Today's Thougth From HAzelton

[Butterfly Woman]

Love cures people--both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.
--Karl Menninger

Receiving a loving hug from a parent or perhaps a smile from a friend or even a stranger gives us a special feeling inside. We know we are important to others when they show us their love through attention. And we sometimes forget that we matter to others. Family members and friends feel good in the same way when we show them our love. Everyone needs to be loved.

How can we show our love? Must it be through a hug? Doing a favor for someone is loving. Helping around the house or the yard is loving, particularly when we've volunteered our help. Giving an unexpected gift to a friend is a way of showing love. Showing others we care, even when they are angry, is perhaps the nicest of all expressions of love.

What new way can I show someone I care today?

From Today's Gift: Daily Meditations for Families ©1985, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

All our loves are first loves.
--Susan Fromberg Schaeffer

When we fall in love with someone, it is a unique thing that comes from deep within us. Any relationship is the creation of two people who open themselves to each other and share themselves beyond the usual boundaries. That is the excitement of true love. Two people give each other the keys to their private world, just as we might share the key to our home, trusting that it will be used with care and respect. This intimacy isn't usually instantaneous. It builds on experience together.

In an intimate relationship, we have the responsibility to be good stewards of the trust given us. Looking at our partner's role is always so much easier than looking at our own, but we need to resist that easy temptation. Our first questions should always be - Do I make it safe for my partner to be open with me? Do I take my partner's vulnerability as a trust that I do not abuse? Am I gentle and respectful with the key my partner gave me?

Today I will be a good partner; honoring and guarding the trust I have been given.

You are reading from the book:



Wisdom to Know by Anonymous

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.
--Mortimer Adler

In some areas of our lives we are right on target. Our level of maturity is exactly as it should be, and we are going through the stages that people of our age ought to be going through. In other areas, this is not so. We are complex people, irregular, uneven. In all of us there are areas fixated in some emotional ice age, areas that have not felt the freeing warmth of the sun.

We cannot expect ourselves to move forward all at once. Not only is it okay to move slowly - it's often the only way it can be. Confusion, conflict, or pain may have caused us to let our memories or feelings be frozen safely away. This has been a long process, and we can allow ourselves more time to heal. The task now is not to deny or hide from these changes, but to have confidence that the healing warmth of the program will reflect on all areas of our lives and help make us whole.

I am thankful I am given both time and patience in which to continue my growth.

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

Separateness

Moving into wise and spiritual adulthood...

At our worst we may be alert to what we want from our partner but blind to what our own role requires. No doubt we can always find accurate criticisms of our mate. In all lasting relationships we will find the weaknesses and the unattractive sides of even the finest people. Finding them in our partner means little when our hope is for a good and successful partnership.

We each walk an individual path. No one else can take our footsteps. No one but us can live our unique life stories. That is the hard truth that adults have to face and children do not. The joys and pleasures of adult intimacy grow when we know our separateness. We will always yearn for a past childhood or for an unfulfilled dream enveloped in the generous care of loving parents with no stress and no demands. But as adults we live in an insecure world, and no partner can ever create that security for us. We move into wise and spiritual adulthood when we expect imperfection around us and develop a core of inner peace.

Describe a dream of peace and security that you keep in your memory or in your imagination.

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

More important than learning how to recall things is finding ways to forget things that are cluttering the mind. Before going to sleep at night, empty your consciousness of unwanted things, even as you empty your pockets.
--Eric Butterworth

Many of us may make lists of things we need to do. We may refer to a calendar for our scribbled notations of places to go and people to see. We may look over our course syllabus for chapters to read or papers to write. Or we may keep it all in our heads, mentally checking off each item as it's done.

But tonight we can put away the lists, close the calendar book, put away the course syllabus, and empty our minds of obligations, tasks, and duties. Unless we want to keep our heads spinning during a sleepless night, we must learn to turn off the achieving and doing sides of our minds and give room to the relaxing and spiritual sides. We can take away the items cluttering our minds, one at a time. Tomorrow will arrive in its own time; tonight is the time for us to relax.

Tonight I can close my eyes and visualize putting aside each item. I will achieve total relaxation and peace.

You are reading from the book: Night Light by Amy E. Dean

Night Light by Amy E. Dean. Copyright 1986, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of Hazelden

[Butterfly Woman]

In her book Recovering from the Loss of a Child, author Katherine Fair Donnelly writes of a man whose infant daughter, Robyn, dies from SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). The child had died in the stroller, while the mother was out walking her. The father had stopped to get a haircut that day and was given a number for his turn.

"It was something he never did again in future years," Donnelly wrote. "He would never take a number at the barber's and always came home first to make sure everything was all right. Then he would go and get a haircut. It became one of the ways he found of coping."

