Today's Thought - June

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June 16

AA Thought for the Day

In AA we have three things: fellowship, faith, and service. Fellowship is wonderful, but its wonder lasts just so long. Then some gossip, disillusionment, and boredom may come in. Worry and fear come back at times and we find that fellowship is not the whole story. Then we need faith. When we’re alone, with nobody to pat us on the back, we must turn to God for help. Can I say: “Thy will be done”—and mean it?
Meditation for the Day

There is beauty in a God-guided life. There is wonder in the feeling of being led by God. Try to realize God’s bounty and goodness more and more. God is planning for you. Wonderful are His ways—they are beyond your knowledge. But God’s leading will enter your consciousness more and more, and bring you ever more peace and joy. Your life is being planned and blessed by God. You may count all material things as loss if they prevent your winning your way to the consciousness of God’s guidance.
Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may earn the rewards of God’s power and peace. I pray that I may develop the feeling of being led by God.

Today's reading is from the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day: A Spiritual Resource with Practical Applications for Daily Life*

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June 17

Seeking strength from others prevents us from finding our own strength.

~Georgette Vickstrom

The principles of this program, the friends we have made here, our sponsors, and the contact we have with an ever-available Higher Power afford us valuable strength. However, it’s important that we develop our own strength to complement what we look for in others.

Using the tools acquired in this program is a good beginning for cultivating personal strength. It’s like growing a garden. We need to tend it daily, nurturing it, discarding the unproductive behaviors like weeds. When we do, we’ll discover that the seedlings we’re planting at every meeting are taking root and developing blossoms that signal positive growth.

I will be painstaking in nurturing my growth today. My strength will be there when I need it.

Today's reading is from the book A Woman's Spirit: More meditations for Women*

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June 18

Changing what we can is essential.

We come into this program exasperated because our attempts to change others have failed. We’d been certain that if the drinker stopped drinking and the boss quit nagging and the kids settled down, we’d be happy and secure. However, none of the above happened. Our subsequent desperation brought us to the program, and now good fortune is beginning to strike.

The first valuable lesson we learn is that we can’t change anyone else, no matter how lofty our motives or how domineering our personality. Screaming, pouting, pleading, bartering, crying, or leaving won’t make other people change. If they change, it’s because they have decided to change, not because we won.

Our second valuable lesson is that we can change. We can change what we expect of others. We can decide to let a Higher Power guide our actions. We can “lighten up.” We can focus our attention on this day only. We can trust that there is a plan for our lives and that all is well.

There is a lot I can do today. I’ll begin by keeping my attention on my behavior and working on my relationship with God.

Today's reading is from the book A Life of My Own: Meditations on Hope and Acceptance*

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June 19

If and when we do become fathers, we will realize that, despite doing the very best we can, we are passing both gifts and wounds onto our children—just as our parents passed gifts and wounds on to us. We may react with dismay when our offspring use a similar nasty tone of voice or develop some of the same negative habits we exhibited in the past. Becoming a father always sheds new light on the struggles our own father experienced.

Though we may be very different from our parents, the process of raising children is a common bond we have with all our ancestors. In our attempts to correct the mistakes our parents made, we may choose a completely different style of parenting from that of our father, but we still walk in his shoes some of the time. This opens the door for us to have compassion for the times he was not the father we wanted, hoped, and needed him to be.

Perhaps, for instance, when we were in the throes of our addictions, our father had to withdraw to protect himself, even though we longed for his support. We do not condone his most serious errors, but we hold them in a larger field of understanding. This new perspective can help put us on a path of healing our relationship with him.

Raising my own children offers new possibilities for healing with my father.

Today's reading is from the book Cornerstones: Daily Meditations for the Journey into Manhood and Recovery*

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June 20

Dropping biases

Addiction is not biased, nor should we be biased in the program. Whatever our beliefs before we found this solution, it helps if we avoid letting them interfere with our Step Twelve work. There are few enough places where people are accepted regardless of status, religion, nationality, or appearance.

Each of us needs everyone else in the fellowship. Whatever the person’s background, skills, income, or looks, if an addict or alcoholic can carry the message of recovery, that person can save your life.

Am I letting go of all bias?

Higher Power, help me let go of my biases so that I can better help save lives.

