Sick

It's difficult for me to think today. I find that when I am physically ill it becomes increasingly harder to get my thoughts off myself. And not only do I focus more on myself but I focus almost entirely on how I feel and my situation. This isn't a very good thing. Selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of my problem. It is natural to be more self-centered when ill, but I have to fight it. I can not allow my sickness to be an excuse to wallow in self-pity or become self-centered. For one thing, I can quickly become too comfortable in that state of being. Secondly, if I allow exceptions for illness how long before I begin allowing exceptions for other things, such as hurt feelings and situations not going my way? I have to push through my feelings and gain that conscious contact with God. I also have to realize that when I am weakened physically I am also affected spiritually, mentally and emotionally. This means I am more vulnerable to fall out of using the tools I have been given and to slip back into old reaction patterns. I have to take care of myself. That in itself is an interesting proposition. I must take care of myself more to insure I don't become more self-centered and focused. So how can I accomplish the one without feeding the other? I need to take care of myself by seeking time with my Higher Power. I need to take care of myself by resting so that my body can recover. And I need to take care of myself by listening to current and temporary limitations and not pushing myself to perform and be at the levels I am when I am well. So today I am going to spend a little extra time in meditation, take some medicine and copious amounts of vitamin C, rest and experiment with the theory that staying well spiritually and working on improving ,my spiritual condition may actually improve my physical condition more quickly.

What A Difference

If I look at my past and the damage I have done in so many areas over the years, it is easy to see that I do not deserve the life I have today. I am richly blessed. There was a time when seeing and or feeling how little I deserved one particular good thing in my life or another would have started a chain reaction within me that would lead to me doing something to push that good thing out of my life or destroy it. I never wanted all the destruction and negative results to manifest, but I felt comfortable with them. I felt I deserved them. When I didn't feel I deserved the love and good in my life I didn't trust it, couldn't trust it. Today I understand what is so amazing about grace. How special it is to have an undeserved second chance. I don't have to push that away or protect myself from it. I treasure it and guard it.

It is true that if you have never tasted the bitter then you can not truly appreciate the sweet. Today I want to appreciate the sweet instead of expecting it to turn bitter because I have tasted that so often.

Which Way Will I Go?

The morning is somewhat gray and blah, but the time is good. It's mornings like this that I realize I have a choice that effects the rest of my day. Nothing has happened to thrust me into a good mood or make me feel that the day is going to be wonderful. There have even been a couple of set backs already. But the truth is I have a choice. I can enjoy my time with my Creator, I can focus on the birds singing more than the gray skies, I look forward to the opportunities that I have in my life today rather than fear all the things that can go wrong. Some days, I am blessed and it's easy to go with the flow and have a good day, full of joy in doing the next right thing. Other days, I have to fight negative circumstances and attitudes. But some days could go either way. Before recovery, most days that could've gone either way went to the negative. It was easy to focus on the negative and all the things that could've gone wrong and then escape from the feelings I fed myself. Today, I choose a better way. I choose to let God guide me and make today good. I I choose to see and appreciate all the things I have to be grateful for.

First Steps

I feel a little like a child who has pulled himself to a standing position using a table leg and is now wobbling, trying to balance, looking at the huge distance of the room and wondering if indeed he can truly walk across. There is a part of me that worries that I may have started this walking thing too early. Was I really ready for this great attempt? Will I be good enough quickly enough? How bad will it hurt when I fall? All these questions and fears swirl in my head as my balance point shifts. But I must trust that I was meant not only to walk but to run. I have to let the desire to be on the other side of the room drive me to try. I have to trust that if I fall, the damage won't be too bad, and it doesn't have to stop me. I may want to run to success, I feel that need, but i can't wait on the ability to run. If all I can do is take two steps before my butt hits the floor, that's ok. If all I can do after that is crawl, then I must start crawling. Even crawling, I will eventually get where I need to go. The important thing is to try, to keep trying, and to keep moving forward.

Building Blocks

Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start. ~Nido Qubein


This is an important truth for me to remember, because it is essential of for me to apply this to my life in two ways. What I do at each moment determines what future is built out of my present. How I react to the situations in my life does far more to guide the path of my life than the circumstances, situations and people I am responding to. So I must remember that no matter what is going on in my life and around me, there is never a time when doing the next right thing is not the best possible option. There is no meaningless or insignificant choice where it's ok to blow off right. Because no matter how small the brick is that I place in the construction of my life today, everything that follows my must rest on that foundation. When I choose the wrong or a faulty thing today, my future is weakened, and there will come a point where I will have to try to go back in, tear out the weakened materials, and repair the damage, or there will be a collapse. How much easier and better it is when I choose to build my life with the right materials today so that repairs are not necessary.

The other thing I have to remember is that two states are considered here. The present, my circumstances and what's going on in my life now, and the future, where I will go. The past is not a part of the equation. There is nowhere that I need to go with my life that God can't open the path and allow me to get there, regardless of my past, if I do the next right thing, allow Him to direct my steps, and go and do where and what He wants me to today. Beating myself up with regret and using my past as an excuse not to build today are sure ways to screw up the possibilities for my future. My present circumstances, which are in part a result of my past just as my future circumstances will be effected by my present, determine where I start, not started. What I did yesterday only matters in as much as I need to evaluate if tear downs and rebuilding are necessary. Even if they are, it's what I do to effect those repairs today that matters, not that the repairs need to be made or even why. Everything in my past and freeing myself from its bonds, my present and the overwhelming nature of all I need to do, and the future with its worries and uncertainties are all subjected to what I do right at the moment of the present. When I do what's right for me, when God is the director, then nothing in my past, my present circumstances, or my future obstacles can keep me from building exactly what I am supposed to build in and of my life.

So Life Isn't Fair, So What?