I hate coping. It's not living. It's not being free. It reeks of surviving.

But sometimes it's the best we can do, for a while.

Eight years after my son dies, I was signing the papers to purchase a home. It was the first home I had bought since his death. The night before he dies, I had also signed papers to buy a new home. I didn't know that I had begun to associate buying a home with his death, until I noticed my hand trembling and my heart pounding as I finished signing the purchase agreement. For eight years, I had simply avoiding buying a home, renting one less-than-desirable place after another and complaining about the travails of being a renter. I only knew then that I was "never going to buy another house again." I didn't understand that I was coping.

Many of us find ways of coping. As children, we may have become very angry with our parents. Having no recourse, we may have said to ourselves, "I'll show the, I'm never going to do well at music, or sports, or studies again." As adults, we may deal with a loss, or death, by saying, "I'm always going to be nice to people and make them happy. Then they won't go away." Or we may deal with a betrayal by saying, "I'm never going to open my heart to a woman, or man, again."

Coping often includes making an incorrect connection between an event and our behavior. It may help us survive., but at some point our coping behaviors usually get in our way. They become habits and take on a life of their own. And although we think we're protecting ourselves or someone we love, we aren't.

Robyn didn't die because her father took a number and waited to get his hair cut.

My son didn't die because I brought a new house.

Are you keeping yourself from dong something that you really want to do as a means of coping with something that happened to you a long time ago? Cope if you must, if it helps save your life. But maybe today is the day you could set yourself free.

God, show me if I'm limiting myself and my life in some way by using an outdated coping behavior. Help me know that I'm safe and strong enough now to let that survival behavior go.

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
This program is one of submission, release, and action. When we were irrational, we were submitting to a power greater than ourselves - our affliction. Our self-wills were no use against the power. One encounter and we were completely adrift. In our group we stop submitting to the power of our affliction. Instead we submit to a Higher Power, greater than ourselves. Have I submitted myself to that Higher Power?

MEDITATION FOR THE DAY

Ceaseless activity is not God's plan for your life. Times of withdrawal for renewal of strength are always necessary. When you feel the faintest tremor of fear, stop all work. Stop everything and rest until you are strong again. Deal in the same manner with tiredness, for then you need rest of body. You cannot expect to do all things and depend upon the Higher Power to keep you from exhaustion. Physical and mental fatigue are yours to control.

PRAYER FOR THE DAY

I pray that I may learn how to rest and to listen, as well as how to work. I pray that I may know when to withdraw for renewal of strength.

You are reading from the book:
Look to this Day by Alan L. Roeck

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

Happy people are likeable

Personal Relations

Who are the people we really like, and like to be with? Most of the time, they are happy people, people who like themselves and others.

Being happy is almost the entire secret of being likeable. Though no person can expect to be liked by everybody, the likeable people have the inside track most of the time.

How do we become happy and thus likeable? We're continuously told that happiness cannot be found in property, power, and prestige. It is rooted instead in self-acceptance, in feeling loved and wanted, and in giving genuine service, maybe just In the form of very useful work.

Twelve Step programs are structured to make us happy if we persevere long enough in working the Individual steps. While it may seem contradictory, even people with heavy burdens and personal sorrows can find underlying happiness in the program. A great deal of this also hinges on our belief in a Higher Power and a confidence that we have a place in the universal system.

I can be happy today in spite of things that others would consider burdensome and depressing. Happiness really comes from God, and it also serves to attract friends into my life.

You are reading from the book:



Walk in Dry Places by Mel B.

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

She walks around all day quietly, but underneath it she's electric angry energy inside a passive form. The common woman is as common as a thunderstorm.
--Judy Grahn

Many people spend their days in anger and aren't aware of it. The conditions of work and life make many of us angry; we feel powerless to change them, and our frustration angers us more.

The Serenity Prayer asks for "the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." If we examine our lives fearlessly, we may find many things that are in our power to change.

Since we cannot change, or do not choose to change some things, we'd do well to accept them, instead of spinning our wheels in unproductive anger or turning the anger in, against ourselves. And when we summon the courage to change the things we can, our lives will bless us.

Today I'll look at anger as something I've chosen, instead of something inevitable. Is it covering fear? How can I resolve it?

You are reading from the book:



The Promise of a New Day by Karen Casey and Martha Vanceburg

Todays Gift

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

I hope I shall follow firmness of virtue enough to maintain that I consider the most enviable of all titles - the character of an honest man.
--George Washington

Happiness in recovery and in society depends on our honesty. We create pain for others, and ourselves, when we are dishonest. True honesty begins within each of us and flows out to touch those around us. If we are to be true to society, and to ourselves, we cannot feel one thing in our hearts and outwardly speak different views.