Today I will take an inventory of my biases and practice letting them go by…

Today's reading is from the book Day by Day: Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts*

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June 21

I don’t ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.

~Pete Hamill

Nature is the mystical, spiritual miracle present all around us every day. A walk in the woods or a hike in a park provides us with abundant evidence that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves. No one sent the bird to sing its song; no person designed a tree and planned its leaves to come forth. They are just doing their own thing. Our whole world is generously decorated by spontaneous beauty, and our senses take them in at no cost.

When we feel burdened by our problems and when we are too focused on ourselves, a walk outdoors will surely lighten the load. We can feel the wind in our face, look up at the sky and see the big and ever-changing heavens, or lie on the ground and feel the support of the earth. It is always a good practice to turn to the natural world when we feel the need for spiritual refreshment.

Today, I will get outside myself by noticing the eternal world of nature.

Today's reading is from the book Stepping Stones: More Daily Meditations for Men*

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June 22

Reflection for the Day

Somewhere along the line, as we become more involved in the program, we reach a sharp awareness of the growth value of honesty and candor. When this happens, one of the first things we’re able to admit is that our past behavior has been far from sane or even reasonable. As soon as we can make this admission—without shame or embarrassment—we find still another dimension of freedom. In my gradual recovery, am I expectant that life will become ever richer and ever more serene?
Today I Pray

May I know—even as I take that mighty First Step, which may be the first really honest move I have made in a long time—that honesty takes practice. My old, deluded, head-tripping self is as different from the honest self that I must become as night is from day. May I realize that it will take more than just one gray dawn to change me.
Today I Will Remember

Honesty takes practice.

Today's reading is from the book A Day at a Time: Daily Reflections for Recovering People*

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June 23

My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.

~Clarence Budington Kelland

We learn much of what we need to know about being men from models we have in other men. Some of us have fond memories of being next to our fathers and imitating their ways. Many of us also have the feeling of a gap in our models. Perhaps our fathers weren’t around enough, or we may have rejected some of their habits and values, creating an uncertainty about masculine roles. We may feel unsure of ourselves, or we may berate ourselves for what we don’t know.

It is well to remember how much we have already learned in our adult years. It is never too late. No man ever reaches adulthood having learned everything from his father that he will need to know about masculinity. We can look around us for more models in the men we know. For a man to be our model, we first choose someone we admire and then get to know him well. In this way, we carry on the human tradition of one man learning from another.

I am continuing to grow, and I can learn from the men I know now.

Today's reading is from the book Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men*

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June 24

Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split one boulder.

~Carl Sandburg

There is a fable about the sun and wind having a contest to see who can get the old man to take his coat off first. The wind blows fiercely, but the old man just pulls his coat tighter around him. Finally, the wind gives up and the sun comes out. The sun shines a steady warm light down on the old man, who soon takes his coat off.

More and better things are accomplished in this world by kindness and gentleness than by force. When we find ourselves most frustrated, it is often because we are trying to force certain things to happen. Our own patient and steady desire to grow, fed by the love and kindness of others, will not be stopped by anything or anyone. Our own gentleness is a powerful force in our lives. It is like the gentle bush that grows through granite.

What can I gain by gentleness today?

Today's reading is from the book Today's Gift: Daily Meditations for Families*

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June 25

Service is the rent you pay for room on this earth.

~Shirley Chisholm

None of us could have reached this day entirely on our own. Each of us can look back at moments in our lives when we’ve been helped or encouraged by another person. A family member, teacher, sponsor, or friend may have offered us mentoring or unconditional love. The words or example of a stranger, a public figure, an artist, or a writer may have afforded us inspiration at just the moment when we needed encouragement.

We can do no less for others as we continue on our journeys. We do not have to take responsibility for others’ lives, nor should we disregard our own needs. But there are many ways we can make a difference, each according to our preference. We can offer time and talent to our community, recovery program, or family of choice. We can share our experience, strength, and hope with individuals or groups. We can show up and do some of the work that’s necessary to maintain the institutions that have offered so much to us. We can keep it by giving it away.

Today, I express my gratitude through service, freely given.

Today's reading is from the book Glad Day: Daily Meditations for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender People*

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June 26

Letting Go of Old Beliefs

Try harder. Do better. Be perfect.

