Just For Today Meditations For Month Of February

[Luckyv2]

February 26, 2010
Remorse
Page 58

"I will use any feelings of remorse I may have as a stepping-stone to healing through the Twelve Steps."

Remorse was one of the feelings that kept us using. We had stumbled our way through active addiction, leaving a trail of heartbreak and devastation too painful to consider. Our remorse was often intensified by our perception that we couldn't do anything about the damage we had caused; there was no way to make it right.

We remove some of the power of remorse when we face it squarely. We begin the Eighth Step by actually making a list of all the people we have harmed. We own our part in our painful past.

But the Eighth Step does not ask us to make right all of our mistakes, merely to become willing to make amends to all those people. As we become willing to clean up the damage we've caused, we acknowledge our readiness to change. We affirm the healing process of recovery.

Remorse is no longer an instrument we use to torture ourselves. Remorse has become a tool we can use to achieve self-forgiveness.

Just for Today: The Eighth Step offers a big change from a life dominated by guilt and remorse.

Basic Text, p. 38

Just For Today Daily Meditation is the property of Narcotics Anonymous©

[Butterfly Woman]

Yep..it offers freedom

[Rusty Zipper]

Quote:Remorse is no longer an instrument we use to torture ourselves. Remorse has become a tool we can use to achieve self-forgiveness.

there's another one of the paradoxes again!

[Luckyv2]

February 27, 2010
Pure motives
Page 59

"I will examine myself realistically. I will seek the power to act on my best motives, and not to act on my worst."

Imagine a daily meditation book with this kind of message: "When you wake up in the morning, before you rise from your bed, take a moment for reflection. Lie back, gather your thoughts, and consider your plans for the day. One by one, review the motives behind those plans. If your motives are not entirely pure, roll over and go back to sleep:' Nonsense, isn't it?

No matter how long we've been clean, almost all of us have mixed motives behind almost everything we do. However, that's no reason to put our lives on hold. We don't have to wait for our motives to become perfectly pure before we can start living our recovery.

As the program works its way into our lives, we begin acting less frequently on our more questionable motives. We regularly examine ourselves, and we talk with our sponsor about what we find. We pray for knowledge of our Higher Power's will for us, and we seek the power to act on the knowledge we're given. The result? We don't get perfect, but we do get better.

We've begun working a spiritual program. We won't ever become spiritual giants. But if we look at ourselves realistically, we'll probably realize that we've been doing better than we've been feeling.

Just for Today: We examine our actions, reactions, and motives. We often find that we've been doing better than we've been feeling.

Basic Text, p. 42

Just For Today Daily Meditation is the property of Narcotics Anonymous©

[Butterfly Woman]

and we're growing in spite of ourselves

[Rusty Zipper]

motives schmotives!

we aint so bad after all

[Luckyv2]

February 28, 2010
The greatest gift
Page 60

"I will try to welcome my feelings, firm in the belief that I have the courage to face whatever emotions may come up in my life."

When we begin coming to meetings, we hear other addicts talking about the gifts they have received as a result of this program, things we never thought of as "gifts" before. One such "gift" is the renewed ability to feel the emotions we had deadened for so long with drugs. It's not difficult to think of love, joy, and happiness as gifts, even if it's been a long time since we've felt them. But what about "bad" feelings like anger, sadness, fear, and loneliness? Such emotions can't be seen as gifts, we tell ourselves. After all, how can we be thankful for things we want to run from?!

We can become grateful for these emotions in our lives if we place them in their proper perspective. We need to remember that we've come to believe in a loving Higher Power, and we've asked that Power to care for us-and our Higher Power doesn't make mistakes. The feelings we're given, "good" or "bad;' are given to us for a reason. With this in mind, we come to realize that there are no "bad" feelings, only lessons to be learned. Our faith and our Higher Power's care give us the courage we need to face whatever feelings may come up on a daily basis.

As we heard early in recovery, "Your Higher Power won't give you more than you can handle in just one day:' And the ability to feel our emotions is one of the greatest gifts of recovery.

Just for Today: Our newly found faith serves as a firm foundation for courage in the future.

Basic Text, p. 93

Just For Today Daily Meditation is the property of Narcotics Anonymous©

[Believe808]

Pain is the only thing which motivates significant change; resulting in real spiritual growth. So today we can look at those bad feelings so to speak as nothing more than growing pains and be grateful for them.

[Butterfly Woman]

ahhhh...growing pains...and here comes a growth spurt

[Rusty Zipper]

in my first few years, i had a load of spiritual farts!

now adays, its more like a huge gas attack!