November 7 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 11 Daily Meditation Alcoholics Anonymous Today's Daily Reflections: "let go and let God, letting go my outlook and seeing the big picture…" I see the big picture when I ask for help, and I have gratitude for the wisdom I hear on a daily basis. The truth is always in the big picture, where there is greater wisdom and understanding of what can be done. Which means not only do I cope with situations, everyone benefits as we find truth today…
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When I feel I need to fix things, a desire to meddle in the affairs of others, I can be undone very quickly. A reaction to a dangerous event, which needs immediate attention will always be there. And there will be times where I feel I need to express an opinion, and sometimes I need to ask myself, am I speaking of opinion, or am I speaking truth, and do the two things go together? Everyone has opinions and beliefs which is quite right, and sometimes there is truth for those who hold the same opinions and beliefs. Truth comes through dialogue in the moment of now about most situations, unless you were listening to political pundits overnight with regard to the American presidential elections. On both sides pundits were full of Tosh!
Tosh is a lovely word: Related to TOSH: Synonyms: applesauce [slang], balderdash, baloney (also boloney), beans, bilge, blah (also blah-blah), blarney, blather, blatherskite, blither, bosh, bull [slang], bunk, bunkum (or buncombe), claptrap, codswallop [British], crapola [slang], crock, cuntibollocks [Donald slang], drivel, drool, fiddle, fiddle-faddle, fiddlesticks, flannel [British], flapdoodle, folderol (also falderal), folly, foolishness, fudge, garbage, guff, hogwash, hokeypokey, hokum, hoodoo, hooey, horsefeathers [slang], humbug, humbuggery, jazz, malarkey (also malarky), moonshine, muck, nerts [slang], nuts, piffle, poppycock, punk, rot, rubbish, senselessness, silliness, slush, stupidity, taradiddle (or tarradiddle), tommyrot, nonsense, trash, trumpery, twaddle. Useful words, for the self willed and self conceited, only having opinions which suit the individual expressing them. Letting go is a great freedom to finding the truth of now and coping with it daily…
How am I feeling this morning? Emotionally in a happy mood and playful. Why? Endurance and staying up late to watch the presidential election results. Realising that sometimes I have enough stamina to look through the political Tosh expressed by pundits. And happy to hear the concession speech, and what it contained. And also to hear the president's speech, and what it contained. Principles before personalities, both candidates now aiming at unity, service and recovery of a nation from economic depression. And a desire for the best for everyone and not down partisan lines. Even though it is not a perfect election process, always there is progress. That's why I love America, even though I am British and often full of Tosh about British matters. A good day for democracy and everyone who voted…
Emotionally and spiritually, being in the moment of now and able to let go my own personal opinions and beliefs, and seek the bigger picture will keep me on the path of sanity. I need to keep my senses working, to keep on learning about life and everything which fascinates me day by day. And this is the essence, when I let go and let God, it is about truth and a way to be open, honest and willing to live real life on life's terms. In the perfectly imperfect moment of now…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
I have learned that sobriety is a one day programme, I wake up and start sober and need remind myself of step one, two and three. Powerless over alcohol, people, places and things today or life becomes unmanageable. A return to old ways is insanity, and help is
always on hand to keep well. Letting go and not knowing the answers opens me up to asking for help.
Spiritual living has been described as “the ability cope with reality.” Good, bad and indifferent, life experience drunk or sober is always a spiritual journey. The quality of my spiritual experience is always contingent on me being open honest and willing. Learning the
truth of now and with humility asking for help is key.
Living the truth of now is my spiritual foundation. Sharing experience strength and hope is a two way street. Truth is always evolving as we human beings evolve and make progress. If people in the world do not know my truth, all of it, they are disabled by me and
fear of being found out as less than perfect. I prefer open, honest and willing so I can get the help I need today
DonInLondon 2005-2010
November 7 2010 ~ guilt and shame nearly killed me back then in addiction to alcohol. I refused to believe I was ill and had a malady that I could stop my drinking through self-will and willpower. When I realised I could not stop self-harm and harming others, I
asked for help. Humility saved my life and made possible recovery one day at a time...
