December 3 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 12 Living Principles Alcoholics Anonymous Today's Daily Reflections: "practising these principles in all our affairs…" Romance and finance… Open, honest and willing. Unity, service and recovery. Romance: I am definitely open to a relationship, honestly I am and willing to go to any lengths… If we are compatible, we will live in unity, do plenty of service and live in recovery happily ever after. Finance: open to the idea of working hard, honestly I am. Willing to try out any sort of work. We can work together and share the profit, develop service products and ensure economic recovery is maintained…
Video For Today:
There is a dangerous principle, contempt prior to investigation… Apparently Herbert Spencer did not write the original version of this particular quote from history, the original quote was made by William Paley in the eighteenth century. And I'm sure he augmented another quote from an earlier time. So even when we are looking for contemptible truths which we might find unpalatable, there is truth in them somewhere and from someone. And the flat denial of the alcoholic in active addiction that they are an alcoholic of any kind is quite contemptible in the eyes of other people. Go into any bar in any part of the world or any home, and we find contemptible denial about everything and anything. Some things we just cannot accept even when we are on death's door and the Grim Reaper has a scythe to our neck…
I guess the big question for anybody living life today, is what sort of a person are we? And how do we work out who we are, what we stand for and what we are going to do in life. And we cannot make these ideas about life work without having life experience, having some sort of education, and by education and I mean learning from life as well as from teachers in a formal way. And of course religious sources, society sources and moral codes. First question in recovery, do we want to live to these principles in all our affairs? Being, open, honest and willing, without contempt prior to investigation. Living in unity, service and recovery without contempt after we have investigated just how difficult this is going to be? Practice will not make us perfect, we will make progress and sometimes we will be contemptible of the world as the world's contemptible of us…
Progress means we don't have to be a zealot, we don't have to find a code which is going to work for everyone in practice. Principles are like ethics, we have a code of belief which ensures that everyone has opportunity to make personal choices in our democratic vision of life, where we are all equal. And of course we find in practice that there are some greedy buggers about. They may come across as philanthropic and charitable types, of course they can come across that way. At the same time as the rich are giving, who pays most? The answer is always the poorest and powerless ones across our world. I'm glad I cannot change the world, could not solve it, at the same time I have my principles and do my best one day at a time and forgive everything, every day or nothing changes in me or my outlook…
For centuries, the rich have plundered the Earth and put their resources in tax havens. Addicted to the Internet? Google does not pay tax where I am. Addicted to shopping? Amazon don't pay tax where I am. Addicted to coffee? Starbucks doesn't pay tax where I am. And my government complains about them not paying tax, and my current government is the party of the centuries old establishment. And the government made the laws, not Amazon, not Google, not Starbucks. Greedy little fuckers can't get their nose in the trough, that's what they're complaining about. I love Google, I love Starbucks and I love Amazon and they are very efficient companies who produce what I want when I want it. Don't blame the companies and don't blame the people. We know the law makers can't get their act together. Contemptible people prior to investigation would realise that they reside over a closed, dishonest and unwilling to change, economic system with a set of rules which do not require a policy of, "we are all in this together." The old order wants a system where we are all taxed together so they can still enjoy the benefits and the elite still remains the elite… I by the way, I'm not a communist. I just want to be King…
In the world of recovery, where unity service and recovery helps everyone keep on the safe and narrow path, and people favour being open, honest and willing, life works pretty well. And if I can just cover my needs, emotionally and spiritually, with a roof over my head and enough food. Most days, life works as well it as it may, for you and me… Not so in many parts of the world. Sadly, there is much to do, I hope we make progress every day… And by the way, did you know that the United States of America is resource rich in fuel and self-sufficient for the next hundred years? I don't know how many people know this, apparently, it is a fact. And I believe it, now how do I get a green card…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
To practice these principles in all our affairs, the twelve steps: It is not a tall order for anyone as we accomplish so much more sober. We are not bound by doctrine or dogma, we develop freedom of choice and live to good choices more often as we live and learn today…
December 3 2010 ~ conscious contact with reality... When my feelings match the experience I am having, my attitudes and behaviour show me the principles of the twelve steps are working in the moment of now. Emotional and spiritual wellbeing, feelings and reality in the moment and just for today...
