Thursday 7/23/09 - "CULTIVATE A BEGINNER'S MIND"

"CULTIVATE A BEGINNER'S MIND"

Today I attended a noon women's Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It was the same meeting, in the same room that I walked into for the first time 24 years ago. Different women, the furniture newer, no smoking is the rule, but otherwise it is exactly as on the day I arrived as a "beginner". My guess is that they were saying pretty much the same things, but at that time I heard and understood nothing.

Today I heard the following statement and was able to hear and contemplate it:

"CULTIVATE A BEGINNER'S MIND."

I liked it and asked myself why it resonated so strongly with me.

I love the idea of cultivating a mind - nurturing and fostering the growth of healthy ideas. If I am cultivating my mind, I am keeping it fertile, fresh, free to receive new, life-giving information.

But why would I want to cultivate a beginner's mind? Why not a long-timer's mind? The next thought in my mind was Mark 10:15 from the Bible:

"Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all."

As a child I was full of curiosity, was always searching to know and experience more, and I had open-mindedness. These are the same qualities I need and desire today. These attitudes keep my memory green and hopefully make it less likely that I will repeat the horrors of my active alcoholic past.

Additionally, the more years I work the AA program, the more I come to understand how little I know. As a newcomer, I knew nothing and I was hungry for anything that would lessen my confusion, anxiety, and sick thinking. I was anxious to increase sane thinking, and create and strengthen a spiritual connection. I want and need that today as much as when I first arrived.

Let's remember there is a time to "CULTIVATE A BEGINNER'S MIND".

Prayer Girl

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)

Wednesday, 3/4/09 - "T"

'T'

You never know what a day will bring. Yesterday began with an Alanon meeting at 10:45 a.m. I always have my cell phone on vibrate or turned off when in meetings, but for the first time I can remember, the phone was on ring tone and went off during the meeting. It turned out it was Steveroni calling to let me know that a girl (T) who had gotten my number from a meeting list was in trouble and needed help.

I went straight from the Alanon meeting to meet T at a noon AA meeting. She was desperate to stay sober. Her last drink had been at 4 a.m. that morning. Her body was set on low shake. As God would have it, the meeting ended up being geared to the newcomer and how to stay sober, how to not take that first drink. When I came to AA, the only way I was able to go my first whole day without a drink was to follow the directions given by a woman I met at my first meeting. This lady told me to call her every single time I thought about a drink. Since I was 'always' thinking of drinking then, I ended up phoning her 'all' day - at her home, at her work - I must have called her at least 25 times. Miracle of miracles, I didn't drink that day or night.

T and I talked for a while after the meeting and parted with an instruction that she call me in the evening or sooner if she thought about taking a drink. Around 6:30 T called and said she was thinking about a drink. She was at home where another member of the household was drinking. She was isolated in her bedroom to be away from the sight and sound of the drinking (a bad place to be). I told her to get to a meeting and call me when she got back.

T did exactly that and called me when she returned. She told me that as soon as she got into the meeting, she felt better. Another miracle? Most of us have experienced just this. I told her to read "The Doctor's Opinion" in her Big Book. She said she had read it earlier, was relieved to understand a little better what her condition was, and was going to start on the first 164 pages. I told her to first reread "The Doctor's Opinion" and to do so daily. I still read it, still find deeper meanings, still love it.

She was directed to call me in the morning or sooner if she was thinking of drinking. I headed off to bed with prayers for T in my heart.

Prayer is a pretty powerful potion
when persistently and patiently practiced.

(I believe the whisper-soft sounds of the letter 'P'
are like a melody floating up to God.)

Prayer Girl
(Fellow bloggers - please pray for T)