Soul Fire

Language of Letting Go - Sept. 30 - Not a VictimSubscribe #1 (permalink) Ann , 09-30-2009 05:56 AM... You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go Not a Victim You are not a victim. How deeply ingrained our self-image as a victim can be! How habitual our feelings of misery and helplessness! Victimization can be like a gray cloak that surrounds us, both attracting that which will victimize us and causing us to generate the feelings of victimization. Victimization can be so habitual that we may feel victimized even by the good things that happen to us! Got a new car? Yes, we sigh, but it doesn't run as well as I expected, and after all, it cost so much. . . . You've got such a nice family! Yes, we sigh, but there are problems. And we've had such hard times. . . . Well, your career certainly is going well! Ah, we sigh, but there is such a price to pay for success. All that extra paperwork. . . . I have learned that, if we set our mind to it, we have an incredible, almost awesome ability to find misery in any situation, even the most wonderful of circumstances. Shoulders bent, head down, we shuffle through life taking our blows. Be done with it. Take off the gray cloak of despair, negativity, and victimization. Hurl it; let it blow away in the wind. We are not victims. We may have been victimized. We may have allowed ourselves to be victimized. We may have sought out, created, or re created situations that victimized us. But we are not victims. We can stand in our power. We do not have to allow ourselves to be victimized. We do not have to let others victimize us. We do not have to seek out misery in either the most miserable or the best situations. We are free to stand in the glow of self-responsibility. Set a boundary! Deal with the anger! Tell someone no, or stop that! Walk away from a relationship! Ask for what you need! Make choices and take responsibility for them. Explore options. Give yourself what you need! Stand up straight, head up, and claim your power. Claim responsibility for yourself! And learn to enjoy what's good. Today, I will refuse to think, talk, speak, or act like a victim. Instead, I will joyfully claim responsibility for myself and focus on what's good and right in my life. From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie 1990, Hazelden Foundation. Reply

September 30 Being ourselves Our real value is in being ourselves.... Basic Text, p. 105 = Over and over, we have tried to live up to the expectations of those around us. We may have been raised believing that we were okay if we earned good grades in school, cleaned our rooms, or dressed a certain way. Always wanting to belong and be loved, many of us spent a lot of time trying to fit inyet we never quite seemed to measure up. Now, in recovery, we are accepted as we are. Our real value to others is in being ourselves. As we work the steps, we learn to accept ourselves just as we are. Once this happens, we gain the freedom to become who we want to be. We each have many good qualities we can share with others. Our experiences, honestly shared, help others find the level of identification they need to begin their recovery. We discover that we all have special gifts to offer those around us. = Just for today: My experience in recovery is the greatest gift I can give another addict. I will share myself honestly with others.

Happy Motivational Monday !!!! It's been a while but we are back and excited to interact with you all much more ! I wanna hear what all motivates you guys to keep pushing forward!

Gradually, as we become more God-centered than self-centered, our despair turns to hope. Basic Text, p. 95 =... As using addicts, despair was our relentless companion. It colored our every waking moment. Despair was born of our experience in active addiction: No matter what measures we tried to make our lives better, we slid ever deeper into misery. Attempts we made to control our lives frequently met with failure. In a sense, our First Step admission of powerlessness was an acknowledgment of despair. Steps Two and Three lead us gradually out of that despair and into new hope, the companion of the recovering addict. Having accepted that so many of our efforts to change have failed, we come to believe that there is a Power greater than ourselves. We believe this Power canand willhelp us. We practice the Second and Third Steps as an affirmation of our hope for a better life, turning to this Power for guidance. As we come to rely more and more on a Higher Power for the management of our day-to-day life, the despair arising from our long experiment with self-sufficiency disappears. = Just for today: I will reaffirm my Third Step decision. I know that, with a Higher Power in my life, there is hope.

Language of Letting Go - September 28Subscribe #1 (permalink) Ann , 09-28-2007 02:15 AM... You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go Prayer Here are some of my favorite prayers: Help. Please. Don't. Show me. Guide me. Change me. Are you there? Why'd you do that? Oh. Thank you. Today, I will tell God what I want to tell God, and listen for God's answer. I will remember that I can trust God. From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie 1990, Hazelden Foundation. Reply

