And for good measure: “Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.” Proverbs 25:27-28
Meditation and Prayer
Melody Beattie has a good post for a Sabbath, however you celebrate one:
The Eleventh Step asks us to meditate as a route to improving our conscious contact with God.
Meditation is different than obsessing or worrying. Obsession and worrying are fear connections. Meditation means opening our mind and our spiritual energy to the God connection.
To connect with God, we need to relax as best we can and open our conscious and subconscious mind to a Higher Consciousness – one that is available to each of us.
In the busyness of our day and life, it may seem like a waste of time to slow down, to stop what we’re doing, and take this kind of break. It is no more a waste of time than stopping to put gas in our car when the tank is almost empty. It is necessary, it is beneficial, and it saves time. In fact, meditation can create more time and energy than the moments we take to do it.
Meditation and prayer are powerful recovery behaviors that work. We need to be patient. It is not reasonable to expect immediate answers, insight, or inspiration.
But solutions are coming. They are already on the way, if we have done our part – meditate and pray – and then let the rest go.
Whether we pray and meditate first thing in the morning, during a coffee break, or in the evening is our choice.
When our conscious contact with God improves, our subconscious contact will too. We will find ourselves increasingly tuned in to God’s harmony and will for us. We will find and maintain that soul connection, the God connection.
Today, I will take a moment for meditation and prayer. I will decide when and how long to do it. I am a child and creation of God – a Higher Power who loves to listen and talk to me. God, help me let go of my fears about whether or not You hear and care. Help me know that You are there and that I am able to tap into the spiritual consciousness.” via Just For Today Meditations » Daily Recovery Readings – October 28, 2012.
Don’t get hung up on the word ‘God’ — think instead of your higher power. Me? I think the first group meeting in heaven or paradise or whatever you believe will be our Higher Power asking us this: “Dudes! This religion thing. What were yooooo thinking?” My Higher Power sounds a lot like Dr. Phil sometimes…
:-D
12 Tips to Reset Your Sunday
All work and no play is not a healthy way to live. Even if it’s just an hour without your BlackBerry or iPhone, wouldn’t it be nice to not have to worry about what all is going on in THE world, let alone YOURS for just a little while? To take a break from the bill pay reminders, Facebook comments, emails and updates, and just be …. present? Maybe in this hour you begin with a nap, or meditation, playing with your children, or going outside for a walk. Maybe even tackling that project you’ve been putting off. But being present in the moment is sometimes the most valuable asset you have and can give. The best part of it is you just may find out where you really are without having to check in.” Full story at: 12 Tips to Reset Your Sunday.
How to Lead a More Balanced Life
Found this on Michael Hyatt’s blog:
When I’m riding, I have a habit of looking over my shoulder to see if anyone else is coming and also to take a second look at something I just passed. At one point yesterday, traveling twenty mph, I executed my habitual over-the-shoulder look to re-see a beautiful lilac bush.
Turning my gaze forward, I realized I was off balance, heading from the paved path and into the forest where certain death awaited! (Cue dramatic music). A quick correction and I was back on track and not in the hospital.” Full story at: How to Lead a More Balanced Life | Michael Hyatt.
Scary Stuff! The Most Dangerous Candies
Apparently my beloved Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are bad for you? Who would have thought the ‘nectar of the gods’ could be harmful? Full story at: Scary Stuff! The Most Dangerous Candies.
“Seize every other day” or “seize once a month” won’t get you as far as “seize the day”
Karen Salmansohn @ notsalmon.com share this:
I believe whoever has the most energy wins. You need energy to win at your relationship, win in your career, win as a parent, win at being your highest potential self.
If you feel exhausted, depleted, worn out, frazzled…it won’t even matter how brilliant, talented, kind, funny, loving or loveable you are! After all, you’ll be too tired to be these things.
You need to have energy to be at your sparkling best.” Full story at: “Seize every other day” or “seize once a month” won’t get you as far as “seize the day”.
“I’m always angry”
Is there a time when it’s cool to be ‘always angry’? Sure. In ‘The Avengers’ movie. Dr. David Banner says his ‘secret’ is that “I’m always angry”.
It’s not cool when you’re not fighting aliens and it’s REALLY not cool when your wife and children are affected. I’m a little like Bruce Banner in that I have to constantly monitor what’s happening inside of me and carefully consider my responses so that I don’t turn into ‘the other guy’…
Owning What A Jerk I Can Be = Liberation!
Chela Davison writes:
I totally thought I was being hilarious. Turns out I was being an asshole. It’s a very strange experience when you realize that the You that’s in your head is not the same You that’s being experienced by others.
