12 June 2019 Today’s Gift Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment. —Maxwell Maltz The way we think about ourselves determines how we behave and who we become. If Eileen believes she is good at baseball, she will swing the bat more confidently and catch fly balls more easily. And her extra effort will generally pay off. At math, Steve thinks he’s a whiz and it makes him proud. He studies so he’ll continue to be a whiz. The image we have of ourselves is like the blueprint the contractor follows when building a house. When we see ourselves sad or angry, our behavior and personality will match it. When we see ourselves withdrawn and afraid, we seem to avoid activities that involve others. How wonderful that we can change our behavior and thus ourselves by changing the picture we carry in our minds. Do I have a good picture of myself today? Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Monday, June 24, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Today’s Gift The Eye Opener The poor old drunk has ever had to face the wrath of the law and an indignant world. Lectures, threats, jail sentences, booby hatches and asylums have proven to be but waste of words, efforts and public funds. Nothing – absolutely nothing – worked. AA tried a revolutionary ministration of sympathy and understanding. It recognized his condition as an illness, threefold in its nature, and that the only medication that would prove effective must treat his physical, mental and spiritual disorder at one and the same time. Hazelden Foundation Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Monday, June 24, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Eye Opener Daily Tao / 175 - DIVERSITY Gods have many faces, But true divinity has no face. There are so many gods in the world. Taoists have their pantheon. The Buddhists, Hindus, and other religions have theirs. The Islamic and Judeo-Christian schools may be monotheistic, but their sects differ vastly from one another. Those who follow Tao assert that each of us sees the divine in our own way. Is there one god, or many? Among those who follow Tao, there are those who say that if there are gods, then everyone is a god. You are god. There is nothing in the sky, and no one lives your life but you. Whatever one believes in terms of deities is fine. It's all individual preference, and it ultimately means self-awareness. But there is something beyond the diversity of gods, and that is the absolute. That which is absolute is formless. Thus Tao is nameless and faceless. We cannot consider Tao our god. That would be to give it form and therefore bring it back into the world where the myriad things have names. We use the word Tao for convenience only, but in fact, we are referring to a deep mystery. As long as we live in the world of diversity, whether it is the frantic pace of our professional lives or the involvement with all the gods of the world, we will not be with Tao. It is only when we leave the diversity of existence and find the formless absolute that we reach Tao. Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Monday, June 24, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Daily Tao Daily Zen "Less desire means less pain" Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Monday, June 24, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Daily Zen Sunday, 23 June 2019 Bob T. - Recovery Speaker at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: AA, Speakers Daily Dose OF Emmet Fox “Many people look upon change with dread and foreboding. But for those on the spiritual path-for those who believe in God and the power of prayer-change is a fuller expression of life. When a problem or condition arises in your life that indicates a change, rely upon God, and realize that it is not so much that a door has closed on a chapter of your life, but rather that a door has opened on new and more interesting things.” ~ Emmet Fox Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Emmet Fox Daily Reflections TRUSTING OTHERS But does trust require that we be blind to other people’s motives or, indeed, to our own? Not at all; this would be folly. Most certainly, we should assess the capacity for harm as well as the capability for good in every person that we would trust. Such a private inventory can reveal the degree of confidence we should extend in any given situation. -AS BILL SEES IT, p. 144 I am not a victim of others, but rather a victim of my expectations, choices and dishonesty. When I expect others to be what I want them to be and not who they are, when they fail to meet my expectations, I am hurt. When my choices are based on self-centeredness, I find I am lonely and distrustful. I gain confidence in myself, however, when I practice honesty in all my affairs. When I search my motives and am honest and trusting, I am aware of the capacity for harm in situations and can avoid those that are harmful. Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Daily Reflections Twenty-Four Hours A Day A.A. Thought For The Day No chain is stronger than its weakest link. Likewise, if you fail in the day-by-day program, in all probability it will be your weakest point. Great faith and constant contact with God’s power can help you discover, guard, and undergird your weakest point with a strength not your own. Intelligent faith in God’s power can be counted on to help you master your emotions, help you to think kindly of others, and help you with any task that you undertake, no matter how difficult. Am I master of my emotions? Meditation For The Day You need to be constantly recharged by the power of the spirit of God. Continue with God in quiet times until the life from God, the Divine life, by that very contact, flows into your being and revises your fainting spirit. When weary, take time out and rest. Rest and gain power and strength from God, and then you will be ready to meet whatever opportunities come your way. Rest until every care and worry and fear have gone and then the tide of peace and serenity, love and joy, will flow into your consciousness. Prayer For The Day I pray that I may rest and become recharged. I pray that I may pause and wait for the renewing of my strength. Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Twenty-Four Hours A Day As Bill Sees It Constructive Forces, p. 174 Mine was exactly the kind of deep-seated block we so often see today in new people who say they are atheistic or agnostic. Their will to disbelieve is so powerful that apparently they prefer a date with the undertaker to an open-minded and experimental quest for God. Happily for me, and for most of my kind who have since come along in A.A., the constructive forces brought to bear in our Fellowship have nearly always overcome this colossal obstinacy. Beaten into complete defeat by alcohol, confronted by the living proof of release, and surrounded by those who can speak to us from the heart, we have finally surrendered. And then, paradoxically, we have found ourselves in a new dimension, the real world of spirit and faith. Enough willingness, enough open-mindedness–and there it is! A.A. Today, p. 9 Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: As Bill Sees It Keep It Simple Words are sacred, we must use them wisely. They are a gift from God. -Burton Pretty-On-Top We use words to bring peace to others. We can use words to tell God and others how much we care. Or we can use words to hurt others. We can curse them and scare them away. We often did when we used alcohol and other drugs. In recovery, we learn to use words in a kind, wise way. We treat words as a gift from God. We use words to build our relationships. Do I always use words in a kind way? Do I treat words as a powerful gift from God? Do my words make the world better or worse for those who hear me speak? Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, when I speak words, help me think about their power. Help me speak to others in a kind way. Action for the Day: Today, I’ll speak to others with respect. My words will add a little kindness, honesty, and love to the world today. Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Keep It Simple A Day At A Time Reflection For The Day Complacency is my enemy, easy to recognize in others, but difficult to identify and accept in myself. Complacency simply means being sure we’re right — taking it for granted that we couldn’t possibly be wrong. It means, moreover, judging others by what we think is right. It blocks out understanding and kindness, and seems to justify qualities in ourselves that we’d find wholly intolerable in others. Do I tend to assume that my views are always correct? Today I Pray God, please steer me past complacency, that state of being on dead center. When I am smug, I am no longer a seeker. If I assume I am always right, I am never on guard for my own mistakes, which can run away with me. Keep me teachable. Keep me growing, in heart, mind and spirit. Today I Will Remember Complacency stunts growth. Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: A Day At A Time One Day At A Time MIRACLES “Miracles are instantaneous, they cannot be summoned but come of themselves, usually at unlikely moments and to those who least expect them.” –Katherine Ann Porter I never believed that we live in an age of miracles. As far as I was concerned, those happened only in the days of the Bible — with burning bushes and the red sea opening up. When I first came into the program and heard people talking about miracles, I was skeptical. As I became more open to the possibility, things began to happen which I can only consider to be miracles. They may not have seemed large to my old closed mind, but being able to give up certain trigger foods — or having a fellow member in the program call me when I most needed a call — have become miracles in my life today. Being able to maintain my weight, rather than losing and gaining weight every few months, is a miracle. Most importantly, my transformed relationships with my children and other loved ones are miracles. One day at a time … I will open my mind to the possibility of miracles occurring in my life…and they will come. ~ Sharon Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: One Day At A Time Elder’s Meditation of the Day “He [Wakan Tanka] walks with us along the pathways of Life, and He can do for us what we could never do on our own.” –Fools Crow, LAKOTA With the Creator in our lives, we are everything. Without the Creator, we are nothing. When the Creator is in our life, suddenly the impossible becomes possible. The extraordinary becomes ordinary. Things we thought could never happen start to happen. Talents we never know we had, start to blossom. Resources appear. Help arrives to give us guidance and direction. We become happy. We have peace of mind and confidence. Oh Great Spirit, today I want You in my life. The days that I know You are with me are the days that are perfect. Let me be joyful today. Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Elder’s Meditation, Elders, Lakota Today’s Gift Real friends are those who, when you’ve made a fool of yourself, don’t feel that you’ve done a permanent job. —Erwin T. Randall What kind of friends do we have? Are they people who complain a lot? Are they people who laugh at us or put others down? The kind of people we want to be will decide what kind of friends we have. If we want to feel sorry for ourselves, we will choose friends who will tell us how rotten their lives are. If we want to think we’re better than others, we will hang around people who laugh at others’ mistakes. But if we want to be the best we can be, we will pick friends who see the good in life, people who will encourage us to be ourselves and who will help us try harder at things that are difficult for us. How can I be a better friend today? Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Today’s Gift The Eye Opener It takes courage, intelligence, initiative and deep emotions to make a really successful fool. The timid, under-imaginative, cowardly seldom do. We as alcoholics made fools of ourselves, it is true, but, in so doing, we experienced more, we lived more, we suffered more. These are the ingredients of a liberal education. If wisdom could be dissected, there would be a large portion of Folly, Defeat, Suffering and just plain Damned Foolishness in its makeup. By the same token, our foolishness taught us valuable lessons that could not have been acquired anywhere else. Hazelden Foundation Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Eye Opener Daily Tao / 174 - Worship You can worship gods. You cannot worship Tao. Adoration of your god is more beautiful than lovers, more fulfilling than feasts, more valuable than mammon. It provides greater shelter than places. Proper worship is joyous and ecstatic. If you have a limited view of worship, you can always lose sight of holiness. When you are on a junior level of achievement, you can turn away from your gods at any time. Those who follow Tao know that Tao is not the god on the altar, they therefore see their god in their every action and never lose sight of the divine. Gods can be worshiped, but the Tao can’t be worshiped. Why? Because gods lead to good things and inspire our highest devotion. As magnificent as this is to imagine, it is still limited when compared to the eternity of Tao. Tao has no definitions, no limit, no personal or individual consciousness. Thus, to worship Tao is meaningless, for our effort would be lost in an infinite sea. There is no supplication to it, for it will not respond. There is no adoration of it, for it displays no glory. There is no ecstatic union with it, for it has no differentiations. Tao is great. Tao is eternal. Anything limited and small – even worship – disappears in it. One can only enter Tao to become a part of its limitlessness. Why not sign up to get emails with all daily posts included? Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery at Sunday, June 23, 2019 Reactions: No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: Daily Tao Daily Zen

Believe nothing because a wise man said it.
Believe nothing because it is generally held.
Believe nothing because it is written.
Believe nothing because it is said to be divine
Believe nothing because someone else believes it.
But believe only what you yourself judge to be true. 

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