Readings for Wednesday, April 3rd

24 Hours a Day

Meditation for the Day

Remember that the first quality of greatness is service. In a way, God is the greatest servant of all, because He is always waiting for us to call on Him to help us in all good endeavor. His strength is always available to us, but we must ask it of Him through our own free will. It is a free gift, but we must sincerely seek for it. A life of service is the finest life we can live. We are here on earth to serve others. That is the beginning and the end of our real worth.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may cooperate with God in all good things. I pray that I may serve God and others and so lead a useful and happy life.

Language of Letting Go

Acceptance

Surrender to the moment. Ride it out and through, for all it’s worth. Throw yourself into it.

Stop resisting.

So much of our anguish is created when we are in resistance. So much relief, release, and change are possible when we accept, simply accept.

We waste our time, expend our energy, and make things harder by resisting, repressing, and denying. Repressing our thoughts will not make them disappear. Repressing a thought already formed will not make us a better person. Think it. Let it come into reality. Then release it. A thought is not forever. If we don’t like it, we can think another one or change it. But to do that, we must accept and release the first thought.

Resistance and repression will not change a thing. They will put us at war with our thoughts.

We make life harder by resisting and repressing our feelings. No matter how dark, how uncomfortable, how unjustified, how surprising, how inappropriate we might deem our feelings, resisting and repressing them will not free us from them. Doing that will make them worse. They will swirl inside us, torment us, make us sick, and make our body ache, compel us to do compulsive things, keep us awake, or put us to sleep.

In the final analysis, all that we’re really called on to do is accept our feelings by feeling them, and saying, Yes, this is what I feel.

Feelings are for the present moment. The more quickly we can accept a feeling, the more quickly we will move on to the next.

Resisting or repressing thoughts and feelings does not change us or turn us into the person we want to be or think we should be. It puts us in resistance to reality. It makes us repressed. Eventually, it makes us depressed.

Resisting events or circumstances in our life does not change things, no matter how undesirable the events or circumstances may be.

Acceptance turns us into the person we are and want to be. Acceptance empowers the events and circumstances to turn around for the better.

What do we do if we’re in resistance, in a tug of war with some reality in our life? Accepting our resistance can help us get through that too.

Acceptance does not mean we’re giving our approval. It does not mean surrendering to the will and plans of another. It does not mean commitment. It is not forever. It is for the present moment. Acceptance does not make things harder; it makes things easier. Acceptance does not mean we accept abuse or mistreatment; it does not mean we forego boundaries, our hopes, dreams, desires, wants, or ourselves. It means we accept what is, so we know what to do to take care of ourselves and what boundaries we need to set. It means we accept what is and who we are at the moment, so we are free to change and grow.

Acceptance and surrender move us forward on this journey. Force does not work.

Acceptance and surrender – two concepts that hurt the most before we do them.

Today, I will practice accepting my present circumstances and myself. I will begin to watch and trust the magic that acceptance can bring into my life and recovery.

Daily Readings for Tuesday, April 2nd

24 Hours a Day

Meditation for the Day

Not what you do so much as what you are, that is the miracle-working power. You can be a force for good, with the help of God. God is here to help you and to bless you, here to company with you. You can be a worker with God. Changed by God’s grace, you shed one garment of the spirit for a better one. In time, you throw that one aside for a yet finer one. And so from character to character, you are gradually transformed.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may accept every challenge. I pray that each acceptance of a challenge may make me grow into a better person.

Language of Letting Go

Facing Our Darker Side

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
  —Step Four of Al-Anon

By the time we get to the Fourth of the Twelve Steps, we are ready to face our darker side, the side that prevents us from loving others, from letting others love us, and from enjoying life and ourselves. The purpose of Step Four is not to make ourselves feel worse; our purpose is to begin to remove our blocks to joy and love.

We look for fears, anger, hurt, and shame from past events – buried feelings that may be affecting our life today. We search for subconscious beliefs about others and ourselves that may be interfering with the quality of our relationships. These beliefs say: I’m not lovable . . . I’m a burden to those around me . . . People can’t be trusted . . . I can’t be trusted . . . I don’t deserve to be happy and successful . . . Life isn’t worth living. We look at our behaviors and patterns with an eye toward discerning the self-defeating ones. With love and compassion for ourselves, we try to unearth all our guilt – earned and unearned – and expose it to the light.

We perform this examination without fear of what we shall find, because this soul searching can cleanse us and help us feel better about ourselves than we ever dreamt possible.

God, help me search out the blocks and barriers within myself. Bring what I need to know into my conscious mind, so I can be free of it. Show me what I need to know about myself.