Count Your Blessings Every Day

Commit yourself to noticing your blessings, and saying thank you to God and to others for them. Try some of the following suggestions or add your own:

Take the time to write thank-you notes in response to gifts you've received, events you've enjoyed, or anything else that deserves thanks.

Say thank you to other people as often as possible.

Say grace before and after meals in thankfulness for the food that sustains your body.

Give God a quick thank you throughout the day for anything that give you joy.

Take a daily inventory of the blessings of that particular day. If you wish, keep a written list of these and see if it grows longer over time.

From beliefnet.com

Serenity Prayer with Enya's May It Be

The Divine Within

"Peace... comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the Universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us."
--Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa) OGLALA SIOUX

If we are to know peace we must look within ourselves. In order to do this, we must learn to be still. We must quiet the mind. We must learn to meditate. Meditation helps us locate and find the center that is within ourselves. The center is where the Great One resides. When we start to look for peace, we need to realize where it is within ourselves. When we experience conflict we need to pause for a moment and ask the Power within ourselves, "How do you want me to handle this? What would you suggest I do in this situation?" By asking the Higher Power for help we find peace.

WhiteBison.org Elder's Meditation of the Day

Putting the Past in Perspective

"We want to look our past in the face, see it for what it really was, and release it so we can live today." Basic Text, p.28

For many of us, the past is like a bad dream. Our lives aren't the same any more, but we still have fleeting, highly charged emotional memories of a really uncomfortable past. The guilt, fear, and anger that once dominated us may spill into our new life, complicating our efforts to change and grow.

The Twelve Steps are the formula that helps us learn to put the past in its place. Through the Fourth and Fifth Steps, we become aware that our old behavior didn't work. We ask a Higher Power to relieve us of our shortcomings in the Sixth and Seventh Steps, and we begin to be relieved of the guilt and fear that plagued us for so many years. In the Eighth and Ninth Steps, by making amends, we demonstrate to others that our lives are changing. We are no longer controlled by the past. Once the past loses its control over us, we are free to find new ways to live, ways that reflect who we truly are.

Just for today: I don't have to be controlled by my past. I will live this new day as the new person I am becoming.

Just For Today Daily Meditation is the property of Narcotics Anonymous ©1991 by World Service Office Inc.

Lay Aside Religious Prejudice

We who have traveled a path through agnosticism or atheism beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion. We have learned that, whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions. People of faith have a rational idea of what life is all about.

Actually, we used to have no reasonable conception whatever. We used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices, when we might have seen that many spiritually minded persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness, and usefulness that we should have sought for ourselves.

As Bill Sees It: People of Faith copyright AAWS, Inc.

The Grateful Person

The grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.
-- Thomas Merton: Thoughts in Solitude

www.gratefulness.org

Hope for Tomorrow

Alcoholism respects no ifs.

It does not go away, not for a week, for a day, or even for an hour, leaving us nonalcoholic and able to drink again on some special occasion or for some extraordinary reason -- not even if it is a once-in-a-lifetime celebration, or if a big sorrow hits us, or if it rains in Spain or the stars fall on Alabama. Alcoholism is for us unconditional, with no dispensations available at any price. . .
c.1998 AAWS, Living Sober, pp. 63-4

Adjust the Sails

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 85

My first sponsor told me there were two things to say about prayer and meditation: first, I had to start and second, I had to continue. When I came to A.A. my spiritual life was bankrupt; if I considered God at all, He was to be called upon only when my self-will was incapable of a task or when overwhelming fears had eroded my ego.

Today I am grateful for a new life, one in which my prayers are those of thanksgiving. My prayer time is more for listening than for talking. I know today that if I cannot change the wind, I can adjust my sail. I know the difference between superstition and spirituality. I know there is a graceful way of being right, and many ways to be wrong.

---Daily Reflections copyright AAWS Inc.