[bluidkiti]

August 29

You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
When you meet a man, you judge him by his clothes; when you leave, you judge him by his heart. --Russian Proverb
The woman on the park bench was gnarled and dirty. Her hair was an uncombed mess, her clothes torn and old. She clutched a paper bag to her side, which seemed to contain her belongings. She sat in the sun, humming to herself. Occasionally she threw a bit of popcorn to ducks who waited at her feet. A little boy and his mother sat by the lake, not wanting to share the bench with this wild-eyed old woman. But when the old woman beckoned to the little boy to share her popcorn with him, he ran to the bench and let out squeals of laughter as they fed the hungry ducks.
Our world is full of variety and surprises. Would we have it any other way? When we shun someone because of the way they look, we cut ourselves off from part of life. But when we are ready for anything--accepting and trusting--we are a wonder to everyone.
How shall I judge people today?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
To be a man means to be a fellow man. --Leo Baeck
Sometimes we become overburdened with frustration and disappointment in our lives. When we turn inward and focus only on our problems, we may be cutting ourselves off from the healing effect of contact with others. Today, there may be a new group member who would appreciate a phone call from us. Perhaps we could visit an aged person or someone who is sick. Help is always needed in providing food to the hungry. Perhaps a co-worker would welcome our assistance on a task or errand.
When we help others, we affirm our solidarity with them in their stress and suffering. We don't give help because we are better or without problems of our own, but because we suffer too. When we act as fellowmen, the comradeship and human contact we get provide us with as much help as we give. They liberate us from our own oppressive egos and make us see we are worthwhile men.
I affirm myself as a man when I stand in solidarity with others and help them in their need.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. --Helen Keller
The next 24 hours are guaranteed to excite us, to lift us to new levels of understanding, to move us into situations with others where we can offer our unique contributions. All that is asked of us is a willingness to trust that we will be given just what we need at each moment.
We can dare to live, fully, just for today. We can appreciate the extraordinariness of every breath we take, every challenge we encounter. Within each experience is the invitation for us to grow, to reach out to others in caring ways, to discover more fully the women we are capable of being. We must not let a single moment go by unnoticed.
When we withdraw from life, we stunt our growth. We need involvement with others, involvement that perturbs us, humors us, even stresses us. We tap our internal resources only when we have been pushed to our limits, and our participation in life gifts us, daily, with that push. How necessary the push!
None of us will pass this way again. What we see and feel and say today are gone forever. We have so much to regret when we let things slip away, unnoticed or unappreciated.
A special series of events has been planned for me today. I shall not miss it.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Owning Our Energy
Learn to keep your energy inside. --From Women, Sex, and Addiction Charlotte Davis Kasl, Ph.D.
For many reasons, we may have mastered the art of giving away our energy. We may have learned it when we were young because the feelings we had were too overwhelming to feel, and we did not know how to process them.
Much of our obsessing, our intense focus on others, is done to facilitate this "out of body" experience we call codependency.
We obsess, we babble, we become anxious. We try to control, care take, and fuss over others. Our energy spills out of us on to whomever.
Our energy is our energy. Our feelings, thoughts, issues, love, sexuality; our mental, physical, spiritual, sexual, creative, and emotional energy is ours.
We can learn to have healthy boundaries - healthy parameters - around our energy and ourselves. We can learn to keep our energy within ourselves and deal with our issues.
If we are trying to escape from our body, if our energy is spilling out of us in unhealthy ways, we can ask ourselves what is going on, what is hurting us, what we are avoiding, what we need to face, what we need to deal with.
Then, we can do that. We can come back home to live - in ourselves.
Today, I will keep my energy in my body. I will stay focused and within my boundaries. God, help me let go of my need to escape myself. Help me face my issues so I am comfortable living in my body.

Everywhere I turn I find positive and loving people. My heart is full of peace and love. --Ruth Fishel

*****

Journey to the Heart
First Heal Your Heart

I checked into the lodge in Sedona, certain I was there to get my job done. I told the woman behind the desk, a delightful soul with brown hair, brown eyes, a warm smile, and an open heart, why I was there-- to begin writing this book.

"Maybe you will," she said, "but that's not why you're really here. You came here to cleanse the past and heal your broken heart.' I looked at her in surprise. I knew what she said was true.

Many of us show up at a place in our lives with a particular agenda. We think we are there to get the job done, build a relationship, accomplish a task. Then, life takes a twist, one we didn't quite expect or plan on.

We discover we're at a certain place for a reason different from what we thought. The real reason we're there is to cleanse the past and heal our broken heart. Healing our heart is a worthwhile mission, more purposeful perhaps than the one we intended. Healing our heart is worthwhile and crucial, something that often needs to be done first, so that we can accomplish what we intended.

The biggest block to service and love is a broken heart. To care about life again, to open our hearts, to dare to dream, to risk love again, we must first heal our hearts. Decide on your mission. Be clear on your purpose. But remember, first things need to be done first.

Maybe you're where you are today for a reason other than you thought. Maybe the first thing to do is cleanse the past and heal your heart.

*****

more language of letting go
Spiral up

I was flying the airplane one day, practicing my turns, when I turned to my instructor,Rob. "Something doesn't feel quite right to me," I said. "The horizon looks a little bit off."

