Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Home For The Holidays
Whether or not you can be home with your family for the holidays, you can be at home in your grateful heart.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
More gratitude...
Grateful today for my spiritual awakening. Grateful that I got my life back 25 years ago. Grateful that I can carry the message.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
SHARE WEEKLY: ...We Will Be Amazed...
A sentence leading into the 9th Step Promises in the Big Book proclaims that “If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half-way through,” meaning that we will see significant progress in our recovering lives in a very short time.
At the time of my first reading of that passage, my downs outweighed my ups, and I was more accustomed to being horrified and ashamed than amazed. So that was my first real sense of promise from the 12 steps; that if I were thorough in my inventory, in sharing that inventory, in making my amends, and in doing whatever was necessary to repair the damage of my past, I would start to experience what felt like a very important shift.
I couldn’t figure out what that amazement would be like exactly – would it be a big, one-time, burning-bush moment? An ongoing, smell-every-rose zest for life? I didn’t know anything except that I wanted, more than anything, to replace the sadness and uncertainty that I felt most days, and amazement sure sounded like a great alternative.
But first I had to go through the eight preceding steps before I could truly know any of the ninth-step promises, amazement included. The first step – admitting that I was powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable – was the easy one, one I had plenty of evidence to support. It was the powerlessness and unmanageability with alcohol that had led me to my first meeting and gotten that book in my hands to begin with.
The next seven steps ended up giving me quite a bit more trouble, and it took more than a year to work them. But by the time I finished, I started to feel what I believed it meant to be amazed, which was this pervasive wonder and gratitude from seeing that my life could evolve into something beautiful and useful.
My amazement – and usefulness – grew with each formal pass through the steps, which I did three times in the first five years of my sobriety. Along the way, my life turned from something to get away from into something to look forward to. And each subsequent time through the steps, whether formally or informally, I have became more and more willing to be searching, fearless, moral, and honest, and my life and ability to serve others has improved proportionately.
Which is amazing. Still.
At the time of my first reading of that passage, my downs outweighed my ups, and I was more accustomed to being horrified and ashamed than amazed. So that was my first real sense of promise from the 12 steps; that if I were thorough in my inventory, in sharing that inventory, in making my amends, and in doing whatever was necessary to repair the damage of my past, I would start to experience what felt like a very important shift.
I couldn’t figure out what that amazement would be like exactly – would it be a big, one-time, burning-bush moment? An ongoing, smell-every-rose zest for life? I didn’t know anything except that I wanted, more than anything, to replace the sadness and uncertainty that I felt most days, and amazement sure sounded like a great alternative.
But first I had to go through the eight preceding steps before I could truly know any of the ninth-step promises, amazement included. The first step – admitting that I was powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable – was the easy one, one I had plenty of evidence to support. It was the powerlessness and unmanageability with alcohol that had led me to my first meeting and gotten that book in my hands to begin with.
The next seven steps ended up giving me quite a bit more trouble, and it took more than a year to work them. But by the time I finished, I started to feel what I believed it meant to be amazed, which was this pervasive wonder and gratitude from seeing that my life could evolve into something beautiful and useful.
My amazement – and usefulness – grew with each formal pass through the steps, which I did three times in the first five years of my sobriety. Along the way, my life turned from something to get away from into something to look forward to. And each subsequent time through the steps, whether formally or informally, I have became more and more willing to be searching, fearless, moral, and honest, and my life and ability to serve others has improved proportionately.
Which is amazing. Still.
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