We must continuously fine-tune our bearings.

Like a sailor, we must continuously fine-tune our life bearings.

Whether a change is welcome or not, we must respond.

Our main choice is not what will change but how we respond.

If we hold too tightly to willful thinking, we are not attuned.

But if we make peace with change, we grow.

We will be transformed into more than we could ever imagine.

Awareness, Acceptance, Action

Dear God,

Slow me down when all I do is try to fix and control things and people. Help me to first accept situations, as they are when I become aware of them.

Slow me down in your stillness.

Mark my awareness with unselfishness, my acceptance with humility, and my actions with usefulness to me and others.

~ The 12 Step Prayer Book Volume 2 by Bill P. and Lisa D.

Acceptance

Suppose life deals me one crushing blow after another, none of them deserved.

What can I do about it?

Well, I can weep and whine.

If that doesn't improve things, I can get drunk. And if that doesn't work, I can kill myself.

Or I can accept the situation and live.

Those are my only options.
Living appears to be the best; if things should happen to improve, I will be around to benefit.

Accepting What Is & Letting Go of What Isn't

Humility is to make a right estimate of oneself. - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

What does it take to come to the place where we can exchange pride for humility?
First we must stop the blasphemous charade of pretending that we are no good.
"I'm worthless" has often been spoken in the name of humility.
But these words, or any other words that express the same sentiment, are a self-indulgence and a cop-out.
The essence of humility is summed up in the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

Humility is truth.
To be humble is to know the truth about our limits, to recognize what can be changed, and to accept that all good things are possible with the help of our Higher Power.
Excessive pride prohibits acceptance because it prohibits the truth, and the truth is that some things are unchangeable.
Refusal to accept that truth gets us plenty of frustrations and anger - and no humility at all.

Today, I humbly ask God for the wisdom to accept what is and to let go of what isn't.

Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen & Carol Larsen Hegarty

Acceptance

It was a matter of developing the willingness to accept these new facts of living.
We neither ran nor fought. But accept we did. And then we were free.
There had been no irretrievable disaster.

- Bill W., AA Grapevine, September, 1975

My serenity is directly proportional to my level of acceptance.

Expectations

Higher Power, help me stop expecting so much from myself. 

I set unrealistic standards, and when they are not met, unhappiness follows. 

Help me be true to myself and only expect what I am capable of doing. As I grow in recovery and do my assignments every day, I am able to do more. 

Your will provides realistic goals. Your will provides what I need to succeed.  Amen.
 

The 12 Step Prayer Book Volume 2 

by Bill P. and Lisa D. 

  

Accepting Change

The winds of change blow through my life, sometimes gently, sometimes like a tropical storm.

Yes, I have resting places - time to adjust to another level of living, time to get my balance, time to enjoy the rewards.

I have time to catch our breath.

But change is inevitable, and desirable.

Sometimes, when the winds of change begin to rustle, I am not certain the change is for the better.

I may call it stress or a temporary condition, certain I'll be restored to normal.

Sometimes, I resist.

I tuck my head down and buck the wind, hoping that things will quickly calm down, get back to the way things were.

Is it possible I am being prepared for a new "normal"?

Change will sweep through my life, as needed, to take me where I am going.  I can trust that my Higher Power has a plan in mind, even when I don't know where the changes are leading.

I can trust that the change-taking place is good. The wind will take me where I need to go.

Today, help me, God, to let go of my resistance to change.

Help me be open to the process.

Help me believe that the place I'll be dropped off will be better than the place where I was picked up.

Help me surrender, trust, and accept, even if I don't understand.

 

Accepting Change

The winds of change blow through my life, sometimes gently, sometimes like a tropical storm.

Yes, I have resting places - time to adjust to another level of living, time to get my balance, time to enjoy the rewards.

I have time to catch our breath.

But change is inevitable, and desirable.

Sometimes, when the winds of change begin to rustle, I am not certain the change is for the better.

I may call it stress or a temporary condition, certain I'll be restored to normal.

Sometimes, I resist.

I tuck my head down and buck the wind, hoping that things will quickly calm down, get back to the way things were.

Is it possible I am being prepared for a new "normal"?

Change will sweep through my life, as needed, to take me where I am going.  I can trust that my Higher Power has a plan in mind, even when I don't know where the changes are leading.

I can trust that the change-taking place is good. The wind will take me where I need to go.

Today, help me, God, to let go of my resistance to change.

Help me be open to the process.

Help me believe that the place I'll be dropped off will be better than the place where I was picked up.

Help me surrender, trust, and accept, even if I don't understand.

 

Getting Our Worries Out

Trying to ignore our worries only pushes them underground.

Pretending we are not anxious, when we are, is a tactic that fools no one, especially not ourselves.

Attempting to deny or repress our fears and worries does not work.

The result is often depression or a physical ailment, indicating that in our subconscious, we know very well that something is wrong.

The rigorous honesty of the Twelve Step way of life saves us from playing destructive games with ourselves.

A worry that we can define and examine in the light of day is far less threatening than one we are trying to hide.

So let's ask ourselves what it is we fear.