While it’s not a major theme in my life, I have, on occasion, received feedback from those who are close to me that I can be flippant and insensitive, that my humor can be cutting and people end up hurt. This hasn’t happened in a long time, but then suddenly it was EVERYWHERE. I wrote more apology emails two weeks ago than I have in the past several years.
I’m identified as being great with people. Because mostly I am. I pay attention, I listen, I care, I’m sensitive to the subtle cues of others and can feel what’s happening for people quite deeply.
But that’s when our own shadow can sneak up and take a chomp out of our asses isn’t it!? When we start to see ourselves in a particular way, good or bad, and become fixated on that image of ourselves, we stop being able to clearly see the parts of ourselves that aren’t that.” Full story at: Owning What A Jerk I Can Be = Liberation!.
Looking at her picture, it doesn’t seem like Chela could ever be a jerk, but I can relate. I call myself a ‘recovering assaholic’ — I can go from zero to Incredible Hulk in 60 seconds. Like Bruce Banner, I have to keep my anger in check all the time while I work on the root cause. Posts like this give me insight and hope…
Dreams
Melody Beattie writes:
“I want a new home. a great job. and lots of money” one man said.
“What practical steps are you taking to help that happen?” I asked.
“I’m not very good at practical steps,” he said. “But I’m an expert at dreams.”
It’s important to fantasize. but if you want your fantasies to materialize. you have to take practical steps. Turn dreams into achievable written goals.
It takes courage to go for what we want. Giving something our all. then failing, is a risk. Anyone I know who has accomplished anything of value has failed on the road to success.
Challenge: The hardest thing about going for our goals, hopes, and dreams can be fighting off that part of us that says, “What’s the use?” Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things when they make a choice to do something, then surrender to God’s Will.” via October 25.
Related articles
- Do something you love this weekend… (toddlohenry.com)
- Practice Awareness of God (toddlohenry.com)
- Let Enlightenment Come (toddlohenry.com)
- Self approval (toddlohenry.com)
- Discover what works for YOU (toddlohenry.com)
- Coping with Families (toddlohenry.com)
- Payoffs from Destructive Relationships (toddlohenry.com)
- Conflict and Detachment (toddlohenry.com)
- Take responsibility for your life and choices (toddlohenry.com)
The Sellout
When you make the amazingly courageous decision to improve yourself, to say yes to bigger and better things for your life, you WILL encounter haters. They may even be people you consider friends.
Consider it a sign that you’re on the right track.
Keep going.” via The Sellout | Escape Adulthood with Kim & Jason.
Using Self-Fulfilling Prophecies to Your Advantage
Why “fake it ’til you make it” is good advice!
Full story at: Using Self-Fulfilling Prophecies to Your Advantage | Psychology Today.
Never say you’re ‘just’ an anything…
It always bothers me when I hear someone say I’m just a ______. To me it’s a sign of discontent and resignation. Melody Beattie writes:
“I‘m just a hairstylist.” the woman said to me almost apologetically. “I want to do something big, something important in the world.”
“Do you have any idea how important it is to people to get a good haircut?” I asked.
Maybe we don’t have to do anything different to he of service. We just need to bring an attitude of service to what we already do.
Action: Do one thing each day that serves someone else. with no thought of receiving anything in return. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. Call someone; give them encouragement. Or just listen, instead of talking, during a conversation. Wait on someone—bring them a cup of coffee or a glass of water. Take a minute during prayer time and say a prayer for someone else. If you’re in recovery, volunteer to do a practical task, like cleaning up after the meeting. If we can’t change the world, at least we can do our part to keep it going.” via October 20.
I Know What You Want
Kim Anami writes:
You want love.
I want love too.
Underneath everything we do is the desire to be loved.
And to love.
Ideally, it permeates all of your words and actions, this sprinkling of love.
Whether you are asking your lover to pick her clothes up off the floor (although in a passion-strewn frenzy, such things can be forgiven. Ah, the power of great sex.);
Or your child has ignored your request to go to bed;
Or the barrista makes your ceremonial, non-milk matcha with milk again (ahem);
How many ways can you stay in love?
Love is an overarching feeling. It can film the room and the universe with its enormity.
It is also a conscious choice, moment-to-moment, to be loving.
In the end, your withholding love from others when they “f**k up” and “don’t do things the right way” diminishes you.
The more you radiate love, you constantly lift your vibration. You attract more love. It becomes so that an unloving word now sounds cacophonous coming out of your mouth.