There is no such thing as too much honesty. When we practice honesty in all our affairs, we discover that the reason for being honest is not because it is expected of us, but because we find that honesty avoids problems and makes our life happier.

When I am honest with myself and others, I am making progress toward greatness of character.

You are reading from the book: Easy Does It by Anonymous

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

I wish you a slow recovery.
--Saying heard in meetings

Newcomer

I feel as if I should be doing better than this by now.

Sponsor

I can identify with your belief that you should be doing better faster. I sometimes feel that about the pace of my own recovery, as if we recovering people are in some sort of race with time.

As active addicts, we had little experience with any long process. We believed in instant results, like the ones we were used to getting from our addictive substance or behavior. So we may not be qualified to judge what our rate of progress should be.

One antidote to my impatience is hearing about myself from people who saw me at meetings in the early days of my recovery. Paradoxically, I feel reassured when they laugh and make statements like, "I remember what you were like; you were bouncing off the walls!" Their perspective reminds me that I've come a distance on my journey.

What can best further your journey is leaving the timetable for recovery in your Higher Power's hands as you focus your whole being - all of your attention - on this present moment.

Today, I don't measure myself. I trust that I'm everything I should be in this moment.

You are reading from the book:



If You Want What We Have by Joan Larkin

[Butterfly Woman]

I am grateful I am a slow learner...when it akes me a while to learn something...having to work hafd at it makes it a more valuable lesson

The other part that comes to mind is we are so competitive by nature...I cannot measure my growth by comparing myself to others.

I cannot measure my insides by what I see in others...Tho it is true we are mirror reflections of each other...My growth is my growth. My path is my path...My responsibility is to do they very best I can each day and allow only my Higher Power to judge me. Nor can I define myself by others opinions.

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

God insists that we ask, not because He needs to know our situation, but because we need the spiritual discipline of asking.
-- Catherine Marshall

An omniscient God must know what we desire before we ask. God knows that what we really need most is reliance on God. And how do we develop reliance? Like most other things, by practicing.

If it weren't for the need to remind us daily or hourly that all power flows from our Creator, we could just say a quick prayer at the beginning of each week, or each year, and be done with it. Surely God could fill our requests a year ahead of time. But getting our wishes granted isn't the purpose of prayer. Getting to know God is the purpose.

I need to be in touch with my Creator every hour of the day.

You are reading from the book:



In God's Care by Karen Casey

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

Good Grief

"The strangest thing happened," said my friend, a lovably neurotic, very obsessive businessman in his mid-forties.

"I was watching one of those afternoon TV talk show. This one was about problem kids. A parent comes on. She talks about how out of control her child is. Then a parenting expert comes on. He does tough love with the kids, like a drill sergeant, screaming and getting in their faces. Then he takes the troubled kids for a week and straightens them out.

"So this nine-year-old boy comes on. He's been a monster. Killing animals in the neighborhood. Driving his mother nuts. The drill sergeant guy gets right up in this kid's face. He's screaming. 'You think you're tough? You're a tough guy?'

"The expert's screaming at the kid. The kid is just standing there. And I'm watching this thinking Maybe this kid is just a bad seed. 'How'd you like me to come home with you for a week? Be in your face like this all the time,' the expert hollered. 'Would you like that?'

"'Yes,' the boy said.

"'What did you say? Yes? You'd like that? Why would you like that?'

"'Because I don't have a dad,'" the kid said. The boy's lip quivered. The expert got silent. The audience went nuts. But that's not the strange thing," my friend said. "Melody, I started crying. Sobbing like a baby. I haven't cried for ten years."

"What do you think that was about?" I asked.

"I realized how much I missed having a dad," he said. "When people asked me, I always said it wasn't important. I didn't know until I saw that show and started crying that you could miss something you never had."

Sometimes we don't know what or whom we're missing.

"How can I stop feeling so blue about being separated from my children?" another friend asked when business had taken him away from home for a month. "You're asking the wrong person," I said, "It has been eleven years since my son died, and I still miss him every day."

Grief. It may strike suddenly, catching our heart by surprise. Or it may pound relentlessly and persistently for years, like ocean waves beating on the shore.

Whether we're conscious of what or whom we're missing, our heart knows. We may never be happy about whom or what we have lost, but it is possible to be happy again.

Grief isn't an abnormal condition. It's nature's way of healing our heart.

You are reading from the book:
52 Weeks of Conscious Contact by Melody Beattie

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

No matter what faces us - an unhappy relationship, a serious operation or illness, a feeling of uselessness or helplessness - it is vital to realize that there is a solution.

We must not expect that the solution to our problem will bring us immediate peace of mind. Focusing our energies and emotions on the answer - not the problem - will, however, alleviate much of the futility and frustration we feel.

