Daily Recovery Readings
October 3, 2021

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Daily Reflection

SERENITY AFTER THE STORM

Someone who knew what he was talking about once remarked that pain was the touchstone of all spiritual progress. How heartily we A.A.’s can agree with him. . . .

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p p. 93-94

When on the roller coaster of emotional turmoil, I remember that growth is often painful. My evolution in the A.A. program has taught me that I must experience the inner change, however painful, that eventually guides me from selfishness to selflessness. If I am to have serenity, I must STEP my way past emotional turmoil and its subsequent hangover, and be grateful for continuing spiritual progress.

Big Book Quote

“When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, or situation – some fact of my life – unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.”

~The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, Acceptance Was the Answer, p. 428

24 Hours a Day – The Little Black Book

A.A. Thought For The Day

How do I talk with new prospects? Am I always trying to dominate the conversation? Do I lay down the law and tell prospects what they will have to do? Do I judge them privately and feel that they have small chance of making the program? Do I belittle them to myself? Or am I willing to bare my soul so as to get them talking about themselves? And, then, am I willing to be a good listener, not interrupting, but hearing them out to the end? Do I feel deeply that they are my brothers or my sisters? Will I do all I can to help them along the path to sobriety?

Meditation For The Day

“The work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness shall be quietness and assurance forever.” Only when the soul attains this calm, can there be true spiritual work done, and mind and soul and body be strong to conquer and bear all things. Peace is the result of righteousness. There is no peace in wrong doing, but if we live the way God wants us to live, quietness and assurance follow. Assurance is that calmness born of a deep certainty of God’s strength available to us and in His power to love and guard us from all harm and wrong doing.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may attain a state of true calmness.
I pray that I may live in quietness and peace.

The Language of Letting Go – Codependency

Getting Through the Discomfort

Surrender to the pain. Then learn to surrender to the good. It’s there and more is on the way.
–Beyond Codependency

Our goal in recovery is to make us feel comfortable, peaceful, and content. Happy. We want to be at peace with our environment and ourselves. Sometimes, to do that, we need to be willing to face, feel, and get through discomfort.

I am not talking here about being addicted to misery and pain. I am not talking about creating unnecessary pain. I’m talking about the legitimate discomfort we sometimes need to feel as we heal.
When we have surgery, the pain hurts most the day after the operation. When we do the kind of work we are facing in recovery, we are doing an emotional, mental, and spiritual surgery on ourselves. We’re removing parts of us that are infected and inflamed.

Sometimes the process hurts. We are strong enough to survive discomfort and temporary feelings of emotional pain. Once we are willing to face and feel our discomfort and pain, we are almost to the point of release.

Today, I am willing to face my discomfort, trusting that healing and release are on the other side. Help me, God; be open to feeling whatever I need to feel to be healed and healthy. While I am doing this, I will trust I am cared for and protected by my friends, my Higher Power, the Universe, and myself.

I choose to be in places and situations and with people where I feel good about myself. I deserve to feel good and I trust that my heart will tell me where to go. –Ruth Fishel

Touchstone – Men’s Meditation

You should not have your own idea when you listen to someone…. To have nothing in your mind is naturalness. Then you will understand what he says. –Shunryu Suzuki

A man who is mistrustful and self-centered has difficulty listening to someone else. Perhaps a woman we are close to wants to be understood by us. But we do not hear her on her own terms because we are so intensely involved with our own shame. So we react to our feelings of guilt rather than really hearing what she wants to say about her experience. Or we may be so worried about who has control that we fail to receive the information we are being given. Then we respond with “Yes, but…”

True learning comes – like true intimacy – when we have an open mind. As we detach ourselves, separate from our own ego, we hear the other person better and grow more intimate.

May I learn to set aside my own self-centeredness. Today, I will grow more if I set my ego aside when others are talking to me.

Elder’s Meditation

“Spiritual Values are an Attitude.”
–Leonard George, Chief Councilor

Attitude is a direction which we follow. If you have a positive attitude, it means you will lean towards a positive direction. If you have a negative attitude, it means you will lean away from the Spirit. Therefore, if we lean toward spiritual values, then our actions will become significant and important. If we lean away from spiritual values, our actions will become insignificant or unimportant. For example, if we value love, we will lean towards it; we will prefer to express and embrace it.

Great Spirit, teach me the significance of spiritual values.

Daily Horoscope – Cancer

Someone in a position of power could be criticizing how you currently run your domestic life. Although you may have developed an innovative arrangement that really serves you and those you live with, this might be a good time for you to listen to any complaints. They aren’t necessarily right, but every household — yours included — could benefit from a group discussion where you all refine the details of your living arrangement. Take into account everyone’s perspectives, even the ones you don’t want to hear.