"The secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others are adding up their
troubles." --Unknown


The above quote is truth But when I am in a mood to be miserable, I can ignore that truth and knock it as bogus positive thinking. "That's stupid," I can say to myself. "After all, if I have a flat tire and it's pouring down rain on me as I change it, what on earth is there to be happy about? Count my blessings? Please." Well, yes, because it's not about the power of positive thinking but something that sounds as silly, an attitude of gratitude. In the above situation, how much different would I truly feel right at that moment if I remembered and was grateful for the fact that I hadn't had to make the entire journey on foot in the rain, that I had a car that ran, gratitude for having a spare tire that had air in it, gratitude that my father taught me how to change a tire, gratitude for the jack, etc. I'm not talking about putting on rose colored glasses and tricking myself into believing that everything is ok or good, but rather understanding that there are blessings in my life that enable me to hope, that help me to handle even bad situations better than I once could, that keep the weight balanced and more bearable so that I am not crushed, and for this I should be grateful. If I find that gratitude, I can not help but be happy, or at least have joy, which is better, even in the midst of the hurricane that's blowing my life apart.

Yesterday, I forgot this and myself. What I mean when I write that I forgot myself is that I forgot who I am today and began acting like who I was, specifically the who I was around elementary age. I stomped my metaphorical feet and threw my little fist against the ground so angry I couldn't keep from crying, all the while screaming it's not right and it's not fair! Such a display is ugly and uncomfortable to watch when a five your old does it. It's much worse when the tantrum thrower is nearly is an adult. I felt like a baseball player who made a base running error in the fourth inning that resulted in being called out who discovered that everything thrown his way the rest of the game was now being called a strike no matter how far out of the strike zone the pitch was. That's not right. That's not fair. I already paid for the error. I was called out. Each time at the plate is supposed to be a fresh and new opportunity. But that's baseball, and not life, and while it's true that there are things that happen in every sporting event that aren't fair or how it's supposed to be according to the rules, life is even more filled with such. Life isn't fair, and much that happens in the world we live in isn't right or just.

I can't change that. I can't change one thing about what I found so wrong yesterday, not by running away and not by fighting. When it won't help to fight, and flight isn't possible, what is left besides victimization? Poor me, I become the victim once again. That's the only answer. Wrong. What is left doesn't have to be victimization. The better option is surrender, not to the situation or to the opposition but to the umpire of the game.

If I surrender and accept the situation for what it is and see the truth about what it does and doesn't say about my life and who I am, then I can see once more the blessings in my life that make the difference. I am blessed today that I am not the person this unfairness is aimed at, even if I have gotten caught up in the same net. I have friends and family who the truth of who I am and accept me, I have more love in my life than I deserve (something that also isn't fair but I don't complain when unfairness works in my favor), despite how much the situation effects my life and the hoops it causes me to jump through, it truly could be so much worse than it is, and yes, it is a blessing that things aren't worse. There is some truth to the power of perceiving life with a Pollyanna attitude.

I'm not sure where trying to see the positive became so despised and silly. It works, when the goal is not to change the situation but rather to change my attitude about the situation that I have accepted. I really can't be hateful and grateful at the same time, and if I will simply stop throwing a fight and crying fowl, I can see so many blessings in my life and so many times when I received mercy and blessing that I didn't deserve. The truth is that I don't want life to be fair. If life were fair I wouldn't be free if I were alive. I wouldn't be sitting on the front porch next to the one I love typing this into a computer I own and listening to the birds sing. I have rarely experienced fair. Most of the time I wouldn't want to, because I prefer mercy. With all the mistakes I have made in my life, mercy is my only hope. But if I am going to be so quick to accept mercy and ask for it in my own life, I must be as quick to give it to others when the unfairness doesn't go my way. I can't show mercy to others unless I can see it working in my own life. I can only see it in my own life when I look for and become grateful for the blessings I have that I never earned. With mercy and gratitude come joy and happiness, even though nothing outside me has changed one bit.

But to see the blessings, I also have to keep my yard clean. I can't be grateful for the grass if my lawn is covered in trash. So I have to do make my wrongs right. This is not a fun proposition. There is nothing fun about having to go to a 19 year-old friend and say I was wrong, and I had no right to take my hurt and anger out on you. What can I do to make it right? What can I do to help repair the damage to your heart and soul that I caused when I struck out in reaction to my wounds. I can't afford to say it's ok, life isn't fair when I have done something that brings the pain of unfairness into someone else's life. If I didn't deserve the pain I felt, then no one I care about deserves me to then dump and transfer that pain onto them. I couldn't be happy, not even counting my blessings, until I repaired the damage I had done. The ability to see where I have wronged others as I hate being wronged, the wisdom to know what to do to about it, and the courage to make things right are three of the biggest blessings in my life today. I can't see the rest if I won't take advantage of these.

Learning From Intolerance

Why is it that even after working the program of recovery I still make so much that's not about me....well, about me? Why is it that when someone trashes something or someone I really love, respect, admire, emulate, etc. I take it like it's a personal statement about me, when it really doesn't have anything to do with me? I even feel this way sometimes when the person doing the criticizing of the one admired is the same person that I admire. No one is more critical of me than me, and I expect people who care about me to be ok with that sometimes. And yet, I'm not ok with it when someone I care about beats themselves up. Dare I say that once again what I am least tolerant of in others is where I have the most issues of my own? Could it be that the reason it bugs me so much when I see someone else doing the same thing I do that the reason it bothers me is I know it isn't right for me to do it either? How can I still be so self-centered that I make someone else's struggles and pain be about me and my issues? I guess it's a sign of improvement or progress that I can even see this tendency in myself today. I need to work on this and submit myself to the Potter to be remolded when it comes to self-fladulation. Why is it that the more progress I seem to make the further it appears that I have to go?