These messages are tricks that people have played on us. No matter how hard we try, we think we have to do better. Perfection always eludes us and keeps us unhappy with the good we’ve done.

Messages of perfectionism are tricks because we can never achieve their goal. We cannot feel good about ourselves or what we have done while these messages are driving us. We will never be good enough until we change the messages and tell ourselves we are good enough now.

We can start approving of and accepting ourselves. Who we are is good enough. Our best yesterday was good enough; our best today is plenty good too. We can be who we are, and do it the way we do it—today. That is the essence of avoiding perfection.

God, help me let go of the messages that drive me into the crazies. I will give myself permission to be who I am and let that be good enough.

Today's reading is from the book The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations on Codependency*

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June 27

I made you a kite so you would have to look up.

~Uncle Pete

Friends and helpers. No matter how bleak the times, if we keep looking we can almost always find one of these human rays of sunshine. But we have to keep looking.

A man at a meeting of adult children told about just such a person in his past. It was his Uncle Pete, a man who was well aware of his nephew’s heavy problems. Although he couldn’t do much about the boy’s unhappy situation, Uncle Pete did the one thing he could do—he built the boy a kite. As he told the story now, the nephew said that he had flown the kite once in a while, but he really hadn’t liked it much.

Years later, he asked his uncle why he had given him that particular gift. And the uncle answered, “I made you a kite so you would have to look up.”

Chances are that in our past—and perhaps still today—there are those who try the best they can to build us a kite. They encourage us and compliment us; they tell us they care while we question their motives and doubt their sincerity. We can look for such people in our lives.

Today, I will be less guarded, less defensive, less suspicious.

Today's reading is from the book Days of Healing, Days of Joy: Daily Meditations for Adult Children*

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June 28

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.

~Henry David Thoreau

Having beliefs is one thing, but living them is—well, that’s hard.

Living by the Steps is a different type of living. The Steps are a set of beliefs that are spiritual in nature. Living these beliefs will turn a person’s world around, from decay and isolation to growth and fellowship. Living by spiritual beliefs releases healing, transformative powers. We just need to hang on! Spiritual adventures are coming our way.

Spiritual adventures occur because our Higher Power believes in us and will continue to place us in situations that demand that we believe more and more in ourselves. With each new adventure, we end up loving ourselves more and more.
Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, help me to live my beliefs so I can be touched by you. I need your strength and the adventures you will give to me.
Today's Action

I will write down what my beliefs are. How do I see and allow spiritual beliefs to direct my life?

Today's reading is from the book God Grant Me: More Daily Meditations from the Authors of Keep It Simple*

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June 29

It is not only for an exterior show or ostentation that our soul must play her part, but inwardly within ourselves, where no eyes shine but ours.

~Michel de Montaigne

One of the first things we learn in recovery is that we have choices. This can be a startling realization, for as addicts, we gave our lives over to the comforting delusion that we had no choices, that we were victims of life.

We face many choices during the day. In fact, everything we do is a choice. We may think the small choices—what to wear, what to eat, whether to call a friend, whether to go to a meeting—are unimportant, but together they make up the fabric of our lives.

It is those choices, made one at a time, that we lean on when we have to make big choices. And our ability to be abstinent, the most important choice of all, is determined by the small choices we’ve made out of love for ourselves and commitment to our recovery. We can be grateful that recovery has restored to us the power of choice.

I may be powerless over my addiction, but I’m not helpless. I can make choices.

Today's reading is from the book Answers in the Heart

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June 30

Fear

Fear is the darkroom where negatives are developed.

~Michael Pritchard

Fear haunts so many of us. Fear is behind all our resentments. It attacks us when we are alone and isolated. It can wreak havoc on us when we are by ourselves. We see only dark clouds over our heads; all appears hopeless and negative.

We have meetings because we do not face our fears alone. The program is not a program of us talking to ourselves. We need the fellowship and our fellow travelers. When we overcome the fear of asking for help, the program will give us all the support we need. But the fellowship is not composed of mind readers. We have to open our mouths and share our struggles. Remember, when we share experience, we can also be sharing our troubles. We share problems as well as solutions.

My fears have a way of dissolving when I share them with my sponsor and fellow members.

Today's reading is from the book Easy Does It: A Book of Daily Twelve Step Meditations*