
My value and worth today doesn’t come from what others think of me.. It only comes from my relationship with God… Be still and know.
If you feel hurt because someone insulted you. This is ego. Feel great with praise? This is ego. A managed ego state (or egoless state) is free from emotional attachment and reaction from the judgment of others. When ego is attacked or hurt, it does what ego does: fights and hurts back for ego is not love, it is separation.
Ego only wants to play with problems, there is no such thing as a grateful ego, happy ego or problem solving ego. Ego: the optical illusion of consciousness. The only problem(ego): conscious separation from God. The only solution(God): Conscious contact/awareness with God. Everyone is You and You are they. The bodies create the illusion of separate being; but consider the fingers of a hand: they all look different, but they’re all part of the hand. Look beyond the outer appearance; release the imprisoned splendor!
“The only problem(ego): conscious separation from God. The only solution(God): Conscious contact/awareness with God.” As the BB states many times, “There is One Who has All Power that One is God may you find Him now. Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. … for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.”
If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem.~”It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us.”
The answer is not separate from the problem.~”A good problem statement often includes:
(a) what is known
(b) what is unknown
(c) what is sought.”
I knew I was being driven mad, I did not know why, I asked for help in a moment of clarity.
“I cannot do life well on my own..”
“Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps till the legend, “over steep ways to the stars,” fulfills itself.” -/- Without the sad, we could not know happiness and the difference we learn to cherish..
“The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them. If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.”
“The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them.”
Our bitter experiences with alcohol can also furnish lessons about the kinds of goals we should strive for in sobriety. Let’s take an inventory if we find ourselves thinking that our happiness depends on certain people, places, or things. Our true happiness comes from our Higher Power and the right combination of love and service. With the right attitude, we can actually be happy under many kinds of conditions and with all sorts of people.
What, then, should we pray for? “Knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out,” is a prayer that puts things in proper order. Seek to do God’s will, and you might be utterly amazed at the results. After all, it is God’s pleasure to give you good things.
I’ll pray for knowledge of God’s will today, while exercising prudence in all my affairs.
If we have a banner, that word, anonymity, which speaks of the surrender of the individual–the ego–is emblazoned on it. Let us dwell thoughtfully on its full meaning and learn thereby to remain humble, modest, ever conscious that we are under divine direction.– Dr. Bob
Anonymity is a state of mind of great value to the individual in maintaining sobriety. While I recognize its protective function,I feel that any discussion of it would be one-sided if it failed to emphasize the fact that the maintenance of a feeling of anonymity — “I am nothing special” –- is a basic insurance of humility and so a basic safeguard against further trouble with alcohol. This kind of anonymity is truly a precious possession. — Dr. Harry Tiebout, M.D.
You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love.– Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing In The World
Anxious Apartness — “But we soon discovered that while we weren’t alone any more in a social sense, we still suffered many of the old pangs of anxious apartness.” 12&12 p.57, Step Five
I cannot hold back. I must not continue to suffer that shyness, aloneness, that overwhelming sense of self … in my affairs. I must get involved in a group of people to practice these principles in all my affairs. Only the total approach is healing. Anything less is little more than driving my disease deep … and if I do that … it will continue to eat away, trying to destroy me.
Our recovery from alcoholism through the Steps must be a three-fold process. It is not one-dimensional. When we say, that we have a triangle … recovery, unity, service … we mean it. In working the Steps, I clear a pathway for two purposes … first, to come into a group of human people and away from the fringe of society where I have spent most of my emotional life. Secondly, discovering ‘belonging’, through service to the people within that group. It is only this entire, threefold process that heals.
It is especially true for those of us who suffer from the spiritual malady to a great degree. Perhaps the 12th Step says it best: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps (recovery), we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics (service) and practice these principles in all our affairs (unity).
Here is a form of a prayer Mother Teresa used, “Love Them Anyway; People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Be good anyway.
Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People need help, but may attack you if you try to help them.
Help them anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.
SPIRITUAL FORGIVENESS TREATMENT
Here is a mental treatment that is guaranteed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to: Sit for half an hour every night and mentally forgive everyone against whom you have any ill will or antipathy. If you fear or if you are prejudiced against even an animal, mentally ask forgiveness of it and send it thoughts of love. If you have accused anyone of injustice, if you have discussed anyone unkindly, if you have criticized or gossiped about anyone, withdraw your words by asking him, in the silence, to forgive you. If you have had a falling out with friends or relatives, if you are at law or engaged in contention with anyone, do everything in your power to end the separation. See all things and all persons as they really are—pure Spirit—and send them your strongest thoughts of love. Do not go to bed any night feeling that you have an enemy in the world.
Be careful not to think a thought or to say a word that will offend. Be patient, loving, and kind, under all circumstances. You can do this if you are faithful to the silent hour, because there you will be helped to overcome the selfishness of the carnal sense.
There is an immutable law lying back of this healing method. God is love, and love is manifest as life. God is thus manifest in and through all His creations. If we do aught to cut off the love of any person we are cutting off the love of God; hence, we are cutting off the life that flows through all. When we, by withdrawal from our fellows, in any way cut the cords of love that bind us together as men and women, we at the same time sever the arteries and veins through which the universal life flows. We then find ourselves mere bundles of strained nerves, trembling and shaking with fear and weakness, and finally dying for the lack of God’s love. But omnipresent Spirit ever seeks to flow into us and to stimulate us in every faculty. We must, however, by our words and acts acknowledge this all-powerful Presence as the moving factor in our lives, because each of us has inherent free will, which welcomes or rejects all, even God not being excepted.
Self-condemnation is also a great error, leading to dire results. If you have accused yourself of ignorance, foolishness, fear, sickness, anxiety, poverty, anger, jealousy, stinginess, ambition, weakness, or if you are melancholy and indulge in the “blues,” ask forgiveness, for each, of the loving Father in whose image and likeness you spiritually have perfect life. Say often to this omnipresence:
I do now sacrifice these human limitations unto Thee, O Father! I am obedient unto the law of my being, and I know that in Thee I am brave, true, energetic, wise, pure, perfect, strong, rich, and courageous. Thou art my almighty Resource, and I do trust Thee utterly.