December 3 2010 ~ step twelve, practicing these principles daily, wisdom improves my attitudes and behaviour. I experience life on life's terms, feelings and reality, when I know the mood I am in; I know my thinking is based on truth, love and wisdom. Mood, feelings and reality, my thinking is clearer just for today...
AA Daily Reflections ~ "IN ALL OUR AFFAIRS we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 106
I find that carrying the message of recovery to other alcoholics is easy because it helps me to stay sober and it provides me with a sense of well-being about my own recovery. The hard part is practicing these principles in all my affairs. It is important that I share the benefits I receive from A.A., especially at home. Doesn’t my family deserve the same patience, tolerance and understanding I so readily give to the alcoholic? When reviewing my day I try to ask, “Did I have a chance to be a friend today and miss it?” ” Did I have a chance to rise above a nasty situation and avoid it?” “Did I have a chance to say ‘I’m sorry,’ and refuse to?” Just as I ask God for help with my alcoholism each day, I ask for help in extending my recovery to include all situations and all people!"
-/-
December 3 2007
DonInLondon - ‘Day In the Life’ Gearing up for Christmas?
Light Touches Around London
Indeed the lights are on for Christmas here in the UK. All the major streets in the Capital have Christmas lights festooned overhead. The Schools are set for nativity plays or so it seems some are. Some schools are not certain with multi ethnic populations whether is right to have a Nativity Play.
Olden Days
I cannot recall much of times past where I was in a nativity play? And as my older eyes and recollections make no real connection to the faith that England once had, a protestant Church of England faith, I cannot see any real potent force for religion in my upbringing, more secular in fact as my Dad had no real faith in much of anything but family. And he had no family except his children, me one of three.
Today - Spiritual
Today is my spiritual connection. After many years of wondering and accepting what I believed was spiritual, that is something we cannot really define, something ethereal, of the air, some higher being or purpose? I guess with a bump I have realised the spiritual connection is to the this present moment we experience. It is seeing the world with less filters, with less denials and seeing the truth of living.
Witness
Those who are witnessing the truth of now? Hard to comprehend who is seeing the truth of now, as we humans are apt to bend the truth, flex the truth to fit our outlook and not necessarily what is in front of us.
Ask the Questions
Who am I, what is happening right now. What is the good of it, what is the bad of it. What is this day for me?
Denials and filters
We wake up and have as our companions the last thoughts before sleep, the dreams we have had during our rest, and then waking thoughts and feelings.
Alarms to wake us
Time flows by, and we need make plans for our time, as the clock ticks to our wake up, we wake up with the past still sifting and sorting in our heads.
Love
I recall many moments as dreams meander to the good and happy slumbers. And the darkest moments where nightmares lurk. Loves and loving times, do we forget them, do we wonder where and what occurs for all we have met and loved? We may pray for their good fortune, we may forget unless we ask and make ourselves a routine.
Wakening
As I get up and move, I gently recall happy times when I may, shrug off the darkest nightmares, so real they are a bleak reminder of times past and struggles.
Spiritual Work
We need to work at spiritual connection, finding the truth we are, the truth of the day. Letting out the love we have for those we cherish close, and those lost in time, no more in this real world, and those cherished we cannot find have connection as real spiritual excludes us from their life. And we do the same to others.
Real life on Life’s Terms - True spiritual
When we see the truth of now, the ever present, present moment we touch Truth, Truth is God, God is Truth, this simple mantra, exhortation and reflection helps me calibrate and see in proportion what next for me in this one day. Places to go, people to meet, forms to fill, things to do, routines and every small and large connection, each part of me and my day.
