Monday 3/8/10 - "SAYING TO MYSELF"

"SAYING TO MYSELF"

There are times when I share at a meeting and what I say is something I realize I need to hear. These are a few things I need to say to myself.

I am retired, but it is not too late to begin another 20 year career if I want it.

Limitation thinking stands in the way of my pursuing another career. The kinds of limiting thoughts I have include comparing myself to others and always coming up shorter, less than. My thoughts also return to a past time when I had little self-esteem and I measure how I think I would succeed today based on those past negative beliefs. I also project outcomes in the negative. I project failure. It is time to get back to doing affirmations. They work. I have tried them.

A few possible new affirmations:

• God writes the details of my life on the blank slate I offer Him.

• I am changing my attitudes and my life is changing.

I need to be a blank slate upon which I allow God to create whatever is His will for me. To do this I must keep my mind free of negative thinking - the comparison thinking and projection of outcome thinking.

I need to stop playing God, writing His script for me without Him.

I heard this prayer in the meeting today.
Dear God, please keep my brain where my feet are.
(out of the past and future)

Things heard in my home group Al-Anon meeting today.

If it is meant to be, it's up to me.
(I add, with God's power.)

Working the Al-Anon program is exercising my soul. In my case, it is working both programs, Al-Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous.

Breathe in! - Exhale out!
= God in! - Prayer Girl, self, out!

Have a wonderful week my friends.

Prayer Girl

(Photo credit: Talk about nothing by LalA vi Doll@deviantart.com)

Saturday, 4/18/09 - "POSITIVE POSSIBILITIES"

(Positively joyful!)

"POSITIVE POSSIBILITIES"

I attended my Friday Al-Anon 11th Step Meditation meeting today. Following are a few excerpts from the reading we meditated on from, "Having Had a Spiritual Awakening", p. 50.

"I am not a body with a spirit, I am a spirit living in a body."

"...sees the deeper reality of my spiritual progress -
a desire to express compassion and love in daily life."


"How has my Al-Anon experience with the God
of my understanding helped me express
love and caring in other areas of my life?"

This was such a spiritual meeting. What I took away from it was a tremendous sense of the POSITIVE POSSIBILITIES that life offers. The degree to which I practice spiritual principles determines how positive my life will be.

These are some of the spiritual actions I try to practice regularly to help create "Positive Possibilities":

• Using affirmations

• Acknowledging problems and focusing on solutions

• Using the power of prayer

• Providing positive words of encouragement to myself and others

• Recognizing God in all things

• Bringing God into every interaction with others

• Asking God and allowing Him to express Himself in what I think, say, and do

• Giving the glory and honor to God
  

• Being sensitive to knowing when a newcomer is in the room when they have not identified themselves

• Reaching out to the newcomer

• Encouraging the newcomer and the old timer in trouble

• Living the 12 steps

• Having compassion for struggling alcoholics and Al-Anoners

• Having compassion for those who have succumbed to the disease of alcoholism
  

• Being grateful

Prayer Girl

(Photo credit: joyful by beefishlove)

Thursday, 4/16/09 - "GRATITUDE AWARD"

I thank Jess Mistress of Mischief for this Gratitude Award. I love her blog, Journey of the Spirit of Hope..trudging the road of happy destiny! You can go on over and see it - just (click here).

"GRATITUDE AWARD"

We create the world we 'see'.
Our attitudes shape our realities.

Since I received a Gratitude Award it is only fitting that my blog be about my gratitude.

• I am grateful for the change in how I see the world and the attitudes I hold today.

• I am grateful that I no longer see the world through eyes that desire to run, hide, or leave this world.

• I am grateful that today I see the world through the eyes of faith, trust, and hope.

• I have gratitude that I see the glass as half full - not half empty. Whenever that view begins to shift to 'less than', I have the tools to shift the perspective back to 'more than'.

• I am grateful for developing a belief in the power of prayer and the willingness to utilize that power.

• I am grateful that through experience I know that God answers prayer.

• I am grateful for Alcoholics Anonymous which saves my life and Al-Anon that expands the richness of my life, of my relationships.

• I am grateful for the 12 steps that showed me the path to my God.
  

• I am grateful that I ws able to finally set aside my "contempt prior to investigation", use affirmations, and experience their power.

• I am grateful for delicious Vanilla Lattes and Caramel Macchiato espresso drinks.

• I am grateful for my husband - that God saw fit that we meet, that we recognized His hand in our relationship, and that we sealed our lives as one the day we married.

• I am grateful for God's hand guiding my son and his new wife to seal their lives as one.

• I am grateful that my world of wonderful possibilities grows daily.

• I am grateful for the inspiration I find in the writings of my blog friends.

• I am grateful for each sponsee and recovering friend God brings into my life.

• I am grateful for the deep spiritual connections recovery has allowed me to experience.

• I am grateful for God's help with each poem and blog that I write and each picture I paint.

• I am grateful for God's unconditional love for and guidance given me, my husband, my children, and the bloggers I have met - especially those with serious health, relationship, financial, or other difficulties.

• I am grateful to be "Prayer Girl".

(Photo credit: woman praying by David MacDonald)