November 7 2010 ~ good conscience, I feel we all have a conscience. Once I realised I needed help I let go self-obsession and self-harm. I can let go and let good happen with help today, and just for today, I have this choice. I have learned to let go self-will and
self-harm in recovery. I do not fear the word god; god is truth love and wisdom for me today...
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AA Daily Reflections ~ "LET GO AND LET GOD" praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 96
When I “Let Go and Let God,” I think more clearly and wisely. Without having to think about it, I quickly let go of things that cause me immediate pain and discomfort. Because I find it hard to let go of the kind of worrisome thoughts and attitudes that cause me
immense anguish, all I need do during those times is allow God, as I understand Him, to release them for me, and then and there, I let go of the thoughts, memories and attitudes that are troubling me.
When I receive help from God, as I understand Him, I can live my life one day at a time and handle whatever challenges that come my way. Only then can I live a life of victory over alcohol, in comfortable sobriety."
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November 7 2007
DonInLondon - ‘Day in the Life’ - Rarely Have We Seen a Person Fail
Seldom have We?
As life meanders along at its own pace, slow sometimes and yet never enough time as time speeds as quickly as it might. Maybe its just my brain slows and the world speeds up.
Failure of Some - Alcoholics Anonymous
Full of contradictions, full of people! No wonder there are so many understandings of AA. Each person as we all do in the known universe, pick up and make of life what we will. And we see it similar and we see it different, or it would be an odd world. We relish similarity and we prize authenticity.
Alcoholics Anonymous of itself a feat of grandiosity, suggests we seldom see a person fail if they thoroughly follow the path to AA sobriety. Yet in humility it needed to be bold and suggest a thorough path or road to redemption might be possible. If of course we thoroughly follow the path.
Deviations - Alcoholics Anonymous
A fellowship which serves most in its timeless suggestions, principles and traditions. A fellowship made up from last gaspers and entrants to the last chance saloon. Where everyone has mostly failed to curb their enthusiasm for alcohol and other maladies of obsession, namely ourselves and our small worlds. Our small worlds made big again by a few suggestions, principles and traditions?
Rarely Fail?
What on earth made the founders write so profoundly about their recovering state?
Slip Sliding Along
Most everyone I know who has come to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous have turned reckless living into a dying art form. We who keep on drinking to near deaths door are alerted to our endings as our system packs up, our will to survive has long turned sour and the idea of living in peace and comfort is a mere tormented dream.
Failure?
We need to fail to get into the fellowship, or why be there at all! We who have failed and are addicted.
Clarion Calls
To faith courage and confidence! We do exhort a lot in AA. We know we are beaten and we need refuge to rest a head so full of noise and chatter about living and dying we can hardly make sense of a moment let alone a day.
One Day Only
Emblazoned on a Banner for all to see, "Sober Today" and that’s just fine.
I had failed miserably many a year to give up drink, control it and then find to my annoyance there is no respite from addiction until we find a path of sobriety.
Truth - May you Find It Now
As absolute truth eluded for a while, actually its evaded me in its purity all my life. Truth seeking 50 years on, and I can report some progress and not perfection.
Truth - Absolute Truth
Is as elusive when we are full of our opinions and feelings which mask us often from the truth we are. Alcoholic and addicted and now to recovery.
AA Alcoholics Anonymous - Absolute Truth
Like any other solution to a problem, if we follow the path as best we can, somehow somewhere we find our brand of Truth. AA is merely progress and not perfection.
AA - Day At A Time
We work at recovery, we work always to keep to suggestions, principles and traditions which are so agreeable, we find sobriety and our absolute truth improve.
We don’t drink anymore, we feel better not drinking, and yet we know if we falter and stop our programme of recovery, the old ways come back and then we play dry drunk, become more sullen and defensive.
AA - Action Always to the Good of Good Conscience
AA - Always Alive and Kicking and Vigilant to our Emotional Being
AA - All About Making Life Work A Day At A Time
Seldom do we see a person fail? IF!!!
The if in this is we humans are actually just that, human and imperfect and we learn a day a time how to be better at living. Or we go backwards and get stuck somewhere.
Human beings getting to any fellowship are pretty beaten by the time they open the door, and the marvel is people get well and make a life work again.