Sometimes, a couple (or parent and child) have gone so long being defended against each other, that the idea of being loving is unimaginable. They’ve forgotten. It’s been that long.
You can change it in an instant.
If you decide to.
Every moment holds within it a new blueprint for the future. You can choose.
Then you have to remain committed to the choice. And committed to love.” Full post at: I Know What You Want | | Kim Anami.
4 Ways To Become A Reality Architect
You’re probably no stranger to the power of positive thinking and manifesting, and that by putting a shiny spin on any situation, you really can turn things around. However, when you apply this type of mindset to achieving your dreams, the sky really is the limit.
So if you’re ready to start carving out your dreams, here are four steps to help you create that blueprint for success. (Warning: step four does contain a powerful video that will prompt you to take action!)” Full story at: 4 Ways To Become A Reality Architect | FinerMinds.
11 Questions to Clarify Your Beliefs About Love
Why does finding love seem simple for some and impossible for others? Is love only for the lucky? Is it really about being in the right place at the right time or is there something more to it?Actually, there is plenty more to it. How we view romantic love and our own lovability has everything to do with what we learned growing up. Every family has their own cultural norms around love and marriage. I call these belief systems Downloaded Blueprints. Someone else designed them, perhaps generations ago, and they have been systematically reinforced for years, becoming your reality.In order to understand the effect your downloaded LOVE blueprint is having on your romantic life, you must get conscious of what limiting beliefs your blueprint contains—how your current mental state is structured.” Get the full story at: 11 Questions to Clarify Your Beliefs About Love « Positively Positive.
Responses…
Calvin and Hobbes Comic Strip, October 18, 2012 on GoComics.com.
Calvin is one of the great philosophers of our age. Another great philosopher Steven Covey said:
“Our unique human endowments lift us above the animal world. The extent to which we exercise and develop these endowments empowers us to fulfill our uniquely human potential. Between stimulus and response is our greatest power—the freedom to choose.” Covey, Stephen R. (2009-12-02). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (p. 70). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.
Your brain does have call waiting. Use it! :-D
Expectations, Disappointment, Anger, Depression
Thank God for my friend Steve — he’s one of the best blessings in my life! We frequently talk first thing in the day during his morning commute. This morning we talked about expectations of other people and how they are frequently a source of disappointment and then anger and then depression. Hence the quote above…
I was sitting down to prep a screencast on the topic when I started googling for a quote from Francois Fénélon I remember as “disappointments are the bastard child of false expectations” but my memory must be off because according to Google, no such quote exists. Still it makes a point and I found some writings of Fénélon that you might find interesting…
More interesting to me at the moment is this quote from Dr. Michael Yapko:
“What single factor most determines your degree of satisfaction with your relationships, whether it’s your relationships with your government or your relationship with your kids, friends and neighbors? What single factor most influences how you gauge whether your relationship with someone is good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, worthwhile or a waste of time? Your expectations.
When you have unrealistic expectations of other people, you are at high risk for getting hurt, disappointed and depressed. It’s easiest, perhaps even reflexive, to blame them and self-righteously say, “That person let me down.” And, maybe that person did let you down. But, it’s at least as likely that you let yourself down by having unrealistic expectations to begin with.
On one level, I’m talking about your expectations of others, but on another level, I’m really talking about you – the degree to which you are aware of what your expectations are and how well you can determine whether your expectations for others- and for yourself- are realistic. If they’re not, you can suffer repeated disappointments and hurts in your relationships, and these can be victimizing and painful enough to lead to frustration, anger, disillusionment – and depression.
Peoples’ poorly informed and therefore unrealistic expectations fuel their anger and discontent. Before you get angry, it would be great if you could sit down quietly for awhile and ask yourself what you expect, how you know whether your expectations are realistic, and whether you need much more information before you get too attached to your ideas about how you think things “should” be. You’ll get much further dealing skillfully with how things really are when you catch yourself getting wrapped up in the “shoulds.”
Don’t mistake what you want for what you’re actually going to get.” Full story at: Expectations, Disappointment, Anger, Depression | Managing Depression Skillfully.
So, as Dr. Yapko says “I’m talking about your expectations of others, but on another level, I’m really talking about you – the degree to which you are aware of what your expectations are and how well you can determine whether your expectations for others- and for yourself- are realistic.” So in the end, I think you and I are called to love ourselves and part of that loving is to have reasonable expectations of our capabilities and to work to increase those capabilities. In closing, the words of the great Apostle Paul:
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3:12-14
Bright, shiny objects! 
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