Journaling about my life =  Recovery appreciate the progress we have made. If our life is a book, and our current situation a chapter, what might be their titles? It can be fun to come up with some entertaining and insightful answers. Our inner pathfinder asks us to frequently reflect on where we are on our journey. Taking an eagle-eyed view can help us truly understand the larger perspective and appreciate the progress we have made. Is my life better than it was a year ago? Has my progress in recovery opened up new horizons, allowing me to navigate the low valleys more easily? Creating time once a month to contemplate the simple question “How am I doing?” and then journaling our insights can be very helpful. This practice is similar to regularly consulting a map when on a long expedition. Such check-ins help us examine if we are indeed living what we say is most important to us. We notice where we stray from our desired path and how we inevitably manage to get back on ...

I accept with grace what the grace of my Higher Power has provided.   Reflection for the Day “What you have may seem small; you desire so much more. See children thrusting their hands into a narrow-necked jar, striving to pull out the sweets. If they fill the hand, they cannot pull it out, and then they fall to tears. When they let go a few, they can draw out the rest. You, too, let your desire go; covet not too much,” wrote Epictetus. Let me expect not too much of anyone, particularly myself. Let me learn to settle for less than I wish were possible and be willing to accept it and appreciate it.  Do I accept gratefully and graciously the good that has already come to me in the program? Today I Pray May I search my soul for those little hankerings of want that may keep me from delighting in all that I have. If I can just teach myself not to want too much, not to expect too much, then when those expectations are not satisfied, I will not be let down. Ma...

Clean Sweep and Forgive -Clean it up, clear it out. Clean Sweep and Forgive Clean it up, clear it out.   That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to sweep up all the old resentments and all the things that have made me feel wronged. I’m going to brush them aside without looking and toss them anywhere that falls outside of the inside of my head. I’m going to make a clean sweep with the broom of forgiveness so I am freshened and freed, not stuck in the same old mud. The slaps-in-the-face and stabs-in-the-back came at the hand of someone who most likely did the deed and never looked back. So, by hanging on to anger and grudges, I’m poisoning only myself with a poison of my own making. How stupid. While I’m at it, while I’m tidying things up, I’m going to forgive new wrongs as they come. Forgiveness doesn’t mean I will accept new wrongs as they come; it means I will turn and walk away from kicks-in-the-teeth instead of carrying a vendetta in my soul. In embracing forg...