I see my mail and read, I see new s and headlines from across the world and know where I am today. A little more in touch with reality or a tilt toward ego’s drift, where nothing else matters but me and my self-importance.
Today for a while just reflections on the day and routine, my part to play in this world, to share and not be afraid, to be myself a little more as I find out more about this world and my part in it.
Work Life
We need work life and have experience. Wisdom comes from our living, not watching the world go by. Or maybe somewhere in between. We have routine a framework and then we are off into learning through experience.
Life - An Art
May it be so, in the ever present, imperfectly perfect moment of now…
3rd December 2006
Life is Short enough
Actually maybe at long last I am realising that life is too short to fool and mess about waiting for others and their decisions. We need to develop a code of behaviour to help ourselves and others make the best the choices. Choices to be friends, acquaintances and partners and lovers and people we meet on our way.
This is truly a sensible way forward. All too often we think or feel we may behave a certain way because we are nice people. And often we are nice and amiable. And we genuinely want or need to help others along the path of life.
What we don’t need is to put up with a load of rubbish from those who may waste our time and effort. Most often we feel needs to be included and part of life. We need choose our life and choices. When people don’t fit or behave badly towards us, we don’t need to put up with too much of their crap and their way of looking at us as aids to their life.
And of course we grow up
My Mum is 75 tomorrow and we both agreed today that we are just getting to grips with life, I am 50. So my Mum and me, we are quite resolute at the moment we don’t want time wasters and filling gaps we might perceive with unhelpful acquaintance. This comes as no surprise to me this late in life, it seems we all do the people pleasing nonsense we are taught as we grow up.
Being nice to people and helping them
It’s a rewarding endeavour, when we do help and make life work for others, I spent many happy years doing this for a living. What I realise also I have done this to my detriment far too often for no good reason than a need to please others and hope they might like me enough to stick around and be friends or whatever they can be. What I have found are lots of self-driven people who know how to use others and make their lives seem worthwhile, when in fact they don’t give a damn. Users are users.
It’s a Rum do if we let it continue
We do need to get real about friends and what they are about. We feel their truth every day one way or another. We feel their friendship or we feel somewhat at a loss as if we have done something wrong. The wrong thing to feel is wronged. We have not been wronged at all, we might have had a mat on our heads which says “walk on me“, but we did it, not them.
Choices we make
We can choose our friends and give every opportunity to be friendly and be part of others’ lives. When we find we are neither part of, or that they have little concern for us, we can get rid of them quick time. We don’t need crap, we do need love. And love is in how they behave and treat us. If we are treated badly, we need complain and make it clear. If they stay the same or cannot account for us, we can dismiss them as time wasters and users.
Plenty of users in this world
There are plenty out there, who will bleed us of time and our capacity to make their lives work and do nothing for us. We don’t need users, we do need friends. We don’t need to tell them, usually we need stop being in their company?
Sometimes we do need to tell them
Yes its true, we do need to inform some useless people just how useless they are. And sometimes they may change for the good. But and a big but, its often too late for us as our trust is gone and our patience worn out.
I feel this today
I have one friend I thought who understood my position, and now I see clearly their madness has not abated and left me as the answer to their next campaign or failure to get with a good programme of living. And I have another and another and another. And I am pretty hacked off as its all a one way street. And that is mostly down to me. Being amiable and stuffed with knowledge and skill others may utilise is no good if its used and I am abused. To be fair I know where they come from in their projections and dependence on others. They have yet to make good choices about how to behave well towards themselves first and then others.
Others behave badly to themselves
They do. They self-harm, treat themselves badly, try fix themselves with all sorts including people. And how they offer themselves as friends when in fact they don’t even know how to behave on their own let alone in company. Ego driven or downtrodden they need find a personal choice and code of behaviour inwards first and then outwards.
People blame people
People blame others, but when we know what is going on, if we keep doing the same thing and trying to save or protect or just be amiable we lose our own path in the process. We need to be strong and bold, and keep faith with our own path. We will attract good friends and good companions as we turn up treating ourselves right and treating others right too. Not hard to explain, but very hard to do.