Language of Letting Go - September 27Subscribe #1 (permalink) Ann , 09-27-2007 02:48 AM... You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go Temporary Setbacks Sometimes, after we begin recovery, things in our life seem to get worse for a time. Our finances, our relationships, or our health may seem to deteriorate. This is temporary; this is a normal part of recovery and healing. It may be the way things will be for a time, but not for long. Keep working at recovery, and the trend will reverse. Before too long, things, and us, will be better than they were before. This time, the foundation will be solid. God, help me trust You and recovery, even when I have setbacks. Help me remember that the problems are temporary, and when they are solved, I will be on more solid ground. From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie 1990, Hazelden Foundation. Reply #2 (permalink) Ann , 09-27-2007 02:55 AM Quote: Keep working at recovery, and the trend will reverse. Before too long, things, and us, will be better than they were before. This time, the foundation will be solid. Trust this, if you are new to recovery, I promise you that it is true. The foundation, for me, was built by working the steps, each one a solid block that held firm while I worked the next one. That's why they are in the order they are in, each one gives us something solid to stand on as we take the next step forward. Recovery doesn't promise us that we will never have dark or difficult days. It doesn't promise us that our lives will become wonderful overnight. What it does promise is that we will accumulate tools that help us cope with life on life's terms and that we will be capable of finding peace, beauty and happiness in our lives, regardless of how our addicts are doing. Today there is not a problem in life that my steps and recovery cannot see me through. Today I see obstacles as learning experiences and perhaps God's way of setting me on a different, better path. Today I welcome them as a strangely wrapped gift that will help me grow in my recovery with confidence that I will make it through the hard times and find better times ahead. Hugs

September 27 Right back up There is something in our self-destructive personalities that cries for failure.... Basic Text, p. 80 = Poor me; woe is me; look at me, my life is such a mess! I’ve fallen, and no matter how hard I try, I continue to fail. Many of us came to NA singing this sad refrain. Life isn’t like that anymore. True, sometimes we still stumble; at times we even fall. Sometimes we feel like we can’t move forward in our lives, no matter how hard we try. But the truth of the matter is that, with the help of other recovering addicts in NA, we find a hand to pull us up, dust us off, and help us start all over again. That’s the new refrain in our lives today. No longer do we say, I’m a failure and I’m going nowhere. Usually, it’s more like, Rats! I hit that same bump in the road of life again. Pretty soon I’ll learn to slow down or avoid it entirely. Until then, we may continue to fall down occasionally, but we’ve learned that there’s always a helping hand to set us on our feet again. = Just for today: If I begin to cry failure, I’ll remember there is a way to move forward. I will accept the encouragement and support of NA.

Language of Letting Go - Sept. 26 - Feeling ProtectedSubscribe #1 (permalink) Ann , 09-26-2008 04:47 AM... You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go Feeling Protected Our task is not a naive one of feeling safe, of living and loving in a utopian world. One woman commented that our task is making ourselves feel safe while learning to live and love in a world that is unsafe. We do not want to dwell on the danger for that gives power to the negative. Neither do we want to ignore them or pretend they don't exist. If we were going to sunbathe, we would not be naive about the dangers from the sun. We know that harmful rays can burn. We would take steps to protect ourselves, so that we could enjoy the benefits of the sun. That is our task in recovery. This is what a woman, a helping professional, told me: Picture a sunscreen surrounding you. Place it around yourself - not too heavy and thick so no light can penetrate, and not so thin that you are exposed to danger. See yourself protected by a sunscreen that is effective. Make certain that the screen is open to the good. For a while, your screen was too heavy. It held back what you wanted. Now change it to let the good come through. This is your screen for life and the world. See it. Imagine it surrounding you always. It wraps you in love, in comfort, in protection. No harm can enter. No negative energy can penetrate the screen. Go in peace; go in safety. Go now, knowing you are protected. Go anywhere you need to go. The evil has been blocked; the goodwill comes pouring forth. You do not have to work so hard at protecting yourself. You can relax and enjoy life trusting that you are safe. Go without fear, for you are wrapped in love and protection. And you shall always be. Today, I will envision myself wrapped in a shield that blocks the negative and harmful rays of the world, but it is constructed so that the good can enter. From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie 1990, Hazelden Foundation. Reply

September 26 Seeing ourselves in others It will not make us better people to judge the faults of another.... Basic Text, p. 38 = How easy it is to point out the faults of others! There’s a reason for this: The defects we identify most easily in others are often the defects we are most familiar with in our own characters. We may notice our best friend’s tendency to spend too much money, but if we examine our own spending habits we’ll probably find the same compulsiveness. We may decide our sponsor is much too involved in service, but find that we haven’t spent a single weekend with our families in the past three months because of one service commitment or another. What we dislike in our fellows are often those things we dislike most in ourselves. We can turn this observation to our spiritual advantage. When we are stricken with the impulse to judge someone else, we can redirect the impulse in such a way as to recognize our own defects more clearly. What we see will guide our actions toward recovery and help us become emotionally healthy and happy individuals. = Just for today: I will look beyond the character defects of others and recognize my own.