Words from a friend….

“No matter how much it hurts now, someday you will look back and realize your struggles changed your life for the better.” – Anonymous I believe that everyone has a unique story and that some tales are darker than others. We all struggle with something, and we all handle those struggles in different ways. […]

via Struggles. {Poem} — Thoughts of an Anxious Mind

Written in Time…

One of the tools that I’ve used over the past fourteen-plus years in my journey is journal writing.  It was suggested to me early on in my recovery that I start keeping a written record of what was transpiring.  I remember the first journal I purchased and some of the earliest entries….In fact, I still have that journal and all the others I have used.

Writing is something I never used to do a lot of….Most of what I wrote was a requirement for classes I was taking in school.  I never considered writing about my daily comings and goings.  But I have found it helps me process life events in ways I might never have imagined.

There have been very few days over the past fourteen years that I haven’t written in my journal.  Sometimes I’ll copy something interesting that I’ve found in a book I’m reading.  Other times I’ll write about the events of the day and my response to them.  Every once in a while I’ll doodle,,,I fall short of being able to call it art work.

I also use a sketch book for all my journal entries.  I tried to use the traditional lined paper, but found it to be too confining…and it also allows me to write quotes I like in larger print.  Once again, I wouldn’t call it calligraphy, but it’s not half bad.

So for any of my friends out there that are looking for something to help you deal with life on life’s terms, I highly suggest you give journal writing a try.  If you’re like me, you might find it’s one of the most valuable tools you have.

 

David Lee

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Language of Letting Go Reading….March 10

 

Living with Families

I was forty-six years old before I finally admitted to myself and someone else that my grandfather always managed to make me feel guilty, angry, and controlled.
—Anonymous

We may love and care about our family very much. Family members may love and care about us. But interacting with some members may be a real trigger to our codependency – sometimes to a deep abyss of shame, rage, anger, guilt, and helplessness.

It can be difficult to achieve detachment, or an emotional level, with certain family members. It can be difficult to separate their issues from ours. It can be difficult to own our power.

Difficult, but not impossible.

The first step is awareness and acceptance – simple acknowledgment, without guilt, of our feelings and thoughts. We do not have to blame our family members. We do not have to blame or shame ourselves. Acceptance is the goal – acceptance and freedom to choose what we want and need to do to take care of ourselves with that person. We can become free of the patterns of the past. We are recovering. Progress is the goal.

Today, Higher Power, help me be patient with myself as I learn how to apply recovery behaviors with family members. Help me strive today for awareness and acceptance.

 

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

 

24 Hours a Day Reading….March 10

 

Meditation for the Day

My five senses are my means of communication with the material world. They are the links between my physical life and the material manifestations around me. But I must sever all connections with the material world when I wish to hold communion with the Great Spirit of the universe. I have to hush my mind and bid all my senses be still, before I can become attuned to receive the music of the heavenly spheres.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may get my spirit in tune with the Spirit of the universe. I pray that through faith and communion with Him I may receive the strength I need.

 

From Twenty-Four Hours a Day © 1975 by Hazelden Foundation.

 

 

Horse King – #42

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#42-THE HORSE KING

ASSISTANCE, CONTROL

REVERSED

The Horse King wants to know why you think you can do everything by yourself. Keeping control of everything around you is counterproductive and exhausting. You may lose an important opportunity if you insist on being stubborn. The Horse King is patient, however, and will wait for you to come to your senses and accept the help you need. You won’t be able to reach your goal otherwise. Yet the Horse King says that all it takes is a decision to jump on his back, ask for help, and graciously allow yourself to be carried to your destination. Let go of control and amazing things can happen for you.

 

 

 

Selected Reading for this Day – March 9

Excerpted from Seven Thousand Ways to Listen by Mark Nepo

     “In very real ways, we’re drawn to what we need to learn.  Often, it waits like a quiet blessing that we can easily ignore or just as easily open ourselves to, like that small wildflower.  But for the soul to blossom, we must accept our deeper, humbler destiny.  For the wildflower doesn’t become rich or famous for blossoming.  It doesn’t live forever or become the greatest flower of all time.  The wildflower’s reward for trusting what it senses but doesn’t yet know is to become what it was born to be – a flower whose inevitable place is realized in a small moment of Oneness, as it joins with elements that were here before it came alive and which will live on once it dies.  This is the reward for every seed growing in the dark with no sense of what it will become.  As a soul on Earth, this is all we can hope for, to feel the light and being of all time course through our veins while we blossom.”

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Photo by: David Lee