"That's because you've got us in a graveyard spiral," he said. "If you keep going like this, we'll keep spiraling faster and faster until we lose control and crash into the ground."

"Aaaah!" I said. "You've got the controls. Get us out of this mess."

The spiral had just begun. Rob easily restored the plane to coordinated flight, with a slight twist of his wrist. I was greatly relieved.

Sometimes in life, we can get a little complacent. We begin grumbling about a few little things. We start seeing the negative things about our jobs, our families, our romantic relationships, our friends. Or we get weary and tired of being alone, and not being able to meet anyone we want to date. Maybe nothing is really wrong in our career, but it just isn't giving us the pizzazz we'd prefer. So we start grumbling and complaining about how bad it is. We see other people making more money than we are, getting better breaks, and doing something that looks like more fun to us. It's not that anything is wrong; it's just that things don't seem good enough.

Than we find more things that irritate us about our friends, our co-workers, and our boss. Soon, most of what we see looks depressing and wrong. The negative is accentuated in everything we see.

That's a good indication that we're in a graveyard spiral,too.

Some people in this world need a special technique to get peacefully, joyfully, and harmoniously through their lives. I'm not saying this applies to everyone, but I know it applies to me. Every day in my life, I need to deliberately, consciously apply large doses of gratitude to everything I see.

Look! If instead of seeing this beautiful horizon or the clouds, all you can see is down, apply gratitude and humility to each aspect of your life. In a few moments, you'll restore yourself to coordinated flight.

God, help me use the powerful remedy of gratitude as a tool for daily transformation in my life.

*****

Small Steps to Big Change
Making Big Change Easier

by Madisyn Taylor

When making big change in our life, it can be easier to break it up into a few small changes to avoid overwhelm.


When we decide that it’s time for big changes in our lives, it is wise to ease into them by starting small. Small changes allow us to grow into a new habit and make it a permanent part of our lives, whereas sudden changes may cause a sense of failure that makes it difficult to go on, and we are more likely to revert to our old ways. Even if we have gone that route and find ourselves contemplating the choice to start over again, we can decide to take it slowly this time, and move forward.

Sometimes the goals we set for ourselves are merely indicators of the need for change and are useful in getting us moving in the right direction. But it is possible that once we try out what seemed so ideal, we may find that it doesn’t actually suit us, or make us feel the way we had hoped. By embarking on the path slowly, we have the chance to look around and consider other options as we learn and grow. We have time to examine the underlying values of the desire for change and find ways to manifest those feelings, whether it looks exactly like our initial goal or not. Taking small steps forward gives us time to adjust and find secure footing on our new path.

Life doesn’t always give us the opportunity to anticipate or prepare for a big change, and we may find ourselves overwhelmed by what is in front of us. By choosing one thing to work on at a time, we focus our attention on something manageable, and eventually we will look up to see that we have accomplished quite a bit. Forcing change is, in essence, a sign that we do not trust the universe’s wisdom. Instead, we can listen to our inner guidance and make changes at a pace that is right for us, ensuring that we do so in alignment with the rhythm of the universe. Published with permission from Daily OM

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A Day At A Time
August 29

Reflection For The Day

Prayer can have many rewards. One of the greatest rewards is the sense of belonging it brings to me. No longer do I live as a stranger in a strange land, alien in a completely hostile world. No longer am I lost, frightened and purposeless. I belong. We find, in The Program, that the moment we catch a glimpse of God’s will — the moment we begin to see truth, justice and love as the real and eternal things in life — we’re no longer so deeply upset by all the seeming evidence to the contrary surrounding us in purely human affairs. Do I believe that God lovingly watches over me?

Today I Pray

May I be grateful for the comfort and peace of belonging — to God the ultimately wise “parent” and to His family on earth. May I no longer need bumper stickers or boisterous gangs to give me my identity. Through prayer, I am God’s.

Today I Will Remember

I find my identity through prayer.

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One More Day
August 29

Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
– Psalm 90

Funny, but when we were kids we probably didn’t give much thought to worlds such as peace or harmony. We just lived our sweet childish lives with little, if any, worry about feelings.

Now we speak often of “meeting of the minds,” “harmonious thoughts,” and “world peace,” for we all want to achieve as high a level as personal and emotional comfort as we are able. With our newly developed understanding of wisdom comes a deepened sense of pride because we know that each day is a precious entity, special in and of itself.

The harmony and peace that surround me are mine for the taking.

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Food For Thought

Love God and Work the Program

How clear everything becomes when we put abstaining and recovering from compulsive eating first in our lives! As we recover, we grow in love for the Higher Power, which makes possible our new life. Loving God and working the program becomes our main purpose every day. From this, all else follows.

When we are confused and harried by conflicting demands on our time and attention, we need to withdraw for a moment and get back in touch with the God within. As long as we are sincerely trying to do His will, we do not have to be upset by negative responses from other people, whether their disapproval is real or imagined.

As our Higher Power provides a focus for our love, working the program provides a focus for our energies and ambitions. Whatever our situation, we are each capable of growing along spiritual lines, and it is this growth and progress which gives us deep, lasting satisfaction.

Accept my love and work.