Tag Archives: daily reflections

Daily Reading from Recovery Days August 17th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – relax your whole body gradually

Life as a prayer

You pray in your distress and in your need, would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. Kahlil Gibran.
We have so much to be grateful for, it should be a pleasure to express our thank but prayer is a twoway system. If you can say hello to your next-door neighbour, surely you can say ‘good morning and ‘good night’ to your Higher Power. Do I have a a regular connection with my Higher Power?

Prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God. St Teresa of Avila. If we make prayer a mental task or even a vocal performance, then we are missing the whole point. God is here on earth, involved in everything we do. As St Teresa also said:

Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on the world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses the world.

She makes it sound as if everything we do each day is a kind of offering in prayer. It is.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days August 16th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – close eyes briefly


Connection


Prayer is a multipurpose tool. Spiritual teacher
Anthony de Mello told the story of the poor farmer
who found himself stuck in the remote countryside
without his prayer book. The simple man could not
remember any prayers from the book, so he made this
simple offering: Lord, I am without my prayer book
and my memory is so bad that I cannot remember
any. So, I will recite the alphabet five times very
slowly and you, to whom all prayers are known, can
put the letters together to form the prayers I want
to say, but can’t. In other words, sincerity and
connection are more important than mere words.
Whatever my concept of a Higher Power, I need to
establish lines of communication. Do I
understand that in spiritual matters, words are less
vital than communication?


A rich businessman living in London some years ago
would keep a permanently open telephone line to his
mother in Italy so they could chat whenever they
felt like it. Prayer does not have to be a ritual, it
can happen at any time, but the more
permanent the connection, the better. Today I
will establish an open connection with my
Higher Power.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days August 11th by Chris B

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Giving up control

The Twelve Steps are a list of positive actions designed to retrain us in a certain way. They do not demand virtuous feelings or qualities such as honesty, gratitude, empathy, love and understanding – it’s taken for granted that these will come into our lives if we work the Steps diligently. God is mentioned three times, as is the term ‘Power greater than ourselves’. The wording of Step Twelve highlights the probability that anyone completing the Steps will experience a spiritual awakening as a result. This should not alarm anyone sincerely wanting change, because it is only through embracing new ideas that change happens. Am I sincere in my wish to change?

The idea of letting go of control over one’s life can be frightening but, as an addicted person, I have already lost control – my addiction has taken over. Accepting this, I feel relief. But, by handing over to my Higher Power, I will gain something better – guidance.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days August 8th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – breathe slowly

Knowing reality

When we question things – advice, instructions or just the behaviour of another person, we are reacting in a human way. Other animals do not normally question situations, although young animals show curiosity in their early years. Human ability to doubt and question may have helped our survival as a species (why is the long grass moving? Because there’s a lion hiding there). Strangely, humans are also unique in having dreams and fantasies that can influence their attitudes and actions. So, on the one hand we can fantasise ourselves into unreality and on the other, we check ourselves by questioning. It is important to recognise these two influences on our behaviour. Am I aware of my capacity to distort reality?

Balance is everything. By daily meditation, I can learn the habit of self-awareness. If I have internal conflict, it is usually because I want something, or I resist something that my conscience is telling me to do. If I learn to see things honestly, I can take action to restore balance. Today I thank God that I can dream and also question my dreams.

Daily Read8ng from Recovery Days August 7th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – close eyes briefly

Awareness

Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful in your life.
Mark Twain.

We are what we think – every day, the thoughts that arise in our minds become our awareness. Thus, it makes sense to spend some time at the start of each day in composing ourselves into a peaceful frame of mind, where we recognise the gratitude for our lives and review our expectations for the day ahead. Will I make time each day to compose my thoughts and review my attitudes and expectations?

Self-awareness leads to self-knowledge. I watch how I react to other people. If I become angry, I ask myself: why? If I am anxious, I explore the reasons. Gradually, I start to identify feelings that have been distorted by my thinking. A farmer once put an eagle’s egg into a chicken coop and the bird grew up thinking that it was a chicken. One day, another eagle flew high overhead and the eagle-chicken thought to itself: I wish I could do that, but I’m just an ordinary chicken. It never learnt to fly. Anon. We are not chickens. Today I will use the powers of understanding that have been given to me, so that I will recognise reality in my life.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days July 27 by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – enjoy the moment

Tolerance

The wider our experience, the deeper our tolerance. At fellowship meetings we sometimes hear stories that would make great newspaper headlines if we were not bound to silence and anonymity. Yet, we listen with understanding and our response: ‘There but for the grace of God go I’, is heartfelt and entirely genuine. Tolerance should not be taken as a sign of minimising but as one of empathy and compassion. We have all done things we regret and talking about them openly is the best form of therapy. Am I ready to listen when another shares their experiences, with tolerance rather than judgement?