AA - Accepting Adaptable Works if we work at living the Truth
When people give up on living sober, the consequences are obvious. And seldom do people get the message as quickly as they might wish. We humans are so used to quick fixes from the outside we don’t know how to fix ourselves from the inside.
Recovery is an inside job, and fixing ourselves an outside job. If we can recovery our wits, our sensibilities and feelings. We come to understand our truth and our outlook for the good and our good conscience.
Fail -- I Failed many times to see the Truth of me. And actually now I see more truth each day as each day offers opportunity, danger, risks and every manner of torture. It also offers me fellowship, love, understanding and a path which is not perfect, merely a progression to experience now and not tomorrow.
AA - Imperfect as we humans are, a few timeless steps, a few traditions and a few suggestions, helps me live and find contentment in just one day, this day, the ever present, present moment of now…
AA - Alternatives A Plenty may you find them now, just in case AA is not your cup of tea..
7th November 2006
Small Things Displease Big Minds
Sounds like a bit of a conundrum, why is it the small things can so overload a strategic and centred mind? Simply because it’s the small stuff which always trips us up.
So easy to forget the big picture, to run with everything in the right direction in the strategic world of a day at a time. We forget daily what we are about, making the best of each day as we live in the ever present, present moment. The spiritual connection to now..
Gratitude
I have several elements of gratitude today. One is I woke up. I am living in the day, I can make choices as I go along. I can feel good about progress and not perfection. I can drag myself down because of one thing.
One Thing Last Night makes me Concerned
It’s a big thing and a small thing. For months all can go along hunky dory and then one little moment can bring the whole mood down in one exchange of words. Made and rendered powerless by another, not at one with themselves, they, overloaded and bedevilled by grit and determination, and a strong sense of right and purpose. And a mistake by me, not made any better by an incomplete conversation.
Things like this can drag on, just a small thing for me, but a big thing for them as it lands as another blow to their esteem and rightness. it’s a bit hard, to know my part in this. At the same time apologies and a few hours later I am still concerned and worried, I have not made good a small moment. And I feel powerless to change a thing. And I am powerless to offer advice which is not sought or welcome.
How to Share
How to share the truth that someone is heading full tilt into overload, and actually has probably gone past it. I don’t know what to do, other than offer my part in the last evening. No other exchange is possible and I need mind my own business as outcomes are quite telling. I fear this one and am uncertain if there is anything I can do. Time may offer an opportunity to help if asked, and no help is most likely as the request is unlikely. I am stuck till then on this one element. And I must leave it until time allows. Not good for me or next steps for this particular situation. I must wait.
November 7th 2005
Rough Trade
When working with our fellows we often get into scrapes and misunderstandings. These misunderstandings are the product of our feelings about how he we are being treated. Sometimes we don’t know what is going on until it feels like it’s impossible to resolve some kind of difference. We know our gut feelings are telling us one thing, and our reason is trying to mitigate and make do with things being quite intolerable. Eventually the dam
breaks and we do something. And we feel awful and unreasonable. Why? Because we want to be reasonable and fair, and we believe most folks are the same.
Then when we start trading roughly with our fellows who upset us, we get caught in the grip of any old feelings plus the new ones which are getting more and more pronounced. We start trading roughly with those who offend our senses. Rough trade is awful, it makes us feel sick and deeply unhappy. We know its no good and we want reasonableness back, almost at all costs. We feel we must find some middle ground, and it’s hard to work out what to do. But we do our best, and the best of us fail miserably when there is intransigence. Its hard and difficult, it hurts our wellbeing and we don’t want to hurt any other because it goes against our principles.
In the end the pain is bad enough to move on, even when there is no resolution. We don’t want hurt, and we don’t want to hurt others. A stalemate with ourselves. A horrid and desperate time. When we cannot resolve something on our own, we need the support and guidance of others.
This often feels like a personal failure, and generally it is a failure to reason with what we perceive as unreasonable circumstances. There is nothing more potent than accepting powerlessness in some situations, which have gone bad and our part is complicit in the outcome. At the very least our judgment got us into the pickle in the first place. Mea culpa, I played my part in the events.