And finally today as this is most emphatically pertinent
We need to treat ourselves well, know how we do this and practice the same on those we meet and relate to. If we choose to treat ourselves as less than human, we will treat others the same way, because we don’t learn our personal values and a code of behaviour. Put yourself first, and make others equal in how you behave. Do not make yourself open to using by lowering standards or your code. We need respect ourselves and how we live. We can then invite others to join in. Let go people who cannot for whatever reason, we cannot change them.
People can Change
Yes they can every day, people do. When people do not change and think they can get away with it, tell them to fuck off. Be prepared however to lose them as influences in your life. After a while you will feel better and less used. It can be hard, as I have found to tell myself to fuck off, as I had nowhere to go. I had to look in the mirror and decide how I might behave better to myself, and as a consequence to other people. Once we understand most of the blame if not all the blame in how we are treated is entirely down to us, we get real about how we conduct ourselves and how we develop our friendships.
If today you are feeling fed up with how others treat you, look in the mirror and ask yourself how you want to treat yourself and make some decisions. You may be surprised and accept that to now you have been your own worst enemy. I did with myself. And I amend and develop a better code for myself and others as I go along. Progress and not perfection…
Ordinary People don’t need to worry
No doubt to the ordinary person in the street, what I am suggesting is what they do normally as routine. There some unfortunates like me, late developers in the self-confidence department who are late bloomers altogether and only learn how not be used much later on in life. No problem and no worries, we need learn and do better at life and our relationships. Fucking hell its taken me a long time, so I forgive everyone everything every day. And as a consequence some stick around in my life and others can push off as soon as they realise I am not putting up with their inability to treat themselves or me properly. Of course everyone can change, get honest if they wish whenever they feel that good conscience comes to their rescue, until then I will not hold my breath or be foolish enough to feel I can change anything about them!
The inside job
It is an inside job, repairing and healing and becoming more wise. When others ask for help I will always see what I can do. The caveat is simple and true, people change if they must and there is too much pain in staying the same. Some people need reach rock bottom to change, others happily work it out long before. I wish I had, but like most people it took me a long time to wise up to reality. It is always my choice once I know what is wrong. And simply we must go with the flow of life, or we will expire before time or hold ourselves in living misery and blame others for our stupidity. My choices, help people to my own good conscience, and their path is of their choosing not mine.
I will be as able as I treat myself and be available to help and be a friend as I may, not at my expense or on a one way street of pain. Choices are always personal when we are informed. Best we learn simple ways to live and love people and life. Or we lose our identity and purpose.
Our Purpose?
To experience life as it may be, good or bad, up or down, joyful or sad, its up to us. Of course society can make it difficult, in the olden days when it was bad enough, people moved on, even to other lands and continents. Best we learn how again when we must, there is no hiding place from ourselves, for wherever we may tip up, we are always there…
December 3rd 2005
Patience: we are patient souls when we allow the fruits of our efforts to emerge in their perfect time... or not at all!
December 3rd 2004
Excuses, excuses
If you want to do anything you find a way. If you don't want to do anything you find an excuse
-/-
Just For Today And Every Day, Cherish Always...
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“Awakening as the result of what? The result, or consequence of taking the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is a Spiritual Awakening. Please reflect that this step does not say the awakening comes as the result of taking steps 1 through 11, those preceding Step 12. On the contrary, the awakening comes as the result of taking these (all of the twelve) steps, including Step 12. (If you disagree, that is wonderful. Keep on digesting these steps.)” Big Book Bunch
December 2012 | Playlist About Step Twelve: Step Twelve Playlist
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AA Official Online Site: Big Book And Twelve And Twelve
Big Book And Twelve And Twelve
AA Official Online Site: Daily Reflections
December 2012 | Step Twelve Reading Video Link:
December 2012 | Video Reading How It Works:
December 2012 | Video Reading A Vision For You:
December 2012 | Video About Grief And Depression
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