I used to judge people negatively because it made me feel better about myself. My self-esteem was low and I was envious of ordinary people and couldn’t see how I could ever be like them. But now I have a sense of purpose and am trying to do things right. I find that I think more positively about myself and have no need to try to bring others down to my level. I no longer need to judge others and make unfavourable comparisons, for the sake of my low self-esteem and I give thanks for that today.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days July 26 by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – feel your body from top to toes

Action and contemplation

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action. Meister Eckhart. The fourteenth-century mystic is saying here what others have said since: that both contemplation and action are needed. It is not a case of either one or the other, but both together. As Pope Gregory the Great wrote, hundreds of years before Eckhart, activity and thought are like two eyes that work together to produce eyesight. The debate on whether to be or to do, continues today – whether to be Mary or Martha. Do I understand the benefits of both action and contemplation?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your mind and love your neighbour as yourself. St Luke. In loving God, I engage in contemplation and in loving my neighbour, I engage in positive action. Both are a form of connection, fundamental when dealing with the disease of addiction, which is basically, an attachment disorder. I ask for the wisdom to take positive action, when I need

Daily Reading from Recovery Days July 18th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – breathe slowly

Dreams and reality

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life so interesting. Paolo Coelho. Most dreams are worth working for. And worth failing for. But not all. So, what are your dreams? Are they valid? Imagine all your life pursuing a dream only to find at the moment you have it, that it’s not up to scratch. Sometimes a dream is a better motivator than an actual goal. When you actually achieve your dream – perhaps to be a millionaire – it can be a huge disappointment. Perhaps it’s true what they say: the pleasure is in the journey, not the arrival. So be careful what you wish for. Am I sure that I will be glad when my dreams come true?

Are my dreams actually just desires, a mirage of endless pleasure that will turn to dross? A dream worth pursuing has to be for a valid purpose and there are such dreams: to marry and have a family for example, or to become a doctor. Setting ourselves up to follow a dream like that is fine but we should remember that life does not cease at such moments. If you can dream and not make dreams your master. Kipling. Whatever we achieve, there will always be something to do after that. Simply making sure that everything we do is done for the right purpose, may result in fulfilling our greatest dream – happiness on a daily basis. I ask to balance my dreams with reality.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days July 10th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – relax your whole body

Dangerous relapse situations

Talk of having a ‘slip’ can minimise its seriousness. We can all get thoughts about drinking. Our addiction keeps trying to stage a comeback. The crucial moment is when the thought first appears. We must be quick to root it out and not entertain it because once we start dreaming about drinking or using, we are unconsciously grooming ourselves to embrace the notion. A cool glass of beer on a hot day can be a delightful thought as we struggle down a crowded city street but where would it lead us? It is vital that we banish such thoughts immediately and have a prearranged plan for doing so – a person to call or a task to change our mindset. Do I have a plan to deal with ideas of drinking and using?

As soon as I start to think that I am in control of my life, that even subconsciously, I have no real need for my Higher Power, then I am in danger. I must carry out a reality check – back to basics: I am addicted, probably no human power could have relieved my addiction, but my Higher Power has helped me do so, when asked. How can I think, when I look at the past, that I can succeed on my own?

Daily Reading from Recovery Days July 6th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – feel your body from top to toes

Power of example

Everything we say and write comes in one of four forms: statement, question, exclamation or command. The Twelve Steps are written in the form of a statement: Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a programme of recovery. Before the AA Big Book was published, in 1939, the authors were advised to make the tone of the work less directive: a lot of ‘musts’ were replaced by ‘should’ or ‘we suggest’. Remarkably, the approach worked. Perhaps alcoholics are people who don’t like being told what to do. If you compare the Twelve Steps of AA to the Ten Commandments in the Christian Bible, you will see a marked difference in tone.

Reading the AA Big Book widens our knowledge of Alcoholics Anonymous and of addiction itself. There is something very moving about reading the lives and experiences of people just like us who struggled with addiction nearly a hundred years ago. Their problem was mine and all of their stories are truly inspirational. I am proud and grateful to follow in their footsteps. I will try to be open to the possibilities of change so that with humility and love I too can be an example to others.