We need arbiters when we cannot resolve our issues. And we must hand over to less involved and more balanced viewers of situations. There is more harm in silence and foreboding, there is less harm in handing it over.
Whatever happens it takes time for our balance to be restored and it takes time for bridges to be made good, where wilful behaviour has harmed them.
All parties are wilful when the chips are down, and most likely all parties are indignant in their opinion to outcomes. The learning is to be clear on our own ground rules, principles and values. That we accept the ground rules we know when we enter into events and activities, to know our boundaries and our limits of tolerance. To know when it’s better not to endeavour, or know when to quit.
We all learn often how easy it is to get involved with enthusiasm and verve, most often because we care and would support our fellows. We should always care for each other and avoid rough trades.
Another learning and another day: I guess I’ll make my mistakes all over again and again, just less often, with less rough trading as I learn the good in all of us and beware my goodwill…
November 7th 2004
Old friends - Small Universe
I have many friends from times oft remembered, as my juggernaut of thoughts and feelings rumble. Memories of yesteryear and this year prick my feelings and unleash happy sad glimpses of times etched into my life compartments. My mind wanders to the nuance, the feeling, less the event, more the excitement felt with every new touch of another’s thoughts. Climbing amongst the strewn rather than neat wreckage of my mind’s eye, I have scintillating flashes of happiness. Tinged with filters, some happy reckless thoughts merge and profound sadness oozes for losses over the years. Overlapped with new starts and startled changes, my horizons move afresh to vistas never dreamed.
When I meet old friends, are they, were they ever so, my friends? I suspect they are and were at the time, bands of people thrown together to make something happen. And marvellous happenings, new beginnings and stretching across the breadth of human doings, so many moments to evoke and treasure. The treasure chest, not like Pandora's Box, the treasures of experience, do bring strength and hope, cluttered among sad remnants, where awkward thoughts occur. The night hours where torture captures my insecure moments.
The wonderment not lost to experience, where practice makes not perfect outcomes, for I remain, ever surrounded by the learning of others, I am shaped again, thrown into the thick of life. To explore that which works for me and to move on from that which I cannot fathom... how time changes my innermost thoughts.
I value my friends from the past and I value the similarities which brought us to share extraordinary times, made ordinary by time itself. And so time marches to its own tune, not mine or theirs, to the beat and rhythm of the universe, simple sounding but as complex as the touch of cosmic dust wafting the face of humanity. And humanity basks awestruck to the thrum of nature.
Just For Today And Every Day, Cherish Always...
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AA Official Online Site: Daily Reflections
AA Official Online Site: Big Book And Twelve And Twelve
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“The method of prayer & meditation. We often hear it said in meetings that the speaker "hits his knees every morning." Not being brought up Catholic or Muslim, we envisioned that slapping of the knees might be spiritually significant in A.A. When we discovered that the act of prayer was being referred to, we asked why A.A. tells us to get on our knees to pray. We were informed that A.A. makes no such suggestion. In fact, reference to praying on the knees, in the original draft of Step 7, was explicitly removed to prevent the misconception that such a practice was suggested. Moreover, to be on one’s knees as a prior condition to prayer will prevent prayer at many opportunities during the day. If you or your sponsor think that you should be on your knees for correct prayer, then by all means do so. It might just be the best way to pray. For the content of prayer, see Step 11b that follows.” BB Bunch
November 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 10 The Now Inventory
Alcoholics Anonymous | Step Eleven Reading Video Link:
November 2012 | Video Reading How It Works:
November 2012 | Video Reading Into Action :
November 2012 | Playlist All About Step Eleven:
I do not speak for Alcoholics Anonymous I speak for myself. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of unique and authentic people who speak for themselves where they will to share experience, strength and hope about recovery on a daily basis. Anonymity affords sanctuary to find how to live sober and be open, honest and willing to learn life day by day. For me "truth," "love" and "wisdom" offer the best spiritual experience by living reality today. Into the fabric of recovery from alcoholism are woven the Twelve Steps and the Traditions: steps to be open, honest and willing to learn, traditions to live unity, service and recovery.
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Spiritual principles ~ Forgiveness Acceptance Surrender Faith Open-mindedness Honesty Willingness Moral-inventory Amends Humility Persistence Spiritual-growth Service
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