If our worry is a rational one, we need to decide what we can do to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

If the worry is irrational, we need to figure out how to get rid of it.

But, no matter whether a worry is rational or irrational, we can't turn it over until we acknowledge we have it.

Getting our worries out in the open and talking about them with people whose judgment we trust keeps us grounded in reality.

 

If I am worried about something today,
I will consciously examine it so that I can resolve it.

 

Inner Harvest by Elisabeth

 

The Dog Rule

Handle every stressful situation just like a dog.

If you can't eat it or hump it . . .

Piss on it and walk away!!!

Imperfection

There would be no music if high C were the only note, no art if spectrum red were the only color, no joy in pleasure if pleasure were the only feeling -- and paradoxically, there would be no perfection without imperfection.

What does that mean to me?

Well, it means that I don't have to be perfect.

All I have to do is grow at a pace natural to me --and that is all I have a right to expect of others.

If I can remember these truths, then love -- real love, as opposed to drunken sentimentality -- is finally within reach.

It is not stupid to accept myself and others complete with our imperfections.

It would be stupid not to.

The Best Of The Grapevine [Vol. 1], pp. 60-61

Give me the courage to be imperfect.

Awareness, Acceptance, Action

Dear God,
Slow me down when all I do is try to
fix and control things and people.
Help me to first accept situations,
as they are when I become aware of them.
Slow me down in your stillness.
Mark my awareness with unselfishness,
my acceptance with humility,
and my actions with usefulness to me and others.



The 12 Step Prayer Book Volume 2 by Bill P. and Lisa D.

Open Arms

I have reached a point in my life

where I understand the pain and the challenges;

and my attitude is one of standing up

with open arms to meet them all.

Myrlie Evers

www.gratefulness.org

Creating Problems

Any kind of expectation creates a problem.

We should accept, but not expect.

Whatever comes, accept it.

Whatever goes, accept it.

The immediate benefit is that
your mind is always peaceful.
Sri Swami Satchidananda

Resolve To Be Thyself

Resolve to be thyself; and know,
that he who finds himself, loses his misery.
--Matthew Arnold

I can honestly look at myself and see my strengths and weaknesses for what they are.
I don't have to put myself down today.
Best of all, I can accept myself.

An Ugly Situation

Though you may not be able to change it,
you can handle an ugly situation beautifully.
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Alchemical Wisdom

Seeing With Our Hearts

If we look at the world through suspicious or angry eyes, we'll find a world that mirrors our expectations - a world where tension will mount, arguments will abound, strife will be present where none need be.
However, our experiences in some manner bless us, and we'll recognize that if we'll look upon them with gratitude.
Everything in our path is meant for our good and we'll see the good when our hearts act as the eyes for our minds.
When we see with our hearts, our responses to the turmoil around us, the fighting children, the traffic snarls, the angry lovers, will be soft acceptance.
When our hearts guide the action we can accept those things we cannot change, and change those we can.
And the heart, as the seat of all wisdom, will always know the difference.

Karen Casey

My Own Faltering Steps

The love, the acceptance of other persons makes me
into the unique person I am meant to be.

--Peter G. van Breemen, S.J.

The letter, the smile, or phone call I offer a fellow traveler today will bless my own faltering steps throughout the long hours ahead.
Each time I focus my attention on the struggle or joy of someone else, my personal well being is enhanced.
If I give away my love, I'll doubt less that I, too, am loved.

Life Is Not Fair

Life guarantees a chance - not a fair shake.

--Bernie Y.

Life is not fair.
Most of us know that, but few of us accept it.

But life is like soil, not like seed.
The chance of a harvest is there, but only if I plant the seed.
And even then I may not get the harvest I expected or wished for - not on my own timetable.
It is an act of faith, and of great courage, to keep on sowing seeds when I don't know what I am going to get.
But it's the only chance I have.
I need to stop expecting the soil to provide the seed.

Today, I will be grateful to be alive.

This day offers a chance for a fuller life, and I

will accept what comes of my efforts.

Unity

"The heresy of individualism: thinking oneself a completely self-sufficient unit and asserting this imaginary "unity" against all others. The affirmation of the self as simply "not the other". The true way is just the opposite: the more I am able to affirm others, to say "yes" to them in myself, by discovering them in myself and myself in them, the more real I am. I am fully real if my own heart says yes to everyone.
I will be a better Catholic, not if I can refute every shade of Protestantism, but if I can affirm the truth in it and still go further.
So, too, with the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, etc. This does not mean syncretism, indifferentism, the vapid and careless friendliness that accepts everything by thinking of nothing. There is much that one cannot "affirm" and "accept," but first one must say "yes" where one really can.
If I affirm myself as a Catholic merely by denying all that is Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, etc., in the end I will find that there is not much left for me to affirm as a Catholic: and certainly no breath of the Spirit with which to affirm it."

-- Thomas Merton,
Conjectures of A Guilty Bystander: 144

"If I do not have unity in myself,

how can I even think,

let alone speak, of unity among Christians?

Yet, of course, in seeking unity for all Christians,

I also attain unity within myself."

-- Thomas Merton,
Conjectures of A Guilty Bystander: 143