A medical doctor, George S. Stevenson, wrote, "The solution may not give you everything you want. Sometimes, it may give you nothing but a chance to start all over again. But whatever little it gives you is much more than you give yourself by letting your emotions tear you apart. "

Today I will focus my energies and emotions on the solution, not the problem. I will allow the solution to flow through me, with the help of my Higher Power, knowing there is a satisfactory answer to my difficulty.

You are reading from the book:
The Reflecting Pond by Liane Cordes

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

Failure is impossible.
--Susan B. Anthony

Failure is an attitude. Having an attitude of failure can't help us. It can only hurt us. If we're not careful, it can grow into a way of life. So, when we feel like failures, we'd better look at our attitudes.

An attitude of failure often comes from making mistakes. But we can learn to see our mistakes as lessons. This turns mistakes into gains, not failures. Sometimes, we try to do things that just can't be done. When we act like we can control others, we're going to fail. When we act like we know everything, we're going to fail. If we try to act like God, we're going to fail.

We can't control others. We can't know everything. We're not God. We're human. If we act human, we've already won.

Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, help me to learn from my attitudes. Whatever the outcome, help me learn.

Action for the Day

Facing our past "failures" is the first step to learning from them. I'll talk to my sponsor about a past failure and the good that came from it.

You are reading from the book: Keep It Simple by Anonymous

[Butterfly Woman]

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

Almost everyone wants something/or nothing.
--Marsha Sinetar

Bargains attract. Finding a good value excites us, and we share the news quickly. Wanting anything for free is human nature perhaps. However, we have had to learn again and again that you get what you pay for. This is true of human interactions too.

Why do we think that others will be there for us if we aren't available for them? Having friends means being a friend, even if it's time-consuming. Although friendship's rewards are indisputable, we still tend to wait, letting the other person make the first move. Getting the other person to commit first reduces our effort, perhaps, but we will still receive according to what we give.

Knowing and utilizing this principle simplifies our lives. Once we master it, we never forget it. And what we bring to our relationships will be given back to us.

I am willing to give to others what I want in return today. Their efforts will match my own.

You are reading from the book: A Woman's Spirit by Karen Casey

[Butterfly Woman]

No man is more cheated than the selfish man.
--Henry Ward Beecher

When we're selfish, we close off the channels of exchange with others. Not only are we grabbing and holding all the goods or attention we can get, but we are denying others the possibility of sharing with us in the benefits. We may be selfish in material goods, but there are many other ways too. Some of us expect our spouses to meet our needs while we make little effort to meet theirs. Some of us discover our selfishness as we drive, refusing to yield a position to another car or getting furious if we lose a place in heavy traffic.

By contrast, our generosity and welcoming responses nourish the spirit within us and create a good environment for our growth. Sometimes giving does not come easily We have a more generous spirit when we are in touch with our ultimate vulnerability. All of life is fragile, and we need each other to have a good life. We can truly hold on to nothing but ourselves. Giving what we can of our time, our energy, and our goods, helps create the kind of world we want to live in.

Today, I will look for ways to be generous with those with whom I share this world.

You are reading from the book: Touchstones by Anonymous

[Butterfly Woman]

The old law of "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.


An essential aid to following the path of the inner voice is practicing forgiveness. Resentment comes from the Latin word resentir - to feel over and over again. By repeatedly re-experiencing the old resentments, we are less apt to hear our intuition, which exists only in the present.

When Jean married, she had not completed her unfinished business with her father. Consequently, she projected her old resentments onto her husband. Her desire to love him was distorted by the hurt and anger from the past. This is why it is said that until we complete our source relationships, we are never truly in another relationship.

Forgiving can also help you take back your power. As long as you believe that someone else's actions are the cause of your present difficulties, you are powerless to change. Letting go of blame allows you to take responsibility for your life.

All this adds up to a single point. Forgiveness is an act of self-kindness. It liberates your life force. It completes the past. Choose now to heal your old unfinished business. It is time to let go of the pain. Place your hurt on an altar and surrender it to God. Set your self and others free.

You are reading from the book:
Listening to Your Inner Voice by Douglas Bloch

[Butterfly Woman]

love grows by service.
--Charlotte Perkins Gilman

When we shower someone special with much needed attention, or maybe flowers, or run an errand for a friend, or volunteer to do a favor for an unnamed person, we benefit in many ways. We're appreciated; we feel good about our own behavior, and we've tightened the connection to another person that fosters personal human development.

Most of us long for more signs of love from one another. Yet we fail to understand that our own expression of love to that special someone will release the love we long to feel.

Love multiplies with frequency of expression, whether stranger-to-stranger, friend-to-friend, lover-to-lover, parent-to-child; and everyone is the beneficiary.

Love's expression spontaneously generates more of itself, thus promising each of us what we long for.

You are reading from the book: Worthy of Love by Karen Casey