caretakers, we would have the love we wanted. Sadly, our remedies for childhood pain have often been childish solutions. Our need for security may have become a self-centered obsession and blocked our ability to hear our loved ones. We may have become so fervent about accepting others that we failed to stand up for ourselves and lost their respect.

Most of us reach adulthood with leftover pain no person could ever fix. We learn grown up responses by accepting our load of pain and by asking others for help. Intimacy and companionship reduce the weight. We tell our friends about our burdens, and we learn what they are carrying. In the process we grow in wisdom and maturity.

Today. I will remember I do not have to be alone with my pain

.From Touchstone

The Evolving Relationship

Once when climbing rocks with friends, a woman reached a place she decided was impossible to move beyond. She wanted to retreat, but her belayer encouraged her to try again. She felt angry and scared, and she was stuck. She fought with the rock, but it was clear that the rock was never going to change. Wanting the rock to be different, to grow new footholds or handholds was futile.
After she vented her feelings, she realized there were only two ways out of her predicament. One way was to quit, and the other was to try again, perhaps with a different mind-set than she had before.

Live and Let Live

Thought for the Day

Another of the mottoes of A.A. is "Live and Let Live." This, of course, means tolerance of people who think differently than we do, whether they are in A.A. or outside of A.A. We cannot afford the luxury of being intolerant or critical of other people. We do not try to impose our wills on those who differ from us. We are not "holier than thou." We do not have all the answers. We are not better than other good people. We live the best way we can and we allow others to do likewise. Am I willing to live and let live?

Meditation for the Day

Growing Up

"As we grow spiritually, we find that our old attitudes toward our instincts need to undergo drastic revisions. Our desires for emotional security and wealth, for personal prestige and power, for romance, and for family satisfactions - all these have to be tempered and redirected. We have learned that the satisfaction of instincts cannot be the sole end and aim of our lives. If we place instincts first, we have got the cart before the horse; we shall be pulled backward into disillusionment. But when we are willing to place spiritual growth first - then and only then do we have a real chance."
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 114,
Copyright 1952 A.A.W.S. Inc.

Thought to Consider . . .
The program has helped me grow up enough to be a kid again.

AACRONYMS

C H A N G E
Choosing Honesty Allows New Growth Every day

The Power of Love

Love is the best motivation. When we are plugged in to our Higher Power, we are plugged in to love. It flows through us like a current, energizing our sluggish hearts and minds.

As we work the Steps of this program, we are given increased ability to love. By turning over our lives and our wills, we become receptive to the love which surrounds and sustains us. By taking inventory and being ready to have our character defects removed, we are able to get rid of old ways of thinking and acting which have been blocking out love.

We cannot produce love for others by ourselves, but we can receive it from our Higher Power. We can even receive love for people we don't particularly like.


Love gives energy for action and directs its course. May I grow in love.

You are reading from the book:

Food for Thought by Elisabeth L.

Honesty

The primary requirement for our recovery is honesty. In order to grow in honesty we first needed to see how we had lied to others and to ourselves. This was not as easy as it first appeared. Our lies to ourselves kept us so fully in the dark that we did not know we were lying. We sometimes told "sincere" lies because we honestly did not distinguish the truth within ourselves. For so long we had preferred dishonest rationalizations, and we had come to believe them.

Clarity

When we are in the midst of an experience, it is easy to forget that there is a Plan. Sometimes, all we can see is today.

If we were to watch a weaver sewing a tapestry for only a few moments, and focused on only a small piece of the work, it would not look beautiful. It would look like a few peculiar threads randomly placed. How often we use that same, limited perspective to look at our life - especially when we are going through a difficult time.

We can learn to have perspective when we are going through those confusing, difficult learning times.

Friends

Don't overlook the value of friendship. Don't neglect friends

Friends are a joy. Adult friendships can be a good place for us to learn to have fun and to appreciate how much fun we can have with a friend.

Friends can be a comfort. Who knows us better, or is more able to give us support, than a good friend? A friendship is a comfortable place to be ourselves. Often, our choice of friends will reflect the issue we're working on. Giving and receiving support will help both people grow.

Some friendships wax and wane, going through cycles throughout the years. Some trail off when one person outgrows the other.

Letting Go of Perfection

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.

We matter in this life

We need to know that we matter in this life. We need evidence that others are aware of our presence. And thus, we can be certain that others need the same attention from us. When we give it, we get it. So the giving of attention to another searching soul meets our own need for attention as well.

Respectful recognition of another's presence blesses her, God, and ourselves. And we help one another grow, in important ways, each time we pay the compliment of acknowledgment.

We're not sure, on occasion, just what we have to offer our friends, families, co-workers.

Withholding

Sometimes, to protect ourselves, we close ourselves off from a person we're in a relationship with. Our body may be present, but we're not. We're not available to participate in the relationship.

We shut down.

Sometimes, it is appropriate and healthy to shut down in a relationship. We may legitimately need some time out. Sometimes it is self-defeating to close ourselves off in a relationship.

To stop being vulnerable, honest, and present for another person can put an end to the relationship. The other person can do nothing in the relationship when we are gone. Closing ourselves makes us unavailable to that relationship.

It is common to go through temporary periods of closing down in a relationship. But it is unhealthy to make this an ongoing practice. It may be one of our relationship-sabotaging devices.

Choice

Thought for the Day

We have this choice every day of our lives. We can take the path that leads to insanity and death (and remember, our next drunk could be our last one). Or we can take the path that leads to a reasonably happy and useful life. The choice is ours each day of our lives. God grant that we take the right path. Have I made my choice today?

Meditation for the Day

Moving Forward

Much as we would like, we cannot bring everyone with us on this journey called recovery. We are not being disloyal by allowing ourselves to move forward. We don't have to wait for those we love to decide to change as well.

Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to grow, even though the people we love are not ready to change. We may even need to leave people behind in their dysfunction or suffering because we cannot recover for them. We don't need to suffer with them.

It doesn't help.

Moving Forward

Much as we would like, we cannot bring everyone with us on this journey called recovery. We are not being disloyal by allowing ourselves to move forward. We don't have to wait for those we love to decide to change as well.

Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to grow, even though the people we love are not ready to change. We may even need to leave people behind in their dysfunction or suffering because we cannot recover for them. We don't need to suffer with them.

It doesn't help.

To be independent

A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
--Dorothy Canfield Fisher

A strong, healthy tree is one which is free to grow straight and tall. A weak tree often must lean against another for support. It is not that different with people. We are not healthy and strong when we must always lean on another to support us.

This doesn't mean it isn't healthy to accept help. But the best help we can get or give is that which enables us to do things without it.

Self-doubt fosters possessiveness

Love between two people is such a precious thing. It is not a possession. I no longer need to possess to complete myself. True love becomes my freedom.
  —Angela L. Wozniak
Self-doubt fosters possessiveness. When we lack confidence in our own capabilities, when we fear we don't measure up as women, mothers, lovers, employees, we cling to old behavior, maybe to unhealthy habits, perhaps to another person. We can't find our completion in another person because that person changes and moves away from our center. Then we feel lost once again.

Completion of the self accompanies our spiritual progress. As our awareness of the reality of our higher power's caring role is heightened, we find peace. We trust that we are becoming all that we need to be.